Beat It, Michael Jackson. (A tribute)

This year marks the 5th year of the death of Michael Jackson. For me he's probably THE musician of the 20th century, together with Igor Stravinsky (Stravinsky wasn't even born in the 20th century) who I admire the most of that fascinating century. He was a symbol of perfection in everything he did. I admire him not only as a musician, but of course as a dancer as well, and he will be long, very long remembered for these 2 fields in his art. If Stravinsky revolutionized classical music, then MJ revolutionized pop music. Both with the elements of the music itself : the melodies (sometimes so simple : like those simple ones in IS's Rite of Spring and MJ's They Don't Care about Us). Still listening to him, I thought it's just appropriate to write a few lines about him in this month, June, of his assasination, 5 years ago. Dr. Conrad Murray, who had been caring for the pop star at the time of his death, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on November 7, 2011, later receiving a four-year prison sentence. .............................................................................................................................................. I remember the first thing of him that took my breath away was in fact not his music, but something else. Here's the scene: Michael Jackson, dressed in white suit and hat like a gangster guardian angel walks into a bar full of thugs, gamblers, and flappers, the music stops and everyone stares at him; he reaches for a gun - no, it's just a quarter, which he flips all the way across room where it slides perfectly into a jukebox coin slot. The song starts with a synthesized crash: As he came into the window / it was the sound of a crescendo....You've been hit by a Smooth Criminal. Dancing, fighting, dramatic pauses, a weird slow-motion interlude, and more dancing and fighting follow. Then it happened: Michael gives a smile, tilts his hat, and leans. Yes, he LEANS. He leans an amazing, impossible lean. It seems so simple but it's just. so. cool. When I saw it for the first time on screen, it was surely the coolest thing I had ever seen on TV. Later I believe he received a patent for the special device he used to do it. .............................................................................................................................................. But then of course his musical side was the thing that attracted me the most. Those riffs in Billie Jean, Bad and Thriller are just amazing ; they are the predecessors of the rhythms of today's Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and even Shakira. The album "Thriller" alone mixed the dark, serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of "Billie Jean," the grinding Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on "Beat It," and the hiccups and falsettos on "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." There are until now two works of mine that paid tribute to MJ : one is that short piece Thriller Fugue & Postlude (based on the name "Randy Ryan", my young pianist friend who's now studying at the Juilliard School in New York), and Vivaldi's Winter of Discontent (based on the music of Vivaldi's Winter, and a MJ-ish ostinato bass. In fact that ostinato was made up by myself, but it certainly wouldn't have existed without MJ's music. If you wanna listen to it, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1IeZfMRKI ). .............................................................................................................................................. It's been 5 years, but it seems a long time that we have missed a really fresh, innovative and daring kind of music. Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson.

Composing or retweeting? Whazza diff anyway?

If Bach were still alive today I am sure he'd use the Blackberry, not only to have a chat with Georg Friedrich Handel in London but also to squeeze inspiration out of it. Of course he'd also have less children (Bach still holds the record of the composer with the most children : 22, from 2 wives, although prolifically --I mean in musical production-- Telemann still holds the record according to Guinness book of records. What Guinness couldn't measure is of course the quality, not quantity. For me, Bach still holds the record for quality).

You have the whole world in your hands, literally, if you have Blackberry. Including that apparently time-wasting social network called Twitter. At Twitter, one can write for a maximum of 140 characters. And the art of literature has succumbed to it, like what happens with one of my favorite poet, M. Aan Mansyur. He has written "Twitter poems", which in fact not far from writing haiku. I am a keen follower of his twitter poems, they have a special flavour since it needs a particular sharpness to touch and move you in less than 140 characters. And needless to say, he achieved in making exquisite poems, each complete in itself in his tweets....
... which challenged me to do something with them. I have done the same with the haiku of another poet friend of mine, Abang Edwin, in my piece "Bangwin's Haiku", for soprano, clarinet and cello. It was done for the Dutch Trio "To Be Sung" (talking about peculiar combination of instruments!). So, I just finished "Retweeting @aanmansyur", a 4-minute piece for medium voice & piano. I admit, I do feel more at home making music from Aan Mansyur's twitter poems, since unlike haiku, they have more free forms.

Limitation is always a source of inspiration for me. It has been for other composers too. Stravinsky's Serenade had 4 movements, each of a duration designed so that they would fill one side of a 10-inch record. And of course we are always commissioned with the limitations as conditions : the (sometimes strange) combination of instruments, its duration, its background and in case of film, choreography or theatre we are limited in doing practically everything. In limitation I find freedom.

I am still new to the twitter world, just a few months ago that I start to join it. Am sure there will be more inspirations I can squeeze from it. If you wanna follow me and tweet me, my twitter address is http://twitter.com/anandasukarlan

How Indonesian am I?

The majority of foreign (read : non-Indonesian) public like to ask me whether my music is “Indonesian music”. I guess nobody would’ve dared to approach Manuel de Falla or Isaac Albeniz and ask them whether their music is “Spanish”; it was pretty obvious, eh? But not in my case. Not only that my music doesn’t sound quite “Indonesian”, but also because the definition of “Indonesian” in music is still not clear. Therefore the answer to “my” audience’s question is not that simple, and whether you like it or not, it automatically relates to the question “What is Indonesian classical music?”

Let me tell you a bit of my life. I was born and raised in Jakarta, a metropolitan city where traditions and culture had disappeared long time ago. Jakarta is worse than a melting pot : it is a place where people’s eyes only focus on one direction : to the USA. I was like that during my teenage years : I wanna be anything American. I was like that until my early 20s when I already lived in Europe for a few years and discovered that there is a LOT to be proud of to be Indonesian, culturally speaking. But I have lived in Europe since I was 17, and even before that, I missed absorbing that thing called “culture” of Indonesia, except through some small examples through recordings of gamelan music or very few programs on TV. So, I can say that my perceptions of Indonesian traditional music and culture are like any other European’s, although I had the big advantage of experiencing the Indonesian way of living, thinking and of course its language. And music, any kind of music, is born from its culture and language and they way we feel, express and talk.

But then Indonesian music is not just gamelan. Gamelan is only a teeny weeny bit of Indonesia, and even gamelan music has different kinds of scales, timbre and “style”. And I must say that I have been influenced more by the classical music that I listen to and love, from Bach to Britten, from Scarlatti to Stravinsky. And I have more composer friends in Spain than in Indonesia, with their strong character which not only influence MY musical language, but the whole Spanish classical musical scene of this period as well. So I might say that my brain is like a melting pot of so many spices and ingredients, and hope that something delicious comes out of it, eh?

When the black turned white (RIP Michael Jackson)

This morning, woken up and chased by the deadline of my piece for percussion and piano to be performed at the Meloritmos Festival in 3 weeks time, I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing away of my idol, Michael Jackson. He has certainly done to the 20th century world of music what Gustav Mahler did for the 19th century. Yeah, they are 2 different genres of music, but who is more influential to the music world in the fin-de-siecle period? How many composers (I mean "classical" ones) have been influenced by MJ ? I remembered talking passionately about MJ's music with 2 great figures, the late Sir Michael Tippett and Louis Andriessen (both of whose music have also influenced mine and my way of thinking). If you hear the "rap music" section in Tippett's opera NEW YEAR, well that was thanks to MJ. And I made my own version of rap music in my opera IBU--yang anaknya diculik itu, also thanks to MJ, in particular his Smooth Criminal. Two different versions, two different interpretations. Just two. I imagine there might be another ..10? 100? That is, I guess, what Stravinsky called "Music about music". And that proves just how rich MJ's music is and how he performed them, with his particular voice, body movements and style.
I can't help thinking about who, in my opinion, is the greatest figure of music in the second half of the 20th century. I won't agree if it were the Beatles, since their music is just "nice" and "beautiful" (which are 2 important elements as well!), but I doubt in the strength of the impact in the artistic world. You know what I mean, this posh circle of operas and contemporary classical music. If Mahler and Britten and especially Stravinsky were still alive, they won't be that immune from the strong influence of MJ, I bet you.
MJ's music has boldly gone where no man has gone before. RIP, Michael Jackson. I will always love you. And your music.

To boldly CHANGE that we can believe in

Now that's very fine, Mr. President, what you said about change. Most people are so conservative that they are afraid of any changes. In fact, one gets older in order to get settled down, and "well-established" instead of "seeking change, new life and new civilations". If one is comfortable with something, why change it, right? But what about this thing that happens to me now ? I am feeling a kind of change ... in my music. And it's not me who wanted this change. Now, that's ok, considering that I've been in and out writing music for the last 20 years, and I did have some changes in my musical language in the past. I do envy Rachmaninov who had been so consistent throughout his life. Even all his 4 piano concerti ends in the same manner: pam papapam !! (as if there are no other ways to end a piece of music). Oh yeah, I just finished my Rapsodia Nusantara no.4 a few days ago, and I was making sure that the ending is different from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd he he ..

Now back to change .. the thing is that I think I like my music more and more. I still am a Britten and Stravinsky wannabe, but hey, I write music because I want to listen to it and nobody has written it, that's why I write it down, right ? And then I know that many people also likes my music, and although I keep on telling this bulls**t to myself that "artists write not for people, but to express what they believe", I do feel flattered every time I realize that my music can "move" someone. Together with this change in my musical language, I also realized that I like new kinds of music which I wasn't really fond of previously. Two "H" composers have been my favorite lately : Hindemith and Hans Werner Henze. In the latter case, I even know him personally, and still wasn't a big fan of his music. Until recently, for the last few weeks.

So, what kind of change is happening ? First of all, with my 4th Rapsodia, I did something, an experiment if you like to call it so, which I never did before. I wrote about my method of composing in this blog about last month. At last it has 10 variations, but I couldn't avoid feeling rather jittery when I finished writing the variations, having 10 pieces of puzzle to construct. Even some silly questions popped up, such as "Why should the bare & naked theme appear in the beginning?" I still don't know if my "4th" would work as a solid construction, but that's the risk if one wants to "change". A work of art is never finished, said Paul Valery, and this phrase could serve as a big consolation in times like this ..

Another change is the harmony in my music : it's getting darker, and even thicker. Now usually when one gets older, his music tends to be simpler, more transparent. Just listen to all those guys : Beethoven, Liszt, oh well, most of them. And the bad news is ... I think you won't like it, folks. It's less "accessible", and shall we say, more "difficult listening" (in need for a better opposite of "easy listening").
Oh well, enough for now. Let me just go and boldly change. To seek out new music and new ideas .. Make it so, Number One! Energize !!

The Emperor's New Clothes

This is a translation of my article published in Spanish last month in a magazine in Spain.


"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All art of the past must be destroyed." -- (Pierre Boulez )

"I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media." ( Milton Babbitt )

"What happened there is (...) the biggest artwork of all times. That spirits achieve in a single act what we in music cannot dream of, that people rehearse ten years long like mad, totally fanatical for a concert and then die.This is the biggest artwork that exists at all in the whole universe...I couldn't match it." (K. Stockhausen, on the 9/11 attack ) . -- All quotes are from The New York Times.

Those three composers are supposedly "great" composers of the 20th century. Their piano works (in fact, ALL their works) were written "for the future" in the 1950s and 60s, when they were (and still are) a tough nut to crack for both the pianist and the audience. Now, if they were indeed "great", as Chopin or Bach undoubtedly were, why are their works still not in the repertory of most pianists or other instrumentalists ? And why don't we members of humanity, no matter how "retarded" we are according to those "great" artists, respect them now as we respect Beethoven or even their contemporaries such as Shostakovich or Benjamin Britten ? When is the "future" they were talking about ? Is 2007 not "future" enough for those works created half a century ago ?

The answer is simple. Boulez, Babbitt and Stockhausen are (or were) "great", because they rely on, and receive huge government subsidies and were leaders of a very small but controlling establishment consisting of academics, critics and art politicians. They are "great" according to their colleagues in this group, but not according to musicians and the public. In fact, their "avantgarde" music is mostly written against musicians and the public. It even goes so far as calling the 9/11 event "the greatest artwork" (see Stockhausen's quote above) , not only creating a work against people, but even more, killing (how can one be more against people ?) them all, "artists" and audience. In other words, they write music to gain, and only to gain, government subsidy. What Walt Whitman said, that "It takes great audience to make great poets" is not valid anymore for this kind of "art". In principle, government subsidies are supposed to be given to marginal artistic activities, and the more "minority oriented" that art is, the more it deserves subsidy ; this subsidy has enabled those artists to stay in their ivory towers without making any contributions at all to the public. Which is alright if one doesn't think of the amount of taxpayers' money that is used to subsidize those "artistic" works.

Let's take one example, the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique) who was built by Pierre Boulez in Paris. It was kitted out with equipment to Boulez's own specification to compose music for the future. IRCAM also swallowed 80% of the national subsidy for contemporary music of France(1) . It was built at a cost of 90 million francs and thereafter at a cost of 15 million a year to the French taxpayer for its concerts, staff and upkeep. It happened that in 1969 Boulez got Georges Pompidou to build for him a huge high tech underground bunker , beside the site of what was to become the Pompidou Centre. Now, in 2007, shall we look back and reflect on how many masterpieces have been created out of this building ? What I mean by masterpieces are works that the general public recognize as such, like Britten's War Requiem, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms or, coming from the other continent, Copland's Third Symphony. I don't have to answer this question. When I was living in Holland in the 1990s I had several encounters with"ex"avant-garde turned real composers, such as Toru Takemitsu, John Adams or Louis Andriessen. And it was in Holland that I met for the first time my amazing Spanish composer friends Jesus Rueda or David del Puerto (both winners of Premio Nacional de Musica, in 2004 and 2005 respectively). At that time, they were in a "transitional" period after getting out from the heavy influence of their avantgarde teacher, Paco Guerrero. All of them realized then, that our older colleagues had achieved their goals to "impress" the public by presenting them with uncommunicative works, and certainly they have gained a lot by doing that, but that we the younger generations have to pay for it. There have been composers at every corner of the street ever since, given that avantgarde music was designed to give jobs to many who could not compose in the sense of writing "traditional" music. Good or bad quality is not the criteria anymore. But there are simply not enough subsidy for all of them , whose works sound more or less the same.

Fortunately we are in a state of transition to a more audience-friendly kind of music. The avantgardists had achieved in emptying the concert halls, and now we will have to work harder to gain them back and convince them that the word "contemporary" is not equal to "avantgarde" ; on the contrary, "avantgarde" was a thing very much in the past, and not con ("with")-temporary (our time) anymore. This situation reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen's story, about an Emperor who is very fond of clothes. One day came 2 tailors, saying that they can make very special clothes that only good people can see. Naturally the emperor cannot see those clothes, but afraid of being called a bad person, he praises the beauty of the clothes. And if the emperor can see it, everybody in the whole country should do as well. Until comes a very young kid, much too young to be called a bad person, during the festive celebration of those clothes , shouting innocently, "Look, the Emperor is naked!"

A very good story about how to cheat the public. If you cannot design clothes, well, make the audience think that it is THEM who do not see -- or understand it.

Did I make a point ? If so, let's see how many composers can make a counterpoint ....

Article by Erza Setyadharma

Got the email with the article by Erza Setyadharma (founder of Indonesian Opera Society) in the "Kabar" magazine of last February. He is a big fan of my vocal music, and is busy at the moment in mounting Menotti's "The Telephone" in Jakarta for next month. Here is the article , cut & pasted from that mag :


Ananda Sukarlan, The Spider and Silence
Erza Setyadharma meets two of the most talented people performing in Indonesia at present: pianist Ananda Sukarlan and dancer and choreographer Chendra E. Panatan.
Ananda Sukarlan returned to the stage this New Year with A Trilogy Concert, a series of performances that took him from Bandung to Bali and back to Jakarta, where I was fortunate to witness Indonesia’s premier pianist in action.
As with many of his previous concerts, simplicity was the key to both performance and staging.
Opening the concert in a lively fashion with the funky rhythms of Igor Stravinsky’s Tango & Piano Rag Music, Ananda followed this catchy piece with his own composition from last year, Kama, with Farman Purnama as the tenor soloist. Based on the poetry of Ilham Malayu, written while he was in Bangkok prison on drug charges, Kama is truly unique; not only the words but also the musical composition, which draws on gamelan influences.
Later, another Ilham Malayu poem was the inspiration for a world premiere of Ananda’s new work, Spider’s Ballad, again with Farman Purnama as the tenor soloist. This is a piece that brought a wide grin to my face; the song is about an imprisoned man who experiences a moment of joy while watching an industrious spider as he creates his web. Ananda injects brilliant comical tones into the ballad, with the evocative arpeggio increasing in volume and speed as the spider weaves and weaves…
The David Del Puerto composition Alio Modo was truly intense. A piano piece created by David Del Puerto and dedicated to the victims of the Bali bombing on October 12th 2002, the song was visualized by Chendra E. Panatan’s contemporary choreography with dancers from Sumber Cipta Ballet. It started in silence, with empty chairs on stage. Dancers rolled in, dancing in silence. Ananda and Farman Purnama were also part of this life installation. The dance captivated the audience absolutely until suddenly the silence was broken with the first note of the piece. The movement thus became assimilated with the music; a very powerful collaboration.
Freedom from fear was the overriding theme of this collaboration. “The dancing movement in Alio Modo is about how to be free from being scared and worried,” Chendra tells me the next day when I meet him and Ananda in suite 1809 at the Shangri-La. “The chairs have two functions; partly as stage décor for the second half, partly to represent and symbolise the place of human existence. I would also like to emphasise the emptiness of terror or fear caused by violence acts. Through my choreography, I want to evoke visually the ambience of the music itself.”
Chendra’s choreography uses silence as its core and this is what inspired Ananda to adapt it to his music compositions. Chendra finds that Ananda’s music has the same background as his choreography. “For us the idea and concept should come first, music will follow. That’s why I always work in silence. I believe that silence is the mother of sound.”
Ananda describes his own music as “eclectic.” “It will always have elements of rhythm and certain chords that reflect my musical characteristics. If you notice, my music and singing always separate in order to create a different texture. It’s like a mini opera where they have recitative, interlude, instruments and the aria. It’s different to usual songs where the lyrics and music are all together.” He has been writing his own compositions since 1991 when he wrote a piece for string quartet. Not until 1998 did he feel that he had become truly fluent with composing.
“For me, composition is what to write, not only how to write. The depth and content are very important, not only beautiful notes and melodies.”
Indonesia itself is an important influence on Ananda’s work. “As a composer, I want to be more Indonesian, whether it’s the music or my inspirations. I think it is important to have a national identity as a composer.” His next project will be an opera that relects contemporary Indonesian life. “I am trying to define Indonesian opera and that is why everything in my opera will be Indonesian: Indonesian musicians and bahasa Indonesia as the language.”
Ananda is also keen to change people’s misperceptions of contemporary music, which he says often gets confused with a rather less accessible genre, avant-garde music. The basis of avant-garde music is atonal, meaning literally “not tonal”, a genre introduced by Arnold Schoenberg around 1912. Atonal music is that in which the composer systematically avoids reference to tonal centers by avoiding harmonic and melodic formulas. Contemporary classical music, on the other hand, keeps changing and evolving through time. “The current perception of contemporary music is that it is hard to understand, but it is not. The tendency of contemporary music these days is to go back to what classical music used to be. People often get mixed up between avant-garde music and contemporary music.”
So apparently contemporary music and dance are not scary or difficult: they are enjoyable! Bravo to Ananda Sukarlan and friends, this was really a delightful start to the year.

Composer - interpreter : Friends forever ?

I found out today among the heap of letters received during my absence that my article is published in the December edition of "El Rapto de Europa" magazine who commissioned it. I wrote the article last October 2006. This is the translation in English :

We made history, and I didn't realize it at that time. That evening on the 9th of May 2006 in Auditorio Nacional, Jose Ramon Encinar and his Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid with me as the soloist premiered a masterpiece. It was David del Puerto's Symphony no. 2 "Nusantara", for piano and orchestra.

It has been a few decades since a Spanish composer wrote an important symphony or other big orchestral work that was accepted and became part of the repertory of Spanish symphony orchestras. Luis Suñen, the critic of "EL PAIS" hit the right note when he said that "Nusantara" should be programmed by all the Spanish orchestras : I personally consider "Nusantara" is for Spain equal to Copland's "Third" for America or Shostakovich's "Fifth" for Russia. Orchestras love to perform them, and these musical masterpieces "speak" to public and humanity in general. "Nusantara" is a very contemporary piece of music, dealing with contemporary issues and expressions (it was dedicated to the victims of the big tsunami 2004), groundbreaking a new sonic world and musical form but at the same time owing its existence to Scarlatti, Beethoven, Delacroix, Lord Byron, Cervantes and the popular culture of Indonesia.

One thing I noticed during the rehearsals was the attitude of the members of the orchestra. I have premiered many new concertos before, and many times I felt a kind of resistance from them, having to play passages (or even just noise effects) which are not well written their instrument, or simply that the music does not sound well due to sloppy orchestration or simply ignorance of the instrument from the part of the composer. That was not the case this time : the orchestral players were really happy -- and even proud -- to play this new work.

Although the separation between composer - musician is even more present today than, say, the 19th century, I strongly believe that a composer should still be able to master at least one instrument. Not necessarily performing in front of public, but being able to play pieces such as a Brahms intermezzo . It gives them the idea of "feeling well" playing music : the music turns into real sounds, and not just written as silent notes on paper. My experiences have proved this : Del Puerto or Santiago Lanchares who play the guitar, Polo Vallejo or Jesus Rueda who graduated from the conservatory as a pianist write the most effective, communicative and "musician friendly" music from Spain. They managed to take the thread which was cut by the avant-gardists after the death of Shostakovich, Britten or Stravinsky, and to continue the musical tradition. In fact it is expected, and fulfilled, from Jesus Rueda to become the foremost composer for piano in Spain, although it came totally as a surprise that Lanchares also has produced quite an amount of very high quality, virtuosic and musically as well as pianistically brilliant music for the piano and no guitar pieces at all until now except a 2-minute easy piece ! That only proves that no matter what instrument one can play, the act of interpreting (or using Stravinsky's term : executing) influences the way one creates.

I can't see the point of "complex" music just for the sake of being visually complex or even with the excuse of pushing the boundaries of the musician's ability. First of all, if the music is not good, there is no point of playing it, whether it's simple or complex ! And the excuse of "writing it for future musicians", well, don't the commissioning body give the composer a deadline and the date of the premiere ? OK, there were some cases in the past such as Britten's Violin Concerto that was pronounced by Heifetz as unplayable, but Britten certainly had no intentions to make it unplayable ; it just turned to be more difficult than the existing works. In fact, it was premiered just a few months after it was finished by Antonio Brosa, and in less than 10 years has become one of the key pieces in the repertory of the instrument .

A collaboration between a composer and a performer is the best thing that can happen in the creation of a new piece . It is not limited only in what could (not) be played in the instrument. The instrumentalist can introduce some works in the repertory to the composer which, again in Stravinsky's words, the composer can steal from. Therefore, Britten who couldn't play the cello wrote his masterworks for the instrument with a bit of help from Rostropovich, and one could say the same with Benny Goodman and his inspirational collaboration in creating the clarinet concertos by Stravinsky or Copland which inevitably turned out to be quite jazzy. It is amazing and satisfying to hear how Rueda's works are pianistically modelled from Chopin, Liszt or Ravel (his 1st Sonata is even titled "Juegos de agua", the Spanish translation of Ravel's title "Jeux d'eau"), and Lanchares from Bartok or Stravinsky. Yet, their music sounds very fresh and original. One thing I can contribute to them is my knowledge of Javanese and Balinese music. Therefore Rueda based his Second Sonata on the rhythms and contrasts between dense polyphony against unison sections of Ketjak Dance of Bali, as well as the pentatonic material of Polo Vallejo's "It's Snowin' in Bali !", brilliantly harmonized in a curiously original soundworld, or the pentatonic sections in Del Puerto's "Nusantara" Symphony intermingled with a mixolydian theme. No kitsch, no pastiche. Influences from other musical culture are assimilated impeccably into their strong musical language.

Another important issue is about repeated performances. Avantgarde music of the 50s-70s were usually so conceptual, that one can "get it" at the first performance . One does not receive anything new from the repeated performances. Playing string instruments behind the bridge, pizzicati on the piano, knocking on the body of the instrument ... they will always sound the same in any performances. It does not excite, nor give any depth, while a good old harmonized melody always changes if played by different musicians, or even the same musician in different concerts. There is, as Freddie Mercury said in his song, "a kind of magic" in good music, but not in good concepts. Concepts are just raw material which should still be developed into music.

I will have to close my essay with something personal and nostalgic. My father used to tell me that we are born to give and contribute to make the world a better place. Generosity is something which benefits us all ; by giving we don't lose, we gain . Avant garde composers have done exactly the opposite : they write (I should have used a past tense, but unfortunately lots of them are still around) for themselves, they don't care about the public (and even proud to be egocentric), and if they care, it's only to "épater les bourgeoise" . They give nothing to public, nor to society or humanity. And now, the result is becoming obvious. Concert halls are empty. Governmental subsidies for contemporary music, which were so generous in countries like Holland and Germany 10 years ago, have been severely cut. The message is clear : you don't give, we don't give. Maybe we should start believing in Piet Mondriaan : Art should be forgotten, beauty must be realized .