Robert Carl on Postmodernism, Spectralism, Studying with Xenakis, and More

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Visit Dr. Carl's web site at www.robertcarlcomposer.com
0:00 Introduction
0:54 Why Xenakis isn’t postmodern
3:15 Postmodernism as movement vs. stance
4:18 How Xenakis “blew [Carl’s] mind”
5:18 Postmodernism as restructuring
7:29 Having “outsiders” as teachers
11:30 Betsy Jolas and French “cultural self-awareness”
13:02 Spectralism and serialism in 1980s Paris
15:04 How studying history impacted Carl’s music
18:46 Non-teleological music (Zimmermann, Stockhausen, Oliveros)
21:15 Carl’s harmonic approach
23:44 Overtones as a structural device
25:21 Cowell’s “unified field theory”
27:00 “From the Ground Up” (2002)
30:18 When overtones meet equal temperament
31:31 “Changing My Spots” (2005)
37:12 Choosing an intonation system
39:08 “Night Garden” (2012-13)
41:58 The “harmonic ladder”
46:05 Modulation between harmonic series
47:46 Fixed and frozen register
48:30 Composers should be theorists, too
51:00 Transcendentalism vs. humanism
54:25 Young composers’ diverse inspiration
55:53 How artificial intelligence will impact music industry
58:06 Concert music’s appeal
59:52 Values in popular music
1:01:07 Recent work
1:02:21 Quasi-improvised “Infinity Avenue” (2017)
1:03:19 Symphony No. 7 “Infinity Avenue” (2020)
1:04:09 “Infinity Avenue” as a continuing project
1:05:16 Only writing what’s necessary
1:05:39 Conclusion
📚 Sources/further reading:
"Music Composition in the 21st Century: A Practical Guide for the New Common Practice" by Robert Carl (Bloomsbury, 2020)
"Temporal and Harmonic Concerns in the Music of Robert Carl" by Daniel Morel (MM thesis, UMKC, 2018): mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/ha...
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Music:
Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Stille und Umkehr (1970), performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conducted by Hans Zender: • Bernd Alois Zimmermann...
Robert Carl: From the Ground Up (2002), performed by John McDonald: • From the Ground Up
Robert Carl: Changing My Spots (2005), premiere recording
Robert Carl: Night Garden (2012-13)
Robert Carl: Infinity Avenue, quasi-improvised version (2017), performed by Henry Birdsey, Adam Buffington, Robert Carl, Zach Rowden, Trevor Saint, and Matt Sargent: • Infinity Avenue
Robert Carl: Symphony No. 7 "Infinity Avenue" (2020), performed by Foot in the Door conducted by Edward Cumming: • Foot in the Door - Apr...
Robert Carl: White Heron (2012), performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project conducted by Gil Rose: • White Heron
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All images and audio in this video are for educational purposes only and are not intended as copyright infringement. If you have a copyright concern, please contact me using the above information.

[@MsSmee2]

I am 69 years old. Classically trained. Spent my years playing blues and jazz. I see classical music debating tonality vs atonality. Let me share something I learned in jazz. You can play on the inside and the outside. You can't do either one all the time. There are laws of physics. If you break them you get dissonance. Dissonance can be cool if you use it right and not too much. The trick is to flavor the inside playing with outside spurts that get resolved back into the inside. People want music to be half predictable and half unpredictable. That said, I find great freedom in classical composing. The freedom comes from being unchained from the drums. The polyrhythms and modal colors that jazz players crave live large in classical music. I write classical now because of the freedom from boots and cats and boots and cats.

[@alexalani10101]

I love Xenakis, one of my favorite composers. Especially since my research is relevant to computer music. I love his music almost as much as I love Buxtehude which should still be a video one day.

[@pianomanhere]

Where to start? How about when all else fails, write a tune then deconstruct it and bend it, distort it, shape it and vary it. Then rework it all until you're happy. I know that sounds trite, but create something as if your blood circulation depends on it

[@OntoDistro]

Very informative and inspirational. Glad to see the contemporary musical aesthetics of 21st Century Western art-music finally being addressed on this channel :-)

[@Sevish]

Great conversation lads!

[@idrisbalavakos]

Connecticut 🎉

[@yalostaya]

Very inspiring!!!

[@Scriabinfan593]

Thanks for this. I haven't watched the entire thing, but the little I've watched so far is very interesting.

[@romulo-mello]

Very enlightening talk. Amazing!

[@ernestoferreri]

Some 15 years ago I came across a work by Carl that depicted New Orleans under water and was quite taken with it. Later I came to know his superb string quintet "The Wind's Trace Rests on Leaves and Waves", thank you for this post, and props to Robert Carl!

[@zootook3422]

Great interview! Very interesting. Thank you so much.

[@WBradJazz]

Very interesting

[@johnzielinski9951]

Great interview! I particularly appreciate that you included pieces by the composer with the scores.

[@brendaboykin3281]

Thank you, Gentlemen 🌹🌹🌹🌹

[@ericleiter6179]

Yes, thanks to both of you for having and sharing this discussion...I wasn't too familiar with Robert's music before this video, but I liked everything I heard, though, and plan to seek out more! I especially liked the talk on modulation using common partials from different harmonic series to create a powerful and organic effect. Also, Robert, I have to agree with you about rhythm and pitches as being what determines character in terms of musical syntax. If you meant by the way that one could say, whistle an entire symphony by Beethoven, and besides its narrative journey without harmony, each person who does this would invariably choose different notes to keep the main line going *and yet everyone would choose the essential pitches and rhythms somewhat different than Beethoven would have*, then I completely see your point and agree

[@davidjazay9248]

Your excellent channel is getting better and better... thank you for your thoroughness and dedication! Have you thought about doing an episode on Hans-Joachim Hespos (13 March 1938 - 18 July 2022) ?

[@achoikomposition]

Do you have any thoughts on making videos about Unsuk Chin? Another suggestion would be discussing aboutTurgut Ercetin or Aaron Cassidy? Turgut Ercetin developed special position of an instrument by considering the specific directivity patterns of an instrument or a spatial character of an instrument (for example euphonium or brass instruments have dense directivity sound while bassoon does not.) He also considers on interaction and correspondence between sounds and space, and necessity rhythmic paradoxes that needs inexactitude. Aaron Cassidy is the forefront of the tablature notation, and it influenced hugely on huddersfield composer student. You can know what I'm currently saying if you take a look of the lecture about non geometrical rhythms. Furthermore checking his analysis of a piece that focuses deeply on physical movements and Gerhard Richter's portrait, the notations are very odd (even in his earlier tablature pieces like the

[@unsiliquaria]

I don't have the time to listen to the whole interview, yet, so I apologize if I'm wrong in assuming that the subjects that were covered were all past the problem of the audibility of serialism and its later alternatives, but I wanted to ask a little question: I have been reading a book of transcriptions of Nadia Boulanger's lectures on French Modern Music at the Rice Institute, and in them she brought up the point that every advancement that marks a period of classical music was hardly audible in their beginnings. Could it be that serialism, spectralism and such movements or styles are the least accepted today by the general audience because their core advancements were too long a jump from the music that preceded them, even in comparison to the jumps that differentiate earlier periods of music? Whereas the jumps made by Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, etc. where comparatively milder, although still shocking, at least to the tradition that was represented by Théodore Dubois. I wonder if the historical justification of the inaudibility of the "extreme" music I'm refering to is only half a truth. I've been into classical music only for a few months, so there is a lot that I don't grasp.

[@unsiliquaria]

By the way, by "jump" I don't mean necessarily a jump forwards (like Schoenberg and Boulez intended), but just outwards.

[@ClassicalNerd]

We don't really tackle that point in the video, although it's something I touch on in a number of my composer documentaries (on Babbitt and Boulez, especially). There's something to the idea that serialism wasn't just a _conscious_ break from tradition, but that traditional ideas of musical aesthetics were intentionally (in early Boulez, especially!) broken to make a statement. Not caring about one's relationship to one's audience comes into play more here as well. It's a good question and one that's far too complex for KZbin comments!

[@smashissocool65]

Whats the recording with bartok in the back?

[@ClassicalNerd]

I don't have a Bartok record on display for this video. What are you looking at?

[@smashissocool65]

The deutsche grammaphon thing next to the guitar thing. It looked like bartok

[@ClassicalNerd]

@@smashissocool65 www.discogs.com/release/10749100-Elgar-Ernest-Bloch-Alfred-Wallenstein-Pierre-Fournier-Berlin-Philharmonic-Elgar-Cello-Concerto-In-E-

[@ClassicalNerd]

The instrument in the shelf over is a mandolin.

[@smashissocool65]

My bad with the mandolin, i dont know why that violinist was bartok, thx anyway

[@moondog50002000]

#27 CARTA PAPER BABY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@psijicassassin7166]

The "post-modern" music that AI can make nowadays sounds just as unenlivening as the "ground-breaking" dabblings of those post-tonal composers Boulez, Berio and Babbitt. The three B's of algorithm tunesmithing.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Hmm ... I can see where you're coming from, but I would roundly reject putting Berio into that camp.

[@JohnathandosSantos]

​@@ClassicalNerdBerio would too... 😂