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Abstract
The notion of tradition is a somewhat troublesome one, capable of both positive and negative interpretation: on the one hand, tradition can be understood optimistically, as historical inspiration, a celebration of lineage and continuity. On the other hand, tradition can connote prescriptive inertia, the axiomatic dogma of former eras. In this paper, I explore the impact that narrowly prescriptive interpretations of tradition have had on contemporary music, and its relationship with cultural policy. I examine the extremely circumscribed manner in which the apparently unproblematic and self‐evident term “music” has been conceptualized within several highly influential cultural sectors: in the discipline of musicology; in the context of university music curricula; and in the publishing industry. In the second half of the paper, I go on to consider the ways in which this narrow understanding of “music” has impacted cultural policy, as reflected in representative patterns of arts funding, and in the typical musical repertoire of the contemporary symphony orchestra, which, in tandem with opera, represents the most heavily publicly‐funded aspect of present‐day musical activity. I argue that “the tradition of all the dead generations” continues to have a profound – and highly restrictive – impact on the funding and support of contemporary music, and I conclude by suggesting the need for a radical reappraisal of music funding priorities. In this way, I argue, the notion of tradition might function, not as a dead weight, but as a genuinely inspirational element in the future development of the contemporary music scene.
Notes
1. On the public funding and continuing resilience of opera, see Bereson (Citation2002).
2. These are issues I have addressed in detail elsewhere, with specific reference to feminist approaches to musicology (Stanbridge Citation1998).
3. Virtually all North American and European universities now have full curriculum and course information available on their Web sites. A review of the typical course offerings in university Music departments, from large‐scale institutions with international reputations to smaller‐scale regional or state universities, simply confirms this point.
4. For a range of alternative perspectives on musical postmodernism, see Lochhead and Auner (Citation2002).
5. Scruton also writes of the “exquisite simplicity” (Citation1997, p. 184) of Schubert’s piano waltzes. See Gramit (Citation1998) for a critique of such problematic claims for Schubert’s “unmediated communicative power” (p. 180).
6. On the Górecki phenomenon, see Howard (Citation2002).
7. The financial information was taken from the Web site of the Canada Council for the Arts: www.canadacouncil.ca. All figures quoted are in Canadian dollars. The figures for 2004–05 offer a representative indication of the Canada Council’s typical funding patterns.
8. The two other organizations were Jeunesses musicales du Canada, a youth organization devoted to the classical repertoire, and the Canadian Music Centre, representing a welcome gesture of support toward Canadian contemporary music, although still primarily within the Western art music tradition.
9. The information for the 2005–06 and 2006–07 concert seasons was taken from the Web site of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra: www.tso.ca. I have focused solely on concert performances by the TSO, visiting soloists, and occasional visiting orchestras. I have included repeated performances of individual pieces as part of the overall total. Programmes of opera and concert arias have been counted as one performance. In this two‐year period, there are also 11 Pop Concerts, 10 Young People’s Concerts, two Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra concerts, two Christmas concerts and a fundraising concert. In most cases, the repertoires of these concerts are not clearly specified, and I have disregarded them for the purposes of this analysis. The information for 2005–06 and 2006–07 offers a representative indication of the typical repertoire of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
12. See, for example, the highly influential collections of essays in Karp and Lavine (Citation1991) and Karp et al. (Citation1992), and the recent essays in Karp et al. (Citation2006). See also my own analysis of modes of display in the contemporary gallery and the “postmodern” museum (Stanbridge Citation2005).
13. See, for example, Sales (Citation1984), Taylor (Citation1986) and Marsalis (Citation1988).
14. See the Jazz at Lincoln Center Backgrounder: www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/about/press/JALC_Backgrounder.pdf
15. These are issues I have dealt with at length elsewhere (Stanbridge Citation2004).
16. See Kenyon (Citation2001) for a detailed history and analysis of Rattle’s career, including full listings of CBSO concert programmes.
17. It is interesting to note that Ed Smith, the former manager of the CBSO during Rattle’s tenure, took up the post of Executive Director with the Toronto Symphony in 2000, but resigned the following year, stating that “the internal culture of the [TSO] is probably beyond repair” (quoted in Bernstein Citation2001).
18. Hear, for example, Mackey’s “Tuck and Roll”, for electric guitar and orchestra, recorded by Mackey and Michael Tilson Thomas with the New World Symphony (2001, BMG 09026‐63826‐2); Dresher’s “Concerto for Violin and Electro‐Acoustic Band” (2004, New Albion NA125); Torke’s “An Italian Straw Hat”, commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada (2005, Ecstatic Records ECR 92207); Gosfield’s “The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory” (2002, Cantaloupe Music CA21010); and Martland’s “Horses of Instruction” (2001, Black Box BBM1033).
19. Hear, for example, Braxton’s “Compositions 175 and 126” (2006, Leo Records LR 453/454); Zorn’s “Aporias: Requia for Piano and Orchestra” (1998, Tzadik 7037); Koglmann’s “Don’t Play, Just Be” (2002, Between the Lines BTL 021); and Goebbels’s “Surrogate Cities” (2000, ECM 1688). In particular, Goebbels’s remarkable piece offers a striking vindication of the creative possibilities inherent in combining orchestral resources with improvisation and sampling techniques.
20. Quoted in an online biographical article: www.fccbc.ca/NewsletterArticles/AlexinaLouie.htm