„Discover the world of Bohuslav Martinů. We carry it forward with devotion.“
start exploring"What is it really with this modern music?" I hear this question very often nowadays, and whoever asks it always believes that we can explain everything they want to know in two sentences. We usually refer them to listening to this or that work, which of course doesn't help them much, because understanding must come to each person on their own. This article, too, is not any kind of "explanation," but merely a reflection that may help toward understanding.
I will avoid solutions that lead the subject into vague territory, which everyone interprets in their own way, and will stick instead to the technical and historical side of things. If we combine a little history with the present, and with reflection on future possibilities, we arrive at more positive standpoints than the slogans about Life, Art, feelings, machines, aeroplanes, electricity, bars, and so on, which often tie the whole system into a Gordian knot. We notice that nearly all contemporary music grows under the sign of slogans, often quite dominant ones, which become almost a prescription for creating new works, and in most cases present themselves as groundbreaking and sensational.
At the same time, contradictory slogans appear, for whenever one composer writes something unusual, remarkable, another writes the exact opposite out of a desire for difference and sensation. This is the danger of our time.