12/20/2016 The 25 Questions The New York Times
Opinionator
A Gathering of Opinion From Around the We
The 25 Questions
By Glenn Branca April 3, 2007 9:07 pm
I got the idea for this piece from mathematician David Hilbert’s wellknown
list of 23 “Paris Problems” (1900) that he hoped to see solved in the new century.
Of course there is not the slightest connection between Hilbert’s list of problems
and this list of questions. Not to mention the fact that many of these questions
contain the answers simply in the asking.
1. Should a modern composer be judged against only the very best works of
the past?
2. Can there be truly objective criteria for judging a work of art?
3. If a composer can write one or two or more great works of music why
cannot all of his or her works be great?
4. Why does the contemporary musical establishment remain so conservative
when all other fields of the arts embrace new ideas?
5. Should a composer, if confronted with a choice, write for the musicians
who will play a piece or write for the audience who will hear it?
6. When is an audience big enough to satisfy a composer or a musician? 100?
1000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 100,000,000?
7. Is the symphony orchestra still relevant or is it just a museum?
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12/20/2016 The 25 Questions The New York Times
8. Is microtonality a viable compositional tool or a burned out modernist
concept?
9. In an orchestra of 80 to 100 musicians does the use of improvisation make
any sense?
10. What is the dichotomy between dissonance and. tonality and where
should the line be drawn?
11. Can the music that sooths the savage beast be savage?
12. Should a composer speak with the voice of his or her own time?
13. If there’s already so much good music to listen to what’s the point of more
composers writing more music?
14. If Bach were alive today would he be writing in the baroque style?
15. Must all modern composers reject the past, a la John Cage or Milton
Babbitt’s “Who Cares If You Listen?”
16. Is the symphony an antiquated idea or is it, like the novel in literature,
still a viable long form of music?
17. Can harmony be nonlinear?
18. Was Cage’s “4:33” a good piece of music?
19. Artists are expected to accept criticism, should critics be expected to
accept it as well?
xcerpt from “Freeform” (1989) performed The New York Chamer Sinfonia conducted
Glen Cortee. (mp3)
20. Sometimes I’m tempted to talk about the role that corporate culture plays
in the sale and distribution of illegal drugs throughout the United States and the
world, and that the opium crop in Afghanistan has increased by 86 percent since
the American occupation, and the fact that there are 126,000 civilian contractors
in Iraq, but what does this have to do with music?
21. Can the orchestra be replaced by increasingly sophisticated computer
sampling programs and recording techniques, at least as far as recordings are
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12/20/2016 The 25 Questions The New York Times
concerned?
22. When a visual artist can sell a oneofakind work for hundreds of
thousands of dollars and anyone on the internet can have a composer’s work for
nothing, how is a composer going to survive?
And does it matter?
23. Should composers try to reflect in their music the truth of their natures
and the visions of their dreams whether or not this music appeals to a wide
audience?
24. Why are advances in science and technology not paralleled by advances in
music theory and compositional technique?
25. PostPost Minimalism? Since Minimalism and PostMinimalism we’ve
seen a shortlived NeoRomanticism, mainly based on misguided attempts to
return to a 19th century tonality, then an improv scene which had little or nothing
to do with composition, then a hodgepodge of styles: a little old “new music,” a
little “60’s sound colorism”, then an eclectic pomo stew of jazz, rock and classical,
then a little retrochic Renaissance … even tonal 12tonalism. And now in
Germany some “conceptual” rereadings of Wagner. What have I left out?
Where’s the music?
The Lost Chords Contest
I enjoyed all of the submissions for the contest. Thank you all.
The winner is Michael Lattis, who submitted “Lost Chords” (comment No. 22).
Second place goes to Steven Vinkenoog ” (comment No. 17).
If you don’t agree with my choices you can listen to all of the submissions in the
comments section of the article and judge for yourselves.
Comments are no longer being accepted.
© 2016 The New York Times Company
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