Which music did Harrison Birtwistle dismiss as ‘skimmed milk’
NewsFrom a brief and beautiful appreciation in today’s Observer by Fiona Maddocks:
His great gift was to see the world as a place of wonder. Ripe plums from his tree, or the sound of a harp, his favourite instrument; tomatoes from his greenhouse or the innovative electronics called “passing clouds” made for his opera The Mask of Orpheus – all were miracles to him. Nothing was humdrum, though he held strong views and there was no reasoning with him over music he disliked: American minimalism (“skimmed milk”), Tchaikovsky (“not interested”), Rachmaninov (“can’t stand it”). He had equal enthusiasms, not always expected: Morton Feldman and Pierre Boulez, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield, the Elizabethan viol music of William Lawes.
Read on here.
I have not had pleasant experiences hearing Birtwistle’s music in concert. Needless to say, I’ve never bought any of it for my own “pleasure.” From the limited and unpleasant exposures I’ve, his music suggests less a sense of wonder than a sense of misery.
Of course. It is the sound of the last century: violence, destruction, nihilism, the End of Everything.
Except your music,of course.Which sounds like the perfect soundtrack for a coffee commercial.
Actually, that is simply not the case, and entirely unrelated to my distaste for coffee. But of course, it is a matter of receptive ability. In other words: it is not for you, it is for people with ears. I’m sure you would have so much more enjoyment with HB’s works.
The Marjorie Taylor Greene of classical music speaks…You wouldn´t even got access to the two big conservatories i taught with this dreary banalities.It doesn´t meet serious professional standards.
There’s good money in skimmed milk and plentiful performances, too.
Not interested in Tchaikovsky? Fine.
Can’t stand Rachmaninoff? Who cares?
Thankfully, we’ll be listening to Glass, Tchaik, and Rach long after people forget about this person. It’s fantastic that his opinions were already out of style before his passing.
Some of us won’t be listening to Glass either. But ‘opinions out of style’? An opinion is what it is.
I’ll take two of those three. That’s not such a bad percentage, is it.
What questionable tastes. There, I said it.
“His great gift was to see the world as a place of wonder.”
A truly hilarious line. There is not a trace of this gift in his works, unless we would have to conclude that his idea of ‘wonder’ was quite different from other people’s.
Couldn’t agree more! Like I said, in the two Birtwistle works I heard live, there’s was nothing engaging, interesting, nor captivating. I just heard noises, and mostly unpleasant ones at that.
To put Birtwistle in perspective, I believe that in 50 years his music will be listened to less than the music of Richard Wetz.
People like HB belonged to a marginal trend of the last century which, nonetheless, has its own legitimate existence in the annals of music history. It is very regrettable that this trend tried to stamp out all other options of contemporary music at the time – which has not succeeded. It will never be an organic part of the central performance culture, next to the works which represent European humanism. But it had its own intrinsic qualities, only, these qualities are not musical.
Some of the very few compositions without a hint of gift, professional skills, any hint of originality and individuality were yours on YouTube… The ridiculous pomposity of your comments about others is in stark contrast to the stale, hackneyed vanity of your musical output. Or maybe it mirrors it. The number of performances speaks for itself.
Take your medicines in time and you will feel much better.
Very weak argumentation,even by your standards.
I think I’ll put on Music With Changing Parts before reading this article.
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTzuZik3jYs
I suggested listening to this to my PA which could calm her down, but instead she listened to this thing the entire day instead of working, stretched out on the floor so we had to step over her. It’s not good for everybody.
There’s no need to abuse the reputation of skimmed milk in such a horrific manner.
As a late teenager in the 1980s I was sure to be home to watch the 1 hour operas on C4 – Down By The Greenwood Side, Punch & Judy and Yan Tan Tathera. Magical and exciting work. Almost incredible to look back at how such material would get an airing on national TV.
HB also took influences medieval music, employing talea and color in several works, mindful of how music was at that time a Science.
I once organised a chamber music festival including a recital by well-known British pianist [redacted], which included HB’s ‘Harrison’s Cloicks’, a very intricate complex work, depicting a structuralist form with interrelated rhythmiccally different patterns, devilishly hard to play. A friend of mine (a professional pianist) turned pages and he noticed to his amazement that the pianist got almost one third of the notes wrong, merely giving a general impression. Nobody noticed. The pianist was especially celebrated for championing HB’s works. Plenty are the stories of performers who struggle to play complex modernist works where pitches don’t count as a meaningful structural part; it’s about gestures and general impressions, so who cares?
He was wrong about American minimalism; skimmed milk is rather more interesting than the tedious bilge produced by Philip Glass.
We shouldn´t care too much about the likes and dislikes of great people…everyone has his weak points….From my baby years on,i spent all day,and often all night,in front of the radio,listening to all kinds of music.My parents were never at home.and my nanny was fine with it since she didn´t have much to care about me and watch soap operas all the time.
So i absorbed everything,and i didn´t care if it was Chopin,Coltrane,Copland,Coleman,Corelli or Cohen.
This hasn´t changed till today…..Being a professional orchestra musician,teacher,conductor of community and amateur choruses and orchestra…..every free minute i listen to or watch live streams,and i have amassed recordings over 6 decades now….Battling mental health issues for 45 years now,this has saved my life.
I find as much pleasure in listening to Birtwistle as i love Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky…..and they happily coexist in my life….Britten disliked Brahms,Copland loathed Vaughan Williams,Debussy loathed Wagner(in his later years)…..
One of my happiest experiences was playing in a concert years ago where Britten´s Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes sat side by side with Brahms 4th….The infinite variety of music is what drives me on…And although i have a giant record collection,i rarely listen to the same recording twice….There´s always something new and exciting every day,as is in life!
Indeed there should be space for every type of music, and since people have different tastes, one should not embrace or dismiss types of music on the basis of taste. Our culture is pluralist, there is place for everything. It is a different matter though, when certain types of music are claimed by an ‘elite’ to be ‘more relevant to the modern world’ than others – many works from the past are still very relevant for the modern world. Especially painful is a type of work, like HB’s, which is claimed to be in the same category as music, which it clearly is not – and this is not a matter of taste but of what something really IS. HB’s works are not a natural continuation of musical developments, it is something quite different.
This can be demonstrated by analysis, and explains why such works have the effect of a ‘Fremdkörper’ in an otherwise regular classical music programme. They should be performed in another context, for instance an entire concert of HB’s works, or comparable works. (It would be wise to keep stretchers in the foyer to deal with the audience members getting too excited about their experience.)
There is, for instance, a very good reason why there are museums of art, and museums of modern art as a distinct category, where we find abstact art, conceptual art, video art, etc. etc.. They are two different fields of experience, two different contexts. So it is with music – there is a concert practice of music, and another one of sonic art. Both types can be experienced much better if in the right context with the right listening perceptive framework, instead of all those anaspeptic contrafibularities.
A frustrated amateur composer speaks,trying to get some attention,for lack of performances….
Don’t tell me about performances! We have to barricade the door here to prevent programmers entering illegally. It only adds to my work load.
Sally
Simply put, an opinion is just that.
Funny, but I have the same opinion of Birtwistle’s music as he had of Rachmaninov’s. I heard some the other day on the radio and it made me reach for the OFF switch in haste.
Perhaps if he had changed to skimmed milk he might have lived longer ?
What does she mean about those enthusiasms of his being “not always expected”? Did she expected him to listen to Ferneyhough, Xenakis, Babbitt, etc. etc. for pleasure? Why shouldn’t he get some enjoyment out of music, even if he didn’t want to give it.
I mean, even Boulez at his (admittedly rare) best is luscious compared to old Hal. And somehow Dusty Springfield makes perfect sense to me.
As I recall the only music that has been booed at the Proms in recent years is that of Xenakis, so one is left to assume that the compositions of HB played at that festival have met with a degree of approval.