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!