THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMPOSER

Having vented my spleen in describing what is wrong with the classical tradition as it is offered today, it now behooves me to describe how it could be reformed. Foremost in my list of how the presentation classical music could be improved would be to dispense with the risible fiction that audiences are interested only in hearing the same concert war-horses over and over again. Some dullards are, but the distinguishing characteristic of an intelligent person is his eagerness to learn and discover new things. By presenting the same stale chef d'oeuvres, programming directors miss their target audience, for intelligent people are now staying home rather than filling concert halls. The pity of the situation is that there is a wealth of extraordinary music which is not being performed because programmers believe that we'd rather hear the selections contained in the Time-Life collection of classical favorites. The previous screed of this series discussed how fine works by women composers, pieces once celebrated as masterpieces, are neglected today, but another issue is how seldom compositions by living composers are performed.

It is simply not true that all music written within the past fifty years is atonal, harsh and discordant. Much of the contemporary music now offered is, but this may be due in part to political considerations—if Dr. Balderdash, Ph.D., the professor of communication arts and composition at the local university has a new one-movement symphony to offer, it would be impolitic tell him to take a flying leap with it, especially if the orchestra's budget is up for review by the regional council. But music has recently been written that does not "push the envelope" (please note that I use that phrase facetiously) or try one's patience or attempt to be audacious. There is music by composers living today that is not an acquired taste, does not require prolonged study to understand, and is both comprehensible and enjoyable to the average intelligent music lover.

One of these composers is Marjan Mozetich, who was born in Italy in 1948. His family immigrated to Ontario in 1952, and he is a graduate of the University of Toronto where he studied under the noted experimentalist John Weinzweig. An early success with a string quartet led to several government grants which he used to journey to Rome where he suffered private instruction with the late Luciano Berio. This was followed by more awards and a master class with the Italian composer Franco Donatoni.

Thus far, the Mozetich story sounds similar to that of the very composers I complain about. But then, in the mid 1970s, Marjan Mozetich had a revelation while on the road to Cacophony. He became dissatisfied with modernism and dissatisfied with his own modernist compositions. The basis of his instruction was that composers were, as he later reflected, supposed "to create a hypothesis and then realize it musically, like a research paper. I thought this was ridiculous."

Most people go through a period of rebellion during adolescence. Young people like experimental things and like to experiment. Too much make-up, gaudily styled hair, drug use, tattoos, noise music—it's all cut from the same cloth. Emergence from this period is called maturity. Marjan Mozetich realized his musical maturity early, and the result was music with emotion in it. The catalyst for this change was minimalism, and as I've said, whatever the merit of the music by Philip Glass, he is one of the most important figures in the history of music because he changed the course of classical composition away from atonality and dissonance. Minimalism itself may be of debatable value, but it did set the stage for the composers who have used minimalism as a starting point and proceeded from there. The admirable Michael Nyman is one such composer, but Mozetich strayed even farther from elementary minimalism, and his music is not written in a repeated series of short "cells" as are the works of Philip Glass.

Initially, though, the music of Mozetich does strike one as being minimalist. But in each piece, change is soon introduced; tension and conflict gradually build in the manner of Beethoven until there is a sudden release of breath. Tension and release, tension and release—and permeating it all is a plaintive Slavic melancholy. This is why Mozetich has sometimes been classified as a "Neo-Romantic." Women are moved by his works. Curiously, his music contains few western influences; there is no jazz in it, no rock, no easy listening or pop. It dances and sings, but they are Old World dances and songs. It is not reminiscent of science fiction, yet there is less garlic in it than in Bartók. It is shimmering, clean. If it is minimalist, then it is the minimalism of fractals, not of Tinker Toys.

Whenever I hear contemporary music, I often wonder how it was written. When the composer had a flash of inspiration, did he immediately stop and write it in a notebook such as Beethoven carried? Or did the idea throb and pulse until he could rush home and get it down on paper or into his computer? Most modern pieces seem to me as if they were instead written because a deadline was approaching, and he had to quickly write something to show for his grant money. How much skill and labor go into the typical modern composition? Is it based on inspiration and emotion? Or a gimmick?

In contrast to modern composers of musical abstract-impressionism, Marjan Mozetich is of the old school. Each piece is finely crafted, planned, worked-out, revised and polished. There is form and development; the music has a flow that makes each succeeding passage seem inevitable, as if that is what absolutely had to occur next. When intense passages resolve, they do so in an emotionally satisfying manner, as according to a plan or a narrative. At no time does the music seem hastily thrown together or merely assembled. Not only is it a return to emotion in music, but it is the reemergence of old-world craftsmanship.

Marjan Mozetich has a web site at http://www.mozetich.com and I have written to him there. He has granted permission to post brief excerpts of his recorded works here. All are from CDs of the CBC label, and they are available from the sponsors of the Classical Archives or at your local independent record shop. (CBC records are distributed in the USA by Allegro.)

The first excerpt is from the beginning of his harp concerto, "The Passion of Angels," and it demonstrates the characteristic building of tension as well as the slight cast of minimalism. This excerpt is taken from the CD Affairs of the Heart, (CBC 5200) which also features his exquisitely brooding Violin Concerto of that name, as well as a suite of shorter pieces for strings under the collective title, "Postcards from the Sky."

The second excerpt is from an early (1980) work by Mozetich, "Dance of the Blind," from an album titled Procession (CBC 1038). This was a giant step away from the "advanced" music of the twentieth century, for you will notice at once that there's an accordion playing. Not only that, but it's in the neglected meter of 3. That, of course, is precisely what was lacking in modern classical music—not enough accordion and not enough waltz! The minimalist substructure can be heard, but alternating minor thirds hardly consign a piece to the category of minimalism. Perhaps the music of Mozetich will beget an even newer classification—post-minimalism. (Please don't attribute this neologism to me.)

The final selection is the title track from the album Procession, and it demonstrates the subtle influence of Stravinsky. It is also for small ensemble, and it shows Mozetich in a lighter mood.

The spiky march of "Procession" is, however, not typical of the mature style of Mozetich, as his later works all exhibit a more romantic aura and an atrabilious flux. Still, throughout the variations of "Procession" this flux, this broodiness, is acute. There is something about modern society which makes the public airing of such music seem indecent. Why is it now so wrong to be sad? Play this music in America and you'll be given Prozac.

This is the reason I want to shout about Marjan Mozetich. His is the most truly radical music of our time, because it runs contrary to accepted modern character—the happy-smile face and the emoticon, the happy meal and the sit-com, Disney-think and all the inane, shallow, banal, puerile, crass, vapid and hackneyed music omnipresent today that represents itself as being modern and "cool." The music of Mozetich is not "cool." I'm tired of cool. Cool sucks. You can keep your cool and your antidepressants and your antiperspirants, because I'd rather be fully alive, and sadness and heartache are an essential part of being alive, and this is the music that at long last, again after all these years, expresses precisely that.

Got it?