Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Events in the Life of Dane Rudhyar
- Introduction
- Part 1 Autumnal Decay: Seed Ideas
- Part 2 Wholeness: The Scope of the Orient
- Part 3 Rawness and Vigor, Innocence and Experience: An American Synthesis
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Endmatter
- Eastman Studies in Music
Chapter Eight - Adaptation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Events in the Life of Dane Rudhyar
- Introduction
- Part 1 Autumnal Decay: Seed Ideas
- Part 2 Wholeness: The Scope of the Orient
- Part 3 Rawness and Vigor, Innocence and Experience: An American Synthesis
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Endmatter
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Technical Disinterestedness and Spontaneity
For Rudhyar, art- and music making were not about commercial success, public fame, or technique. Pianist Anton Kuerti described and commented on Rudhyar's Theurgy:
Massive, sonorous, very thick and strong harmonies and chords, pianistic, hovers between the taste of a strong personality and a touch of amateurism. Worth a closer look. Now I should hasten to explain that “a touch of amateurism” is not necessarily meant in a negative way; I certainly prefer it with its innocence, freshness, and sincerity, to the so-called “professionalism” that passes for musical composition in most quarters these days.
This atechnical approach reflects Rudhyar's viewpoint that technique “is something that you should absolutely forget. It's of no value whatsoever after you gain it.” Such an attitude also resonates with the approach of Ives, who was on several occasions a target of charges of amateurism and even incompetence. Rudhyar believed that prolonged technical training often led to overspecialization, which, in turn produced professionalism only to undermine or neglect the crucial question: “Skill for what purpose?” In this respect, he associated technical skill with intellectual knowledge that operated best upon what he called “mechanistic structure.” This had sociocultural ramifications as well: in 1979, he continued to underline “fragmentation and specialization” as the sicknesses of modern Western culture, warning that techniques alone could “never go to the roots of any human issue.”
During the 1920s, Rosenfeld defiantly and idealistically compared the European preference for such “dogmas” as classicism, romanticism, impressionism, and neoclassicism with the American characteristics of “apparent indirection, experimentalism, fluidity.” Rudhyar's comments on Messiaen's music not only adopt Rosenfeld's view but also provide insight into his views on simplicity and spontaneity as opposed to intellectual planning:
take for instance, Messiaen, some of which I like very much. There is that very beautiful thing, 20 Regards sur l’enfant Jésus. Well, the first three pieces to me are wonderful. I mean, the first one is one of the most beautiful things in its simplicity that has been written in music. Then he has to have fifteen variations on it and it's so boring, you know … he had a long talk about Turangalila—the same thing. And he said, “Well, you have to extract all the possibilities of a theme” … a theme is kind of a little thing and then you put it there, do this, and do all sorts of things and people say, “Ah yes, that's still the same theme over and over but now it's developed.” That's intellectual. It has nothing to do with music.
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- Information
- Dane RudhyarHis Music, Thought, and Art, pp. 150 - 159Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009