| Does contemporary classical composition lack melody? |
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Natalya Dridlova casts a critical eye over the modern day genre.
I was born in Moscow in 1980, and from my first memory was in love with classical music. Of course, in those times in the USSR most other forms of music were forbidden by the authorities. There was no pop or rock, and even the choice of classical music was restricted. Mostly you would only be able to listen to Russian composers, and some composers like Wagner, who was Hitler’s favourite, were banned. You may think this was a bleak musical existence, but look at it from another point of view if you will. I was encouraged to listen to classical music produced by the famous Russian composers, and a great deal of it is majestic indeed. So I was brought up listening to Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rubenstein, and my own personal favourite Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to name but a few. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, when I was 10 years old, my father relocated our family to the United Kingdom where I have lived ever since. Whilst in Russia , from the age of 5, I learned to play the violin. So when I started at an English state school, although I could hardly speak a word of English, the teachers were surprised when I took out my violin and played Musorgsky. By this time, even though I was being exposed to a great amount of pop music, I started to take an interest in the other great classical composers of Europe whom I had previously not had access to. Suddenly, Beethoven, Mozart, Elgar, Debussy, and Puccini were spinning through my head, I had never been happier. I was a beginner at the language of English, but becoming fluent in the international language of music. In our modern culture the idea of Classical music has become a generalisation. One only needs to mention ‘classical music’ and most people will conjure up an orchestral scene, where the music being played was written by a long dead composer. However, ‘classical music’, as we call it today, is really a misnomer, at the time it was written of course, it was the contempory music of the day. At odds with the notion of the ‘classical composer’ is the paradox of the ‘modern classical’ composition. I refer, naturally to today’s writers of orchestral music. It seems to me, that there is a movement to produce discordant music that reflects the harsher side of modern life, at the expense of melody and harmony. I’m not saying that this approach is not without its place, but lately it seems to exclude all alternatives. It would not be unreasonble to make a comparison between the tuneful 60’s pop music of the Beatles, to the tuneless punk/new wave music of the late 70’s. Both had their place, but the latter didn’t last long! Something that all the composers I have named above had in common was that they all could write the most beautiful melodies you could imagine, and mostly, you could never imagine. Who, out of those who have heard them, could forget the melodies of Dvorak’s symphony no. 9 (from the new world), Pavane by Faure, suite no.3 ‘Air’ by J S Bach, or Rimsky-Korsakov’s haunting theme from Scheherazade? Admittedly, some later Russian composers began to take a more avant-garde direction in the early 20th Century. Stravinsky and Shostakovich certainly changed the direction of music. They were not without their critics though, Shostakovich’s music displeased Stalin, and that, to say the least, was not recommended! This was by no means the case with all latter day Russian composers, Aram Katchachurian wrote classical music in the classical style, and he, unlike the others, was born in the 20th century itself. Truly a precedent for modern day melody. I would like to finish off with a request to any young, (or old for that matter), prospective composers out there. Please, when you compose your first piece of music try to emulate the beautiful melodies of the past. It is because of their beauty that they are still famous today, and the more avant-garde composers are less well known. I long for new beautiful melodies, and for one, believe there are many more to be written. Natalya Dridlova August 2006 |
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