Evan Williams

Meizel
MUCT 6270
13 December 2012

Crumbling Boundaries:

Popular Music Appropriation and Assimilation Since the Modernist Period

Introduction

“DJ Masonic” is what 35 year-old Mason Bates, currently the Composer-in-Residence of

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, goes by on the “electronica” section of his website. This

Julliard graduate, winner of the Rome Prize, and Guggenheim Fellow is known for his work

melding Western art music and Electronic Dance Music (EDM) into large scale orchestral works.

“Innovative”1 and “inventive”2 are words often used to describe Dr. Bates, who received his

Ph.D in composition at the University of California, Berkeley. His teacher there, Edmond

Campion said of his contributions to classical music, “The orchestra today is fighting with its

identity as a historical elephant…Mason provides a sense of renewal, a connection to social and

cultural things in contemporary life.”3 A reviewer of his Violin Concerto written for the

acclaimed Anne Akiko Meyers proclaimed, “…we need a hundred Bates to connect orchestras

with today’s world.”4

Yet, two years before, that same reviewer, Andrew Druckenbrod of the Pittsburgh Post-

Gazette contended, “He is not the first composer to meld these two worlds in a composition, but

                                                                                                                       
1
Los Angeles Philharmonic, “Philpedia- About the Composer: Mason Bates,” LA Phil,
http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/mason-bates (accessed December 10, 2012).
2
Mason Bates, official website, “Press,” http://www.masonbates.com/press/ (accessed December 10, 2012).
3
Kevin Berger, “Bridging Huge Gaps, Geographical and Musical,” The New York Times, February 23, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/mason-bates-will-introduce-mass-transmission-at-mavericks-festival-in-
san-francisco.html?_r=0 (accessed December 10, 2012).
4
Andrew Druckenbrod, “Review: PSO Composer of Year's Premiere Has its Moments but Falls Short As Full
Acoustic Work,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 8, 2012, http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/music-
reviews/pso-composer-of-years-premiere-has-its-moments-but-falls-short-as-full-acoustic-work-665478/ (accessed
December 10, 2012).
 Williams 2

his work tackling the institutional aspects of orchestras is pioneering.”5 Druckenbrod is correct in

this assessment. Bates, is not the first, nor is he alone in the current trend. Composers like Ned

Bouhalassa have incorporated techno tropes into their electro-acoustic and computer music with

pieces like Constamment (Autoportrait). Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of great Sergei Prokofiev,

also considers himself a composer and DJ,6 and works like his Concerto for Turntables,

premiered at the 2011 BBC Proms, have received critical acclaim.7

Yet, Mason Bates is one of the most visible participants in the long relationship between

popular music and classical composers, a relationship going back to composers like George

Gershwin, and even Brahms and Mozart. This paper will argue that while this union between

Western art music and popular music is nothing new, its forced separation by post-war serialists

has made its return revolutionary.

“Popular” Music?

But what is popular music? Perhaps determining this will be useful before continuing.

Most would consider popular music to be separate from folk or sacred music such as hymns and

spirituals, yet perhaps these three genres are more related than they seem. Contending that the

term often falls short due to the fluidity of both the music and the term’s usage, The Grove

Dictionary says that popular music is “considered to be of lower value and complexity than art

music, and to be readily accessible to large numbers of musically uneducated listeners rather

                                                                                                                       
5
Druckenbrod, “Composer/Club DJ Mason Bates Challenges the Symphonic Norm with Classical Electronica:
Preview.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 18, 2010. http://www.ebscohost.com (accessed December 9, 2012).  
6
Guy Raz, Weekend All Things Considered, National Public Radio, March 13, 2011. http://www.ebscohost.com
(accessed December 9, 2012).
7
Gabriel Prokofiev, official website, http://gabrielprokofiev.com/ (accessed December 10, 2012).
 Williams 3

than to an élite [sic].”8 Of folk music Grove states that it “has been used both covertly and

overtly in the construction and negation of identities in relation to class, nation or ethnicity…”9

The word folk, is very similar to the German word volk, which means “people.” But its

use by those such as the Nazi Party denotes a meaning that goes deeper than a term for

homosapiens. In terms and slogans such as Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Füher (one people, one

empire, one leader), Herrenvolk (master race), and the affordable Volkswagen (people’s car), we

see both nationalist and Marxist interpretations of the word “people.” Perhaps then both folk and

popular music can fall under the umbrella of “music of the people,” unlike Western art music,

whose audiences throughout history have consistently included its royal and wealthy patrons,

and well-off concert goers.

Tradition and oral transmission are often elements which scholars use to delineate folk

music, yet Grove cites Tin Pan Alley, a collection music publishers specializing in popular music

in New York during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, as an important development in

the popular music genre. These publishers were responsible printing and distributing tunes such

as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” and “God Bless America.”

Today, publishing arrangements of music of popular artists is still a thriving business, however

one can argue that publication was and is only a small portion of the transmission of these songs.

Many of the songs published by Tin Pan Alley have been staples on the radio, television, and at

public venues. They are often passed down orally, and not through music literacy. “Take Me Out

to the Ballgame” and “God Bless America” could very well be classified as “traditional” given

their established place in American society. So given their oral transmission, what prevents
                                                                                                                       
8
Richard Middleton and Peter Manuel, “Popular music,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.maurice.bgsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/43179pg1#S43179.1.3 (accessed
December 10, 2012).
9
Carole Pegg, “Folk music,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.maurice.bgsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/09933?q=folk+music&search=quick
&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (accessed December 10, 2012).    
 Williams 4

songs like “Come Together,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” or even Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”

from one day being considered “folk” if they pass the test of time to become “traditional?”

However, like folk, is popular music “used both covertly and overtly in the construction

and negation of identities in relation to class, nation or ethnicity” as the Grove entry contends?

One can argue that it certainly does. The Beatles certainly helped define the culture of Caucasian

Western Middleclass youths in the 1960s. Since the 1970s, Hip Hop/Rap has been a product and

source of young African American identity. Of course, these genres have social reach beyond

these cultural identities, and they do not necessarily reach all members of these cultures, but their

wide dissemination and influence in these cultures proves that they hold a similar place in

today’s Western culture that folk and spirituals did and still do. In addition, one can see the use

of popular music in political speeches, rallies, and other events of national leaders to see the

power to both define and unite their supporters.10 11

While there are many elements that separate folk, sacred, and popular musics, it is clear

that their audience, uses, and mode of transmission are very much the same. The Church, the

field, the streets, the home, radio, and television – these are all places and mediums of the

“common” people, outside of the concert halls, ballrooms, and palaces of the ruling elite where

they enjoyed “art” music. Perhaps then we might consider folk, hymns, chorales, and spirituals to

fall under the larger umbrella of “popular” music.

Before the 20th Century

If we are to accept this broader view of popular music, then we can even point to

Renaissance motets which employed pre-composed plainchants known as the cantus firmus to
                                                                                                                       
10
Gil Kaufman, “Obama Campaign Playlist Includes Wilco, U2, Al Green
Ricky Martin, Bruce Springsteen, Dierks Bentley and Sugarland Also in the Mix,” MTV News, February 10, 2012,
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1679003/barack-obama-campaign-playlist.jhtml (accessed December 11, 2012).
11
David A. Fahrenthold, “Mitt Romney’s Campaign songs, from Sunny to Angry,” The Washington Post, February
8, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-08/politics/35444758_1_campaign-song-theme-song-gop-
candidates (accessed December 11, 2012).
 Williams 5

create new polyphonic compositions. We can also point to Bach, whose chorales were previously

composed Lutheran hymns, harmonized by the great organist and composer, and we can consider

his numerous cantatas, based on those chorales.

Mozart’s Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” were based on a French folk

song English speakers would recognize as “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” “The Alphabet Song,” or

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” To show his appreciation for the honorary doctorate bestowed

upon him by the University of Breslau, Brahms wrote Academic Festival Overture for them,

which incorporated Gaudeamus Igitur and other drinking songs popular with the university

students.12

These are only a very few of the examples of popular music appropriation throughout the

Common Practice. This appropriation continued with some 20th Century composers as well.

Charles Ives, a composer beyond his times, incorporated popular American tunes into his music,

along with dense, cacophonous dissonance. In many ways, his work foreshadowed that of future

post-modernist composers with its eclecticism. George Gershwin, calculated to be the highest

earning composer ever,13 was celebrated for his appropriation of jazz into a classical language

inspired by Ravel, Stravinsky, and Alban Berg.

Throughout this time, composers freely drew from folk, religious, and other popular

genres to inform their own artistic output. While Western art music was often held above these

genres (or in the case of sacred music, at least equal to it14) and enjoyed by separate audiences,

this appropriation served as a strong connection to the lives of everyday people. This connection

                                                                                                                       
12
Kathy Henkel, “Philpedia- About the Piece: Academic Festival Overture, Johannes Brahms,” LA Phil,
http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/philpedia/music/academic-festival-overture-johannes-brahms (accessed December
11, 2012).
13
Kirsty Scott, “Gershwin Leads Composer Rich List,” The Guardian, August 29, 2005,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/29/arts.media1 (accessed December 11, 2012).
14
Anna G. Piotrowska, “Modernist Composers and the Concept of Genius,” International Review of the Aesthetics
and Sociology of Music, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Dec., 2007), 229-242, Croatian Musicological Society.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487527 (accessed December 9, 2012).  
 Williams 6

was deemed important, and essentially mandatory, by the Soviet government under Joseph

Stalin. Composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich were denounced for works that did not connect

to “the people” or “workers.”15 There was no requirement, however, that this connection had to

stem from appropriation of folk or popular tunes.

In the West, however, classical music was taking a revolutionary turn, one that would

render popular music appropriation incompatible to the output of many celebrated composers of

the time. The revolution was called serialism.

The Might of Darmstadt

Dodecaphony, or twelve-tone serialism was an innovation by the members of the Second

Viennese School, comprised of Arnold Schoenberg and two of his most famous students, Alban

Berg and Anton Webern. Serialism abandoned the heptatonic system for a technique that

incorporated all twelve pitches in each “row” without repeating any of them. While this was a

revolutionary idea, Schoenberg and Berg actively connected their music to the traditions of the

Common Practice. Schoenberg’s work often has Classical and Romantic undertones through its

melodic construction and scoring, and often bent or disregarded the very rules that were meant to

govern the music, very much like the great composers of the Romantic and Late Romantic

periods. Berg’s operas like Wozzeck and Lulu often incorporated Mahlerian orchestrations and

textures.

Webern’s approach however, included serial approaches to rhythm and dynamic content,

along with pitch material. Webern’s music often forsook Romantic or Classical tropes, opting

instead for sparse textures and new timbres achieved through extended techniques. It was

Webern, not Schoenberg that a new school of compositional thought would coalesce around.

                                                                                                                       
15
Richard Taruskin, Music in the Late Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 8-13.
 Williams 7

That new school came to be embodied by the International Summer Courses for New Music in

Darmstadt, Germany.

The courses at Darmstadt were funded by the CIA to support Western ideals of freedom

against the Communist East,16 which, as aforementioned, had a tight grip on the output of

celebrated Russian and Eastern Bloc composers. But some may say that it became the very thing

the West sought to deter. Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was one of the most influential

figures at the courses, and the post-war contemporary music world in general. In his infamous

polemic “Schoenberg is Dead” published in 1952, he wrote “Since the Viennese discoveries, any

musician who has not experienced – I do not say understood, but truly experienced – the

necessity of the dodecaphonic language is USELESS. For his entire work brings him up short of

the needs of his time.”17 It was Webern, however, not Schoenberg that Boulez held up as an

example to follow, saying of the latter’s deviations from strict dodecaphony and incorporation of

Romantic and Wagnerian harmonies and styles, “The two worlds are incompatible, and

Schoenberg had attempted to justify one by the other.” 18 He went on to say:

Such an attitude attests to the maximum incoherence – a paroxysm in the absurdity of Schoenberg’s

incompatibilities. Ought one not to have pressed forward to a new methodology of the musical language

instead of trying to reconstitute the old one? So monstrous an uncomprehending deviation leaves us

perplexed…it is possible to see why Schoenberg’s serial music was destined to defeat. 19

Through the inspiration of Webern and the work of his teacher Oliver Messiaen in Mode

de valeurs et d'intensités for piano, Boulez set about writing pieces of “total” or “integral”

serialism, where all pitch, rhythm, durations, and dynamics were determined through serial

organization. Structures for two pianos was the first product of this technique.
                                                                                                                       
16
ibid, 21
17
ibid, 19
18
Pierre Boulez, “Schoenberg is Dead,” in Notes of an Apprenticeship, trans. Herbert Weinstock (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1968), http://courses.unt.edu/jklein/files/Boulez_0.pdf (accessed December 9, 2012).
19
ibid, 273-4  
 Williams 8

The Darmstadt School’s influence was widespread. A list of lecturers and/or attendees for

the courses read like a who’s-who of the most renowned 20th Century classical composers: John

Cage, Ernst Krenek, Oliver Messiaen, Edgar Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgi Ligeti,

Iannis Xenakis, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Nono, Milton Babbitt, and Theodor Adorno among many,

many others.20 Other major composers such as Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky also

experimented with serial organizations. Whether they felt any sort of pull or pressure from

Darmstadt is debatable given Copland’s early atonal works of the 1920s, before his “American”

period, and Stravinsky’s landmark Rite of Spring before his Neoclassical period. Yet,

Stravinsky’s conversion is particularly telling, given the favor it seems he is seeking to gain from

the young Boulez in their letter correspondence between 1952 and 1963.21

While the courses at Darmstadt are still held, the height of the Darmstadt School’s

influence is over. Yet, this writer, an American graduate student in composition, can attest to the

power that Darmstadt modernist thinking still holds in contemporary compositional education.

When considering what he considered a sort of resurgence of tonality in today’s composers, a

former teacher of this writer remarked that anything resembling a tonal composition would have

been scoffed at by that teacher’s instructors. Indeed, many composers of the Darmstadt

generation and after were trained in the dodecaphonic technique. Mandatory music theory

surveys at many schools of music and conservatories include a section, if not an entire semester

on “post-tonal” theory, especially serialism for all music students.

Obviously, melodious popular music appropriation would be incompatible with a purely

dodecaphonic approach. Therefore, popular music appropriation seems to be an unintended

                                                                                                                       
20
Ernst Thomas and Wilhelm Schlüter, “Darmstadt,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.maurice.bgsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/07224?q=Darmstadt&search=quick
&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (accessed December 11, 2012).
21
Robert Craft, “Stravinsky: Letters to Pierre Boulez,” The Musical Times, Vol. 123, No. 1672 (Jun., 1982), 396-
399+401-402, http://www.jstor.org/stable/964114 (accessed December 11, 2012).
 Williams 9

causality in the Darmstadt revolution. More importantly, the concert-going audience was also a

causality. In his polemic arguing for artistic isolation of the composer-specialist in the “postwar,

nonpopular [sic], musical world,”22 “Who Cares if You Listen?” Milton Babbitt argues, “After

all, the public does have its own music, its ubiquitous music…”23 Though the title (not given by

the author) evokes more ire than Babbitt intended, the sentiment toward audiences seems the

same. He writes:

For I am concerned with stating an attitude towards the indisputable facts of the status and condition of the

composer of what we will, for the moment, designate as “serious,” “advanced,” contemporary music. This

composer expends an enormous amount of time and energy – and usually, considerable money – on the

creation of a commodity which has little, no, or negative commodity value. He is, in essence, a “vanity”

composer. The general public is largely unaware of and uninterested in his music. The majority of

performers shun it and resent it. Consequently, the music is little performed, and then primarily at poorly

attended concerts before an audience consisting in the main of fellow professionals. At best, the music

would appear to be for, of, and by specialists.24

He continues:

…a double standard is invoked, with the words “music is music,” implying that “music is just music.” Why

not, then, equate the activities of the radio repairman with those of the theoretical physicist, on the basis of

the dictum that “physics is physics.”25

Such a notion evokes a great deal of elitism, and Babbitt was certainly not alone. While

not as contentious, the recently deceased Elliott Carter once reflected, “As a young man, I

harbored the populist idea of writing for the public. I learned that the public didn’t care. So I

                                                                                                                       
22
Milton Babbitt, “Who Cares if You Listen?” High Fidelity, Vol. 8 (February 1958), 159
http://mypage.iu.edu/~tcbest/babbitt%20article.pdf (accessed December 9, 2012).
23
ibid, 156
24
ibid, 154
25
ibid, 156
 Williams 10

decided to write for myself. Since then, people have gotten interested.”26 It seemed that post-war

serialists were perfectly willing to allow intellectual and aesthetic inaccessibility to substitute for

the financial and class barriers of the past. This argument is further justified by the method of

Babbitt’s proposed isolation. Through his position as a professor at Princeton University, Babbitt

advocated for the institution of a Ph.D. in music composition and musicology, prioritizing

research as an important component of both disciplines. He was also instrumental in developing

electro-acoustic and computer music technology such as the RCA Mark II Synthesizer through

the Princeton-Columbia Electronic Music Center. Babbitt seemed less interested in the new sonic

possibilities electronic music offered, and drawn to it more for the “increased accuracy from the

transmitter (the performer)”27 for his difficult music. Ironically, such electronic music

developments would become instrumental in the popular styles that will be discussed later.

This emphasis on isolation in the ivory tower and the “advanced” composer-specialist

harkens back to composer-genius ideal, which was especially prevalent in the Romantic period.

Beethoven, of course, is seen as the pinnacle of this genius, as a composer who created

monumental and consequential works, despite his deafness. Author Anna Piotrowska writes of

this genius complex and how it presented itself in modernist composers and how it offered

“emancipation”:

In musicological tradition, Beethoven is credited with the radical change in the status of composers. Even

more than Mozart, Beethoven symbolized an emancipated composer independent of the court hierarchy; he

denied the concept of a composer servant working for his master, often asked to undertake several jobs,

sometimes unconnected with musicianship, or expected to perform on an instrument, conduct an orchestra,

teach and finally compose. 28

                                                                                                                       
26
Allan Kozinn, “Elliott Carter, Composer Who Decisively Snapped Tradition, Dies at 103,” The New York Times,
November 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/arts/music/elliott-carter-avant-garde-composer-dies-at-
103.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed December 11, 2012).
27
Babbitt, 155  
28
Piotrowska, Modernist Composers and the Concept of Genius, 238
 Williams 11

She also writes, “Composers knew they were expected to alienate themselves from ordinary

citizens and flock with other artists, thus creating the image of the artistic bohemian.”29 Echoing

Elliott Carter’s words, she quotes Roberto Gerhard, “not knowing for whom he writes, not being

able to pretend to please anybody in particular, he has decided, rightly or wrongly, to please

himself. One can see only too clearly how this gradual loosening of his social attachments

favours the composer’s emancipation from every kind of traditional convention.”30

Most importantly, she argues:

The artist became the destined one – often writing for the future and aware of his task. Freed from the

social constraints of court dependency, composers were believed to have a ‘mission’ to accomplish –

dedicating themselves to the “esoteric idealism”, they cherished the image of a lonely, isolated and

suffering ‘martyr’ who is “a law unto himself”, as Modest Musorgski once remarked. This notion would be

picked up by Modernist composers, but in a different, rather critical light.31

While the composer should be free to pursue their art in any means they see fit, with or

without public acceptance, the total dismissal and almost scorn of the audience was a

revolutionary break from the past, perhaps more so than the dodecaphonic technique. According

to Richard Taruskin, “Boulez was overheard at Darmstadt to say that the age of the concert had

passed; scores need no longer be played, just ‘read’ – i.e., analyzed.”32 If true, this suggestion not

only furthers the notion of the composer-genius who could realize such difficult pitch and

rhythmic materials along with orchestration in their head, but more importantly, it would further

alienate the musical illiterate who depend on listening alone for their appreciation of musical

works.

                                                                                                                       
29
Piotrowska, 234
30
Piotrowska, 235
31
Piotrowsja, 233
32
Taruskin, 37  
 Williams 12

Resistance

Ned Rorem, best known for his sensuous and tonal vocal writing opened his essay, “The

Music of The Beatles” with a pointed attack:

I never go to classical concerts any more [sic] and I don’t know anyone who does. It’s hard still to care

whether some virtuoso tonight will perform the “Moonlight” Sonata a bit better or a bit worse than another

virtuoso performed it last night. But I do often attend what used to be called avant-garde recitals, though

seldom with delight, and inevitably I look around and wonder: what am I doing here?33

The rest of this essay is analysis and praise of the music of The Beatles. Rorem’s anger against

modernists is to be expected, given their powerful place in the classical music world and his

stark contrast with them. But why ally himself with the popular rock band?

To borrow from the great Bob Dylan, the times, they were a-changin’, and the divisions

between popular and classical music were beginning to fall again. Despite the efforts of some

avant-garde composers to isolate themselves, the mainstream had taken notice, and in a big way.

The Beatles were inspired by Stockhausen’s sound world and that inspiration could be heard in

their celebrated album of 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. To pay homage, they put

a picture of him on the album’s cover along with many other intellectual and cultural icons.

Ligeti’s Atmosphères, Requiem, and Lux Aeterna could be heard with prominence in Stanley

Kubrick’s landmark 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, notably, without Ligeti’s permission and

to his chagrin. The Beatles and others also incorporated electronic music innovations of these

two composers, who both experimented and did work at the Cologne Radio.

Around the same time, post-modernist composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies and

George Rochberg were reincorporating and appropriating tonal idioms, techniques, tropes, and

even previously composed works into eclectic pieces. Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad
                                                                                                                       
33
Ned Rorem, “The Music of The Beatles,” The New York Review of Books, January 18, 1968,  
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1968/jan/18/the-music-of-the-beatles/?pagination=false (accessed
December 12, 2012).
 Williams 13

King is often held up as the quintessential example of post-modern composition. The piece

proceeds in almost Ivesian fashion, mixing atonality, Baroque, and early popular music styles,

and tunes recorded on a mechanical organ owned by King George III. At one point, after a quote

from Handel’s “Comfort Ye” from Messiah, the baritone portraying the Mad King sings the odd

lyrics, “With singing and with dancing. With milk and with apples. The landlord at the Three

Tuns makes the best purl in Windsor,” accompanied by a burlesque rag arrangement of the

Handel aria.

In pieces like Ancient Voices of Children, Black Angels, and A Little Suite for Christmas

A.D. 1979, George Crumb appropriated hymns, works by Bach and Schubert, along with world

music styles like Flamenco. Gunther Schuller combined dodecaphonic techniques with jazz in a

style he called, “Third Stream.” In writing of the justifications of this style, he sounds like an

ethnomusicologist, “It is a way of making music which holds that all musics are created equal,

coexisting in a beautiful brotherhood/sisterhood of musics that complement at fructify each

other.”34 Yet unlike Gershwin or Bernstein, Schuller’s Third Stream in works like Variants on a

Theme of Thelonious Monk and Abstraction, seems less like a unification, and more of a meeting

between two styles, almost demarcated into sections of free jazz and modernism.

Like many borrowed terms applied to music, “post-modernism” is a slippery and unclear

categorization. Yet some identifying aspects include appropriation of styles of the past and their

tropes or idioms, a surviving dissonant, atonal, or even serialist language passed down from

modernism, all unified in an eclectic manner. This eclecticism is sometimes ironic, and borders

on irreverence for the appropriated material, subject matter of the piece, or any and everything

else. Yet again, not all of these aspects are present in every piece labeled “post-modern.” George

                                                                                                                       
34
Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (New York: Picador, 2007), Kobo e-book, Ch.
14, 16.
 Williams 14

Rochberg’s tonal variations in his Third String Quartet were completely sincere and written as

the composer found that his serial language was incompatible with his need to mourn his late

son.35

Minimalism and After

While the post-modernists were appropriators of some aspects and tropes of popular

music, the famed minimalists composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass were assimilators of the

genre. Minimalism is another one of the poorly defined and borrowed “-isms” which a variety of

composers are lumped into, but its ancestral roots are clear: the focus on processes which guided

the serialists, John Cage’s philosophy of appreciation and respect for sound for its own sake, and

experimentations in extreme length by Morton Feldman and La Monte Young.36 This all led to

Terry Riley’s In C, which incorporated all of those elements along with unashamed tonality. This

tonality, however, evolves in a slow and gradual process, defying traditional conventions of

“functional” harmony. In C is an aleatoric work of open instrumentation composed of 53 cells. A

performance lasts between 45 minutes to an hour and a half.37 The piece can obviously be

performed in concert or recital, but it also lends itself well to alternative spaces like the lofts,

empty warehouses, galleries, and nightclubs of New York City. Riley has made the score free

and open to public access through an online download. Many musicians can attest to late night

improvisatory sessions with the work.

This nontraditional performance venue aesthetic was passed down to Reich and Glass

who performed around the world like indie rock musicians or jazz combos with their personal

ensembles Steve Reich and Musicians and The Philip Glass Ensemble. Both, especially Reich,

                                                                                                                       
35
Taruskin, 434
36
Ross, Ch. 14, 121
37
Terry Riley, “Performing Directions,” In C (Terry Riley/Celestial Harmonies), 1989.
 Williams 15

point to rock and jazz influences in their musical output.38 In turn, artists such as the Velvet

Underground, Brian Eno, and David Bowie were inspired by the two minimalists, and could be

spotted at concerts of their works.39

Both composers also looked to non-Western traditions for inspiration. Reich, who

proclaimed that “all music turns out to be ethnic music,”40 studied African drumming in Ghana,

and Balinese Gamelan in the US.41 These, no doubt, influenced his heavy use of poly- and

interlocking rhythms. Glass’ use of additive and subtractive tonal and modal streams evokes

Indian music, and indeed, the composer collaborated with the sitar master Ravi Shankar on a

number of projects, including Passages.

Of course, most of the great “-isms” in life are followed by their “post-ism” and

minimalism is no exception. Post-minimalism is perhaps the most ill-defined of the stylistic

categories in contemporary music. These composers utilize some patterns and processes, but not

exclusively. They often incorporate other styles, techniques, and idioms into their writing that

disqualify them from being considered purely minimalists. Unlike their predecessors, these post-

minimalists often engage in more obvious appropriation and assimilation of popular music.

John Adams is perhaps the most known and celebrated of this category. His works often

employ Glass-like bouncing pulsations or the Reich-like polyrhythms, but often include

Expressionistic soundscapes, Mahlerian orchestrations, or heroic Wagnerian vocal writing in his

many operas. Funk, jazz, and rock influences can be heard in works like Harmonielehre,

Lollapalooza, Hallelujah Junction and his most celebrated opera, Nixon in China. Yet these

elements are not appropriated in post-modernist collage fashion, but integrated and assimilated

into Adams’ musical voice.

                                                                                                                       
38
Ross, Ch. 14, 122  
39
ibid, Ch. 14, 125-130
40
ibid, Ch. 14, 100
41
Steve Reich, official website, “Biography,” http://www.stevereich.com/ (accessed December 13, 2012).  
 Williams 16

Other post-minimalists’ popular music influences are more pronounced and seem less

assimilated with their other techniques. Michael Daugherty, for one, appropriates much from

popular culture in pieces like Raise the Roof, a percussion concerto with wind band, and

Metropolis Symphony for symphony orchestra. The pop culture references here are obvious,

“raise the roof” being an urban neologism calling for fellow partiers to have a great time

together. The piece is abounding with rock and funk inspired rhythms and harmonies. The

Metropolis Symphony is inspired by original stories of Superman from DC Comics. It is

complete with a “Red Cape Tango” with quotations of the Dies Irae to mourn the death (or

apparent death, depending on the timeline you prefer) at the hands of Doomsday.42 Yet pieces

like his Bells for Stokowski, another work for band, are much more “straight ahead” and seemed

grounded in tradition.

As you can see, like jazz, minimalism is an American innovation, but it has been taken up

with great success by European composers as well. There are, of course, the “Sacred” or “Holy”

minimalists such as Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener, but others such as Dutch

composer Louis Andriessen take a more secular approach. Much of Andriessen’s work seems to

be uniquely influenced by American popular culture. His music is much more dissonant than that

of many other minimalists. It also incorporates jazz and funk influences. Sections of pieces like

Hout, Workers Union, and De Materie often sound like long written out Bebop improvisations

with harsh harmonies and timbres. These timbres are created by Andriessen’s unique

orchestrations which often forgo the standard symphony orchestra in favor of ensembles with

large brass and woodwind sections. Synthesizers, saxophones, electric guitars, and amplified

voices are all commonplace in Andriessen ensembles.

                                                                                                                       
42
Michael Daugherty, official website, “Metropolis Symphony,”
http://www.michaeldaugherty.net/index.cfm?pagename=works# (accessed December, 13 2012).
 Williams 17

Andriessen’s American culture obsession comes to a head in his opera Death of a

Composer: Rosa – A Horse Drama. The opera’s plot is the investigation of the death of a

fictional composer Juan Manuel de Rosa (other librettos in the series by Peter Greenaway

concern actual composers like John Lennon and Webern), who is film composer for cowboy

Westerns.43 The opera seems to serve as a critique of American culture, as gratuitous violence,

nudity, and troubling implications of animal lust and cruelty are explored as the investigators

recreate the circumstances of the death.

If Andriessen is influenced by American culture, then his fellow Dutch composer Jacob

ter Veldhuis is obsessed with it. This obsession is perfectly embodied by his nickname, JacobTV.

According to his website:

Jacob TV is preoccupied with American media and world events and draws raw material from those

sources…TV makes superb use of electronics, incorporating sound bytes from political speeches,

commercials, interviews, talk shows, TVangelists, and what have you - a colorful mix of high and low

culture.44

TV is perhaps most known for his “boombox” (which he sometimes refers to as “ghetto blaster”)

pieces for solo or chamber instruments with fixed electronics. These electronics are often

arranged melodically with the live instrumental parts playing in unison or harmony with it. Some

of his most popular boombox pieces include, Body of Your Dreams (electronics taken from a

fitness machine infomercial), I Was Like Wow (using excerpts from Purple Hearts, a

documentary about the Iraq War), Jesus is Coming (using sound clips from televangelists and

street preachers) and Grab It! (using explicit excerpts from Scared Straight, a documentary

showing prison inmates trying to teach at risk youth the price of crime).

                                                                                                                       
43
Yayoi Uno Everett, “Parody with an Ironic Edge: Dramatic Works by Kurt Weill, Peter Maxwell Davies, and
Louis Andriessen,” Music Theory Online, Volume 10, Number 4, (Dec., 2004), Society for Music Theory,
http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.04.10.4/mto.04.10.4.y_everett.html (accessed December 13, 2012).
44
Jacob Ter Veldhuis, official website, “Bio,” http://www.jacobtv.net/bio/cv.html (accessed December 13, 2012).  
 Williams 18

JacobTV’s work harkens back to Steve Reich’s tape pieces It’s Gonna Rain, Come Out,

and the tape and string quartet work Different Trains. TV’s language though, is much more

obvious in its Bebop, funk, and rock influences. This is also evident by the several versions and

arrangements of many of his works. Body of Your Dreams is originally for solo piano, but an

arranger was authorized to transcribe it for saxophone quartet. Originally for tenor saxophone,

Grab It! has versions for electric guitar, percussion, and electric guitar, bass and improvising

drum kit among others.45

Finally, we return to Mason Bates, one of the newest practitioners of popular music

infused classical works. While Bates and others do not explicitly refer to him as a post-

minimalist, his style could very be seen as a new evolution of the style, substituting funk, rock,

and jazz influences for techno and other EDM styles. Pieces like Sea-Blue Circuitry, The B-

Sides, and Mothership, his commission from the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, employ

bouncing minimalist pulsations and flourishes, yet he incorporates idioms and tropes from styles

like techno and dubstep.

After studying with contemporary classical powerhouses like John Corigliano, David Del

Tredici, and Samuel Adler, Bates became a DJ, working at parties and clubs. He soon started

conceiving ways to integrate these two genres.46 While Bates has achieved great successes, his

music still seems to be in a discovery stage, often employing cliché post-minimalist or EDM

tropes in a demarcated fashion. In the opinion of this writer, the pop influences do not seem to

have the innovation and boldness of artists like Daft Punk, David Guetta, Deadmau5, Nero, or

Skrillex, nor does the classical foundation in these works match the craft of his former teachers

or minimalist and post-minimalist predecessors. In addition, the styles have not yet become a

                                                                                                                       
45
Jacob Ter Veldhuis, “All,” JacobTV’s BOOMBOX Shop+Info, http://www.boomboxshop.net/jacobtv/SOLO.html
(accessed December 13, 2012).
46
Druckenbrod, “Composer/Club DJ…”  
 Williams 19

unified voice. Yet, Bates is young, and it seems that the classical establishment sees much

potential in him.

Conclusion

Returning to the aforementioned review by Andrew Druckenbrod of Bates’ Violin

Concerto, we see a critic, very much a part of the local classical music establishment in

Pittsburgh, essentially place the future of the Western orchestra on the young composer:

I will fully admit I might be putting too much onto Mr. Bates' back. But we need a hundred Bates to

connect orchestras with today's world. Not in a token fashion but on even terms. The art of electronica

wizards like Deadmau5 with the art of the orchestra. The concert itself was a case study. Opening with a

lightweight Haydn symphony (No. 68) and that bombastic "Organ" Symphony, it was the premiere that

compelled. Yes, Mr. Bates outdid Haydn and Saint-Saens Friday night, at least in my opinion. But it could

have been more so. 47

With his many awards, commissions, and residency at Chicago, Bates is certainly a new star in a

classical music world looking for fresh young faces to attract younger audiences. However,

Bates’ stardom has not seemed to earn him favor with the ivory tower. As of yet, Bates has not

been honored by establishment awards such as the Grawemeyer or Pulitzer Prize. Many of the

recent recipients of these awards such as Kevin Puts, Jennifer Higdon, and David Lang, while

young, mostly operate in a traditional or “accepted” purview of the university/symphony

orchestra establishment. Not too long ago, however, this could not be said of Pulitzer Prize

winner David Lang, one of the co-founders of the Minimalist/Post-Minimalist collective Bang on

a Can. Yet with his appointment to the composition faculty at Yale, we see an example of

institutionalization, or at least acceptance, of the style into academia.

In some ways, an outsider to academia and perhaps not the first choice of the aging

concert-going crowd, Bates is perhaps a last ditch effort to attract younger audiences by
                                                                                                                       
47
Druckenbrod, “Review…”
 Williams 20

orchestras who are going bankrupt and seeing shrinking endowments.48 This effort is not ill-

informed. While their methods were questionable, the ruling post-war Soviets knew that music

was strongest when it sought to connect to the emotions, sorrows, hopes, and aspirations of the

listener. While it is not impossible for dodecaphony and other modernist styles to accomplish

this, we see a group of composers willing to leave the public behind and no longer bother with

their need for new art.

Bates and other minimalist and post-minimalists have become revolutionaries for,

essentially, returning to tradition. Yet, while their tools are familiar, they are creating new and

innovative music that has the potential to connect to a new generation of listeners and knock

down the wall between “art” and “popular” genres. Through their appropriation, they

acknowledge the interconnectivity between musics, especially given the fact that technological

and musical advancements and innovations by modernists like Babbitt, Stockhausen, Ligeti, and

Boulez led to the technology used by EDM composers today. Techno, dubstep, house, and other

EDM styles have also drawn on minimalist aesthetics. It is only fitting that classical composers

continue to acknowledge this circle of creative output. Their appropriation points toward an

egalitarianism where genres once seen as “high” and “low” become equally valid.

                                                                                                                       
48
Ted Gavin, “Saving American Symphony Orchestras in Four Movements,” Forbes, January 18, 2012,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedgavin/2012/01/18/saving-american-symphony-orchestras-in-four-movements-2/
(accessed December 13, 2012).
 Williams 21

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