COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS:
Re-balancing the Alliance

by Judith Lang Zaimont

Composers and performers co-exist in a symbiosis at once exhilarating and precarious. And this delicately balanced alliance fuels the future of our art, since new compositions are fully realized only through an intuitive, well-prepared, sympathetic performance.

As composers, we yearn for — and delight in — the quintessential rendition of our piece, sensitive both to its large shapes and to every detail. Composers and performers alike know that much of the “art” in what we do comes through conveying the ineffable aspects of style — just how do you notate rubato? One of our creative challenges as composers, therefore, is to be diligent in marking scores so as to provide clues to features of style as well as basic musical information. There is, in fact, a right way to play our music — and it can be a crushing experience for a composer when performers don’t realize that a particular 20th-century piece requires, say, a 19th-century interpretative stance, rather than an 18th-century approach.

What composer has not, more than once, squirmed when a new work was mishandled in performance — mangled in the execution, or worse, misunderstood in concept? What do we do under these circumstances — smile and nod? Get up and perform the piece ourselves? The audience can’t ordinarily distinguish between the composition and the performance — it doesn’t know how the piece should go. Neither do the critics.

Last spring, one of my graduate students in composition at the University of Minnesota came to me to complain about the treatment his new works had received at performers’ hands: in back-to-back premieres, a choral piece went well, but a string quartet was a disaster. His complaint stemmed from his powerlessness to affect the outcome once the score was handed over. The hired string quartet did not budget enough rehearsal time to cope with offering four new pieces on one program; the one rehearsal they invited the composer to attend was cancelled, with no advance notice. The choral director proved to be a sensitive, sympathetic interpreter, but even here the composer felt helpless at the place “luck” assumed in governing the preparation and thus the performance. What to do?

Not just students but all composers are vulnerable. In starting his own ensemble, The Fires of London, Peter Maxwell Davies was quite explicit that a prime reason for his action was to work regularly and personally with players on his own “wavelength,” thus ensuring stylistically appropriate performances of his music. In another instance, composer Joan Tower’s presence as pianist of New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players, which she co-founded, may be understood in part as a way for her not to have to contend with continuing battles over style in performances of her own works.

I first experienced this dilemma some sixteen years ago, at a private recital of my chamber music (which was to be recorded the following week). Investors were present, so a persuasive reading of the music was especially desirable. After a leaden performance — happily, the only one of the day — I stood up, thanked the performer, and then offered my own rendition, presumably “authentic,” as an “extra added attraction.” Ever since, I’ve wondered whether I did the right thing. Did I best serve the music by providing a properly conceptualized performance, or should I have let the first rendition stand un-’corrected’? (On the recording, as it turned out, I played the piece myself.) Did I serve my career well by ‘upstaging’ a guest artist? (Obviously not: this pianist has never again played my music in public.)

As composers, where should our allegiance lie? Primarily to the piece itself, or to the people who play it? It may be useful, as we consider this question, to recall that the organization of the musical profession has altered radically in the modern era.

Musician is a fluid term. Two hundred years ago it often designated a performer-composer — someone who could fulfill several functions, including the creative. To be musical meant to embody music in all its aspects. Even 100 years ago, in post-Civil War Boston, when the concept of the American musician was being re-thought, the model we wound up with was that of the combined composer-performer-teacher: witness Amy Beach, George Chadwick, Arthur Foote — the ‘compleat musician’ as public presence. This combination, however, didn’t survive World War I.

In our own century, things have changed so much that the enlightened generalist is now a suspect creature. The cult of the specialist has come into place — something I often see as a body blow to the evolution of art. Every so often, a supreme talent such as Leonard Bernstein tries to recreate the ‘compleat musician’ — mostly to bafflement or indifferent success. Pierre Boulez’s compromises — shifting his primary public persona from composer to interpreter — work a bit better, probably because his own musical priorities have shifted. Rostropovich and Barenboim are more interesting — and successful — instances, but these performer-conductors have bypassed the most nettlesome component of the mix, the “composer.”

Indeed, the 20th century is the age of the specialist. It’s also the era of the collaborative enterprise. Undertakings are now so mammoth, so complex, that any single contributor can only handle a part of the whole. From the atom bomb to the space shuttle to the Channel tunnel, from movies to operas — all are collective enterprises. By no means do I imply that people of vision — the Richard Wagners and Ethel Smyths — are no longer around; it’s just that the scale and intricacy of the vision now require collaboration in order to be realized.

Technology, too, has done its unwitting share to distance living composers from performers, further underlining specialization. Without realizing it initially, the recording industry has succeeded in exalting music primarily as a museum art. The repertory most recorded, most purchased, and most heard is historical. This should be a major concern for all music professionals, not just composers. For several decades, classical music record sales have hovered around 3.5% of the total market. According to figures for the first half of 1995, classical recordings have now dropped to a mere 2.7% of total purchases.

Fact: the basic body of music written since World War I has not entered the repertory. It remains external to core programming considerations, having been stigmatized (by and large unfairly) as ungratifying to the ear and deficient as an idiomatic performance vehicle — this despite efforts to establish an expanded repertory through such programs as the Carnegie-Rockefeller competitions for interpreters of new music. Too often, when performers come forward who express interest in programming new music, or dedicate themselves outright to 20th-century music as a cause — specialists again! — they are earnest and capable players rather than musicians of supreme artistic gift. Exceptions exist, of course — and thank goodness for such artists as Yo- Yo Ma, the late Jan de Gaetani, Allen Feinberg, Ursula Oppens, and others who have embraced wholeheartedly the music of their own time. In truth, there will never be enough of these master performers; still, players not belonging to this select group can deliver excellent performances — provided they approach the work in the proper spirit. Most of us know only too well the early signs that warn of a problematic performance: if a player looks over a new piece, and says first, “It’s hard” — beware! Or if a performer reports, “I rehearsed my part 18 hours before the pianist even got here” — watch out! A committed final rendition is unlikely.

In addition to fostering specialization, the 20th century is also the age of unionism — a celebration of the worker (in this case, the performer) that has had a pronounced and somewhat overlooked impact on the arts. The union movement has done much to bring dignity, proper protection, and an increased sense of worth to workers and their individual contributions to the total enterprise. The flip side, however, is that unionized environments foster a “task” mentality, rather than the spirit of vocation so central to the arts. Rehearsals now proceed by the clock. Marketplace concerns affect programming to an unhealthy degree, and rehearsal time for the new and untried is frugally allocated.

Unionism is one aspect of a clear trend toward recognizing the primacy of group presence and clout. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the unionization of performers means that their concerns assume the central place on the table, demanding to be addressed and accommodated in some fashion. We composers, unhappily, have no recognized union. There is no working guild to speak consistently for our particular interests, to set fee structures understood as industry standards, to articulate our point of view, clarify our requirements, and work to raise our profile in the concert music world. We labor at a disadvantage, operating as individuals in a corporatized, 501(c)3 environment. We are hampered in raising money, and thus in sheer accessibility, unless we ally ourselves with some umbrella performing or presenting entity.

Hence I ask: What should we do? What can we do to re-balance relations with performers, our most natural allies? Composers need to be repositioned as the musical leaders we should be, and not treated as some species of barnacle grafted on to the institutions of music. How best to make this happen? Is it essential that we regularly “take a performer to lunch”? ·

Judith Lang Zaimont, a Guggenheim Fellow in composition, is the winner, inter alia, of the international McCollin competition and the recording prize of the International Alliance of Women in Music. She is professor of composition at the University of Minnesota