The Museum of Musical Modernism
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The museum of musical modcrnlsm 507 Iclt, ofFered few compositional resources because they served the same system, •19- Hi-arcd to producing quality recordings of a stagnant repertoire.1 In Boulez's opinión, the solitary efForts of individual composers were likely neither to v Ageing of the new: the museum of musical iransform such a mindset ñor to develop the technology that would enhance modernism musical creativity. It was more probable, he argued, that such advances, like other late-twentieth-century innovations, would be generated by collabora- ALASTAIR WILLIAMS tivc team efForts. Accordingly, he based IRCAM on the model of a scientific research institute with difFerent specialists pooling their expertise. Boulez secured funding for IRCAM in 1974 and the building was completed The cultural event that most conspicuously marked the turn of the millennium i n 1977. Built underground, it contains studios, laboratories, offices, and a in Britain was the opening of London's Tate Modern, the refurbished power \n that is nowconcer, spatiallyt hall i,n th whice world'h thes reverberatiolargest museun timm oef camodern be nmodifie art. Thd eby moving elec- tronically adjustable wall panels, and in which the three sections of the ceiling building itself is significant since it marks a transformation from an industrial can be moved separately according to performance requirements. The institute utility to a cultural space; together with its contents, it signifies a commitment was originally established with departments devoted to áreas such as electro- to modern art at the end of the twentieth century. It is even able to include acoustics, computer music, and extended instrumental techniques, with each a replica of Marcel Duchamp's celebrated urinal - an object designed to test ílomain directed by an established figure. In 1980, however, after three years institutional limits. So reconstructed, museums no longer instil a dominant of running at full capacity, the institute entered a crisis, with all five direc- view of culture, ñor do they display artists as overbearing bastions of autho- tors resigning. Boulez responded by reconfiguring the organization into two rial rectitude: they are more likely to present contrasting outlooks and leave sectors, one musical and one scientific, with a pedagogical unit coordinating spectators to find ways of accommodating them. Like the exhibits in the Tate, the two. The new structure reflected the subsuming of electroacoustics within modernist musical artefacts cannot survive without support, yet their institu- computer music, even though it was research in Berio's electroacoustic depart- tions can evolve and need not be governed by the curatorial attitudes normally ment that had led to the development of the important 4X computer. In recent associated with museum culture. Institutions, like music, are embodiments of years Boulez has distanced himself from the day-to-day running of IRCAM, human ideas and are therefore potentially mobile and subject to interpretation. even though his influence on its behalf remains vital.2 Rarely in its history has music received patronage on the scale that IRCAM, with its extensive public funding, has enjoyed. It is thus a privileged insti- Institutions and performers tution and has, not surprisingly, triggered much debate. Born in the 19708, The most remarkable institution of twentieth-century music must surely IRCAM Consolidated the modernist belief in technical advance at a time when be IRCAM (Instituí de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique). its authority was being questioned elsewhere by the success of minimalism and Adjacent to the Centre Georges Pompidou in central Paris, IRCAM is devoted pop art. It tended to reinforce the idea that modernist valúes are dependent to the technical and creative advancement of music. Remarkably, it derives on powerful institutions that seek to exclude other voices, particularly those from the visión of one man, Fierre Boulez, whose stature as a musician enabled deriving from popular music.3 This controlling tendency was confirmed, in the him to secure funding from the French government for the development of a initial stages at least, by its commitment to developing powerful mainframe music research institute. Since the pioneering days of the 19505, Boulez had systems instead of exploring the increasing potential of micro-computers - believed that musical life was locked into a museum culture that discouraged and there was a degree of self-protection in this stance, since micros, and technical advances in instrumentdesign and educated performers to reproduce the conventions of the classical repertoire. Advances in sound technology, he i For more on Boulez's frustrations with music's institutions, see Jonathan Harvey, 'IRCAM', in William Glock (ed.), Fierre Boulez: A Symposium, London, 1986, pp. 139-46. z For more on the history and development of IRCAM, see Dominique Jameux, Fierre Boulez (tr. Susan Bradshaw), London, 1991. I am grateful to Irvine Arditti for discussing pertinent issues with me. I should also like to thank 3 This point is consistently made in Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institu- colleagues at Keele for providing materials used in the course ofwriting this chapter. tionalization ofthe Musical Avant Garde, Berkeley, 1995. [506] ,„,, A I,ASTA III Wll I.IAMS Tlie musniín nt'imi.sk'al imulcrnisni 509 more rcccntly the Internet, encourage desktop composición and dissemina- csi.ites of Stravinsky and Webern in the 19805 and now houses the archives of tion without requiring institutional affiliation. This said, IRCAM's ability to nuny of the composers mentioned in this chapter, including Berio, Birtwistle, pursue research without an immediate need for commercial delivery remained Bou le/., Cárter, Feldman, Ferneyhough, Gubaidulina, Lachenmann, Ligeti, yital in an age driven by marketing, and its willingness to commission com« ,¡ Nancarrow, Rihm, and Rochberg. Both reflecting and shaping the writing posers from all over the globe has been important for the continued health of I nl'twentieth-century music history, it provides a major international resource musical Ufe. ti >r music scholars. While IRCAM was becoming established in the mid-ig/os, the Darmstadt; Contemporary music depends not only on a responsive cultural climate, summer school, which had cradled so much new life in the 19503, was wit- but also on the accumulated expertise of ensembles dedicated to that reper- nessing the ageing of the avant-garde and the emergence of a new genera- j toire. The need for specialist groups such as Ensemble InterContemporain, the tion. The turning point in the 19705 was the so-called neo-Romanticism of ¡ I ,ondon Sinfonietta, and the Arditti String Quartet clearly indicated that new composers such as Manfred Trojahn, Detlef Müller-Siemens and, above all, music required performers who were familiar with the idiom, or prepared to Wolfgang Rihm. Casting off the fetters of what they considered to be an; learn, and used to interpreting certain notational conventions. This was no less ageing avant-garde, this group offered a more inclusive aesthetic in the pursuit truc outside modernism since the minimalists Philip Glass and Steve Reich also of musical freedom and intensity. The ensuing debates triggered a responso founded ensembles specializing in their own music. Such ensembles, in what- from the eminent musicologist Cari Dahlhaus who was critical of what he cver genre, créate conventions on which scores rely, and hearing new sounds considered to be indiscríminate mixtures of the beautiful and the ugly, the sig- inevitably stimulates composers to explore further. Since the 19805, moreover, nificant and the trivial, though he noted a concern wíth tone colour that could performers have been able to use readily available CD technology to cater for be traced to post-serial music.4 •i specialist and geographically dispersed audience. More traditional Darmstadt valúes were represented by Brian Ferneyhough, Because composers rely on specialized performers, many of them foster cióse who became a major figure at the summer courses in the 19805. This decadc associations with new-music ensembles, and none more so than Boulez, who also saw attention given to previously neglected figures such as the American brings a wealth of conducting experience to twentieth-century music. He Morton Feldman, a guest composer in 1984 and 1986, and the Italian Giacinto established himself as a conductor in the 19605, with a view to furthering Scelsi, whose music received special attention in 1986, while interest in Luigi i his desire to créate a climate that would push public taste beyond a curated Nono also revived at this time. Alongside such revaluations, the 1980$ also \w heatedcano debaten ans dabou encouragt minimalisme interes, tan idn ímodern 1994n amusic concer. It wawas nodevotet jusdt thtoe listening public that he set out to reform; he also attempted to overeóme the animos- the music of La Monte Young.5 No less significant was a symposium in the ity to new music of institutions such as symphony orchestras steeped in the same year devoted to the writings and music of the major philosopher and classical repertoire (though it is only fair to point out that individual players cultural critic Theodor Adorno, an event that demonstrated that modernism frequently transcended such limitations). Much progress was made on both was becoming increasingly reflexive and willing to examine the interests and fronts