From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Glass meets Clive Barker response
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:55:16 GMT
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Oct16.015007.2067@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Joseph.J.Marcheso.Jr.@dartmouth.edu (Joseph J. Marcheso Jr.) writes:
>In article <1992Oct16.004935.21659@Princeton.EDU>
>roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>> >A great composer IMRPOVES his craft. 

>> You making the rules for great composers here?  Or what?  Every composer
>> has laid a few eggs; especially those who not only try to improve their 
>> craft but go beyond nice craft to transforming their art.  Schubert's
>> and Schumann's operas, even a few of Verdi's, and lots of other pieces
>> by other composers fall into this category.  Is _Esther_ better than
>> _Teseo_? 

>I'd think my rule about improving their craft is indisputable (can you
>think of great composers who haven't?) I'm not debating Schubert I'm
>debating Glass 

No, you made a statement about "a great composer."

>with the argument that after Einstein no other opera has
>been totally new or has shown signs of dramatic new perceptions or
>skill. 

Again, who elected you judge?  _Einstein_, like it or not, was
more innovative than any ten other operas of the previous decades,
and if Glass hasn't repeated his success, he's certainly gone a long
way toward consilidating it, refining some of his techniques, etc.  

To compare him to Verdi is *still* presposterous, simply because 
*nobody* today is having much success writing operas.  We're not in a period
in which great masterpieces are likely to happen; the best we can hope for
is promising innovation.  The public isn't particularly involved in 
the issue -- though Glass has gotten quite a few of them insterested;
to expect something on the order of a Verdi, and to measure others
against that, is to ignore the historical situations then and now.  

>One Innovative opera does not a great opera composer make. And
>so far that's all he's had. 

That's one more than most composers.  And, while you're up, could you give
us a definition of "great composers" that cuts across history?  Glass
is certainly not entirely successful, and I don't make much of a brief for his
music, but because of him and a few others, opera in this country 
is not entirely moribund.  That's an achievement in a field that Verdi
wasn't ever faced with, among other things.

>>Wagner took 
>>28 years to write the Ring, not least because he had to change his 
>>style several times. 

>First the Ring is a series of four operas (counting Rhinegold) each
>opera didn't come 28 years apart. Second he wrote operas between the
>completion of Ring so even the distance between those wasn't barren and
>finally are you saying that Glass' operas match the Ring in substance
>(perhaps they plunder Wagner's scores) given the time they have taken?

No, of course not.  Since you deleted the comment of yours (regarding the
speed of composition of Aida--so what?) tha tI was resonding to, you
took my remark out of its context.  That's not very impressive.

And if you divide 28 by 6, you *still* get over 4.5 years/opera, which
is *still* 54 times the time it supposedly took Verdi.

>P.S. Wagner didn't have to change his style it was a natural
>progression 

Yeah, right.  From the beginning of Siegfried to Tristan is a *big*
leap.  From Tristan to Meistersinger is *another* complete reinvention.
THen the third act of Siegfried is something utterly new again.  

Wagner most certainly *did* change his style, and most certainly did
it consciously, as a study of his writings and compositional processes
will show.  

>(Perhaps you're confusing him with Glass,who deliberately
>changed his style when he knew minimalism was at death's door)

It is?  News to me, and to him.  Of course, I'm sure you've talked
to Glass and found all this out; otherwise, your imputation of cynical
motives sounds more than a little like another bunch of sour grapes.

Oh, and since when is a deliberate style change something bad?  Handel
did it, Gluck did it, Haydn did it, Beethoven did it, Rossini did it,
Wagner did it, Verdi did it, Schoenberg and Stravinsky and Bartok did it.
Glass does it and it's bad, suddenly?

>>They work(ed) in different musical worlds, 
>>with different demands, different expectations.

>And much, much different results. 

True of Josquin and Monteverdi, Beethoven and Bartok.  You got a point here
somewhere?

I suggest you quit sniping and start arguing from a little more evidence.

Roger