Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich.
The sad truth is that there’s not a lot of recently composed music that I like very much.
I could go on at some length about all that I think is wrong with new music nowadays. Suffice it to say that I have very little patience for high modernist composers still fighting the battles of the mid-20th century. Similarly, I don’t have much interest in backward-looking composers whose scores are little more than unimaginative exercises in musical nostalgia for pre-modernist eras.
What I do like is composers who find fresh new ways to work with musical materials and ideas authentically embedded in our culture. Such composers are, unfortunately, few and far between – but they do exist. (And I can’t help noticing that they don’t generally come from the European countries that historically formed the “core” of the classical music world: France, Germany and Italy.)
I could go on at some length about all that I think is wrong with new music nowadays. Suffice it to say that I have very little patience for high modernist composers still fighting the battles of the mid-20th century. Similarly, I don’t have much interest in backward-looking composers whose scores are little more than unimaginative exercises in musical nostalgia for pre-modernist eras.
What I do like is composers who find fresh new ways to work with musical materials and ideas authentically embedded in our culture. Such composers are, unfortunately, few and far between – but they do exist. (And I can’t help noticing that they don’t generally come from the European countries that historically formed the “core” of the classical music world: France, Germany and Italy.)
In the spirit of lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness, I’ve decided to periodically post YouTube videos of contemporary music I like. (And by “contemporary music,” I mean music by living composers.) Some will be prominent figures in the musical world – but I’m hoping to also draw attention to some composers who aren’t very well known.
I’ve decided to begin this series of posts with the Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich. He started out as a modernist, but apparently had a vision on the road to Damascus. (For more biographical information about him, see here.)
I’ve selected his Procession, from 1979, scored for a “Beethovenian” septet: violin, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn. I like its clear structure; its logically consistent use of a tonal vocabulary that Mozetich puts his personal stamp on; and the artful ways in which he interrupts and then restores the piece’s motoric rhythm.
It is performed here by the (sadly defunct) Amadeus Ensemble, from Toronto.
© Colin Eatock 2012
I’ve decided to begin this series of posts with the Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich. He started out as a modernist, but apparently had a vision on the road to Damascus. (For more biographical information about him, see here.)
I’ve selected his Procession, from 1979, scored for a “Beethovenian” septet: violin, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn. I like its clear structure; its logically consistent use of a tonal vocabulary that Mozetich puts his personal stamp on; and the artful ways in which he interrupts and then restores the piece’s motoric rhythm.
It is performed here by the (sadly defunct) Amadeus Ensemble, from Toronto.
© Colin Eatock 2012
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