ARTS
Music
Repetitive noise syndrome
Peter Phillips believes that Gorecki's chart-topping Third Symphony is part of a movement back to ancient church music with the religion left out Iam still not sure how it came about, but the facts appear to be these: in 1976 Hen- 13/It GOrecki wrote a retrograde canon and three songs for soprano and orchestra which, for reasons which are not obvious, he decided to call a symphony (his Third). In 1989, to commemorate the 50th anniver- sary of the outbreak of the second world war, this symphony was given one of the few performances which it had received up until that time, in a church in Brunswick, along with other relevant material, before a small gathering of people. In 1992, not for the first time, the work was recorded, in this instance by Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman. In the past few months, this recording has sold so well that it has entered the pop charts and (the ultimate claim to fame) 'outsold Madonna'. Why?
At the risk of throwing further fuel on a fire which seems to be raging out of con- trol, I can bear witness to the astonishing reputation of Gorecki's Third. Whilst per- forming in Edmonton, Alberta, in February I heard the announcer on a local radio sta- tion telling his listeners not that he would soon be broadcasting a live performance of the work but that he had at last acquired a Copy of the disc — some months after its release — and that he would be playing it at a specific time on a day in the near future. Further bulletins to this effect were to be heard until the day arrived, from which I deduced that Elektra Nonesuch couldn't then make the discs fast enough.
Although `Gorecki's Third' has done bet- ter than any other piece of current 'serious' music, it is not alone in achieving excep- tional popularity. The strange thing is that two of its rivals are written in a style which is recognisably similar to Gorecki's in this symphony: John Tavener's Protecting Veil and Arvo Part's St John Passion. Since the three composers say that they knew little or nothing of each other's music when they were developing their styles (a school, as it were, which didn't know it existed), and since the public finds them highly expres- sive, it can be said that the time for such Writing has come. It needs defining.
Generally employing an uncomplicated language enshrined in slow tempi which result in comparatively long movements, all three composers try to induce in the listen- er a trance-like state by a kind of ritualistic repetition of material which takes the place of more traditional musical development. The method is close to that of the minimal- ists, especially to Philip Glass, but less avowedly simplistic than theirs and owes more to sacred practice. The idea of the sacred ritual is essential to an understand- ing of this repertoire (much of it sets reli- gious texts often to chant-like melodies) which I believe is the cause of its populari- ty. At its most extreme, audiences have been known to sit through three hours of music which has no themes as such, their place taken by endlessly repeated musical cells, holding their attention by climaxes which seem to occur in slow-motion. This method has been transferred without com- plaint from choral music (perhaps its natu- ral habitat) to symphony, concerto, chamber ensemble writing, opera (Taven- er's Mary of Egypt), even a ballet has been mooted. Its simplicity has been its strength. The history of music has been littered with regenerative moments when language was stripped down to essentials and built up again. Loathed by those modern com- posers who delight in complexity, the idiom of Gorecki, Tavener and Part is held to be a cop-out. This is especially held against Gorecki who, before his Third Symphony, wrote the usual professionally dissonant music, hard for the layman to penetrate, with the usual result that he was largely ignored. His Third was greeted with howls of protest from the critics when it was first heard in 1977 (the sleeve-note writer of the 1992 recording admits that it 'must have seemed unaccountably naive if not culpably reactionary'). Since 1977, public taste has changed. Concert-goers seem to be looking increasingly for extra-terrestrial experi- ences, rejecting clever music, especially such as purports to express 'the violence of our times' or the anger of an outraged social conscience, for ethereal, non-denom- inational writing which has a hint of God in it. The equally rapid spread of Latin- texted, renaissance-sacred polyphony in recent years is part of the same phe- nomenon: few understand or want to understand the Latin, the music is enjoyed as being abstract, other-worldly, cut off from its Catholic roots.
This move to the political right in musi- cal taste (away from human concerns towards a more hieratic, ultimately authori- tarian view however ill-defined) is currently very trendy. It is uncertain whether the music behind it has any durability. The comparison with renaissance polyphony is instructive, since the giant canon in the first movement of G6recki's Third is founded on a technique much used by renaissance composers. The mathematics are in place, the pace and sonority are well managed, what is missing is the unblinking commit- ment to a language which is so tight (which is not the same thing as simple) that the very restrictions become an expressive force, demanding the greatest intellectual discipline from the composer. Wherefore these endless repetitions in, the modern composers? Does the retrograde in G6rec- ki's first movement have any meaning in its impact? Why is it necessary to resort to gongs, handbells, halos of sound from the strings and other special effects to create a sense of the numinous? Has the purely musical argument run out? What is the quality of the intellect behind such writing and how, if it is of high quality, can it make itself known to us? The jury is still out. There is no doubt that much of this sort of music is deeply impressive at first hearing (though in fact I didn't find the Gorecki so). The question is what meaning such compositions will have for future times, when there will inevitably be a different angle on things and different trends. I pose this not about the texts which these composers choose, invariably of the highest quality, nor about the relevance of God in the modern world, but about the music itself.
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