Todd Colemana and Professor Stephen Jones, Music
Art music composition in the 20th century has been characterized by rapid development and change in theory and practice. With the resultant diversity of concurrent stylistic traits, personal philosophies on the purpose of music, harmonic languages, and aesthetic approaches, it is difficult to make any broad generalizations about composition of serious music in our time and the direction it is going.
Many listeners, even among the well-educated, feel irreconcilably distanced from current musical trends due to the apparent complexity and inaccessibility of the fundamental harmonic language and syntax used by many of this century’s most prominent composers. Closer consideration of past musical eras reveals a similar gulf between the tastes of the general public and contemporary developments in music.
Most of the composers now deemed masters were often considered to be ‘out of touch’ radicals by their contemporaries. This is true throughout the history of many of the Fine Arts. It often takes decades, even centuries, to discern the true value and more profound meaning of many great works of art.
As a student of music composition, I have learned a wide variety of compositional techniques and theoretical approaches pertinent to my craft. However, the aesthetic and philosophical concerns of music and its purpose aren’t included in my Undergraduate training at the University. I am left to determine my own position on music and its relationship to an audience. Who am I writing for? What am I trying to communicate? Do I want to be ‘accessible’ to a large general audience, or to a refined musical elite? It is with these questions in mind that I approached the composition of my most recent work, “In the Beginning…”, a commission from the Brigham Young University Department of Music.
The work was written as part of a new program instituted by the Department of Music to foster the creation and performance of new music at B.Y.U. I faced a number of personal challenges in fulfilling this commission. The first was primarily a technical concern: do I posses the skills necessary for the task at hand? The requirements for such a large work for full orchestra go far beyond the basic proficiency demanded by the normal curriculum. The second, and perhaps more troubling question: what audience am I writing for? and, do I alter my compositional ideas gleaned from ‘inspiration/intuition’ accordingly?
Ultimately, I found that my compositional ideas and goals could be suited to the intended audience by meeting them half way. I would not ‘write down’ to them, but would utilize material and techniques sufficiently familiar to them that they could follow the musical logic and drama of the piece. Good art provides a delicate balance between old and new. The old provides a frame of reference to explore that which is new.