For the majority of this week, I've
been spending my time thinking about, for lack of better term, “the
past.” Last sunday I had the privilege of performing in Florence
Kopleff's memorial recital, and to say it was star-studded is a mild
statement. People from all across the nation came to honor a woman
who worked with the famous monolith known as Robert Shaw. Story after
story after story was told, making people laugh about this larger
than life woman. Some of her favorite art songs were performed, many
tears were spilled and several larger than life people showed up to
metaphorically tilt their head in acknowledgment and lay a flower on
her grave.
While the service was amazing and truly
heart-felt, it serves as a beautiful example of a tragedy I see
plaguing musical arts. A little line thrown away during the service
tickled my ear and caught my attention: “Florence Kopleff loved and
was a champion of American art song.” This was a big deal to hear.
Speaking as an American composer living in a world of German lieder
and French chanson, -all- American art song is, comparatively, a
brand new tradition barely a century old.
It's impossible to find American art
song which is traditionally “classical” by many of the high-art
crowd. Additionally, for what little respect the western world has
had for the sung English language, even less interest is given to
Americans. Our culture is one which has traditionally imported other
people to write music for us, perform for us, conduct for us and
lecture us on how our brothers in Europe are artistically and
culturally superior. Any person interested in backing American art is
one who should be celebrated as they're supporting an underdog on the
cultural. However, for a woman who seemed to have such a fiery
passion for what is essentially my music, only romantic lieder was
sung in remembrance of her.
With the exception of what the choir
sung, every single person sung European baroque and romantic music.
There is nothing wrong with this music whatsoever; anybody who spends
20 seconds talking to me knows I absolutely love the canon as much as
the next classical freak. However, this statement about Kopleff
loving American song was completely ignored. It was simply tossed
away to pay respect to her personality yet covered up with beautiful
lieder. In short, it was what I called “over-romanticized.”
Classical music is shooting itself in
the foot. There's a major splintering formed by many people with
varying interests lumped together under one banner labeled “high
art.” All you have to do is look up any J.S. Bach work on youtube
(especially one performed on period instruments) and you catch a
storm of people proudly proclaiming how Bach is truly the only
greatest musician who ever lived and all music today should take a
lesson from him. Did art completely die after 1750? Do we simply
exist in a dark void of lifelessness waiting patiently for Saint Bach
to appear from the Rhineland and announce with majestic trumpet the
return of civilization and second coming of Christ? Am I the only one
who thinks, for as mind-bogglingly amazing Bach is, he not only had
his musical flaws, but also is only a piece in the amazing
kaleidoscope of art mankind has made? I know for a fact I'm not the
only one both amazed by the writing of the kyrie
in the b-minor mass and bored out of my mind after hearing only 6
words repeated endlessly for 30 minutes.
Conversely,
it wasn't too long ago we lived in a musical world where students
were told they must write in a certain style or face the threat of
not contributing to the future. I know people my age who look down
upon anybody brave and foolish enough to write something purely tonal
(especially high
classical tonality). I find myself seemingly surrounded by people
aligning themselves in certain camps. It seems more in vogue to label
what you're doing as correct and something uninteresting or
uninformed than to be willing to cross bridges and live a “hybrid
life” of some sort. This sort of personality is the same as
somebody over-romanticizing something they remember or think about:
it's a gross simplification of what you adore and what you find
uninteresting in order to justify why you like what you like.
After
Sunday, I was invited to a masterclass with the Alice
Parker. This woman is a big deal. She got to work with the musical
god of Atlanta and still stands as a pillar of all things choral
music writing. To say she knows how a choir works is a gross
understatement, and any chance I could get to pick her brain is one I
would pay big money for. Within 5 minutes of hearing her talk though,
I realized how much injustice I was doing to her. Alice has done so
much more than simply work with Robert Shaw; after 50 years she's
gone on to continue composing, start her own critically acclaimed
choir and publish a hymnal and book on melody. I however, was going
to ask her about a time in her life which literally ended before my
parents were born. Some of the students in the masterclass seemed to
ignore the fact she's developed her own merits and wanted instead to
ask her about Shaw. How did Shaw teach you? What did you learn from
Shaw? Did that time with Shaw shape your career for life? How tall
was he? Was Shaw left handed or right handed?
The
worst part: in her reaction you could tell that not only was she kind
of frustrated by it, but she'd grown so used to it she accepted it
and responded as matter-of-factly she could.
Later,
when she worked with the choir, she boldly stated that one of the
works we sang was not how she had wanted it performed at all: it was
simply notated the way Shaw had it performed. This little statement
blew my mind. Not only had she been simplified by myself and people
around me, but even her own merits and creations as a
composer seemed to suffer the
same fate. When looking back, it's much easier to say how much weight
and power Robert Shaw had in influencing American classical culture.
Surely, by that logic, if she was paired with him in collaborative
work, she clearly must've taken everything he said as gospel and only
eagerly agreed. If he was absolutely correct in all things culture,
she obviously must've followed the same vein. Indeed: even something
she pulled out of her own soul to set on the page must agree EXACTLY
with how Shaw said it was done, and we therefore don't need to ask
her opinion on things when notating or publishing her own works.
I call
bull-shit. Her relationship with Shaw, if not our perception of her
entirely, has been over-romanticized. It's not until I got to talk
with her and hear her own words I came to realize she was a
completely separate person, just as amazing and inspiring in
completely different ways. Talking with her and hearing her own
opinion on things, seeing her in action and having the privilege to
sing under her (metaphorical) baton was a blessing in itself- how
dare I consider her as simply “somebody who worked with Robert
Shaw.” In the same vein of what I had said earlier: she in
particular is interested in capturing truly vernacular music. She
wants “her spirituals to have soul.” and “to feel the wringing
of your hands and pouring out your heart” in her blues-like songs.
To try and combine classical music with blues is heresy, and
something to be completely ignored if not outright shunned. We forget
Ravel's bi-tonal blues movement in his violin sonata, Bartok's
tireless work to bring hungarian folk music artistic “purity” and
Poulenc's french folk songs notated for various mediums
