Out of curiosity I listened to some music by some of the Grupo de 8 composers on Spotify. One of them, in particular, seemed very bad to me. The H brothers seem quite perfectly mediocre, but this other guy seemed to be writing bad scores for spaghetti Westerns. (And I say this as someone who appreciates the classic scores to those movies by Sergio de Leone.) It just seemed bizarre to me. Abrupt modulations with no reasons behind them, weak sense of momentum, writing in outmoded styles of past centuries, but without "making them new" in an interesting way, cheap romantic effects.
We only ever get to hear the good stuff. Well, classical FM radio plays conservative composers who are not my thing, but they usually are more technically competent than this. I'm sure there are unknown gems, but minor composers are often minor for good reasons. Compositional talent is rare. It cannot be taken for granted.
2 comments:
Does this mean you have two related topics? First, average or mediocre music, making one kind of use of Lorca -- then by way of relief, distinctive or exceptional music, making another use? Convention and idiosyncrasy?
Probably the mediocre stuff won't make the cut. I can't discuss everything or the book would be infinite in length.
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