Am I allowed to comment without even bothering to listen? Good review on your part. It will make the correct gestures that represent profundity, it’s a product and will sell well. Rather makes me think of Range Rovers parked outside a church on Sunday which rather reminds me of Scruton. Leave them all too it.
Chris L
8 years ago
Hmmm…don’t think I’ll be bothering with this one, regardless of what other reviewers might say: it sounds like further proof, if proof were needed, that MacMillan has long since given up on any attempt to surprise his audience. Was it just that he peaked early, and it’s become too easy for him to try repeatedly to recapture that early success using the same “worn-out tools”, secure in the knowledge that there’s a readymade market for his efforts? Certainly, when my choir recently sang his (very!) early Missa Brevis (with, *ahem*, yours truly as the priest at the start of the Gloria), what rapidly became apparent was how much of the mature MacMillan was already present-and-correct in the 17-year-old.
In fairness, and with a certain irony, he still can surprise when forced into the supposed straitjacket of pre-existing folk material (his a cappella settings of O My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose and The Gallant Weaver, for example, are lovely and striking in equal measure), but too much of the rest sounds like pale rehashes of his “big three” from the early ’90s (Gowdie, Veni, Words), with which I can foresee myself increasingly sticking…
James Chan
8 years ago
I would’ve tagged this with ‘unforgivable just crazily inept bullshit’ tbh. For one thing the orchestral writing is just… not good. I was getting second hand embarrassment listening to that.
Peter George
8 years ago
‘prior to the onset of that madness’
WHAT?
Do we really need to use this forum as a platform to air political and anti-religious hang-ups? What a perfect example of your own gratuitously scathing ‘dangerously malevolent dogma’ label!
I, for one, as an ardent European and as an economist, was alarmed that we ever joined the previously-named European Economic Community, and I shall feel just as European when we have managed to extricate ourselves from its successor behemoth, the more explicitly protectionist and pro-federal EU. Just concentrate on the music and spare us your prejudices; then I’ll put mine aside too.
Oh calm down. If you’ve read 5:4 for any length of time you’ll know how very rare it is for me to mention politics or religion at all, both of which i could hardly find less interesting.
On this occasion, the subjects of Europe and religion were both entirely apposite to the nature and context of the piece, hence why i touched on them. It shouldn’t need stating, but let me anyway: neither opinion – and that, lest we forget, is all that they are, opinions – stems from anything even remotely resembling a prejudice.
Ahmed Aleskerov
8 years ago
over-weighted, over-charged electrically piece.
Henry
8 years ago
I worry about MacMillan. His earlier music had a directness that he has now lost. Part of the problem is that his music always seems to be a response to some political or philosophical book he’s read. And the music becomes merely illustrative of the ideas. He’d be better off ‘just’ writing music.
You are so right about the tiring manichaeism of his sound world. The same thing sank his St John Passion. The thing is, when he does ratchet up the violence and the darkness, the vocabulary he uses to do so sounds dated and contrived. There’s something trite and parochial about his eruptions of violence. They’re not actually *musically* violent, they’re just combinations of loud sounds and clanging rhythms. It has become slightly embarrassing to listen to.
Large orchestras are not his friend: he pulls as many styles and colours as he can from them, but never with any sense of coherent design. If he were an artist his canvases would be a godawful mess.
He seems truly stuck in a rut. I don’t think he’ll ever reinvent himself now.
Thanks for the comment Henry. i have to agree with everything you’ve said. For many years i’ve taken issue with the most common complaint i’ve encountered against MacMillan’s music, namely that he’s at heart a completely conventional composer who throws in elements borrowed from those of a more authentic modernist/avant-garde persuasion in order to sound ‘contemporary’. As more years go by and he trots out more feeble stuff like this, the more convincing that argument seems to be. A European Requiem may just be the last straw for me where MacMillan’s concerned; it’s lazy and a completely unnecessary composition, a waste of everyone’s time and money. But in that respect, it’s hardly unique, is it?
I can’t disagree with that. I remember sitting through a live performance of his ‘Quickening’ and being knocked sideways by it. But after two or three further hearings I realized the piece was essentially substandard Vaughan-Williams with a very shallow surface varnish of modernity. Reminiscent of the cruel story about Ives going through his scores and adding ‘wrong’ notes to render them avant-garde.
John Belton
8 years ago
James MacMillan is the most ANNOYING composer alive at the moment and this is why: he’s a sort of musical-Politian.
His works are not written to execute any clearly thought-out artistic idea but rather to hoover up as many ‘votes’ from the various musical styles and tropes and agendas out there. So this piece has:
An opening with the drum-kit a bit like Turnage: hipster box-ticked.
It’s got some nice choral sounds: neo-romantic/neo-tonalists box-ticked.
It’s got some loud Birtwistle-like clusters in the orchestra: old-fashioned modernist box-ticked.
It’s got some high string sounds: we all like ‘Peter Grimes’ box-ticked.
Some moments like John Adams: minimalist box-ticked.
It’s a religious text/contains plainchant: Catholic box-ticked.
It’s got some folky moments: Scottish-composer (as he used to stylise himself) box-ticked.
It’s somehow (not sure quite how!) a response to a book by Roger Scruton: conservative intellectual box-ticked.
And of course the title ‘A European Requiem’ is deliberately vague (no I don’t believe him when he says it has nothing to do with the EU referendum) so that if you are a Remainer it’s a Requiem for the EU. If you are a leaver it’s a Requiem for ‘The Strange Death of Europe’; All political positioned covered and boxes-ticked.
And with all these votes he has won the compositional election for Britain’s ‘greatest living composer’.
Macmillan is really just a canny Scot, deliberately exploiting a lot of people’s musical philistinism so he can dress himself up as ‘a great composer’, but HE ISN’T. He really isn’t.
But for those of us with ears and taste, I think we can agree that musically it’s just an incoherent ramble which dishes up the usual Macmillan clichés and a few new ‘influences’ stolen from other composers and thrown into the mix (a mix which doesn’t hold together). He’s even ripping off John Rutter in a few moments I thought…!? Cheesy Anglican choral tradition box-ticked.
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Am I allowed to comment without even bothering to listen? Good review on your part. It will make the correct gestures that represent profundity, it’s a product and will sell well. Rather makes me think of Range Rovers parked outside a church on Sunday which rather reminds me of Scruton. Leave them all too it.
Hmmm…don’t think I’ll be bothering with this one, regardless of what other reviewers might say: it sounds like further proof, if proof were needed, that MacMillan has long since given up on any attempt to surprise his audience. Was it just that he peaked early, and it’s become too easy for him to try repeatedly to recapture that early success using the same “worn-out tools”, secure in the knowledge that there’s a readymade market for his efforts? Certainly, when my choir recently sang his (very!) early Missa Brevis (with, *ahem*, yours truly as the priest at the start of the Gloria), what rapidly became apparent was how much of the mature MacMillan was already present-and-correct in the 17-year-old.
In fairness, and with a certain irony, he still can surprise when forced into the supposed straitjacket of pre-existing folk material (his a cappella settings of O My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose and The Gallant Weaver, for example, are lovely and striking in equal measure), but too much of the rest sounds like pale rehashes of his “big three” from the early ’90s (Gowdie, Veni, Words), with which I can foresee myself increasingly sticking…
I would’ve tagged this with ‘unforgivable just crazily inept bullshit’ tbh. For one thing the orchestral writing is just… not good. I was getting second hand embarrassment listening to that.
‘prior to the onset of that madness’
WHAT?
Do we really need to use this forum as a platform to air political and anti-religious hang-ups? What a perfect example of your own gratuitously scathing ‘dangerously malevolent dogma’ label!
I, for one, as an ardent European and as an economist, was alarmed that we ever joined the previously-named European Economic Community, and I shall feel just as European when we have managed to extricate ourselves from its successor behemoth, the more explicitly protectionist and pro-federal EU. Just concentrate on the music and spare us your prejudices; then I’ll put mine aside too.
Oh calm down. If you’ve read 5:4 for any length of time you’ll know how very rare it is for me to mention politics or religion at all, both of which i could hardly find less interesting.
On this occasion, the subjects of Europe and religion were both entirely apposite to the nature and context of the piece, hence why i touched on them. It shouldn’t need stating, but let me anyway: neither opinion – and that, lest we forget, is all that they are, opinions – stems from anything even remotely resembling a prejudice.
over-weighted, over-charged electrically piece.
I worry about MacMillan. His earlier music had a directness that he has now lost. Part of the problem is that his music always seems to be a response to some political or philosophical book he’s read. And the music becomes merely illustrative of the ideas. He’d be better off ‘just’ writing music.
You are so right about the tiring manichaeism of his sound world. The same thing sank his St John Passion. The thing is, when he does ratchet up the violence and the darkness, the vocabulary he uses to do so sounds dated and contrived. There’s something trite and parochial about his eruptions of violence. They’re not actually *musically* violent, they’re just combinations of loud sounds and clanging rhythms. It has become slightly embarrassing to listen to.
Large orchestras are not his friend: he pulls as many styles and colours as he can from them, but never with any sense of coherent design. If he were an artist his canvases would be a godawful mess.
He seems truly stuck in a rut. I don’t think he’ll ever reinvent himself now.
Thanks for the comment Henry. i have to agree with everything you’ve said. For many years i’ve taken issue with the most common complaint i’ve encountered against MacMillan’s music, namely that he’s at heart a completely conventional composer who throws in elements borrowed from those of a more authentic modernist/avant-garde persuasion in order to sound ‘contemporary’. As more years go by and he trots out more feeble stuff like this, the more convincing that argument seems to be. A European Requiem may just be the last straw for me where MacMillan’s concerned; it’s lazy and a completely unnecessary composition, a waste of everyone’s time and money. But in that respect, it’s hardly unique, is it?
I can’t disagree with that. I remember sitting through a live performance of his ‘Quickening’ and being knocked sideways by it. But after two or three further hearings I realized the piece was essentially substandard Vaughan-Williams with a very shallow surface varnish of modernity. Reminiscent of the cruel story about Ives going through his scores and adding ‘wrong’ notes to render them avant-garde.
James MacMillan is the most ANNOYING composer alive at the moment and this is why: he’s a sort of musical-Politian.
His works are not written to execute any clearly thought-out artistic idea but rather to hoover up as many ‘votes’ from the various musical styles and tropes and agendas out there. So this piece has:
An opening with the drum-kit a bit like Turnage: hipster box-ticked.
It’s got some nice choral sounds: neo-romantic/neo-tonalists box-ticked.
It’s got some loud Birtwistle-like clusters in the orchestra: old-fashioned modernist box-ticked.
It’s got some high string sounds: we all like ‘Peter Grimes’ box-ticked.
Some moments like John Adams: minimalist box-ticked.
It’s a religious text/contains plainchant: Catholic box-ticked.
It’s got some folky moments: Scottish-composer (as he used to stylise himself) box-ticked.
It’s somehow (not sure quite how!) a response to a book by Roger Scruton: conservative intellectual box-ticked.
And of course the title ‘A European Requiem’ is deliberately vague (no I don’t believe him when he says it has nothing to do with the EU referendum) so that if you are a Remainer it’s a Requiem for the EU. If you are a leaver it’s a Requiem for ‘The Strange Death of Europe’; All political positioned covered and boxes-ticked.
And with all these votes he has won the compositional election for Britain’s ‘greatest living composer’.
Macmillan is really just a canny Scot, deliberately exploiting a lot of people’s musical philistinism so he can dress himself up as ‘a great composer’, but HE ISN’T. He really isn’t.
But for those of us with ears and taste, I think we can agree that musically it’s just an incoherent ramble which dishes up the usual Macmillan clichés and a few new ‘influences’ stolen from other composers and thrown into the mix (a mix which doesn’t hold together). He’s even ripping off John Rutter in a few moments I thought…!? Cheesy Anglican choral tradition box-ticked.