Old-time musicians

Roy, holding this "cracking field" migration road sign, felt that things were completely beyond his expectations.

It is impossible that the "evacuation guide" left by Bishop Lavoisier after he left suggested that he should "evacuate" himself into this unknown and strange migration secret realm?

"No, the priest has told me to stay in St. Perto"

It was already past midnight, and there was a repetitive and monotonous steam noise in my ears. Every passenger in the airship was taking a nap or dozing.

Roy was distracted by the folded road sign for a while, and suddenly he felt something and opened it again.

Turn it over.

There are words left by Bishop Lavoisier on the back of the road sign!

She bit her lip and read it word by word. As her eyes moved, the words with a faint white light gradually disappeared.

"If this is true"

Looking at the speculation made by Bishop Lavoisier in the letter, Roy suddenly felt a chill on his back.

On the surface, she still looked calm, folded the empty migration road sign on the back of the paper, and put it inside her underwear for safekeeping.

For the next few hours, she was very nervous and suspicious, sitting in her seat with her chest folded and eyes closed, resting until the dawn of the next day.

Judging from the time of the journey, the airship may have entered the border village of St. Perto around this time.

She suddenly felt two beams of almost solid light sweeping across her spirit.

The divine energy contained in it was like a magnificent, pure and hot ocean. Her personal feelings were just a small boat on the ocean, but she did not feel any threat or malice.

"The gaze of the saint from the height of Huita?"

Roy felt that the two beams of light just glanced at him, "knew" for a while, and he could no longer perceive it.

At least, this point can be proved to be true in what Bishop Lavoisier said.

He really asked the saint to take care of himself who was traveling in St. Perto.

"When did I need to be looked after like this? How risky is this?"

Although Roy had a wry smile on his face, the tension in his heart had been eliminated.

She reached out and pressed the part of her lapel where the migration road sign was placed. She felt more at ease about what Bishop Lavoisier told her to do next.

After returning to St. Perto, the municipal government arranged a small villa for Roy to live in with the most distinguished guest courtesy.

It has a quiet courtyard with a rich depth layout, and more than a hundred steps from the main entrance is the bustling street full of flower shops and cafes. Standing at this intersection, you can see the stone columns and arches of the Waldstein Museum facing it at an angle. Walking one kilometer to the left, you will see the "Unfallen Fire" Festival Grand Opera House, and the headquarters church of the Holy Sun Church behind it is no more than two kilometers away from it.

In the next three days, Roy followed Bishop Lavoisier's instructions completely, suspended part of the inspection work, assigned the other part to his subordinates, and lived a standard "young lady's foreign affairs visit life", visiting museums, art exhibitions, listening to operas, concerts, attending salons, meeting visitors, and eating local dishes.

San Pereto is a shining place for art and humanities, but there is no one around who wants to share and discuss. When she thought that this kind of life might last for quite a long time, and that her school might have some problems, Roy still felt a heavy haze in her heart.

On February 10, she met her father, President McAdam.

The other party was naturally here to attend the "secret seminar", and since Fanning "accidentally" pointed out this matter and let Roy know about it, Aunt Hermosa proposed that Roy also participate, and got the consent of Marquis McAdam.

The father and daughter met, had a meal and talked as usual, and Roy expressed his willingness to participate in this new itinerary.

In the letter left for herself, Bishop Lavoisier indicated that this seminar was "low risk" and said that in the core area of ​​the holy city, with the presence of saints and the Pope, even if there were hidden factors involved, there would be no direct threat.

So that night, in the closed opera hall, she participated in the first round of seminars composed of two extraordinary organizations and dozens of representative musicians.

Facts have proved that perhaps Bishop Lavoisier's "low risk" judgment was too cautious. This was just an artistic discussion that could not be purer.

In the first round of seminars, the musicians initially exchanged their atonal works, techniques and concepts.

However, among the modern music techniques involved, there are indeed a lot of "mysterious chords" that Fanning once warned about, as well as some very radical, strange or disturbing sounds from the perspective of traditional human hearing, such as "twelve-tone system", "expressionism", "limited displacement mode", "microtones", etc.

For Roy, she is already very familiar with Fanning's late romantic harmony writing style after being influenced by it in the past. "Impressionism" has also opened up a new vision ahead, which is considered to be "a relatively high cognitive foundation". She is quite receptive to the avant-garde works and concepts discussed tonight.

However, she always felt that the seminar was filled with an overly anxious atmosphere from beginning to end.

"Dad, if that's the case, will the major music schools in Teolian teach the music theories compiled by Mr. Fanning in the future?"

As the party was ending, Roy walked up to Marquis McAdam and asked.

"Those are the basics and compulsory courses for students." The other party's nod made her seem relieved, "But my daughter, you have to understand that for a professional 'musician', the traditional two The melody and harmony system of the fourteen major keys has almost been exhausted by our predecessors."

McAdam, dressed in a suit and ties, looked at the backlit silhouettes of the staff packing musical instruments in the opera hall. He seemed to sigh with emotion, "Sometimes it is difficult to evaluate whether people living in such an era of peak romanticism are lucky or unlucky, and they are not interested in enjoying the music." It is one experience for the 'travelers' who are nourished by rich humanistic achievements, but it is probably another experience for those 'path-blazers'."

"You've seen a lot of original works by masters in the art gallery these days. How do you feel?" he asked his daughter.

"Um?"

McAdam has always had strict requirements on the study and training of family members. When Roy saw him asking questions, he subconsciously started thinking quickly.

"I think the original works have a stronger sense of history. The content and style of each work belong to a specific era." She only answered some directional questions carefully.

"You're right about the latter point," McAdam said.

"If we turn the time back four hundred years ago, a painter with precise perspective, balanced composition, and good grasp of lines and colors would most likely be among the 'greats' or even 'masters.' But today, this is just a matter of letting a painter Students only acquire the basic skills that are a stepping stone to the Academy of Fine Arts.”

"In the era of photography and Impressionism, what could an artist who just 'painted like' do? Where is his place in the history of art? He was just a businessman who placed orders with him. I’m just willing to pay a few more bills.”

"But my father's first point is that nowadays we should look at composers, musicologists and performers and conductors separately. The second point is that the 'torch bearer' of this era has not yet been determined, and has become a master. Those who are most likely to become masters are still romantic composers." Roy knew that her father was making an analogy with art, but she still pointed it out.

McAdam raised his hand: "I understand."

"They are either senior and respected people, such as Schillings, Dominique, Viadrin, or the newly born Bishop Lavoisier. Or they are young and rare all-rounders like Fanning. Or wizards among troubadours like Scheler. They are still the top contenders for the next Harvest Art Festival, and they are the leading figures that the Special Patrol Office pays the most attention to. "

"However, do you know what state the vast majority of the remaining seekers and young people who have just embarked on the road of music are in?"

"If you analyze the development trends of modern music from the perspective of being at the helm of the future development of the entire academic school, the things you focus on will be very different from those of individuals."

"Now that the traditional major and minor harmony system has been fully developed, as time passes year by year, most young musicians will run out of inspiration at a certain point and become mediocre, becoming a stable 'academy' professor' or 'veteran'"

"The few who have better results will become 'excellent imitators' of Kashunich, Gilles or Sverinck. Yes, they have thoroughly understood the musical styles of the Middle Ages, Authenticism and Romanticism. Being able to write one piece of "pleasant" music after another is considered a relatively excellent type. It's easy to hit the "character" of a "blade wielder", but what about higher achievements? Of course, um? , the Special Patrol Office will follow the will of their leader to select a few 'obedient guys' among these musicians to build momentum and promote them to a higher reputation."

Roy basically understood what his father meant when he heard this.

Indeed, the monuments in front have been erected, not just one but two.

Not everyone is like Mr. Fanning. Not only is he always breaking new things, but even the works he created in the past style period also have refreshing creativity, as if they were found in another world. inspiration

"But the key point is, what kind of art do the people in the Special Inspection Department know?" McAdam laughed lightly, "The academic school is the one with the right to speak in art evaluation. The Romantic style is very great, and it is still our core competitiveness today. But it has reached the highest turning point from prosperity to decline, just look at the current trend of Impressionism."

"Among the winners of this Harvest Art Festival, the romantic ones will be romantic, and the modern ones will be modern. This is the pattern that should be formed. The aesthetics of the art world and the general public will gradually transform towards 'atonality'"

"But can they really be so receptive to less pleasant sounds?" Roy frowned and asked, "Although I know that avant-garde music has its own logical beauty, but human ears Naturally pursue melodies with memorable characteristics and harmonious progressions with clear tendencies."

"What does it mean to be pleasant?" the president asked.

Roy was startled.

“In the ancient music period, any change of tone outside the prescribed mode was a blasphemous heresy;”

“In the early days of medieval music, only chants composed in parallel octaves or fifths were considered harmonious;”

"In Gregory's time, augmented fourths and chromatic scales were considered 'devil's sounds'; in the mature period of polyphonic music, dominant seventh chords were systematically used, and the major second became a common conflict interval. But minor second degrees are still an absolute no-no;”

“During the period of Authenticism, composers who dared to use too much brass in their symphonies or who wrote too long a development were criticized.”

"So, what does it mean to be pleasant?"

"The future must belong to the world of atonal music. After the last masters of Romanticism and Impressionism pass away, the new masters will be like this. Everyone who comes from an academic school will only regard Romanticism as It is a required course based on the basics, but atonal music is the field that can bring achievements and honors. Haha, the Special Patrol Office still holds that evaluation system, that is because they are old-fashioned and do not understand academic research. The content must be forward-looking, and once we have put it behind us, the seating order of the discussion group will have to be shuffled.”

"Well, I hope so." Roy did not choose to argue in depth with his father.

She is not a conservative. In fact, she feels that her father's initial series of analyses, predictions, and demonstrations were correct, but his final conclusion, or "methodology," always feels a bit too extreme.

Although the other party's tone sounded confident that "everything is under control," the anxiety and eagerness for success could not be concealed.

She remembered very clearly that when she asked Mr. Fanning for his views on avant-garde music, she wrote down those few paragraphs and wrote them in the front of the notebook she took to participate in the seminar today— —

“Modern music in the near future—let’s call the various genres after Impressionism collectively called modern music—will experience a spurt of growth. This is because besides the twenty-four major and minor harmony systems, there is indeed another A vast world.”

"But it must be noted that the history of art development has always been a process of "back and forth correction." When someone mentions "atonality," someone will mention "limited shift mode," and when someone mentions "expressionism," someone will mention "Neoclassicism", some people claim to raise the "professional aesthetic threshold", while others claim that "what the people like is the best", they will constantly add things to the scale, if it is left, add a little to the right, and if it is right, it will be Add a little to the left”

"Speaking back to avant-garde music, after a relatively long period of turbulence, modern works that can be remembered by future generations and have real artistic value can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category is "for reading", although listening to It feels obscure and difficult to understand, but it broadens the boundaries of music in a certain direction. There are many mysteries in the music score and it has profound academic research value; the second category is 'for use', which refers to things that will gradually appear in the future. Atmosphere music, scene music, movie soundtrack or game soundtrack (Roy wrote: What does this mean?), modern music techniques will play unexpected value in these applications; the third category is really worth listening to "

"As for the measurement method of the latter, it is very simple. It is to see whether after the piece is written, it is shelved after its first performance, or whether there is a chance of being repeated. It is to see if a recording of this piece exists. Do you listen to it once and throw it away out of curiosity, or do you pick it up and listen to it a second or third time on subsequent occasions and find some kind of resonance in it, or is it good for "simple emotional venting"?

"In general, there is a lot to be done in the field of modern music, but we must see clearly that some people are trying to separate it from the aesthetics of music fans and turn it into something that the academics themselves play and "no one can understand". Gamers always like to name the new things floating in the air as various "isms". Only when their weight settles down can they examine with a peaceful mind whether this is a satisfactory creative tool - —Just like the “precipitated tools” of the past.”

"If you don't come back, it will be my own loss."

Roy sighed inwardly when she returned to her residence. She just read through the contents of her notebook again.

This is what she appreciates, progressive, rational and profound answers. It's really cool to have someone with such insight.

Moreover, he also said that if he had the opportunity in the future, he would demonstrate to those people what "avant-garde music" was, and he didn't know what kind of music he would write.

"Forget it, there may be more troublesome problems now."

So far, the several points explained in Father Lavoisier's letter have not deviated from his expectations.

The next step, what the priest explained is

The morning after the first round of secret seminars.

Marquis MacAdam naturally had a full schedule and went out to meet important guests early in the morning.

After Roy got up in the morning, he washed, combed his hair, ate, changed clothes, strolled around the garden leisurely like the previous few days, and then returned to the room in the villa to practice the cello.

The music of the a cappella suite was melodious until eleven o'clock, when the music stopped, and then there was a "thump thump thump" sound of footsteps on the stairs.

"Aunt!" Roy ran down the stairs and ran to Ms. Hermosa's room, "What do you think this is!?"

The other party sat calmly at the desk and looked back following the sound.

But when she saw what Roy was holding, her expression immediately changed.

"The migration signpost of the 'cracking field'? Where did you get this thing!?"