Expressive Range

By 1979 when I turned 35 I had begun composing works that included both serious and playful sections. The playful sections upset some of my serious-minded peers. One long-time friend told me I was throwing away my talent. A grants panel spokesman told me my new work was causing heated arguments and, taking that as a good sign, they urged me compose more works in that vein.

When one of my former composition teachers heard a new work of mine that included light-hearted sections, he told me he hated me for writing it. When I laughed, he told me that he was serious. I said, “I know. That’s what makes it so funny.”

In the 1970s the prevailing view was that “serious” music should remain “serious” in tone. Never mind that the history of art music includes countless works that feel buoyant and upbeat. Somehow in the 70s the prevailing wisdom had become pervasively solemn. “Serious” composers were supposed to avoid musical qualities (such as beautiful tonal melodies, attractive harmonies, and danceable rhythms) that might immediately “please” an audience, or seem to relate in any way to music that was “fun,” “popular,” or “theatrical.”

This attitude seemed pitifully restrictive to me. I wanted to compose music that could express a wide range of feelings, and could move easily from one mood to another. I wanted to be able to evoke frivolity as effectively as despair, delight as convincingly as rage, and seductiveness as persuasively as innocence.

So I started composing in that spirit, and the playful sections proved controversial. When some of my fellow composers heard them, they suspected I had rejected some of their core aesthetic values. They were right—I had. To compose using the wide range of expressive qualities I wanted to explore, I had had to.

I fully understood that at that time many composers felt that the values of a “serious” viewpoint supported their work. But I found that a relentless focus on seriousness hindered my work. A fixation on seriousness argued against exploring both serious and comic expression. And in the absence of occasional beams of comic light, I felt that relentlessly dark-shadowed emotional qualities easily became monotonous—and vice versa.

Through a lot of reading I learned that the “serious” worldview has a long history, traceable at least back to Plato. I also learned that the way I wanted to work has been in conflict with this viewpoint for just as long. The premises of the “serious” worldview include an unease with worldly appearances and pleasures, and an opposition to displays of style that might seem playful, striking, moving, or enchanting. Such displays might, as Plato feared, sway an audience through emotional means, rather than through reason and logic. (Oh, horrors!)

Fortunately, in reading about the history of this viewpoint, I learned that numerous writers, playwrights, artists, and composers have approached their work from an opposing viewpoint. And among those creative artists are several whose works I particularly admire.

In Artful Versus Plain I contrast these two viewpoints. In my case I felt obliged to reject the steadfastly serious viewpoint that argued against my desire to compose works that explore a wide emotional range. And instead, I happily embraced the viewpoint that encouraged me not only to compose such works, but also to make them as artful, eloquent, and emotionally vibrant as possible. Given my aesthetic desires, I would have been a fool (and not a clever Shakespearian one) to choose otherwise.