Letter to the Editor: Why Was There No NewMusicBox Obit of Ligeti?
I write this letter with what I am sad to say is a final frustration with your website. Recommended to me last fall when I was looking for a source for contemporary music news, I have since found New Music Box to be a somewhat stodgy, banal article repository with its only values found in the “what’s happening” write-ups about cities in the USA. On June 12, however, I had nowhere else to turn when a friend called to deliver the shocking and saddening news that Gyorgy Ligeti, perhaps the world’s most far-reaching, influential and greatest living composer, had died at age 83 in Vienna. My first reaction was to check New Music Box, and I found not a whisper.
I googled Ligeti’s name and found news articles and write-ups on his death from every major newspaper around the world. Today I returned to New Music Box to see what sort of obituary you had provided, three days later. Still nothing.
I realize that the site is run by the American Music Center, but if New Music Box considers itself to have any artistic or cultural responsibility to its readers, the lack of coverage of Ligeti’s death is nothing but the utmost ethno-centrism. No American composer in history has come close to accomplishing what Ligeti did, the closest being the movement championed by Steve Reich in California in the sixties and seventies, a movement that Ligeti not only witnessed living in San Francisco, but also adapted into his own compositions, being very interested in the techniques of Reich, Glass and their followers in conjunction with music of Southeast Asia and of the Banda Linda tribe in the Central African Republic.
I am interested to see what possible justification NMB can have for its failure on this issue. That Ligeti was not an American is immaterial; any American composer that does not in some way acknowledge his music is, simply put, not worth his or her salt. Any American composer that did not think about music in a new way after first encountering Ligeti’s music is either lying or poorly researched. If you move beyond composers to what (I assume, perhaps wrongly) is a target audience of casual music-listeners, you will find the majority of them giving Ligeti his due, having experienced his music in the movies of Stanley Kubrick, or perhaps having attended a performance of Atmospheres, perhaps the most important orchestral piece of the latter half of the twentieth century.
The only remaining excuse NMB can provide was ignorance to the event. If this is the case, then this website should seriously reconsider where and how it gets its news, and what possible role it can be playing in the arts community to miss something like this. No matter how NMB tries to justify this vast oversight, it has already led me to doubt that it has a role in the arts community, and certainly in my search for arts education, at all.
***
FJO responds:
The death of György Ligeti is indeed the major music news story on the web this week. I am personally a huge fan of this enormously important and influential European composer, and he well deserves the numerous obituaries and testimonials that are now all over the internet. His death even made it to the pages of CNN.
Since the news of Ligeti’s death has appeared on free sites all over the web—I even posted the first of many threads about it to the contemporary classical music site Sequenza21 as soon as I learned of it from Musical America which is a subscription service—I question why you are so vexed that we did not duplicate this readily available coverage in NewMusicBox and deem our not having done so “a failure.” As the web magazine from the American Music Center, the mandate of NewMusicBox is to cover the work of American composers. This is no more a “vast oversight” than a bluegrass or hip-hop magazine not running an obituary of Ligeti because he was not a bluegrass or hip-hop artist.
Admittedly, Ligeti’s impact has been profound upon the entire compositional world. Ligeti’s death has been on all of our minds, and it has already been referenced in passing in a posting by Colin Holter that appeared on NewMusicBox yesterday. In fact, we are well aware that Ligeti was an important teacher to a wide range of American composers from Martin Bresnick to Roberto Sierra. And an article about Ligeti’s impact on American composers, which I have yet to see in any publication I have read thus far, would be appropriate for NewMusicBox and is something our editorial staff has discussed as a possibility at some point in the future. If anyone would like to publish a personal anecdote about Ligeti’s impact on their own music, we would welcome that in the comments area of this page.
We do feel a great deal of artistic and cultural responsibility to our readers. Therefore I must counter your assertions that “no American composer in history has come close to accomplishing what Ligeti did” and that “any American composer that does not in some way acknowledge his music is, simply put, not worth his or her salt.” No non-American composer in history has come close to accomplishing what Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, or Meredith Monk, to name only a few, have done. But of course the same could be said about composers from all over the world and should be. This is not xenophobia. With all due respect to Ligeti, singling him out the way you have done as part of a “great man theory” after his death only perpetuates the myth that classical music is the domain of a few great European men who are no longer alive. Ideally, no composer should accomplish what any other composer has done. We are all unique.
I’m sorry that you find NewMusicBox to be “a somewhat stodgy, banal article repository,” but no one can account for personal taste.
david toub 
Christopher John Smith 
Colin Holter 
pgblu 
CM Zimmermann 
davidlag 
randy 
Happy Birthday!
I have to agree with Frank. There have been many links/tributes already made…I debated about whether to blog about it myself – and am still thinking about the effect it has on me. After that happens, perhaps I will.
It’s unfair to draw such conclusions – New Music Box and the AMC do a great job, both day to day and in the larger picture.
Don’t get me wrong, losing such a musical mind is a loss, it always is when a composer passes…I’ve always thought it a bit morbid to “celebrate” the anniversary of a composer’s death; which taken as an outsider’s view, might seem very strange – of course, it’s not celebrating the death (unless you’re Peter Schickele spoofing PDQ Bach, who’s death has been celebrated [PDQ Bach's]) but in reality celebrating the genius of a composer and his works. But we take any excuse, a birthday, deathday, premiere date to talk or perform a particular work or composer.
Of course, the business and views of “classical” music is changing, and even an anniversary might not be enough to market a concert (although 2006 has certainly been marked for Mozart) – let’s hope there’s more with Shostakovich coming up (oh no! a non American composer – JUST KIDDING!)
My two cents.
JC
http://composingthoughts.blogspot.com/
No non-American composer in history has come close to accomplishing what Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, or Meredith Monk, to name only a few, have done….
We are all unique
Well, the current New Music Box editorial staff is free to think that aesthetic distinctions cannot be made in classical music, but most musicians, thinkers, and humans throughout the world will indeed judge that the non-Americans Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven accomplished more musically than did Ives, Cage, or Carter (to date); and that Josquin Des Prez accomplished more musically than has Meredith Monk (to date).
Now I remember why I don’t often read the gossip pages of New Music Box any more.
I also wonder whether the Board of the AMC has ever considered keeping the Cover, Matter, and Radar Web-pages of NewMusicBox and jettisoning the Chatter pages?
Renaissance Research
I second Frank’s opinions wholeheartedly. This is the internet: If you want news, there are plenty of places to get it. This site, on the other hand, is The Web Magazine from the American Music Center, as its masthead clearly indicates. NewMusicBox should not be held responsible for eulogizing a non-American composer, no matter how important. Your claim that Ligeti’s contribution to music is unrivaled by Americans – and your bewildering attribution of runner-up status to Reich and Glass – is far more offensive than the absence of a Ligeti obituary on NewMusicBox.
I would also note that an accusation of “the utmost ethno-centrism” should not be leveled lightly.
Nobody made claims that Ives etc accomplished ‘more’ than Bach etc, but that they accomplished things no one else accomplished. We celebrate their uniqueness, not the sheer amount of their impact.
Read things carefully before you turn these pages into a repository for your self-righteous ire.
I personally like New Music Box, and don’t look here for updates on Emeril’s touring schedule either, though he’s had more of an impact on our culture than Josquin des Prez.
Seth, I stand by my comment.
And I will suggest that it is you who should learn to read.
Also, I suggest that you are confusing the “our culture” to which you refer with your own private music world.
Define “our”?
Frank Oteri’s response to this complaint letter indeed makes it clear that New Music Box is devoted only to American music and thus should not be held responsible for not publishing anything on the death of Ligeti Gyorgy. On the other hand, a closer look at New Music Box’s mission statement as well as some familiarity with the nature of this website do not preclude a reaction of surprise and perhaps suspicion that nothing was mentioned.
Here is New Music Box’s mission (the ‘bold’ is mine):
‘NewMusicBox is a Web-based advocacy magazine and portal dedicated to the music of American composers and improvisers and their champions. A multi-media publication from the American Music Center, NewMusicBox offers: in-depth articles and discussions; up-to-the-minute industry news and commentary; coverage of upcoming performances, new books and recordings; plus on-demand concert webcasts.
Embracing the broadest possible range of viewpoints, NewMusicBox invigorates and gives voice to a global online community dedicated to this ever-evolving music while bringing it to the attention of the world at large. Building on the energy derived from the music itself, NewMusicBox is a vital hub for information that cannot be found elsewhere.’
CMZ
One last brief observation concerning the New Music Box mission:
the first sentence reads: ‘NewMusicBox is a Web-based advocacy magazine and portal dedicated to the music of American composers and improvisers and their champions.’
Dedicated to ‘American composers and improvisers and their champions’. This may be somewhat of a minor detail that goes beyond the spirit of New Music Box’s purpose (then again FJO does sight NMB’s mission in response to the letter), but Ligeti was certainly a champion of American music and composers. He taught in California, was involved in ‘minimalism’ to a certain extent, and was heavily influenced by jazz (specifically Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk) and Conlon Nancarrow.
Yes, Ligeti is significant. But to be honest, I could say the same for any of a number of composers. I like a lot of Ligeti’s music, and have known of his stuff since I was a kid (and not just the 2001 stuff, mind you). Yet, he never made me trip quite as much as the best of Glass, Reich, Riley and several other composers from the US, all of whom, in my opinion, are at least as significant to musical history as the late Gyorgi Ligeti.
So the omission here is not inappropriate. Granted, I doubt anyone would have been upset had there been something. But at this point, there’s been tons of stuff written about the man and his music all over the place, including