Do you wonder what I mean by "de-mythologizing music?" Classical music is full of myth, religiose dogma, pastoral legend and mostly a lot of irrelevant nonsense ~ repeated by pompous music critics and narrowly highbrow radio announcers who can't convey a passion for much of anything. Oftentimes, the observations made about classical music seem about as fresh as a musty Victorian anecdote and are relayed in a hopelessly baroque, perfumey prose style that all but died out with Jane Austen. If you've ever read a concert review or advance feature about classical music and wondered why it doesn't read like anything else in the newspaper, why the writing is injected with more saccharine and syrup than insight or spirit, why the tone can't escape being sanctimonious and worshipful while it strains to be analytical, then you know what it's like to suffer a classical music hack attack.
Personally, I think there has to be a better way to convey a love of classical music to people who are genuinely curious about it, whether they're old hands or new initiates. The best commentators on classical music respect the intelligence and skepticism of their readers. They describe the aural and visual elements of music so as to make it tangible and real. They reveal a broad historical and cultural context that connects music to the great ideas of its time and our own. They don't feel the need to go out on a limb with preposterously exaggerated judgements or tow the line of gratuitous iconoclasm. Nor are they so intellectually overdrawn on their accounts that they frequently state the obvious and represent it as insight.
When I created this website, I wanted a repository for some of my own writings on music. But I also thought it would be fun to expose the pitfalls of bad writing on music, the first and worst of which is an eager predisposition to mythologize the music.
Below, you'll find my quick and painless primer on classical (music) mythology. There are also transcripts of a few of my old Q&As with musicians, a shelf from my feature article library, and some links to other music sites. In addition, you can check out a bio on the composer I most consider to be a personal hero, a man whose industrious breadth of interests remains an inspiring antidote to the stifling narrowness of specialization and whose enduring achievements in at least one area make a convincing argument for following your passions.
~ David Bündler
Here are a few of my favorite myths:
1. The Myth of the Composer Deity
Classical music is the food of the gods and only the divine are capable of creating it.2. The Myth of the Super Conductor
There's magic in that stick, and all a great conductor has to do to instantly inspire his musicians is wave it.3. The Myth of the Exclusionary Rule
Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Respighi and all the other populist types don't belong in the Pantheon with Bach, Beethoven, Brahms or Schubert, Schoenberg, Scelsi.The only concern of music history is music.The only American orchestras that matter are the ones in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland.6. The Myth of Perpetual Revolution
The whole point of music is to keep turning the world on its head.Good music is supposed to be beautiful.There are two ways to play anything -- "old school" and "new school" -- and "old school" is usually superior.9. The Myth of the Life Or Death Performance
Every performance matters, and every flaw is a sin against humanity.It is futile to ask WWJD -- What would Johann (Sebastian Bach) do?Classical music was the pop music of centuries past ~ and today's pop is tomorrow's classical.12. The Myth of Imminent Extinction
Classical music is on the ropes.
Here are some transcripts of interviews I've done over the years with various people in music. Admittedly, Q&A is a lazy format that's boring to read, but it offers both the subject and the interviewer in the raw. You can watch me ask dumb questions as I get to know these musicians a half hour at a time.
The composer talks about his opera "A View from the Bridge" and other projects -- with lots of detours into obscure corners of music history.An impromptu chat about nothing in particular with a pianist who was known as a master of spontaneityOn his arrival as a "name" composer, music in the icy ether and not having to be a revolutionary if he doesn't want toA conductor leaves his plum gig with the Houston Grand Opera after 18 years in order to do symphonic repertoire in Wisconsin but ultimately decides he can't live without opera.An abstract discussion with one of the founders of the French "spectralism" movement in contemporary music, conducted a couple of years before his premature death.Kennedy (aka Nigel Kennedy, The Nige, The Punk, The Bad Boy, The Fiddler on the Loose)
An unexpurgated Q&A with the British violinist the like of which you won't see in the New York Times, L.A. Times, etc.The story of subharmonics or how a Juilliard violinist, while noodling around one winter's day, discovered a whole register of notes below the G stringThe hermit of Orkney talks about Maxwell Davian things like magic squares, the Fires of London and life on HoyViolinist, conductor, teacher, honorary peer of the realm, patrician man of the people, Zen-like man of the worldDowntown composer whose music sounds more like hip hop than bang on a can classical traditionThe Chicago Symphony's resident composer on why music is her whole life and why the phrase "female composer" is fightin' words
The science, engineering and art of concert hall acoustics in a nutshellA Perspective on the Davidsbündler
A brief history of the "League of David" (and how I became David Bündler)The Composer's Guide to Knocking on Doors
A practical reference for composers who want to submit their manuscripts over the transom to American orchestrasA handy guide to the critical argot -- or how to sound like a pompous ass without really tryingThe birth of Italian opera under the House of BardiAbout the musical legacy of Mexico and South America under the Spanish yokeA brief advance story on a Mostly Ockeghem concert by Anonymous 4 and LionheartWhat "Messiah?" Why Delilah's boyfriend is overdue for his own resurrectionA report on the 1996 Shostakovich Festival at California State University, Long Beach, including a lecture on Shostakovich and his ventriloquistsA rant on Southern California concert presenters who offer their patrons too few chances to hear music written by womenA list of my own musical compositions, transcriptions and translations
Classical Composers' Photo Archives
An excellent archive of photographs, prints, paintings, drawings and any other kind of rendering of composers from the high magnitudes to the lesser lightsThomas Cobbe Collection of Composer Portraits
These portraits of music people are stylized likenesses by the artist Thomas Cobbe... nearly a thousand of themIndiana University's Cook Music Library listing of composer and resource websitesA useful collection of writings for Bax evangelists and enthusiasts everywhere (anywhere?)George Frideric Handel Website
Find out what Handel was doing on almost any given day or link to other sitesGustav Holst Website by Kenric Taylor
Whatever you think of his music, Gustav Holst was probably a more interesting guy to know than Gustav MahlerA guide to Soviet music with a Southern Illinois University slantAnything you want to know about cellos and cellists, including full-length online books by Emanuel Feurmann, Gregor Piatigorsky, etc. Sadly, the all-knowing Dr. Cello -- Marshall St. John -- is no longer webmaster of this useful siteThe World of William Osborne & Abbie Conant
Check out the articles index of composer Osborne and his trombonist wife Conant to get the latest and most complete rants about gender bias among Europe's most prominent orchestrasArticles and links on pioneering luthier Carleen Hutchins and her violin octet familyJanet Horvath's outstanding injury prevention and therapy ideas for musicians in pain
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