MUSICAL TASTES

My dichotomy between the private person and the artist can be brought back here, since it applies in some measure to my musical tastes, which are comprised of fairly disparate elements. On the one hand, I'm a modern jazz enthusiast [this is not quite as true in 2004 as it was in 1982], having developed a taste for this music out of my earlier taste for blues and rock. On the other hand, I'm a lover of classical music, and have recently extended my taste for instrumental compositions into the realm of opera. The first taste pertains, in my estimation, to the private person, relaxing from his day's labours; the second, by contrast, to the artist, who likes to keep in touch with whatever is most sought-after in the fine arts. And the two tastes are ever kept apart, not clashing in successive appreciation but ... listened to quite separately at an interval of at least three hours.

Thus it may happen that, early in the evening, I like to listen to modern jazz for some forty or so minutes, whilst I reserve my professional taste, so to speak, for later on - usually from between ten and eleven o'clock. The private person is glad of the reprieve from creative concerns that the artist indulges in every day, and so relaxes with the help of modern jazzmen or fusion musicians (the two are not quite identical) like Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Wayne Shorter, Larry Coryell, George Duke, Al DiMeola, Jean-Luc Ponty, Barry Miles, Jan Hammer, and so on - a veritable host of talented musicians whose records he takes a pride in collecting, even if, through force of financial circumstances, he can only buy such records second-hand, and therefore at a reduced price, once or twice a month. Nevertheless, despite his financial constraints - the fruit, in large measure, of being a radical writer in a conservative country - he has collected over two-hundred records and takes a perverse pride in being able to purchase quality music on a comparatively economic basis, knowing full-well that there are plenty of people who buy absolute rubbish for anything up to four or five times the amount he normally pays.

But now comes the turn of the artist, and he relies exclusively on the record department of Hornsey Central Library for his regular supply of instrumental and operatic recordings, which come completely free-of-charge. Lately he has discovered the genius of Albern Berg through his wholehearted appreciation of Wozzeck, undoubtedly one of the greatest twentieth-century operas. But he has already acquainted himself with other such masterpieces as Tosca, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, Eugene Onyegin, Manon, Carmen, Boris Godunov, and Faust. He prides himself on reading French, German, Italian, and Russian, and is always glad of an opportunity to expand his knowledge of these languages through the detailed perusal of a good libretto.

There are other works, however, which he has disdained; but these I shall refrain from mentioning. At least he has been able to acquaint himself with opera through the library, and so acquired a fairly discriminating taste in the matter. He prefers, as a rule, to stick with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century operas, and the same applies to instrumental works, which he is also keen on borrowing. But he despises ballet and rarely if ever listens to piano sonatas or chamber music, particularly string quartets - the constant scraping of stringed instruments and monotonous tones of which simply bore him. No, of instrumental forms, it is the symphony and the concerto which have most appealed to him, the large ensembles of instruments making for a textural and tonal variety not to be encountered in lesser forms. Of twentieth-century composers he must list Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Honegger, Glazunov, Martinu, Walton, Poulenc, Berkeley, Vaughan Williams, Shoenberg, and Tippett among his favourites, while the nineteenth-century composers who have had the most appeal for him include Liszt, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Rubenstein, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Brahms.

Probably the composer who has compelled his admiration more than any other is Shostakovich, the majority of whose symphonies have won his wholehearted approval for their unmistakable originality, richness of invention, clarity of purpose, and ingenious orchestration. Particularly notable in this respect are the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth symphonies, the 'Holy Trinity' of Shostakovich's symphonic oeuvre, only paralleled (if at all) in modern music by Prokofiev, a composer ranking second only to Shostakovich in my estimation, and one who, together with Khachaturian, constitutes for me a part, as it were, of the 'Holy Trinity', or troika, of contemporary Russian music.

Yes, the artist in me has derived considerable pleasure from much of the music of these great composers, both as regards the symphony and the concerto in each of its usual forms. I can never understand people who go out of their way to criticize the great works of these men, instead of being grateful for what they are hearing or have heard. They strike me as being too pretentious and hard-to-please, and are often victims of an envy stemming from creative impotence. On the other hand, a man like Henry Miller, who was always more ready to praise than find fault, seems to me infinitely preferable to these critical devils whose negativity, did they but know it, is rather a symptom of malice born from an inability to appreciate what they are hearing. In sum, a typically Old World, and in particular English, shortcoming, suggestive of spiritual feebleness and/or decadence.

No, I will not presume to find fault with those composers whose music has given me so much pleasure, even if, by dint of historical circumstances, it falls short of perfection. Better to look on the bright side as much as possible, admitting that one would never be able to emulate them oneself. And this goes as much for the great British composers of the twentieth century, like Elgar and Walton, as for the Russians. We are fortunate, despite certain drawbacks, to be alive in such a richly creative age, inheritors of the finest music ever composed. Not for the more enlightened of us to turn our backs on this music with a Spenglerian disregard for musical evolution! Liszt was not the last voice in great music, and neither was Shostakovich, as far as the twentieth century was concerned. The terms of musical value change for the better, not, as a rule, for the worse! And this applies not only to music, but to all the fine arts. If this were not so, how could we continue to live, and what would be the point of our lives here? It is only because the best is still to come that we are justified, as artists, in continuing with our respective creative efforts. Only a lunatic would purposely go out of his way to create something artistically inferior to what he had already done!