Mark-Anthony Turnage, the British composer whose music many listeners find challenging or off putting, acknowledges that those listeners have a valid point, and feel “trapped” when they encounter it in concerts.
“If you go to an art gallery and there is a picture you don’t like, you can just move away, but if you are in a concert and sitting in the middle of a row, people are polite and won’t walk out,” Turnage says during an appearance on the BBC radio show “Desert Island Discs.”
The composer also “confesses that he too finds some living composers hard to enjoy,” The Guardian’s Vanessa Thorpe writes. “I understand it and I have difficulty with a lot of contemporary classical music – obviously naming no names,” Turnage says. “I remember when GQ [magazine] listed the biggest ‘turn-offs’ and contemporary classical music was at number one. And that was my world, so I thought: come on, that’s sad.”
One factor in the listener’s ability to connect with contemporary art-music that Turnage doesn’t mention – surprisingly, as he’s especially well-known as an opera composer: Presentation.
Two of my encounters with contemporary, at the time cutting-edge, music:
Tom Johnson, the American minimalist composer and music critic who died on Dec. 31, is widely remembered for “Nine Bells,” a piece in which the performer dances/creatively moves while striking bells suspended in a grid from an overhead frame. As music, seemingly random and forgettable; but as performance, borderline-riveting.
I’m surprised that “Nine Bells” hasn’t been picked up by the fitness industry. It’s a full-body, aerobic workout that, as written, goes on for about an hour. I came out of a 1987 performance by Johnson eager to build the setup in my yard. Then it occurred to me that the neighbors might not appreciate the noise or the Druid-ritual vibe, and call in law enforcement or social services. I already had cats, and gargoyles on the front stoop; best not press my luck. If you’ve got the acreage and isolation – an OK from a cardiologist also might be advisable – I say go for it.
On the flip side, I endured a performance of Brian Eno’s “Ambient 1: Music for Airports,” presented in a starkly modern, rather dark museum space. Originally composed for overlapping tape loops, I heard it played by a sextet of live performers; so there was some physical action to see, but not enough to offset the background-ish, sonic-immersion character of the piece. In a 1998 review in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, I likened the experience to staring at a tank of tropical fish for an hour; the musicians, however, moved less than most fish.
My conclusion, from those and other encounters with new music: If it’s loosely or elusively structured, with indeterminate beginnings, middles and ends, inaccessible tunes, too much intricacy or too little, it doesn’t come across well in a sit-silently-in-the-dark classical concert setting. Such music benefits from a visual element – lighting, costumes, movement, staging in a stimulating or atmospheric space.
And, as Turnage observed, a contemporary composition should be experienced more than once before you render a verdict on it. The list of now-universally recognized masterpieces that bombed at their premieres is lengthy. It took generations for many works to be admitted to the standard repertory. If you think you’ve gotten all there is to get from a piece on one hearing, it may be negligible music. Or maybe a delightful ear-worm. You can’t be sure until you’ve heard it enough to give it a chance to grow on you.