Promoters of art mislead audiences by suggesting that there is meaning where there is none. Sometimes you just have to trust the artist, writes John McLachlan
Composer John McLachlan's regular comment column on the new music scenes in Ireland and abroad – includes a review of 'Opera', a new CD of work by British composers performed by Irish musicians Darragh Morgan (violin) and Mar
After the rejection of repetition by many modernist composers in the mid twentieth century, the extreme repetition of minimalism seemed inevitable. But, writes John McLachlan, composers don't always know when to stop.
The idea of a common language in composition is a thing of the past: the world of contemporary music is now entirely chaotic, the result of individualism, tradition and cosmopolitanism pulling, irreconcilably, against each other. John McLachlan found this world in action at the ISCM World Music Days in Zagreb earlier this year.