Ode To The New

 

Just waiting for Beethoven's Ninth on The Proms tonight. The programme for the evening was opened by a piece by Helen Grimes: "Meditations on Joy". As accomplished as the piece was - and I'm no Luddite when it comes to music, as anyone who knows me will attest - I found it neither joyful nor particularly meditative, rather Walton-like in its in-your-face discordance. I've come to the opinion over the last few years that serious music - either 'classical' [a misnomer that always grates; it's simply 'orchestral': classical has a specificity of its own] or jazz; has been in the doldrums for some time, both stuck somewhere in the mid-twentieth century and neither having found a direction for the twenty-first.

Don't get me wrong: I like both genres, but they ain't going nowhere fast, methinks. The beauty of Beethoven, like Beefheart, is that his music doesn't need to go anywhere: it's perfect where it is: particularly the Choral. I look forward to some genuinely new orchestral and jazz music arriving on the scene this century: last century 'modern' doesn't seem quite so modern these days, and whilst I love Coltrane, endless post-bop reiterations that contribute little to the development of the oeuvre kinda leave me unmoved: fusion was the last great modal shift, and even that has found its developmental cul-de-sac. Plus ça change, until the next moment of genuine inspiration...

Codicil: the performance of the Ninth was well worth the wait!