Beyond Modernism
Jerome Durlak
[The following quote has been deliberately taken out of context.]
"The leading member of the Princeton Spelling club has
attacked my most recent post on..."
Perhaps using a spell checker might reduce the severity
of the responses to your posts.
Richard Clark - eagerly awaiting Roger Lustig's pithy reply
to "Beyond Modernism".
(sharing an account with jdu...@nexus.yorku.ca)
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
The leading member of the Princeton Spelling club has
no music has ever worked that way. This is not enitrely correct,
as the basic plan of the Beethoven Violin Concerto makes
clear, that convergence to unity and diveregence to polyphony
(and beyond) are a fundemental part of our musical vocabulary, but
htey have not been studied with the rigor, and intensity, that
harmony has been. Nor have they been made the central organizing
principle of a school of music (to my knowledge, though certain Shanghainese
operas seems to have similar effects.)
If you want to compose in a new way, you need new ideas to
express, and this will often mean finding new techniques. This is
what Beethoven was all about, or Berlioz, or Wagner, or Sch, or
others. Merely seekingnew mechanisms is libel to
lead to very poor music, as there will be no organizaiton other
than the composers personal sensation (which I have found
is no more reliabelthan anyone elses, read Wagner's letters, think
about what sort of person he must have been to have written them, is
that the "self" that you wish to communicate with? No it
is his sense of aesthetic which was so musch broader and deeper than
the almost any other composer of his time, from his letters he
is merely a high romantic archie bunker, from his music, which clearly
derives out of his aesthetic sense, he has grasped trancendental truths
of the human understanding of sound).
The leading member of the PSC also criticizes me for
disagreeing with schenker and sch and others. Quite simply many of them
did not have the experience with music of the baroque played
in the baroque style that I have had. On instruments tuned to the
standards of the times and at the ptich of the times. Once
heard in this way, the mind at first hears it as a "weak tonality"
since that is the organizing principle that most people are used to.
(and it does not take long to get used to it, several friends of
mine from China who had little experience with tonal music took to
it rather quickly). After a while of hearing it however certain things become
clear, the music is not organized around the steps being of equal size and
the sense of center created through the use of melody and harmonic sensation,
but on the fact that some of the intervals have a rinign purity, a
purness that cannot be escaped, while others, are echoes
or distortions of that pure inteval. The intervals are the fifth,and the
third. Thus harmony from the late 1500's until the 1750's is
clearly triadic in nature. It sounds very similar to tonality,
because tonality is descended from it and its techniques, and the
interval of the tonic is very similar to the triad (but not the same,
Bach could here the difference and complained about how "sharp" the major thirds
where in the equal temperment
(the systme we use for pianos and is the center for our tonal
music (in theory anyway))).
There is a difference, you can hear it if you stop listening to what a group
of late romantics/early modernists tell you,
because all they saw were the same notes on the page, and they had heard them
played the same way notes by Berlioz,Wagner and Mahler were intended.
But they are not the same nots, they do not mean the same things, and
the result is that the music is not the same in its organizing principle.
Look at basic choral technique. In most harmony books I have read I am told that I have
a succession of "four voiced chords" and that the way to harmonization is
to choose the chords that I whish to have playing, figure the bass
note and then the inner voices. All well and good. But what if the chords
of correlli are not the same as the chords of haydn some years later. With
the difference in tuning, they are not. If there were no difference,
there would have been no resistance to the new system, but there was,\
just as there has been resistance to periodic revivals of older tuning
systems.
As for the differnece between opus 20 and opus 33 of haydn. Look again at the scores,
where in20 does something happen like the progressive harmonic
motion of say 33 #4's largo occur? It happens in places, but not as the
entire movement (though I suppose you might be able to argue that the
allegro movements partake of enough of this to qualify, but I don't think so.)
The opus 20 (1771) are clearly not triadic, they do not alternate periods of
interwoven polyphony with periods of chord, passing tone, chord, but
instead accept the full chromaticism of the 7 note mode (though they stop
form going much farther than that. They are chromatic within the context of a
mode, that do not add chromaticism *to* a mode except as part of the progression
to another mode, or as the interuption of the cadence.)
If the cadence is the punctuation of a pisce of classically organized
music, than the nature of that cadence and the way towards that cadence are of
utmost mportance. I have argued that the nature of the cadence is different
(beause the physical notes themselves were different!) and the the journey
to that cadence now took an unexpected additon, a melody that leads one
across the boundaries in the next key, whose realization
can only occur when it becomes possible to lead it across the boundaries of the
ranges of the particular instruments. A simple example, imagine a melody
that leads one down a third in key. If it is played with the lowest
noe being the low G string, then the violin can no longer play it nin the new
key on its repetiion, but one deso not want to simply move (fugue style)
to the viola, but instead write the top part in the violin, and have sustained
chordal pedals or arpegiated figures play in the violin, *while the
viola plays the lower notes* and then returns to being the middle voice.
Find this in Correlli. Or Vivaldi or even Bach. Any where as
the *central* organizing principle of the piece. Haydn wrote over 60
symphonies,50 string quartets and divrse other works where this is
the case (I have not seen the others yet so cannot vouch for them).
Listen, the understanding is there if you will look up from schenker
and others and listen.
As for my own ideas, I did not say that all music should be composed this way, or even that all good music
ought to be composed this way, but that it is a way of composing pieces in the
classical aesthetic which did not sound like previous ages, and could be used
to communicate the ideas, feelings, sensations and intensity of the
age, that it could contain enough of what had come before to draw
people from the past, and into the future. I do not expect modernists
who have a smug belief that Paert,Sch et al are the "Great Composers"
that are the successors to the classical aesthetic, they are not, and the
evidence for this is the not in your theories (or those that you were taught)
since they were without exception devised to prove te opposite, nor
in the late romantic rants that your contemporaries are
so found of debunking, because the romanitics were reacting on gut impulse.
The differene lies in simply this: that modernism is a set of habits of though
and patterns of thinking and associaton, that allow a person to function
in the modern world, there is not clear "in/out" of binary dichotomies and definitions,
but instead, there is a process of inquiry into the interaction of a particualr
thought mode and the artifacts of modernism, and how they must opperate in
concert ot produce the modernist aesthetic. Modernism did not
spring full blown from nowhere (just as classicim did not etc.) which
is why it is entirely possible to find even some ancient greeks who
sound remarkably modern (Plato).
Margaret-Mary Petit Internet: MP4...@uacsc1.albany.edu
Rockefeller College Bitnet: MP4...@albnyvms.bitnet
SUNY Albany, NY
----`---,---{@
Todd Michel McComb
>convergence to unity and diveregence to polyphony
>(and beyond) are a fundemental part of our musical vocabulary, but
>htey have not been studied with the rigor, and intensity, that
>harmony has been. Nor have they been made the central organizing
>principle of a school of music (to my knowledge, though certain Shanghainese
>operas seems to have similar effects.)
As long as you are talking about other musics around the world, you might want
to have a listen to some Cambodian court orchestra music. The musicians
describe what they do in terms similar to the above. A recommended recording
would be the one on the Unesco series from Auvidis. You might also enjoy
Javanese Gamelan.
>The leading member of the PSC also criticizes me for
>disagreeing with schenker and sch and others.
The problem I have is that you are using technical terminology in non-standard
ways, and it is only possible to understand what you are talking about from
the context (barely).
I'm one of those people who happens to believe that dodecaphony is a natural
consequence of equal temperament -- something like that belief would appear
to be imbedded in your prose. There's no value judgement (either way) in
that.
>But they are not the same nots, they do not mean the same things, and
>the result is that the music is not the same in its organizing principle.
Ok, so you want to put these compositions in the context of the time.
This is all well and good, but the point you want to make seems to have
been lost someplace. If I am recalling this convoluted thread
correctly, you introduced this idea that baroque music is not tonal
with the statement that this converse "fact" was used by modernists to
justify atonal music -- ie., that to do something new one must not do
something old, and old music=tonal (to paraphrase). Well, this is all
highly bizarre as an argument.
But an argument for what? Are you trying to say anything but that you don't
like atonal music?
>But what if the chords of correlli are not the same as the chords of haydn
>some years later. With the difference in tuning, they are not.
Ok. And?
>Listen, the understanding is there if you will look up from schenker
>and others and listen.
Well, sure. However, you brought up this thread as some sort of condemnation
of modernism (including many of the composers many people happen to enjoy),
and began justifying it with these arguments on the change in harmony from
baroque to classical. Now that we sort of understand what you are talking
about, perhaps you would care to explain how these things condemn modernism?
If your point is only that there are many new things that can be done in music
without using mid-20th-century-style atonality, then I don't think anyone is
going to argue with you.
>I do not expect modernists who have a smug belief that Paert,Sch et
>al are the "Great Composers" that are the successors to the classical
>aesthetic, they are not, and the evidence for this is the not in your
>theories (or those that you were taught) since they were without
>exception devised to prove te opposite, nor in the late romantic rants
>that your contemporaries are so found of debunking, because the
>romanitics were reacting on gut impulse.
Come again?
I'm not much for theories, myself. However, what does lend a certain
"smugness" to part of this discussion is that people who really enjoy Part
& Schoenberg (which isn't me, though I do have some admiration for much
of their work) are, quite frankly, not going to buy into your specific
critique of their music because it doesn't make much sense -- it betrays
a lack of familiarity. You are certainly free not to like it (or this
"modernism"), but there is no good in putting down things other people
like. And the fact that you are virtually incoherent in your writing
(and all the typos and spelling errors don't help) just doesn't add
credibility to such a position; how about putting a little more effort
into communicating here?
>The differene lies in simply this: that modernism is a set of habits
>of though and patterns of thinking and associaton, that allow a
>person to function in the modern world, there is not clear "in/out" of
>binary dichotomies and definitions, but instead, there is a process
>of inquiry into the interaction of a particualr thought mode and the
>artifacts of modernism, and how they must opperate in concert ot
>produce the modernist aesthetic. Modernism did not spring full blown
>from nowhere (just as classicim did not etc.) which is why it is
>entirely possible to find even some ancient greeks who sound
>remarkably modern (Plato).
Well, fine. The difference between what and what?
For the record, so long as this debate hinges on one-word aesthetic titles,
I am a medievalist.
And in another place (which I suppose I was lucky to find):
>NB: to the person who tinks I am a fractal nut as
>an easy answer. The fractals on computers have
>severe limitations, their rules of generation don't change, they do not
>refelct the sort of iterative process by which
>humnas (and other things function) by which the rules used
>to generate the next state themselves can be changwithin the rules:
Fine -- but I was apparently correct in principle. For the record
(adopting my hat as a mathematical physicist for the moment), I think
there is definitely something to be learned from iterative processes in
physical understanding, but I do not believe that a fully discrete
model will enscapsulate this understanding (let alone "reality") -- as
you seem to imply.
>It is this more general form of iteration that many mathematicians are
>now opposing in their attempt to "close' the definiton of fractal.
Oh, this is silly, but I see no reason to bring math into this.... But,
anyway, closed definitions are what math is all about (and technical language
in general). It's just a tool -- it certainly doesn't imply "opposition"
to the examples you cite.
>To answer your question: I do believe that a new aesthetic flows out of
>accepting iterativeness as a way of symbolizing the world, and as a guide to
>what forms of order one should seek... in music and elsewhere.
This isn't a bad idea for music. What do you think of Xenakis' piano piece,
Evryali? One of your earlier descriptions of what you'd like to do struck
me as very close to the description of this piece, though I certainly read
other things into your writing which would lead me to believe you would not
like it. How about late medieval isorhythm? And what about Giacinto Scelsi?
It definitely sounds as though he would strike a chord with you.
T. M. McComb
Ed Price
>Thus harmony from the late 1500's until the 1750's is
>clearly triadic in nature. It sounds very similar to tonality,
>because tonality is descended from it and its techniques, and the
>interval of the tonic is very similar to the triad (but not the same,
>Bach could here the difference and complained about how "sharp" the
>major thirds where in the equal temperment
"On Bach's Method of Tuning" from _The Bach Reader_:
``Mr. Kirnberger has more than once told me as well as others about how the
famous Joh. Seb. Bach, during the time when the former was enjoying musical
instruction at the hands of the latter, confided to him the tuning of his
clavier, and how the master expressly required of him that he tune all the
thirds sharp.'' (Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, 1776)
I'm no expert but my understanding (please correct me if I'm hideously
misinformed) is that Bach complained about Silbermann's tuning of his
organs because they weren't well/equal/whatever-tempered. I don't feel
like chasing down this exact reference at the moment but I remember a story
(also from The Bach Reader -- BTW, are there any other books worth reading
about Bach?? I've gotten to know this one pretty well now!:) about how
Bach (who was frequently called on to test new organs which Silbermann
seemed to be building a lot of I guess) would play a "Fantasia in A-flat"
or something which would sound out of tune on the organ as tuned by
Silbermann, just to annoy him. (I don't remember anything about Bach
complaining about thirds being too sharp in new tunings and the quote above
seems to contradict this pretty clearly anyway, doesn't it?)
Ciao,
-Ed
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
everything correctly.
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet writes:
>
>``Mr. Kirnberger has more than once told me as well as others about how the
>famous Joh. Seb. Bach, during the time when the former was enjoying musical
>instruction at the hands of the latter, confided to him the tuning of his
>clavier, and how the master expressly required of him that he tune all the
>thirds sharp.'' (Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, 1776)
fairly sharp as it is
I will have to check the tunnings story because it makes a difference
which key the *organ* was tuned in as well as the key of the piece.
>Ciao,
>
>-Ed
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
about what music can sound like, and what techniques cna be used
in composition (and about pure intervals for that matter).
Re: SE asian music.
Um well, no, it does not have the kind of motivic force
that is in pieces like Beethoven or Brahms (who I am not
a big fan of ). But the convergence/divergence properties of traditional
chineese music caught a piece of what I was looking for.
Again let me try and encapsulate one
point away from the others: tonality, to me, is not an issue. One
can write a tonal piece of music that is complete modernist in
the way of thinking and thus sound complete modernists (many
minamalists pieces *are* tonal) and one can write a completely
atonal piece that is classical in aesethtic.
The question is
what are your driving and organizing principles. modernism
has a set of its own and does not particularly do well
with understand others, over and over agian in these posts
I have seen people attemtpt to simplify things down
to one or more of the "known" positions, I am a retro-romantic
who wants to go back to some mythic golden age, a fractal nut
etc.
No I don't like what modernism has become (note has become, it
was not always now in the ossified position that it si now. It
was fresh and shining and *new* once, with the exhuberance of
Picasso, the searching visionary view of Camus, the explorations
of Joyce, the roughness of jazz, the power of Art Deco Architecture,
the optimism of early twentieth century commercialism, the
dream of scienc ehlping us on to a better world as envisioned by
Wells and others.... but now, it is repeating the errors of the late
victorian age, tryin to enforce its views, by saying that the words themselves mean x ,have always
meant x and will always mean x because the word
meaning xundemental, unarguable
pricniple that only an ingorant,illeterate, contentless rambler
(ahve I caught most of the adjectives or are ther others)
would sipute.
If math is about fixed definitons, then you are in for a shock:
math ahs continueally boxed itself in with fixed definitons
and then had to expand the symbol set to solve new problems:
negative numbers,
zero
the theory of infinte sets
goedel numbers
algebra
incomensurability leading to irrational numbers
boolean logic
are all expansions of what we though of as a "basic"
definition : the problem now with fractals is that
there are attempts to standardize the definitoin on
the current one when even Benoit Mandelbrot has said that
there are things which clearly exhibit the "fracta" property and
that we would call fractals, but the current definition does not
accept. I would regard a definition which does not meet
all of the cases as a bad one myself, I don't know about
you.....
All definitions in math are provisional.
Key parts of what I am looking for in aesthetic are:
Motivic force,
Rythmic urgency,
melody,meoldy,melody,mel....
harmonic expansion (you understand why the harmonic progression is used
not just that it has been used)
temporal as well as instantaneous sensation.
convergence and divergence from the differnt modes of voicing
a predominant idea
a rejection of statistization (example "Blue Columns" long drawn out
chord with random dissonances at a variety of intervals (for 40 minutes!))
Modernists pieces have a very different view of what makes a piece,
all of these elements are present here and there, but they
arenot the guiding force of the piece:
SOme notes on sch:
yes I have studied him quite a bit, but I do not have
the mepathy to ever spend the time or energy to really be able
to wnader through his oevre at will (the way I can with Beethoven
and pull up ideas and connections).
Yes I agree the String Trio is very autobigraphical,
sch's musical biography is about coming to terms with
the tonal/romantic/chromatic compositional urge within him
and the intellectual belief for the ned to reform the music
in order to save it. The very focredness of the technique
exemplifies the intellectual (and the work is long on technique)
and the emmotional. Just as Mahler's 9th is autobiographical
because it exemplifies many of the great and deep themes of
his personal struggle. But wors which demonstrate that
the composer was struggling are not as important where the composer
has communicated the struggle. (I don't think that sch ever did this
,though I could be wrong, it seems an unresovled dissonance in his
work, I bleieve that Alban Berg, less attached to the older world
was more able to do this in Wozzeckk and Lulu).
William Tsun-Yuk Hsu
>
>Yes I agree the String Trio is very autobigraphical,
>sch's musical biography is about coming to terms with
>the tonal/romantic/chromatic compositional urge within him
>and the intellectual belief for the ned to reform the music
>in order to save it. The very focredness of the technique
>exemplifies the intellectual (and the work is long on technique)
>and the emmotional.
That is generally not what most people mean when they say
the String Trio is autobiographical. I'm not going to argue
with mp4089 any longer about whether the String Trio (or
some other Schoenberg piece) is or is not a self-conscious
display of technique on the composer's part. I'll just
quote a couple well-known references to the work.
The piece was written after Schoenberg's partial recovery from a
heart attack. Hanns Eisler reported this comment from
Schoenberg, about the piece:
"You know, I was so weak, I don't at all know how I wrote it.
I just scribbled something."
Eisler also said "But he [Sch.] showed me how every chord
represented an injection."
And from Thomas Mann:
"[Sch] told me about the new trio he had just completed,
and about the experiences he had secretly woven into the
composition --- experiences of which the work was a kind
of fruit. He had, he said, represented his illness and
medical treatment in the music, including even the male
nurse and all the rest."
It would seem to me that Schoenberg had a lot more in mind
than
>the tonal/romantic/chromatic compositional urge within him
>and the intellectual belief for the ned to reform the music
>in order to save it.
Bill
Richard Wang
Jerome Durlak <jdu...@nexus.yorku.ca> wrote:
>Richard Clark - eagerly awaiting Roger Lustig's pithy reply
>to "Beyond Modernism".
Let us hope it is indeed so, and not just another nitpicking line-by-line
trashing of MMP's posts.
--
Richard Wang
rw...@husc.harvard.edu
"Eve was not the first to pluck and sample the apple. Adam was first and
he learned by this to put the blame on Eve."--Leto II,
_God_Emperor_of_Dune_, Frank Herbert
Todd Michel McComb
> Xenakis' work has had an influence on my thinking
>about what music can sound like, and what techniques cna be used
>in composition (and about pure intervals for that matter).
You are perhaps thinking in part of the Pleiades? I was quite taken with
the interval effects in that piece for years.
>Re: SE asian music.
> Um well, no, it does not have the kind of motivic force
>that is in pieces like Beethoven or Brahms (who I am not
>a big fan of ). But the convergence/divergence properties of traditional
>chineese music caught a piece of what I was looking for.
You have mentioned the Shanghai opera -- something I regard as a rather
different aesthetic. What about the traditional instrumental repertory
in things like guqin and pipa? I am quite fond of those myself, but
would not use the convergence/divergence ideas to describe them. The
modulation among pentatonic "keys" in a twelve-tone frame is quite
interesting, as is the precise embellishment. That, and I love the
melodies.
But... SE Asian music is something I would often describe exactly in terms
of convergence/divergence -- and more to the point, this is how the musicians
themselves will describe it. So, I am afraid I do not know what distinction
you are wanting to make with this term. Certainly, one does not see motivic
tension in the style of Brahms.
>No I don't like what modernism has become (note has become, it was
>not always now in the ossified position that it si now. It was fresh
>and shining and *new* once, with the exhuberance of Picasso, the
>searching visionary view of Camus, the explorations of Joyce, the
>roughness of jazz, the power of Art Deco Architecture, the optimism of
>early twentieth century commercialism, the dream of scienc ehlping us
>on to a better world as envisioned by Wells and others.... but now, it
>is repeating the errors of the late victorian age, tryin to enforce
>its views, by saying that the words themselves mean x ,have always
>meant x and will always mean x because the word meaning xundemental,
>unarguable pricniple that only an ingorant,illeterate, contentless
>rambler (ahve I caught most of the adjectives or are ther others)
>would sipute.
Now you are making sense. I agree with this.
>If math is about fixed definitons, then you are in for a shock:
>math ahs continueally boxed itself in with fixed definitons
>and then had to expand the symbol set to solve new problems:
>...
>are all expansions of what we though of as a "basic"
That is a misguided view. Precise definitions help us to see what is outside
of them, and then new definitions are formed. It is not boxing in, and the
examples you cite are still definitions which are in use. Only a pop-math
person or a mathematician with an axe to grind will ever say that there is
nothing outside the definitions -- they are there only as tools.
>definition : the problem now with fractals is that
>there are attempts to standardize the definitoin on
This is not a problem. It does not mean that anything outside this
definition will be ignored by anyone but the most gung-ho amateur.
>the current one when even Benoit Mandelbrot has said that
>there are things which clearly exhibit the "fracta" property and
>that we would call fractals, but the current definition does not
>accept. I would regard a definition which does not meet
>all of the cases as a bad one myself, I don't know about
>you.....
That is only if we want the word "fractal" to assume the larger meaning.
I, myself, do not want that because I regard it as a silly word. Iterative
structure/process is a better general term, in my opinion. And, in turn,
this term can only be used in a mathematical way when it has been precisely
defined -- this does not mean that the practice of math on iterative structures
is inhibited. If you check the literature, you will see that applied math
people use and develop many ideas before they are developed as rigorous
math. And then the rigor of the pure mathematicians is used as a springboard
for new inspiration in modeling. This has always been so, since the
beginning of the mechanical age.
>All definitions in math are provisional.
To some degree. But the real advances are in defining new things. That
is different.
> Key parts of what I am looking for in aesthetic are:
>Motivic force,
>Rythmic urgency,
>melody,meoldy,melody,mel....
>harmonic expansion (you understand why the harmonic progression is used
>not just that it has been used)
>temporal as well as instantaneous sensation.
>convergence and divergence from the differnt modes of voicing
>a predominant idea
>a rejection of statistization
What do you think of the Ars Subtilior? What about Carnatic song? But
Ockeghem is my favorite. He certainly has all these things.
>Modernists pieces have a very different view of what makes a piece,
>all of these elements are present here and there, but they
>arenot the guiding force of the piece:
This is a silly generalization. The only possible exception in the bulk
of "modernist" pieces which receive some substantial number of performances
is the point on melody -- and, as long as we are playing fast and loose with
definitions, that depends on what you mean.
>SOme notes on sch:
>yes I have studied him quite a bit, but I do not have
>the mepathy to ever spend the time or energy to really be able
>to wnader through his oevre at will
That's all fine. But then your criticisms of this oeuvre as a monolith
are only going to have the vague direction of an outsider.
And no one really cares whether you dislike Schoenberg. Tell us more about
what you like.
T. M. McComb
William Alves
>mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet writes:
>
>>Thus harmony from the late 1500's until the 1750's is
>>clearly triadic in nature. It sounds very similar to tonality,
>>because tonality is descended from it and its techniques, and the
>>interval of the tonic is very similar to the triad (but not the same,
>>Bach could here the difference and complained about how "sharp" the
>>major thirds where in the equal temperment
>
>"On Bach's Method of Tuning" from _The Bach Reader_:
>
>``Mr. Kirnberger has more than once told me as well as others about how the
>famous Joh. Seb. Bach, during the time when the former was enjoying musical
>instruction at the hands of the latter, confided to him the tuning of his
>clavier, and how the master expressly required of him that he tune all the
>thirds sharp.'' (Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, 1776)
I for one have never forgiven Marpurg or Kirnberger for not giving more
information about Bach's tuning. Without knowing a reference, "sharp
thirds" can mean just about anything. My interpretation is "sharp of
pure thirds that were used in 1/4-comma meantone temperament, but not
as sharp as equally-tempered (major) thirds." Why? First of all, though
most of the theorists of the time talk about so-called "well" temperaments,
there is some evidence that 1/4-comma meantone was still the common
standard among workaday musicians, at least common enough to provide
a reference for this remark. Secondly, we know from Marpurg in another
source, via C.P.E. Bach that "the master" did not use equal temperament.
The idea behind the "well" temperaments was to make the most commonly
used thirds not pure (hence sharp) but closer to pure than the least
commonly used thirds. We don't know exactly what method Bach used, but
most historians assume that it was some variant of well-temperament.
(After all, it's not the Equally-tempered Clavier, is it?)
I have to agree with Ms. Margaret-Mary that hearing these pieces in the
appropriate tuning certainly makes quite a difference to the listening
experience, and hence the analysis. However, I can't go along with the
strict dichotomization between the linear and the harmonic. Clearly the
art of Bach and other composers of the common-practice period was to
unify the two. Nor do I see what intrinsic quality of 1994 should
suddenly inspire composers to line up behind the linearity banner. Just
saying "because it hasn't been done before," as I said in a somewhat
different tone before, is like trying to go beyond modernism by adopting
modernism.
Equisinarchically,
Bill Alves
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
master work:Death In Venice.
>It would seem to me that Schoenberg had a lot more in mind
>than
>
>>the tonal/romantic/chromatic compositional urge within him
>>and the intellectual belief for the ned to reform the music
>>in order to save it.
This belief, according sch overshadowed all of his work.
And if he had nothing more on his mind than this, I do not
think that he would have generated the following that he has.
If this sort of work is require to appreciate a piece,
that is autobiographical study of the composers life, as if
they were some sort of celebrity, or Apotheosis of a general
mood or group, or that creations should be looked at as extensions
of the cathartic urge whioch simply happnes to reach ressonance,
or if this is what you think of as study of a piece, then
it is clear failure. It is hardly graphic in its depicition
of the *things* you mention. It is graphic in its depiction
of the *struggle* within the composer. A compser who
"just scribbled something" cannot also be carefully putting in
all of the details that you mention. You cannot argue both ways.
Or is this the shotgun approach? Just blast the opposition with quotes
regardless of the coherence of the arguement you put forward
with them?
If you are putting forward the idea that we should listen to
the piece as a depiction (cinematic style) of the evnets, then it
is a failure and a mere cult piece-
However I would argue that a more general reading of the piece
is that it is about the sensation of attempting to humanize and
internalize through intelectual technique the feeling of existance
of being dehumanized and strugling back towards humanity. Evident
is that in one sense of his artistic aesthetic is the "romantic:
urge of heroism (indeed his sq #1 was supposedly modeled after the
"Eroica" symphony) but another impulse is the desire to control
(Every chord represented an injection) which shows up in the technique
that he uses. On this level I think the work is of high quality...
but the solutions that he comes to are, to me, and many,many,many
others an indissoluble block of ugly music. ANd further it is
a catharsis of the struggle rather than the struggle itself (which
is supported by your quotes and was mentioned in the previous post.)
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>In article <2rfonb$s...@rebecca.albany.edu> mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet writes:
>>Re: SE asian music.
>> Um well, no, it does not have the kind of motivic force
>>that is in pieces like Beethoven or Brahms (who I am not
>>a big fan of ). But the convergence/divergence properties of traditional
>>chineese music caught a piece of what I was looking for.
>But... SE Asian music is something I would often describe exactly in terms
>of convergence/divergence -- and more to the point, this is how the musicians
>themselves will describe it. So, I am afraid I do not know what distinction
>you are wanting to make with this term. Certainly, one does not see motivic
>tension in the style of Brahms.
As I said, the music's convergence and divergence does not relate to
the thematic tension. In otherwords there is harmony in all forms of
music, and I agree the motion of the music in what I have heard
has some f the same idea, but it stands in a differnt relatin
to how the music is organized. (Though I would like your
recomendations on recordings... my vovabulary here is limited to
being told what I was listening to... listening to it and being left
with soley the details that the mind could rapidly grasp upon. It
still sound very "chinese" to me since that is the aesthteic that I
understand that is closes to it (but not very close))
>
>That is only if we want the word "fractal" to assume the larger meaning.
>I, myself, do not want that because I regard it as a silly word. Iterative
>structure/process is a better general term, in my opinion. And, in turn,
>this term can only be used in a mathematical way when it has been precisely
>defined -- this does not mean that the practice of math on iterative structures
>is inhibited. If you check the literature, you will see that applied math
>people use and develop many ideas before they are developed as rigorous
>math. And then the rigor of the pure mathematicians is used as a springboard
>for new inspiration in modeling. This has always been so, since the
>beginning of the mechanical age.
Not going to argue this with you here... does not seem appropriate
>>All definitions in math are provisional.
>
>To some degree. But the real advances are in defining new things. That
>is different.
>
>> Key parts of what I am looking for in aesthetic are:
>>Motivic force,
>>Rythmic urgency,
>>melody,meoldy,melody,mel....
>>harmonic expansion (you understand why the harmonic progression is used
>>not just that it has been used)
>>temporal as well as instantaneous sensation.
>>convergence and divergence from the differnt modes of voicing
>>a predominant idea
>>a rejection of statistization
>
>That's all fine. But then your criticisms of this oeuvre as a monolith
>are only going to have the vague direction of an outsider.
Sorry I can't buy this "only insiders undestnad argument, I have heard
it from punkers, metalheads and fans of ALW.... My criticisms
I think have been quite specific and not unfounded (I think that Marios'
Schnable quotes support one of my basic contentions (drawn from
the composers quotes and the music itself)) that sch was torn between
two differetn kinds of imulses within himself, that
unlike mahler whose conflicts are emmotinal in nature and
about conflicting emmotions, sch has a conflict between an emotinal
nostalgic response and a response interliked with his sense of
his place in history and intellectual understnading of music (particularly
the quote on "punishment")
>And no one really cares whether you dislike Schoenberg. Tell us more about
>what you like.
This is a thing that bothers me about the sch-ians - any criticism
of their heroes work is taken as being apostasy and irrelevant, and
based solely on subjective intuition. I have said that there are
critical decisions made by sch (and more especailly by the third and
forth generation of his followers) that are open to
criticism on fairly open and unemmotional grounds (such as the
important enelemts of a piece, technique of composition).
I dislike sch's music in many cases because it is quite
clear what he is saying, and quite clear that I do not believe in it the
thing which he wishes to have me believe.
We are not all governemed by our immediate sense reposne to a piece.
>T. M. McComb
William Hsu
> If this sort of work is require to appreciate a piece,
> that is autobiographical study of the composers life, as if
> they were some sort of celebrity, or Apotheosis of a general
> mood or group, or that creations should be looked at as extensions
> of the cathartic urge whioch simply happnes to reach ressonance,
> or if this is what you think of as study of a piece, then
> it is clear failure. It is hardly graphic in its depicition
> of the *things* you mention.
Perhaps it's now my turn to complain about my respondents
not taking the time to read my posts.
I have never argued that knowledge of Schoenberg's life is
necessary before you can appreciate the String Trio.
We were arguing about Schoenberg's *intentions* in writing
the String Trio. You claimed that the piece was essentially
a self-conscious display of his technique, without providing
any supporting quotes, letters etc. But the writings that
I found quite easily seem to indicate that technical display
was hardly an important thing on his mind at the time.
Of course, to really know Schoenberg's intentions, we'd
have to ask him, which is impossible. But I happen to find
the testimonies of Schoenberg's friends, who were *there*,
a little more credible than you, ok?
Bill
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
as separate form "counterpoint".
>art of Bach and other composers of the common-practice period was to
>unify the two. Nor do I see what intrinsic quality of 1994 should
>suddenly inspire composers to line up behind the linearity banner. Just
>saying "because it hasn't been done before," as I said in a somewhat
>different tone before, is like trying to go beyond modernism by adopting
>modernism.
techniqu of composers: but as an organizing pricnple is deos allow
tremendous expansion of form and strucutre: and communicates a
different sense of the relaion ship of harmony meldoy and counterpoint:
at its best it allows the listner to perceive how the three are tryuly
one which differnt aspects are momentarily emphasized by the passing sensation
but allowing the reuinifcation of them over the course of the piece.
>Equisinarchically,
(Would you consider contracting to Equisarch here? some of us have
very slow connections)
>Bill Alves
Todd Michel McComb
>As I said, the music's convergence and divergence does not relate to
>the thematic tension. In otherwords there is harmony in all forms of
>music, and I agree the motion of the music in what I have heard
>has some f the same idea, but it stands in a differnt relatin
>to how the music is organized. (Though I would like your
>recomendations on recordings... my vovabulary here is limited to
>being told what I was listening to... listening to it and being left
>with soley the details that the mind could rapidly grasp upon. It
>still sound very "chinese" to me since that is the aesthteic that I
>understand that is closes to it (but not very close))
Of course it stands in a different relation.
Some discs:
Cambodia (mentioned before): Auvidis Unesco D 8011
Java (opera): Ocora 559014/15
Java ("abstract"): CMP (germany) 3007
Bali (gong gede): Ocora 559002
Bali (semar): Ocora 559076/77
I confess that I have never succeeded in enjoying Thai music at any deep
level. The whole Ocora series of Chinese music is quite good.
More info available on request.
>>[definitions in math]
>Not going to argue this with you here... does not seem appropriate
Fair enough.
>>That's all fine. But then your criticisms of this oeuvre as a monolith
>>are only going to have the vague direction of an outsider.
>Sorry I can't buy this "only insiders undestnad argument, I have heard
>it from punkers, metalheads and fans of ALW.... My criticisms
>I think have been quite specific and not unfounded (I think that Marios'
>Schnable quotes support one of my basic contentions (drawn from
>the composers quotes and the music itself)) that sch was torn between
>two differetn kinds of imulses within himself, that
>unlike mahler whose conflicts are emmotinal in nature and
>about conflicting emmotions, sch has a conflict between an emotinal
>nostalgic response and a response interliked with his sense of
>his place in history and intellectual understnading of music (particularly
>the quote on "punishment")
This particular phrasing seems more accurate to me than your past ones.
It is still important not to overlook the unity and traditional orientation
of his output -- something which is quite understated in the above.
The point is that there is a difference between the criticism of an insider
and that of an outsider -- not that the outsider is wholly ignorant of what
is happening, but that he is criticizing in a direction oblique to the
ideas of those who already enjoy the music. As you've said, it is true that
one must change oneself to some degree to appreciate a new music, and it is
appropriate to choose not to do so. But it is also true that unless one has
gone through it, one's criticisms will not be relevant to the insider himself,
but rather only to those who stand in a similar position.
And to put this in perspective, I chose to get a doctorate in mathematical
physics only so as to be able to adopt the position of an insider in my
criticism. Being a good critic requires far more than perusal at a distance.
>This is a thing that bothers me about the sch-ians - any criticism
>of their heroes work is taken as being apostasy and irrelevant, and
>based solely on subjective intuition. I have said that there are
>critical decisions made by sch (and more especailly by the third and
>forth generation of his followers) that are open to
>criticism on fairly open and unemmotional grounds (such as the
>important enelemts of a piece, technique of composition).
You have talked about mechanical methods in composition. While it is true
that many of his followers used mechanical ideas (and let them dominate
pieces), I do not know of a single composer listed as "great" by the readers
of this group who did not compose pieces in which the mechanical element did
not dominate -- and indeed was quite peripheral. In many ways, the modernists
worst spokespeople were themselves -- don't you think Boulez would just as
soon take back some of that ridiculous stuff he said in his early adulthood?
To elaborate on this, since we've mentioned Xenakis, and since I've made this
comment before in this group (and to meet some criticism), I consider much of
his early music as experimental and really preliminary to his later works
which are far more interesting. In other words, this purely mechanical
approach was, for many, a stepping stone to a greater knowledge of how the
basic elements of music fit together -- whatever you'd like to define those
to be.
>We are not all governemed by our immediate sense reposne to a piece.
No, we are not.
T. M. McComb
William Hsu
> I've made this comment before in this group (and to meet some
> criticism), I consider much of his early music as experimental and
> really preliminary to his later works which are far more interesting.
Wow, we're actually starting to name some names in this thread.
Thanks, Todd! :-)
Generalizations aside (and I'm highly suspicious of generalizations,
umm, in general), I agree somewhat with Todd. For example, I love
the later string quartets Tetras and Tetora, but don't really care for
the early quartet ST???. And the first solo cello piece (Nomos Alpha?)
leaves me rather cold, while the later one (Kottos?) I find
quite captivating.
However, I do love some of his '60s pieces (I'm not sure if Todd
considers them "early"). Some of the electroacoustic pieces are
really beautiful, and Oresteia excites me like little else.
Bill
Todd Michel McComb
>However, I do love some of his '60s pieces (I'm not sure if Todd
>considers them "early"). Some of the electroacoustic pieces are
>really beautiful, and Oresteia excites me like little else.
The works from the 60s start to find a certain dynamism. Oresteia is
very successful, in my opinion.
T. M. McComb
Ed Price
>I for one have never forgiven Marpurg or Kirnberger for not giving more
>information about Bach's tuning. Without knowing a reference, "sharp
>thirds" can mean just about anything. My interpretation is "sharp of
>pure thirds that were used in 1/4-comma meantone temperament, but not
>as sharp as equally-tempered (major) thirds." Why? First of all, though
>most of the theorists of the time talk about so-called "well" temperaments,
>there is some evidence that 1/4-comma meantone was still the common
>standard among workaday musicians, at least common enough to provide
>a reference for this remark. Secondly, we know from Marpurg in another
>source, via C.P.E. Bach that "the master" did not use equal temperament.
Really? (Did they have equal temperament then??)
>The idea behind the "well" temperaments was to make the most commonly
>used thirds not pure (hence sharp) but closer to pure than the least
>commonly used thirds. We don't know exactly what method Bach used, but
>most historians assume that it was some variant of well-temperament.
>(After all, it's not the Equally-tempered Clavier, is it?)
First of all, thanks for the info! I am genuinely interested in learning
about these things. So, not to argue with you, but I have a question here:
the "most commonly used thirds" phrase, doesn't that imply favoring certain
keys over others? Many sources rave about how Bach could freely move
around in all keys. And there are also comments on Bach's insistence on
tuning instruments himself, no-one else could do it to his satisfaction,
etc.. It all made me wonder whether Bach might have used equal temperament
or at least something much closer than might normally be thought. Is that
impossible? (I guess what I'm really getting at here is simply: what is
the evidence via CPE or whatever that he didn't use equal temperament?)
While I'm here, and since this is probably not worth starting a whole
thread for, I have another question. Does anyone have any idea why the
ending of Contrapunctus I from Art of Fugue sounds like V to me? Am I
weird? Am I doing something "wrong"?? I've been listening to it (Glenn
Gould, from "On the Record/Off the Record", a documentary), and attempting
to play it, and it seems that more often than not, I want the last chord to
resolve to G.
-Ed
Jeff Beer
I like the early cello piece, but one Xenakis piece that is IT for me is
the brass/piano piece called EONTA.
BTW, did you hear Xenakis' african percussion piece?
Jeff
Vance Maverick
> thread for, I have another question. Does anyone have any idea why the
> ending of Contrapunctus I from Art of Fugue sounds like V to me? Am I
> weird? Am I doing something "wrong"?? I've been listening to it (Glenn
> Gould, from "On the Record/Off the Record", a documentary), and attempting
> to play it, and it seems that more often than not, I want the last chord to
> resolve to G.
You're not weird. Just looking at the score, it's clear Bach is
flirting heavily with G. Two bars before the end, we have Eb and C in
the soprano, in a line climbing unmistakably to G; in the last bar
before the end, it rises to Bb and drops to C#, bracketing D like a
diminished-7th chord -- but there's no E until the very last bar, in
the alto. Also, the C# is immediately weakened by the descending line
in the tenor, which passes through C. So while the passage is one of
the standard cadential kind which modulates to the subdominant and
back, he has taken care to make the return modulation weaker.
Vance
Todd Michel McComb
>I like the early cello piece, but one Xenakis piece that is IT for me is
>the brass/piano piece called EONTA.
Another piece with a lot of energy.... I like better the music which mixes
in some refinement as well, but that's certainly a matter of personal taste.
>BTW, did you hear Xenakis' african percussion piece?
I suspect not, but am not sure. What is it called?
T. M. McComb
Jeff Beer
>>I like the early cello piece, but one Xenakis piece that is IT for me is
>>the brass/piano piece called EONTA.
>
>Another piece with a lot of energy.... I like better the music which mixes
>in some refinement as well, but that's certainly a matter of personal taste.
BTW, Xenakis and Cecil Taylor have met, courtesy of Roger Woodward, and
they both like each other's work.
>
>>BTW, did you hear Xenakis' african percussion piece?
>
>I suspect not, but am not sure. What is it called?\
It is on one of the Arditti disks on Disques Montaignes, and Arditti
shares it with the percussion group Trio Le Cercle. It has some
quartets, and some string quartet with percussion, by Aperghis, Mache,
and Gaussin.
The Xenakis piece is for percussion only, three djembes, and it is
called Okho. Written in 1989. It is Disques Montaigne 782002
Jeff
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>In article <2ridtn$k...@rebecca.albany.edu> mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet writes:
>> If this sort of work is require to appreciate a piece,
>> that is autobiographical study of the composers life, as if
>> they were some sort of celebrity, or Apotheosis of a general
>> mood or group, or that creations should be looked at as extensions
>> of the cathartic urge whioch simply happnes to reach ressonance,
>> or if this is what you think of as study of a piece, then
>> it is clear failure. It is hardly graphic in its depicition
>> of the *things* you mention.
>
>Perhaps it's now my turn to complain about my respondents
>not taking the time to read my posts.
interpretation, this was obviously not made clear in the post.
My apologies.
>I have never argued that knowledge of Schoenberg's life is
>necessary before you can appreciate the String Trio.
>We were arguing about Schoenberg's *intentions* in writing
>the String Trio. You claimed that the piece was essentially
>a self-conscious display of his technique, without providing
>any supporting quotes, letters etc.
are saying, that supporting evidence of the composer's
intent is found in letters, quotes and writings. Actually
the quote you had about every chord representing an
injection was fairly close to what I was trying to
get at in my original post: that there was a fairly intellectual
sound symbol approach to a subjective experience:
>But the writings that
>I found quite easily seem to indicate that technical display
>was hardly an important thing on his mind at the time.
you pick seem to indicate he was very carefully depicting
everything that he had expereinced. Since he does not do
so in literal terms... he must be doing so in symbolic
ones, and very personal symbolic ones at that... If the
manipulation o fsound symbols is not part of
a composers technique, then the composers should probably study
something literal like pouring concrete.)
>Of course, to really know Schoenberg's intentios, we'd
>have to ask him, which is impossible. But I happen to find
>the testimonies of Schoenberg's friends, who were *there*,
>a little more credible than you, ok?
I feel that the deeper artistic intent is often at cross
purposes to the stated intentions of the composer or artist
and that the wrok of art is a more reliable guide to what
was really intended. This is especially the case with
an artisti like sch who was generally able to acheive
the effects he was aiming at. I find his music more reliable
than his friends if you will.
And I think that we are talking aobut two different kinds
of intent. The intent you seem to be concerned with is the
conscious expectation that the compsoer had for the piece,
I find that when composing, I very seldom acheive anything
close to this (nor do other better artists I know), but
instead there is some mediation, a coming together, of
an artistic sense, idea na dtechnique, with subconscious -
or non-conscious forces and the conscious expectation. Since
sch was a good (but by no means exceptional writer) and one
who was (very) conscious of his place in history, I have to judge his
utterances very differently from say PI Tchaikowski, who was far
more innocent and direct, than someone who is carefully building
a school of thought and composing, and is hoping that references
will be put down, this is not to accuse him of dishonesty, but
there will be a lense through which all is viewed (just
as PIT personall depression and self image make his statements
coloured versus the rest of the world.)
>Bill
William Alves
>
>>Secondly, we know from Marpurg in another
>>source, via C.P.E. Bach that "the master" did not use equal temperament.
>
>Really? (Did they have equal temperament then??)
>
(I refer you to J. Murray Barbour's Historical Tunings book, despite
its unabashed preference for equal temperament), but it was in the
seventeenth century or before. Around the middle of the eighteenth
century a debate raged with Rameau and Rousseau favoring equal tem-
perament against Marpurg, Kirnberger and others opposing it.
>First of all, thanks for the info! I am genuinely interested in learning
>about these things. So, not to argue with you, but I have a question here:
>the "most commonly used thirds" phrase, doesn't that imply favoring certain
>keys over others?
Yes it does. The keys C, F, G, D, A, were very common during the baroque,
much more so than, say, Ab, Db, F#, and so on.
>Many sources rave about how Bach could freely move
>around in all keys.
There is an important distinction here between "playable" and "equally
playable." In the Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach was showing off that his
tuning allowed all keys to be "playable," that is, there were no wolves
as there were in mean-tone temperament or just intonation. Nevertheless,
some thirds were better than others, making C, F, G and so on sound
more "pure" than Ab, Db, and F#, but all could be played without most
people objecting. While there is no clear dividing point at which an
interval become objectionable, the "well" temperaments sought to rob
the less important thirds to make the more important ones better. While
Bach clearly could get around in and compose in all the keys, his works
taken as a whole certainly show a preference for the simpler keys.
(Especially those works including wind instruments, of course.)
>And there are also comments on Bach's insistence on
>tuning instruments himself, no-one else could do it to his satisfaction,
>etc.. It all made me wonder whether Bach might have used equal temperament
>or at least something much closer than might normally be thought. Is that
>impossible? (I guess what I'm really getting at here is simply: what is
>the evidence via CPE or whatever that he didn't use equal temperament?)
During the debate I referred to above, Marpurg got CPE to write a letter
in support of his position stating that his father did not use equal
temperament.
>While I'm here, and since this is probably not worth starting a whole
>thread for, I have another question. Does anyone have any idea why the
>ending of Contrapunctus I from Art of Fugue sounds like V to me? Am I
>weird? Am I doing something "wrong"?? I've been listening to it (Glenn
>Gould, from "On the Record/Off the Record", a documentary), and attempting
>to play it, and it seems that more often than not, I want the last chord to
>resolve to G.
Can't help you there.
>-Ed
Bill
Mark Gresham
>
>Motivic force,
>Rythmic urgency,
>melody,meoldy,melody,mel....
>harmonic expansion (you understand why the harmonic progression is used
>not just that it has been used)
>temporal as well as instantaneous sensation.
>convergence and divergence from the differnt modes of voicing
>a predominant idea
>a rejection of statistization (example "Blue Columns" long drawn out
>chord with random dissonances at a variety of intervals (for 40 minutes!))
>
>Modernists pieces have a very different view of what makes a piece,
>all of these elements are present here and there, but they
>arenot the guiding force of the piece:
In light of all this, what is your response to the music of
William Duckworth, particularly those pieces which critic Kyle
Gann has described as "post minimalist"--and the compositional
differences of this music to main-line "minimalism"?
(You may find your brief comments about "iteration" as one
spring-board for discussion.)
Cheers,
Mark
=====
Mark Gresham
Norcross, Georgia
USA
mgre...@dscatl.atl.ga.us
dscatl!mgre...@gatech.edu
=====
Farhan Malik
rw...@husc8.harvard.edu (Richard Wang) wrote:
>>Richard Clark - eagerly awaiting Roger Lustig's pithy reply
>>to "Beyond Modernism".
>Let us hope it is indeed so, and not just another nitpicking line-by-line
>trashing of MMP's posts.
Don't hold your breath.
Farhan
--------
For information about this Usenet posting service, send mail to
rema...@soda.berkeley.edu, with Subject: remailer-info.
Please, don't throw knives.
Roger Lustig
>no music has ever worked that way.
You know, it's not *my* name that you're not supposed to take in
vain. Go ahead--use it.
(Also, can't you compose your replies locally and upload them?
Solves the slow modem problem...)
>This
What? It's hard to discuss something you've deleted in its entirety.
>is not enitrely correct,
>as the basic plan of the Beethoven Violin Concerto makes
>clear, that convergence to unity and diveregence to polyphony
>(and beyond) are a fundemental part of our musical vocabulary, but
How's that? The "basic plan" (whatever that is) of one piece
makes clear a proposition about "our" (whose?) "musical vocabulary"?
Another overbroad, overboard statement.
>htey have not been studied with the rigor, and intensity, that
>harmony has been.
Hard to tell if that's true, since I can't even tell what you mean
by those terms.
>Nor have they been made the central organizing
>principle of a school of music (to my knowledge, though certain Shanghainese
>operas seems to have similar effects.)
I'm not sure what your point is, or how such things *could* be made
central.
> If you want to compose in a new way, you need new ideas to
>express, and this will often mean finding new techniques. This is
>what Beethoven was all about, or Berlioz, or Wagner, or Sch, or
>others. Merely seekingnew mechanisms is libel to
>lead to very poor music, as there will be no organizaiton other
>than the composers personal sensation (which I have found
>is no more reliabelthan anyone elses, read Wagner's letters, think
>about what sort of person he must have been to have written them, is
>that the "self" that you wish to communicate with? No it
>is his sense of aesthetic which was so musch broader and deeper than
>the almost any other composer of his time, from his letters he
>is merely a high romantic archie bunker, from his music, which clearly
>derives out of his aesthetic sense, he has grasped trancendental truths
>of the human understanding of sound).
Human? Or perhaps late-romantic Central European?
> The leading member of the PSC also criticizes me for
>disagreeing with schenker and sch and others.
And you complain about people putting words in *your* mouth?
I don't care whether you disagree with them. I don't like it when
you *misrepresent* them. You haven't even begun to address Schoenberg's
organicism and its challenge to your claim that he viewed harmony
(and other things) as a supposedly modernist "Succession of moments"
or whatever.
>Quite simply many of them
>did not have the experience with music of the baroque played
>in the baroque style that I have had.
And quite simply you haven't gone beyond bald assertion in showing
how this could make a spot of difference.
>On instruments tuned to the
>standards of the times and at the ptich of the times. Once
>heard in this way, the mind at first hears it as a "weak tonality"
>since that is the organizing principle that most people are used to.
>(and it does not take long to get used to it, several friends of
>mine from China who had little experience with tonal music took to
>it rather quickly). After a while of hearing it however certain things become
>clear, the music is not organized around the steps being of equal size and
>the sense of center created through the use of melody and harmonic sensation,
>but on the fact that some of the intervals have a rinign purity, a
>purness that cannot be escaped, while others, are echoes
>or distortions of that pure inteval. The intervals are the fifth,and the
>third.
Which fifths have ringing purity in Handel? For that matter, which ones
have ringing purity in Scheidt or Buxtehude or Cavalli? And which
fifths are pure in Handel that are *not* pure in Haydn?
>Thus harmony from the late 1500's until the 1750's is
>clearly triadic in nature. It sounds very similar to tonality,
>because tonality is descended from it and its techniques, and the
>interval of the tonic is very similar to the triad (but not the same,
>Bach could here the difference and complained about how "sharp" the major thirds
>where in the equal temperment
>(the systme we use for pianos and is the center for our tonal
>music (in theory anyway))).
You *still* haven't adduced a shred of evidence for this (shifting) claim
and for your redefinition of "tonality." In fact, where does Bach say
*anything* about equal temperament? He never used it.
> There is a difference, you can hear it if you stop listening to what
>a group of late romantics/early modernists tell you,
>because all they saw were the same notes on the page, and they had heard them
>played the same way notes by Berlioz,Wagner and Mahler were intended.
What group? And which intervals? You *still* don't have your tunings
straight.
>But they are not the same nots, they do not mean the same things, and
>the result is that the music is not the same in its organizing principle.
Why should we take your word on this?
>Look at basic choral technique. In most harmony books I have read I am told that I have
>a succession of "four voiced chords" and that the way to harmonization is
>to choose the chords that I whish to have playing, figure the bass
>note and then the inner voices. All well and good. But what if the chords
>of correlli are not the same as the chords of haydn some years later. With
What if we don't have any choral music by Corelli to begin with? And
what if Bach's harmonizations were studied and emulated by later composers
like Mozart?
>the difference in tuning, they are not. If there were no difference,
>there would have been no resistance to the new system, but there was,\
Non-sequitur. Lots of changes have been resisted without there being
a difference in tuning.
>just as there has been resistance to periodic revivals of older tuning
>systems.
Periodic revivals? When?
>As for the differnece between opus 20 and opus 33 of haydn. Look again at the scores,
>where in20 does something happen like the progressive harmonic
>motion of say 33 #4's largo occur? It happens in places, but not as the
>entire movement (though I suppose you might be able to argue that the
>allegro movements partake of enough of this to qualify, but I don't think so.)
>The opus 20 (1771) are clearly not triadic,
Huh?
>they do not alternate periods of
>interwoven polyphony with periods of chord, passing tone, chord, but
Perhaps you should actually listen to--or at least look at the score
of--Op.20/4, first movement, before making such a claim. (Unless
you're using the odd term "interwoven polyphony" to mean something
special.)
>instead accept the full chromaticism of the 7 note mode
"instead"? What does this mean? I can't make head or tail of
this.
>(though they stop
>form going much farther than that. They are chromatic within the context of a
>mode, that do not add chromaticism *to* a mode except as part of the progression
>to another mode, or as the interuption of the cadence.)
You'd better define your terms before you go on. The above paragraph
doesn't resemble any discussion of tonality I've ever seen.
> If the cadence is the punctuation of a pisce of classically organized
>music,
Is it? And why "classically organized"? It can be the punctuation of
all kinds of other music, too, unless you've chosen another meaning
for "Classical."
>than the nature of that cadence and the way towards that cadence are of
>utmost mportance. I have argued that the nature of the cadence is different
>(beause the physical notes themselves were different!) and the the journey
>to that cadence now took an unexpected additon, a melody that leads one
>across the boundaries in the next key, whose realization
>can only occur when it becomes possible to lead it across the boundaries of the
>ranges of the particular instruments.
Again, this rambles across so much terrain that I can't -- no matter how
I try -- tell what you might mean.
>A simple example, imagine a melody
>that leads one down a third in key. If it is played with the lowest
>noe being the low G string, then the violin can no longer play it nin the new
>key on its repetiion, but one deso not want to simply move (fugue style)
>to the viola, but instead write the top part in the violin, and have sustained
>chordal pedals or arpegiated figures play in the violin, *while the
>viola plays the lower notes* and then returns to being the middle voice.
Why would one want that? What does that have to do with tonality?
And how can piano music be tonal, then?
> Find this in Correlli. Or Vivaldi or even Bach. Any where as
Tell us what this has to do with tonality.
>the *central* organizing principle of the piece. Haydn wrote over 60
>symphonies,50 string quartets and divrse other works where this is
>the case (I have not seen the others yet so cannot vouch for them).
> Listen, the understanding is there if you will look up from schenker
>and others and listen.
I knew it would come to this. This is no better than the chorus on
rec.sport.baseball that insists, "why don't you statheads get your
heads out of the books and go see a game?"
If you're accusing me of not listening, or not listening to period
instruments, I suggest you back up that accusation with some
evidence. Since you haven't shown any sign of knowing what
Schenker and Schoenberg and others *say*, don't criticize people
for actually daring to call you on your assertions about them.
> As for my own ideas, I did not say that all music should be composed this way, or even that all good music
>ought to be composed this way, but that it is a way of composing pieces in the
>classical aesthetic which did not sound like previous ages,
It's trivial that the music of the Classical period sounded different;
but whatwas the esthetic behind it?
>and could be used
>to communicate the ideas, feelings, sensations and intensity of the
>age, that it could contain enough of what had come before to draw
>people from the past, and into the future. I do not expect modernists
>who have a smug belief that Paert,Sch et al are the "Great Composers"
>that are the successors to the classical aesthetic, they are not, and the
>evidence for this is the not in your theories (or those that you were taught)
>since they were without exception devised to prove te opposite, nor
>in the late romantic rants that your contemporaries are
>so found of debunking, because the romanitics were reacting on gut impulse.
Uh, *what* don't you expect modernists? Could you post the other half of
that sentence?
Evidence for what?
And whom are you talking to? Have *I* called Part a great composer?
Further, whom are you calling smug? And, once again, what's the "classical
esthetic," and what makes you think that anyone claims that Schoenberg
is the successor to it?
Finally, which theories was I taught? Show your work.
>The differene lies in simply this: that modernism is a set of habits of though
>and patterns of thinking and associaton, that allow a person to function
>in the modern world, there is not clear "in/out" of binary dichotomies and definitions,
>but instead, there is a process of inquiry into the interaction of a particualr
>thought mode and the artifacts of modernism, and how they must opperate in
>concert ot produce the modernist aesthetic.
Uh, right. But since *you* haven't produced the "modernist aesthetic" (or
at least not the goods about it), it's still your turn.
>Modernism did not
>spring full blown from nowhere (just as classicim did not etc.) which
>is why it is entirely possible to find even some ancient greeks who
>sound remarkably modern (Plato).
Point?
Roger
Robert W. Fink
>In article <Cq0Kq...@newshub.ccs.yorku.ca>,
>Jerome Durlak <jdu...@nexus.yorku.ca> wrote:
>>Richard Clark - eagerly awaiting Roger Lustig's pithy reply
>>to "Beyond Modernism".
>Let us hope it is indeed so, and not just another nitpicking line-by-line
>trashing of MMP's posts.
>--
>Richard Wang
>rw...@husc.harvard.edu
*AMEN* to that!
bob fink