Ivor Darreg

8 December 1981

OPEN LETTER

The other day I received a letter from a friend in far-off New Hampshire, Buzz Kimball, enclosing Lester Trimble's article in the 29th November issue of New York Times Magazine section, The Unsung American Composer. "Unsung" all right--I didn't even know who Lester Trimble was! Well how could I? There is practically no communication channel for serious American composers to exchange ideas, and the article itself explains well enough what the situation is al)out getting orchestral pieces performed. It ends on a sad allegorical note. It might have been written in 1881 instead of 1981--there has been no progress in the symphony orchestra and concert-hall scene for a very long time. Just change a few names and it would apply to 50 or 75 or 100 years ago.

However, we needn't be quite that sad; the article leaves out some important facts. It discusses the standard symphony orchestra, which, as you know, is composed of obsolete insxtruments and furthermore has not admitted even long-established instruments of certain kinds and never any really new instruments.

In December 1929, which was 52 years ago, Percy Grainger, the Australian composer, wrote a piece on that problem, of introducing such instruments as the saxophone, the harmonium or reed-organ, or a group of pianos, or the marimba and vibraphone, into the orchestra. Obviously this has hardly happened either. That kind of innovation was the hallmark of the jazz groups and other popular bands.

If we were to put a dateline of December 1981 on Percy Grainger's article, it would go right through unchallenged. They might even think he was still alive, so contemporary does his plea seem. If they had read his Free Music affair, which called for the use of Thereminvoxes, then they would be sure it was up to date.

The problem stated by Lester Trimble could be summed up in one word: FEEDBACK. By playing only dead composers, and by choking up the communication channels with music from European countries written in the past, they manage to evade the idea of composers getting any response from their listeners. Then the live people--the conductor and the performers--receive that feedback and response which is really the due of the composer! So when someone writes NOW for orchestra almost everyone in the chain that has been interposed between composer and listener not only has forgotten about feedback, but may not even realize its importance or necessity. The people in this chain of intermediaries have been PROGRAMMED to ignore many things. It would be next to impossible to correct a wrong of that kind which has endured for a century. Hence the pessimistic tone of Trimble's writings.

The limitations of the standard instruments of the standard orchestra, and of the pipe organ and the piano, have prevented all musical progress beyond a certain point. Well, not a definite date, but this instrument and then that one reached a stage of ripeness, and then beyond that point it was getting overripe--such is the fate of the piano. With thousands of composers round the world exploring everything they could for all this time, there was bound to be an exhaustion of harmonic resources within the standard 12-equal-steps-per-octave tuning, and an exhaustion of possible effects on each instrument, unless you are willing to put up with absurd extremes such as sawing the lid of a grand piano with the pedal held down, or bowing a violin on the wrong side of the bridge, or taking a flute apart and making flopping noises with its keys, or blowing half of a trombone. These are mild examples.