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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2231538, member: 42773&quot;]I&#039;m afraid you&#039;ve opened one of my Pandora&#039;s Boxes. This is going to be a long post. I&#039;ve always been mystified by the imbalance built into most conservatory curricula, meaning a preoccupation with Common Practice techniques and history. Granted, the music of the Common Practice comprises a large portion of most orchestras&#039; repertoires, and a good musician must know his craft, but after two years of CP harmony, you&#039;re delving into the erudite complexities of voice-leading that properly cross over into musicology. I often wondered if this did any of our instrumental students any good - no conductor is ever going to ask you what grade you received in Species Counterpoint.</p><p><br /></p><p>Nevertheless, I would have no objection to this course of action if an equal amount of consideration was given to contemporary approaches. But what the average instrumental major gets is one semester of Twentieth Century Techniques, most of which is dedicated to the Second Viennese School. And whether musicians like it or not, audiences have long ago delivered a verdict on atonalism: a resounding NO.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now you might think this verdict would have an effect on the composition departments of the major conservatories, but you would be wrong. In a baffling act of ivory tower intractability, most composition curricula <u>emphasize</u> the Second Viennese School and its offshoots. The young composer is taught to set aside his childish ideas of melody and harmony, and follow in the footsteps of what I call the &quot;obsolete avant-garde.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Years ago I had my one and only conversation with Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood. (He only ever managed to speak cave-man English, which is not a criticism mind you - I doubt I could do better in Japanese.) Andre Watts was playing that night and I went back stage to say hello. Somehow the subject of Shoenberg&#039;s Piano Concerto came up and I asked them both if it was something they ever considered. Ozawa said, &quot;No. No good. No story.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>In a nutshell, he explained why audiences are either bored or annoyed by atonalism: if you strip music of melody and tonality, you&#039;ve stripped it of its narrative, or at least limited it to a very narrow framework. So of 20th-century composers, who gets played in the concert halls? The Neo-Romanticists who only used atonality as an occasional effect: Barber, Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, to name a handful - there are many more of course.</p><p><br /></p><p>This brings me full circle to my criticisms of the average conservatory curriculum. Why can&#039;t it reflect the reality of the concert stage? By all means, let&#039;s analyze as many Bach chorales as we want, but let&#039;s give equal time to the <i>Rite of Spring</i>, or Barber&#039;s <i>Piano Concerto</i>, or a host of other fabulous, engaging masterpieces. Recently I was talking to a Masters candidate in cello performance and I asked him if he had ever played Hindemith&#039;s most popular composition, the <i>Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Weber. </i>He had only heard OF the piece because it was in his book of excerpts. This was someone who had gone through six years of &quot;professional&quot; training.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thankfully, this academic artificiality was slowly dissipating during my tenure. I saw many signs of improvement during my time. But there are still many, many holdouts - music schools all over the world that are convinced that their obsessions with the Common Practice on one hand, and atonalism on the other, are somehow relevant to the modern world of classical music. They have yet to find the middle path.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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