RE: Northeast activities

[Judah Cohen <jcohen...>]

On Wed, 17 Jun 1998 Janet(dot)PAPE (at) oecd(dot)org wrote:

> I think it's Fuchs, not Fux.

It's been Fux everywhere I've looked (i.e., in his "classic" Gradus ad
Parnassum).  Do you have a contrasting example?

> I think you should be careful in your
> labelling.  Perhaps saying that they sing classical vs. folk, or
> something like that, but "high German style" lumps a wide range of
> composed music and arrangements into a 19th century standard not only of
> composition but also of performance practice.  Perhaps you were
> referring to the latter?  

Perhaps you are right in practice and theory (for example, Schenker
theory, which tends to work only within the constrictions you mention).
And you are certainly right in thinking I was going primarily for
performance practice.  However, I don't think I'm entirely going over the
deep end with this.  [Your limit of the 19th century confuses me in
relation to composition, especially since many textbooks tend to focus on
Germany as a substantial and continuous stream within composed-music
history from the 17th through the 20th centuries.]  As I stated in the
last e-mail, I am not referring to the CONTENT of the music as much as I
refer to the value system which created it.  I still believe Western
choral music retains these values (which, if you wish, can be seen as
based in the 19th century).

And you know as well as I that the "classical/folk" dichotomy is at least
as problematic as the label I was trying to push.  Just like what is
happening now--that your background and my background are creating two
different and conflicting definitions for "high German style"--can you
imagine what a free-for-all this list would have with a "folk music" vs.
"classical" debate?

> Oh - I really must take exception to your
> statement of the avant-garde coming from Germany (Schoenberg was
> Austrian) -- in this century that is really untrue.

I am not referring to the "national" character or location of the music
per se. You are right that Schoenberg (and serialism in general) is
generally credited to the "Vienna" school of
composition.   However, in most of the music circles I've been in, the
music is not seen as "Austrian," (or American, for that
matter--Schoenberg spent significant portions of his professional life in
New York and LA), but German.  Historically (in musicology), Germany and
Austria have
been lumped into one large school (this could partially be because
Musicology itself is historically a German phenomenon, and they were
the ones who called the labelling shots.  Considering the German
school's tendency to see Austria as part of a German "empire," this
makes some sense).  And whether or not he actualy LIVED in Germany,
Schoenberg's ideas and writings were strongly based around what is
accepted as the German
school.  Note his essay: "Brahms the Progressive," and his preoccupation
with Bach to the point that he wrote a book trying to summarize Bach's
harmonic style.

Nor do I disagree with you that many avant garde composers lived and
composed (and continue to do so) outside of Germany.  Paris remains a
great center of the avant garde (Boulez, etc), and there are many places
within America (and Europe) which attempt to vie for similar status.

What I am saying is that nearly all "art music" programs in the Western
world claim DESCENT from German-identified composers. (That word
'derived' seems so easy to ignore. . .).  Charles Ives, for example, 
studied at Yale with Horatio Parker, and one of his first songs was called
"Feldeinsamkeit." Find me a university-trained composition student who
never had to study the style of Bach (or Mozart, or Beethoven), and never 
had to go through a regimen of harmony and counterpoint. I'm sure
there are some out there, but my guess is that they're few and far
between.  That is because, as far as I've seen, they are still considered
the basis of composed music as we know it today.

Be well.

Judah.