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Blogs by Richard French
Persistent Artists 5/18/2016 7:22:52 PM
As a general rule, if you look at any activity -- sports, the arts, business, education -- standards at the top are very high, and the rewards for exceptional achievement can be very great. Sometimes, however, very good work gets little attention and not many rewards.
I have two examples in mind. One is the six symphonies of Bohuslav Martinu that I've recently discovered. Martinu, a prolific composer, was a Czech who left his homeland in 1939 after Nazis occupied it. He settled in the United States, where he wrote his six symphonies.
After the glories of the late 18th and the 19th centuries and the beginning of the 20th, later years, with a few exceptions, are sometimes said to be fading days for the symphony. Many symphonies written after 1940 -- I won't mention names -- bring us long passages that sound thumpy and clumping.
Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky all wrote symphonies, still played today, that reach out to the audience to express grief and outrage over World War Two or to celebrate victory. Martinu's symphonies are likewise products of wartime.
Martinu didn't write as an angry or defeated man, though there's a fair amount of grief, especially in the 3rd symphony, which mourns the Nazi massacre of a Czech town named Lidice. On the whole, the symphonies are bright and extrovert. A note from a CD I bought says that they combine "driving energy and rhythmic flexibility" with melodies from Czech folk songs. The 6th is especially noteworthy. I read a story about it that I can't verify. He fractured his skull after he fell from a balcony and didn't write anything for 5 years, surely an ordeal for a man who worked as hard as he did. A well-known conductor found him, however, and asked for a piece to celebrate his orchestra's 75th birthday, Martinu liked this man's style and broke his silence to write his last and greatest symphony.
Commentators have said that his symphonies are among the best of the 20th century. If that's true, his work in the genre will surely get the hearing it deserves.
Another case is the Polish composer Andrei Panufnik, who emigrated to England after World War Two because he didn't like the working conditions under the Soviets in Poland, who declared, for example, that one of his symphonies no longer existed. He kept working in England and without the recognition he hoped for. It's true, he received a knighthood from the queen, but only a few months before he died.
I couldn't find any of his nine symphonies, but I've become familiar with his concertos and string quartets. His music is much different from Martinu's, less public, more personal, introspective, inventive, intelligent. It appealed to me right away, and I've been wondering how I can get to know his work better. What do you know? A program on BBC Radio 3 is featuring his music this week, so his compositions may be getting more attention now than they did while he was alive. Good show.
These two cases lead me to make general statements:
Artists will develop their talent and get their work done in spite of all manner of obstacles.
Creators in many fields have done good work in our time and will continue to do so. They don't necessarily get the most attention.
It's better to stick with what's interesting and good but difficult rather than quit. Better to give the world a body of work that a few people will appreciate with the hope that the few will turn into many.
