I’ve been brooding on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs for a little while now. I wanted to review it, but found it very hard to pin down, and then the moment passed. But I do want to to note how surprised I was at the different sound that Arcade Fire uses on this record as opposed to the other albums.
One of the unique properties of their records was the huge ensemble that they recorded with, and the sheer variety of instruments they incorporated into their music. Not only did they use all of these instruments, but they were used front and center. In their music, strings were not used like synth pads, not used as filler in the background. In songs like “No Cars Go” or “Rebellion (Lies),” the strings were an integral part of the hook. It was for this reason that they were mentioned in the same breath as Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) and Beirut. The Suburbs places the strings back in the background, and the production has been transformed from the warm and acoustic aesthetic of Funeral to an indie rock sound that is regrettably more generic.
Other critics have written about this change in sound. Some have characterized it as Arcade Fire emulating some of the scope and scale of arena rock. I think this fails to acknowledge that this emulation has been an aspect of Arcade Fire’s music from the beginning. Simply listen to “Wake Up” or “Keep the Car Running:” the stomp-along, stadium filling songs have been there. What’s different in this record is that they have pulled back from the sound that differentiated them from the other bands out there that are trying the same thing.
This isn’t enough for me to dislike The Suburbs. In most other respects, it’s a new Arcade Fire release, something I’ve been looking forward to. But it is true that they’ve removed one of the characteristics of their music that made me fall in love with them in the first place.
I’ve just discovered the lectures, archived at The Guardian, that Andras Schiff delivered covering all 32 of the Beethoven piano sonata. They’re fascinating, showing the way that a performer approaches the sonatas from both a theory and performance perspectives. They have already made me much more familiar with these genius compositions.
One of the projects that I watch closely is El Sistema USA, a movement to implement a version of the Venezuelan music organization El Sistema to the United States. One of the main partners in this initiative is the New England Conservatory of Boston, and the Boston Globe had an article yesterday about the program. There was a suggestion in the article that gets to the heart of the difficulties about bringing this program to the United States:
Still, skeptics can be heard wondering if NEC’s ties to El Sistema are mostly cosmetic, a kind of brilliant publicity stunt that links the school to the hottest phenomenon in classical music. That charge is not warranted, yet if the school seeks the honor and credit of serving as the official bridge to El Sistema in this country, it should deepen its commitment. In addition to hosting El Sistema USA and its program to train the movement’s future leaders, NEC should itself lead by example. It should open its own El Sistema-inspired nucleo.
This could serve as a model of how the Venezuelan principles can be put into action in this country. It could have a permanent teaching staff and involvement from the Abreu fellows, but, just as importantly, it could engage a steady stream of NEC students. Currently one gets the impression, confirmed in conversation with individual Abreu fellows, that the fellowship program is rather detached from the school’s undergraduate student culture. The existence of such a nucleo would allow a much deeper integration of this work into the curriculum and the broader ethos of the conservatory itself.
This makes two really important points, one about the way that music education works in this country, and one about the way that the classical music establishment must change if it wants to sustain itself.
I think that the biggest danger in trying to bring El Sistema to the US is in focusing on the success that it’s had and not giving enough weight to the sacrifices that the children make to be a part of the program. Too often in news stories about El Sistema, I get the feeling that the writers feel that the children are blank slates, and that the strength of the organization is found only in the combination of early access and children that don’t have the resources to do anything else. If this were true, then of course this program could be adapted to the US: there are plenty of resources to set up young children with music instruction. I think this misses the point; the majority of instruction that any participant in El Sistema receives will be from other students. This is a fundamental departure from the way that music is usually taught in this country, both in public and private music instruction.
Private (non-school) music instruction in this country is usually funded by parents, and therefore does not have the equality of access that El Sistema takes as its mission. It is also overwhelmingly one-on-one. School instruction is more communal, particularly in band, however there are few opportunities for small group instruction for gifted students, nowhere to go for the most gifted students, and few teachers and well funded programs at any rate. Instruction in El Sistema consists of group lessons with opportunities for small group and individual instruction for gifted students. At the same time, every student takes responsibility for their part in the organization, and assists instruction of students at lower skill levels. El Sistema impresses upon its students that their participation is both a privilege and a responsibility. Adapting this organization to work in America will require that El Sistema USA will have to change the culture of music instruction to put a greater responsibility upon its students.
This is why simply providing instruments and instruction will not work, and Jeremy Eichler is right to suggest that simply providing training for administrators will not work either. El Sistema has grown from the vision of a singularly persistent director, however much of the work in growing the organization has been done by the students themselves. After all, the reason why El Sistema has moved to the foreground of arts discussion has been because of the success of Gustavo Dudamel, it’s most famous alumnus. El Sistema USA will only succeed if it can create an equality of access, room for students to grow, and a culture of responsibility in its students that can match Venezuela’s.
The second point that I wanted to make is about the relationship between music education and the future of classical music in this country. Classical music has been coasting on a prestige that is no longer present in this country. Lower, Middle and Upper class families no longer consider it a social status symbol to be familiar with and versed in classical music. That’s kind of OK with me: if something only succeeds because people have been told that it’s important, all it takes is someone to say no to destroy it. On the other hand, if music organizations want their music to continue in the future, they must take greater responsibility for education. Every orchestra should be familiar with the music instruction in their home city, and have programs to supplement it, whether it means offering instruction directly or supplementing the school-orchestra programs with advanced instruction or mentoring (by the way, if regional orchestras are looking for relevance, this might be helpful). Build the audience, and they’ll come.
Michael Torke’s The Yellow Pages (1985) is a movement from a three-piece work called Telephone Book. It takes a simple, upbeat musical phrase and develops it slowly, modulating and employing variations on the phrase. Torke’s music falls somewhere in the grey area between Minimalism and Post-Minimalism; he began composing when Minimalism was beginning to gain credibility in classical music circles. It befits our strange postmodern culture that a movement and a post-movement can arise simultaneously. Torke embraces the superficial characteristics of minimalism–the short repeated phrases, the minute variations–and combines them with both poppy, jazzy musical phrases and idioms, and a tonal and developmental scheme that falls comfortably within traditional harmony. In a way, his music is similar to John Adams’, unafraid to engage with both minimalism and traditional harmony at the same time. However, whereas Adams uses minimalistic processes to compose music that draws from both American themes and post-tonal harmony, Torke’s music owes as much to the orchestral pop of the 40’s-60’s as it does to the European classical tradition.
This brings up a serious reservation I have with Torke’s music. There’s a big difference between the post-tonal sources that Adams uses in his pieces and the tonal, commercial sounds that Torke uses in his: the former is much harder to listen to, less accessible, than the latter (It’s no accident that Torke’s music is commercially sucessful [for a classical composer]). That’s not necessarily a demerit, and I should say that I enjoy Torke’s music very much, however other aspects of his music give cause to doubt its real merit. Torke’s Wikipedia page* categorizes his music as influenced by minimalism and jazz, but when you listen to his music, there’s not much jazz. There a lot of stuff that’s jazzy, but it’s the jazz of commercial jingles and the A.M. radio of a bygone era. An uncharitable reading of Torke’s music might find it to be pretty, empty phrases rearranged in a watered-down minimalist scheme.
I still haven’t decided which side I come down on. I’m not a fan of his source material; I despise the vacuousness of the idioms that he imitates. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like the compositional processes he employs are interesting enough that I don’t care (part of the reason I like The Yellow Pages so much is that it has really fine counterpoint. And believe me, I’m not usually the type to be excited about anything for counterpoint). It’s also just fun to listen to.
There’s a couple of good recordings out there, but if anybody is interested in hearing more Torke (I particularly recommend Adjustable Wrench), he has a 6-CD box set called Ecstatic Collection that contains most of his major pieces.
*I recognize that nobody is responsible for their own Wikipedia page, but these pages are often an indicator of general consensus about how musicians and composers are categorized.
hammer & jack 