Substitute ‘major labels’ and ‘digital media’ for ‘Catholicism’ and ‘pamphlet’ and it’s clear that we have an old-fashioned Reformation on our hands in the music business today. Obviously I’m with the Protestants.
[via kottke.org]
'Mozart devoured all he could of the music of Handel and Bach and earlier composers towards the end of his life … [He] knew Handel’s Messiah inside out, having made a new orchestration of the oratorio, and if you listen to the dotted rhythms in the strings of the Requiem’s first movement, the Introitus, and the first fugue theme of the Kyrie, and compare them to consecutive movements from the Messiah [Surely, He Hath Borne Our Griefs, then And With His Stripes], the similarity would have today’s copyright lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.'
Tom Service makes a critical point about aesthetic influence and borrowing in his recent Guardian piece on Mozart’s Requiem.
So allow me to play devil’s – not to mention artists’ – advocate for a radical deconstruction of ‘today’s copyright’: Would we have benefited as a society from lawers getting involved in Mozart’s reuse of Handel’s original content?
Here’s a welcome development in the publishing business – a major sheet music provider debuts an attractive digital platform for promotion of and affordable access to new music:
PSNY is an edition, in the most fundamental sense of the word: a curated, highly selective collection of works by contemporary composers, instantly available for download by ensembles, programmers, and music fans alike. PSNY offers new music in the simplest ways we could think of: instant downloads of DRM-free scores and parts, or printed hard copies, beautifully designed by David Rudnick.
And from the PSNY about page:
PSNY employs an interactive, media-rich online interface connecting musicians and audiences directly with the creators of new work. Composers, performers, and music lovers will all play an active role on the PSNY site, which has been designed expressly to accommodate and promote a new online space for the discovery and discussion of new music.
I hope that the project [a spin-off of Schott/European American] lives up to its promise, as we desperately need resources like this in the concert music business. My only caveats thus far: not much large ensemble music, and flash-only audio. Presumably both will change as PSNY grows and responds to user feedback.
[via Timo Andres, a PSNY pilot composer and our guest artist at the WCFSO in February]
'Loosening up the recording contracts is going to be an investment in getting higher quality orchestral music written across the board.'
Nothing in the orchestra biz drives me crazier than the unnecessary and counterproductive restrictiveness of recording contracts at most large ensembles. I regularly decry their stultifying effect on our potential to be relevant and engaged; in fact, nothing could be better for classical performers than opening up access to performance media in accordance with the vastly diminished value of recordings. Now composer Nico Muhly has entered the fray with another compelling reason why the symphonic community should radically rethink our handling of performance recordings.
[A note for Nico and composers in general: here at the WCFSO we make all performance media related to new works available not only to their creators but also – at each individual’s discretion – to the public online.]
The latest installment in Kirby Ferguson’s four-part Everything is a Remix series made the rounds yesterday, and given my feelings about the primacy of aesthetic influence and the stifling effects of copyright on the creative process I had to join in spreading its message. Earlier episodes covering remix in music and film are worth checking out as well.
[via imageoscillite]
