The opening concert of the South Mountain Chamber Music series was this afternoon, and, as usual, it was absolutely wonderful. The Mendelssohn Quartet gave a wonderful performance of Haydn, Dutilleux and Mendelssohn with an encore of Puccini. It was a lovely Autumn Sunday. How quickly the seasons have seemed to change.
The Dutilleux was difficult but interesting, and the audience applauded politely but was not probably universally thrilled. I thought the piece was interesting, but not as ethereally breathtaking as the cellist described it before the performance. And this dichotomy has made me think about music and new music (although a piece written in 1978 is hardly new) and how we listen and approach music.
I have only fairly recently come to an appreciation of Haydn. In my youth it bored me and I found it uninspiring. I was exposed to classical music, but mostly of a later period, Beethoven through Brahms, perhaps, but Haydn missed out. In my adolescence I discovered the romantics; much more appropriate to the hormone-ridden years. Only recently have a really listened to Haydn, discovered what a great composer he truly was, and come to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the music.
This appreciation did not come in a vacuum however. I listen to music. Composers are influenced by each other. Popular pieces are played over and over, are incorporated into soundtracks, commercials, movies, and televison shows. If you have lived for a few decades and attended any concerts you come to have an expectation of what you will hear at a concert. If you attend local symphonies or listen to classical music CD’s you begin to recognize certain genre’s or composers. “That is Baroque” you might say. Or, “That sounds like Brahms” even though you are not a musical scholar or particularly music-minded.
But this does not apply as much to 20th century composers. The music is difficult because we do not hear it every day. We have little or no frame of reference because it is not performed often. We fall back on the familiar sounds. But I seem to recall that even the “great” classical composers were not always appreciated in their time. I also recall that some of the complaints we make today, “but you can’t hum it” were applied to composers of the caliber of Mozart and Beethoven, the most humable of composers by modern standards. Perhaps if we listened to modern music more it would become part of our mental framework and we would appreciate it more. Perhaps I would have picked up on that “ethereal” tone. Perhaps it would even be humable.
Perhaps future generations will look back on our time and wonder how we couldn’t “get” Dutilleux.