Curriculum for Composers

Author(s): Donald Harris

Source: College Music Symposium, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall, 1981), pp. 112-117
Published by: College Music Society
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Campus
Focus
Curriculum for
Composers
Donald Harris
Hartt
College
of Music
University
of Hartford
January
of 1980 I was prompted to respond to the
College
Music
Society's
call for
papers
to be read at the annual
meeting
the
following
November. I was concerned
by
the
way composition
is
taught today,
or
more
aptly by questions
of
style
and
technique brought
to me
by my
stu-
dents that seemed to lie outside the traditional
limits of
compositional
curricula.
My
letter to the
program chairperson suggested
a
panel
discus-
sion on the
general topic
of curriculum for
composers whereby
I had
hoped
to share some of these concerns with other interested
colleagues.
Perhaps they
would share their own in return.
Having
studied with
teachers who felt
strongly
that
composition
could not be
taught
(the
prin-
cipal exponent
of this
position being
Nadia
Boulanger),
as well as with
those who felt that
they
could
(and
generally
would)
correct each
phrase
(if
not each
note)
I
brought
in,
I had further
suggested
in
my
letter to the
chairperson
that this in itself
might provide
an
appropriate point
of de-
parture
for a discussion which would include such diverse but interrelated
topics
as
style, theory, performance
of student
compositions,
tradition as
opposed
to innovation.
Sample questions might
include the
following:
1 . Given the
multiplicity
of
compositional styles prevalent today,
uti-
lizing techniques
from chance to serialization and
everything
between,
should teachers
expose
students to all and
expect
them to write
repre-
sentative
examples
of
each,
much as students
formerly
were
required
to
write exercises in sixteenth-or
eighteenth-century contrapuntal
forms,
or
in the traditional tonal forms of
sonatas, rondos,
and the like?
2. Is a
thorough familiarity
with
today's vastly expanded body
of the-
oretical
knowledge important
to the
training
of the
young composer?
Should he or she be
expected
to act as
theorist,
writing essays
on works of
other
periods
or other
composers,
or
questions
of a
general
theoretical na-
ture,
as
complementary
to traditional studies of
harmony, counterpoint,
and other
subjects
of a technical nature? 3. Should
performance oppor-
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CURRICULUM FOR COMPOSERS 113
tunities for the sake of
experimentation
or
improvisation, essentially
ask-
ing
the
young composer
to act in
place
of the
composer's pen
or
pencil,
coexist with traditional
performance practice
in which music is written
and conceived before
being brought
to the
performer?
4. In
short,
what is the role of tradition in
today's
curriculum? What is
the role of innovation? Where should the line be
drawn,
if it is to be drawn
at
all,
and who does the
drawing? Succinctly,
does the student decide
questions
of
style,
and
consequently
decide as well
questions
of
technique?
What are the
relationships
between the two in
today's
curricula?
As luck would have
it,
my topic
was
approved,
but the
panel
discus-
sion was lost in the
shuffle,
between
my original proposition
and the re-
sponse
which was received later. I still had the same concerns
nonetheless,
and if I could not throw them out to a
group
of
colleagues,
anxious as I
was to elicit their
responses,
I could
point
them out for
general
discussion,
hoping
that others would seize
upon my premises
and
perhaps
force a de-
bate.
As luck would further have
it,
the debate had been
engaged
rather
decisively
in a New York Times interview of Luciano Berio
by
critic
John
Rockwell on
Sunday,
October
19,
1980. Towards the
midpoint
of the arti-
cle Mr. Rockwell wrote:
Because of the
teeming anonymity
of American
culture,
and the
need to
distinguish
oneself both in the market
place
and in
public
awareness,
Mr. Berio feels that
composers
here are
unduly
concerned
with
establishing
a
personal style.
He then
goes
on to
quote
Mr. Berio:
"Many
American musicians
adopt
a
concept
that is borrowed
from the visual arts. The
typical
fear of the
painter
is that he has to
continue to do the same
picture,
or otherwise
they
won't
recognize
him
any
more,
and he won't sell. . . .
Style
is a
commodity.
Once
you
start
even
thinking
in terms of
style, you're
lost."
There is
nothing
new in this line of
thought.
I first heard of it 25
years ago
from Nadia
Boulanger,
who maintained that it was useless to
give
too much
thought
to
style.
She insisted that all one had to do was to
direct one's attention
exclusively
to the
study
of
craft,
harmony,
counter-
point,
orchestration and the like. I remember
very distinctly
a conversa-
tion in which she
said,
"I cannot teach
you
what or how to
compose,
but I
can teach
you
what
you
need to become a
composer."
She would
definitely
have
agreed
with Berio. I
suspect
that she chastised more than one of her
American students for
thinking
too much about
style,
much in the same
manner as Berio's admonition. I remember another
conversation,
this
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1 14 COLLEGE MUSIC SYMPOSIUM
time about
Jean Fran^aix,
her most successful French student of
composi-
tion. She would cite him as the
perfect example
of a
composer completely
master of his craft. "Whatever one could
say
of the
quality
of his
music,"
she would
maintain,
"there could be no
question
that it was well written
and
put together. Every
note was at its
place."
There is
explicit
in this line of
thinking
the
presumption
that
style
can be considered
independently
of craft
(or
technique)
and
consequently
unrelated to how a
piece
of music is
composed. Perhaps
in one
way
Made-
moiselle
Boulanger
was
responding
somewhat
defensively
to
many
of
my
own
generation
who felt the music of
Jean
Frangaix
to be of less conse-
quence
than that of
many
other
composers
of whom one would not con-
template separating
craft from
style.
I
doubt,
for
instance,
that if hard
pressed
she would have maintained such an inflexible view towards
Stravinsky's
music. I remember another
occasion,
on
bringing
to
my
les-
son a score of
Stravinsky's
then
recently composed Septet
and
pointing
out its
embryonic
use of serial
technique.
I was
literally
stunned
by
her re-
ply,
"It is
merely
an old man
playing
with his
jewels."
She could not
bring
herself to admit that
stylistic
considerations had
brought Stravinsky
to the
verge
of
accepting
a
compositional technique
which
up
to that
point
both
Boulanger
and
Stravinsky
had
totally rejected.
But this was a
quarter
of a
century ago,
when neither of them was
confronted
by
the
multiplicity
of
stylistic
considerations with which we
must contend
today, along
with Mr. Berio and Mr. Rockwell. To
continue,
Mr. Berio himself will never be accused of
sticking stubbornly
to one
technique.
Indeed,
his career has been marked
by
the omnivorous em-
brace of
styles
and ideas.
Traditionally
trained
by
his musician
family
and at the Milan
Conservatory,
he turned to serialism in the
50's,
then
to electronic
music,
then to
indeterminacy
and
performer
choice,
then
to historical eclecticism. It is hard to think of a
contemporary
tech-
nique
he has not
investigated
in
depth,
and
very
often
supposedly
con-
tradictory techniques
flourish side
by
side in the same work.
And once
again
to Mr. Berio:
"I am
trying
to discover
unity
between
points
that are
very
far
apart.
I
think it is a
duty
for a musician
today
-
and not
only
for a musician
-
to
be aware of the
multiplicity
of
things. Maybe
that comes from
being
Italian
-
the
tendency
to
bring things together,
to harmonize
conflicting things."
I
suspect
that Mademoiselle
Boulanger
and Mr. Berio would have
parted company by
this time.
Surely
the
shopping
basket
approach
to the
compositional supermarket
was as
foreign
to the
distinguished
French
teacher as would have been the
systematic approach
to traditional har-
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CURRICULUM FOR COMPOSERS
115
mony
and
counterpoint
to the no less
distinguished
Italian innovator.
However,
I do not believe that there would be
difficulty
in
establishing
that the studies of
harmony
and
counterpoint
are
complementary.
This
seems to be the
premise
on which
they
are
taught.
Nonetheless if we are to
believe Mr. Rockwell the same could be inferred about the
study
of inde-
terminacy
and
serialism,
since Mr. Berio has done it.
Consequently
he has
fused them. Or has he?
Traditionally harmony
and
counterpoint
are
part
of the craft of mu-
sical
composition
which is studied over the
years
until a certain
mastery
has been achieved. A similar conclusion could be drawn
regarding
the
study
of both serialism and the fundamentals of electronic music. Like the
study
of
harmony
and
counterpoint, they
are
techniques
to be learned
over a
prescribed period
of time until a similar level of
mastery
has been
achieved.
However,
indeterminacy
and historical eclecticism
-
whatever
the latter
may
refer to
precisely
-
are
primarily stylistic
considerations.
They
are far less
techniques
that one learns than
they
are
approaches
which one
adopts,
as Mr. Berio has
adopted
them in
many
of his
works,
not the least of which is
Coro,
the
subject
of the interview in the New York
Times.
I believe that the error in Mr. Rockwell's and Mr. Berio's
premise
is
that
they
have confused
style
with
technique.
I would assume that a
knowledge
of traditional
harmony
and
counterpoint
would be essential if
one were to
compose
in what is referred to as historical
eclecticism,
otherwise one would be unable to emulate
composers
of the
past, particu-
larly
the
seventeenth,
eighteenth,
or nineteenth centuries. This would
presume
a
study
of
style
as well.
Conversely
it would not
appear
as neces-
sary
to
study indeterminacy
to
compose
in that idiom.
Indeterminacy
is,
in
fact,
more a
style
than a
technique. By
definition it seeks to eliminate
pre-
decided or
predetermined techniques. Consequently
what Mr. Berio is
proposing
is the fusion of a
multiplicity
of
styles,
not
techniques.
What
Mr. Rockwell is
telling
us is that
he, Berio,
has not held on
"stubbornly"
to
one
style,
but has
purposely sought
to embrace
many.
The confusion between
style
and
technique
is
prevalent,
however.
The interview with Berio is
regrettably
not an isolated case.
Style
and tech-
nique obviously
cannot be fused.
They
are
different,
as different as the
proverbial apples
and
oranges. They
can be
separated,
as Nadia
Boulanger professed,
but
they
must be
brought
back into
focus,
since
their
separate
lives are
basically
sterile.
However,
they
are inconceivable
one without the other. Both Nadia
Boulanger
and Luciano Berio are
wrong
when
they
tell us not to think about issues of
style.
The
style
of our
music is what we are about ourselves. I would
agree
that we can
spend
too
much time
worrying
about it. We are what we are. But to exclude such
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116 COLLEGE MUSIC SYMPOSIUM
questions
from our creative
thought
would be to exclude ourselves from
our
composition.
Berio
may
well
legitimize
the fusion of a
multiplicity
of
styles.
The creation of one individual
style
is no less
legitimate
an
aspira-
tion,
whether it be the result of a conscious
game plan,
or a
concept
which
is taken for
granted
as we
progress
from one work to another. For most of
us a
personal
and identifiable
style
will be an unrealizable
aspiration;
we
may
in fact never come near its threshold.
However,
we cannot be de-
terred from
striving
for that
feeling
of oneness with our
composition
from
which a
personal style
can evolve. It is the vocation of the
artist,
at least on
one
very deep
level. We need not
continually acknowledge
this
aspiration;
we need to know that it is there.
Returning
therefore to the
questions
which were raised at the
begin-
ning
of this
discussion,
perhaps
we can now
propose
some answers. Given
the
multiplicity
of
styles prevalent today,
which ones do we teach? I would
answer none. We do not teach
style,
we teach
technique,
and new ones
should be studied as
carefully
as old ones.
Composers
need to write exer-
cises,
to learn the tools of their
craft,
those which have
disappeared
and
those which have
reappeared.
Is a
study
of
today's expanded body
of theoretical
knowledge impor-
tant to the
training
of the
young composer?
Here I would answer
yes, by
all means. Such
knowledge requires
a
study
of
style
as well as
technique,
and shows the
interrelationships
between
composers' styles
and tech-
niques,
and how
they
evolved. What better
way
to
prepare
ourselves for a
process
which we also
may
have to
undergo
as we seek our
way through
the hidden
paths
of our own
stylistic
evolution?
Should
performance opportunities
include
improvisation
and ex-
perimentation?
Of
course,
but have not
composers always
done
just
this to
some extent? There is much less new in
improvisation groups
than meets
the
eye
(or ear),
and is there a better
way
to stretch our minds
(and ears)
than to let our fancies roam
individually
and
collectively?
What is the curricular role
assigned
to tradition? And to innovation?
I
really
do not
know,
and I
hardly
care. Once we have made a distinction
between
style
and
technique,
the
question
of whether a student writes in a
style
which is innovative or traditional is
principally
a
personal
one. I am
not certain that as a teacher I have the
right
to interfere. I can comment on
a student's
technique
and whether or not it seems to be
stylistically
consis-
tent or relevant to the intention of a
proposed piece.
I can
only give per-
sonal
opinions
on the
stylistic
relevance. I will
try
to
point
out areas in
which a student's
gifts
seem to
lie,
and this
may
be of some
help
in deter-
mining questions
of
style.
However, it would be
independent
of whether
or not the
style
in
question
is
avant-garde
or
conventional,
at least to
my
way
of
thinking.
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CURRICULUM FOR COMPOSERS 117
I
guess,
therefore,
that I am
among
those who believe that
composi-
tion can be
taught,
that
techniques
can be
learned,
and that issues of
style
must be raised and discussed. In
fact,
I would consider this to be
my
credo
as a teacher. I am not so sure of
it, however,
that I would not wish to dis-
cuss it with other teachers and
composers. Questions
about the teach-
ing
of
composition
are serious
ones,
and even after considerable
thought they
can remain
confused,
as the
examples
I have raised above
may
have demonstrated. For this reason alone
they
merit our continued
attention,
and deserve to be reexamined from time to time. I do not be-
lieve that we want to run the risk of
misleading
our students. Nor do we
wish to feel that
they
have been
shortchanged
because we have failed to
place
new
developments
such as
indeterminacy
in
perspective,
or
neglected
to redefine old ones such as historical eclecticism which
reap-
pear
in unaccustomed
ways.
I believe that we must show them the
ways
to
technical
mastery,
and show them how to
distinguish
between
questions
of
technique
and
style
with
which,
in all
likelihood,
they
will be confronted
throughout
their lives. It seems to me that if we have done
this,
we have
done our best. There will
always
be new directions in both
style
and tech-
nique.
It is our task as teachers
-
and as
composers
-
to know which is
which,
and to
go
on from there.
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