Inaugural.

One of the dilemmas facing a composer of any period is the place of music in society. For centuries, there have been efforts to either create music for the masses, for musicians alone or even for a select few. Arnold Schoenberg famously decreed, “Great are presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener.”

Should music, or art in general seek to only connect with those that understand it, either in a philosophical or theoretical way? Should we throw these ideas aside in order to write music that reaches out to everyone, for the understanding of the masses?

But these questions, however large, may give way to a question more related to the actual act of writing: what music should we be writing?

I think most everyone will agree that the new millennium is in most ways still linked to the past. The 21st century will always be tied to the 20th in theoretical terms: the use of serialism, electronic techniques, minimalism (however bloated the term), post-Romanticism, et cetera. Anything and everything that was revolutionary in the 20th century can trace it’s roots back to Romanticism or earlier, and so on. Questions arise as to our reliance on these past aesthetics: should we so openly use what our predecessors did? Should there be a new and unique style to correctly define this era in music?

What is that style? What could it possibly be?

All questions that we’ve thought about, and perhaps too timid to answer.

It is my personal belief that each composer is trying to capture something within the Orphic art. Whether music is absolute or programmatic, formulaic or organic, new or old, there is something to be said within it.

It is also my belief that the future of music lies almost solely in this fact.

My own solution to this dilemma is that all we can strive to do in this era is to write according to our inspiration. Whatever truths you feel to be important, whether previous musicians have explored them or these ideas are uncharted territory waiting to be found, they are relevant and important to this age.

An idealistic solution to what is indelibly the question musicians have asked for centuries.

I could write more but this is a blog. Instead, I wanted to present an open-ended idea to insight some sort of discussion. Please feel free to comment and be however specific or ambiguous you wish.


I’ll leave my inaugural post off with a quote from one of my personal favorites:


“You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down ... some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.”

- Aaron Copland.

Introduction.

Hello, internet.

My name is Stephen Bosco. I am a junior in the Music Composition program at SUNY Fredonia in Fredonia, NY.

This blog was started as a project for a class called "Music of the 21st Century".

The purpose of this blog is to discuss current ideas, problems and discussions within the realm of concert music in today's society.

I will do my best to update bi-weekly, and respond to any questions posted to me.