Bruno Maderna was a close friend of Pierre Boulez . In 1958 Boulez and Maderna were conductors of two of the three orchestras in the fraught premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen , the third orchestra was directed by the composer. My picture above, from the Stockhausen archive , was taken at a rehearsal for the premiere in Cologne. Left clicking on the image will enlarge it. Stockhausen is conducting orchestra 1 on the left, Maderna orchestra 2 in the centre, and Boulez orchestra 3 on the right. The photo at the foot of the article shows Boulez, Maderna and Stockhausen in Darmstadt in 1956, and, interestingly, was taken by Hans Keller . . Maderna's relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was established before Boulez's period as the orchestra's chief conductor, and was one of the many fruits of William Glock's period as BBC Controller of Music between 1959 and 1972. Maderna made his debut with the orchestra in 1959 when he gave the first public perfo...
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I wonder if you are familiar with MacDonald's theory of "midcult." I question the idea that all music is or should be made accessible to everyone. At the risk of repeating Babbitt's "Who Cares if You Listen?" mistake, I rather feel that certain music can only be appreciated by those who put in the effort to do so with their full attention. Yes, future generations might be more visually attuned than aurally, but that does not mean we should give up on helping them to cultivate their ears and practice listening; the brain is amazingly plastic, after all.
I can name plenty of songs that, while musically perhaps not so exciting, became popular because of an entertaining dance or video attached to them. I don't look forward to the day when a composer's success is measured by how much they can spend hiring artists and CGI editors to mask their mediocre music.