A Taste of Infinity

Practical advice can be bad for the soul of an artist. And if you happen to be a composer of orchestral music or operas, you have chosen the most impractical of professions: the art you practice is among the world’s least commercially viable. You surely ended up on this path that is no path because early in life you had a transformative experience with music by some artist who impractically, improbably managed to create a transcendent communal experience out of pure sound.And yet, throughout your years of musical training, you will be beset by reasonable, well-intentioned, utterly depressing advice that, if you heed it, will deflate your artistry and make your music sad and small. Every composer has encountered this kind of counsel, which can metamorphose into an insidiously persuasive inner voice: Make sure you write a nice short orchestral piece as a calling card. You know, a quick little fanfare, the kind of thing that’ll get played a lot, that can be squeezed in before the concerto in the first half of a concert. See if you can give it a topical title. Don’t make it too hard. Don’t make it too dissonant—but careful, don’t make it thoroughly consonant either. Come to think of it...