Style Wars
May 24, 2007: As I’m listening to Steve Reich’s
minimalist musings
at one of Soundstream’s “Cool Drummings” concerts, I find myself
wondering why
this blatantly un-modernist style made such a big splash in the United
States
when it emerged there in the 1970s? And why has it made so small a
splash here
in Canada? After the concert, the
second question, in particular, stays in the back of my mind for the
next few
weeks.
June 2, 2007: Tonight, the Elgin Theatre is just about
packed for
the second of three performances of Philip Glass’s and Leonard Cohen’s
new
work, Book of Longing. It’s nice to see a new audience for new
music –
but where’s the “old” audience for new music? Scanning the theatre (and
also
watching people as they exit at the end of the show), I see exactly one
person
I know, whom I would describe as a regular attendee of
contemporary-music
concerts in Toronto.
This well advertised event – a world
premiere by an
internationally famous composer – seems to have been shunned by this
city’s
traditional new-music community. I’m reminded of the first time I heard
the
Philip Glass Ensemble in Toronto, back in 1980: the concert was
punctuated by
prominent local composers getting up and walking out.
June 14, 2007: I attend a little celebration at the
Canadian Music Centre,
marking the launch of the CMC’s new website, “Influences of
Many
Musics.” (The site is quite impressive, by the way: you can find a link
to it
on the CMC’s main website, at www.musicentre .ca.) Spotting several
knowledgeable experts in the crowd, I ask them who Canada’s minimalists
are.
One suggests the composer Marjan Mozetich – “sort of” – and another
points out
that Ann Southam acknowledges the influence of the American minimalist
Terry
Riley. A contemplative silence descends on the small group, and no
further
names emerge.
Then I notice Frank Horvat in the
corner. I first met
this Toronto composer some years ago, but haven’t seen him for a while.
Because
Horvat is something of a minimalist, I ask him why the style hasn’t won
many
adherents here in Canada. Without hesitation, he replies that
minimalism “is
opposed by the Canadian academic tradition.” He adds that he’ll send me
a copy
of his latest compact disc.
June 25, 2007: As I write these words, I’m listening to
Horvat’s
CD, “I’ll Be Good,” a collection of
piano works he’s composed and performed. It’s an eclectic mixture of
various influences
– everything from Steve Reich to Billy Joel – and it sounds very
“American” for
a Canadian composer. (Space doesn’t permit a full review of the disc
here, but
I can say that I was most impressed by the haunting exoticism of track
12,
entitled “Smokers.”)
I’m still wondering what it means
that Canadian
composers have largely shunned minimalism – and that the few who have
taken an
interest tend to be marginalized by some movers and shakers in Canada’s
“official” contemporary-music community. I’m not saying that minimalism
is
necessarily better than the European high-modernist tradition: on the
contrary,
I have problems with the oppressive, obsessive nature of many
minimalist
scores, and the tendency for some minimalists – Glass, in particular –
to repeat
themselves from one work to the next.
I guess what I’m really getting at is
how music, and
the teaching of music, can take on the dogmatic aspects of religious or
political indoctrination, with certain ideas labeled orthodox, and
others
heterodox. “We don’t do that here,” said John Weinzweig, during his
years as a
University of Toronto composition professor, whenever a student brought
him a
score with a major triad in it. Does anyone really benefit from such
efforts to
police style?
Colin Eatock is a
composer and writer in
Toronto who contributes to the Globe and Mail and other
publications. His
T.O. Musical Diary is a regular monthly feature of The WholeNote
magazine.
