HISTORICISM . . . PREFACE

As a composer, I often find myself pressed to explain why I continue to write music in historical idioms while practically everybody who is anybody in the world of composition is consciously cultivating some "progressive," distinctly personal style. My usual retort has been that since mere novelty and mannerism have become sacrosanct in the musical establishment, I prefer to remain a heretic. Predictably, this response usually elicits little more than a condescending chuckle, and so I decided to write something on the order of a manifesto, the better to account for my apostasy.

It seems self-evident that the invention of strange and novel effects is far easier of attainment than an in-depth mastery of the forms, styles, and techniques employed by the great composers of the past. What child, knowing nothing of John Cage, has not discovered how to produce curious sounds by plucking and scratching inside a grand piano or altering the characteristic tonal qualities of the instrument by throwing in bits of paper, pencils, ping-pong balls, or any of a number of other common household objects? What balky adolescent cannot synthesize the most arrestingly bizarre sequences when presented with a shiny new digital sampler and a Power PC loaded with all the latest patch-editing and effects-processing software? And what industrious music academician cannot generate page after page of eldritch glyphs whose inscrutability is exceeded only by their fresh potential for shock and scandal? All of these have great fun in their respective activities, and doubtless are blessed with a certain knack for novelty, so it is hardly likely that even one of them in the course of his experimentation will produce anything remotely resembling a Bach suite, a Mozart concerto, or a Brahms symphony. "Who cares about the past? Composers today ought to make new music!"

This not uncommon reaction is as disarmingly blunt as it is blatantly prejudiced. But lest I, in turn, be accused of reactionary criticism, I hasten to emphasize there is no reason anyone should be obliged to write music like Bach, Mozart, or Brahms--only that most cannot. This is so not because composers today lack the necessary talent and intelligence, but rather because, in the climate of modernism that dominated the arts for the better part of the twentieth century, few musicians were encouraged to acquire anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of historical musical forms and styles. Even now, those who dare to devote themselves to historicist composition are almost universally thwarted by a tacitly antihistoricist arts establishment that continues to hold even specious innovation in considerably higher regard than the mastery of great artistic traditions.

Although a Ph.D. or D.M.A. has become a virtual sine qua non for those planning to teach music at the college or university level--and there are few employment opportunities even with these credentials--, antihistoricist attitudes remain so prevalent in music departments that the serious traditional composer will be sorely challenged to find an academic environment in which his creative interests can be effectively addressed. Pursuing an advanced degree in musicology might seem far more expedient were it not for the fact that historical research typically leaves little or no time for actual composition. Acquiring complete fluency in a number of historical styles demands long and intensive study, constant creative application, and exceptional musicality. The opportunities and rewards are few, the hardships and frustrations disproportionately many, and the number of those who actually succeed grievously small.

Why, then, trouble oneself with historicism at all? This text provides a number of answers to that question which go far beyond simple legitimation of the historicist aesthetic. Over the past several decades modernism has, indeed, entered a state of decline during which many of its myths and taboos have been effectively discarded. Post-modernism, while engaging the past once more, has often done so only through a lens that distorts or destroys the very things it purports to revisit or revise. I believe, therefore, that the time has come for a new generation of composers to unleash the immense historicist potential already suggested by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Ravel, and that through their work the past will become not only a gateway to the future but also to a more profound and refined understanding of that most essential of musical elements--time itself. If this volume contributes in some small measure to the realization of that vision, then its purpose shall have been well served.