Is classical music obsessed by existential angst?
So I asked Elliott Carter "What if you don't feel existential angst? What if you want to write music that expresses joy or some other kind of emotion?" And he goes "Jeff, if you do that you'll never have a career in music." I find that electronic music has a real problem to it, because, at this point, there is no good way to get across the kind of energy and vitality that the performer brings to acoustic music. It has been a kind of meme of mine that the problem of classical music is that there just isn't enough bass, there isn't enough visceral quality to it. When the oil spill hit we decided that enough is enough. I am a little concerned about how America is being controlled by the corporations... We had always flirted with the idea of moving to France, we has been trying to do it since Reagan was elected in fact, and we just decided to do it. That is composer and new technology guru Jeff Harrington talking on the Chance Music programm
Comments
(Merry Christmas, Bob!)
b.