how come there's a rule that says modern music must be...
neurocratic malfunction
is there any happy modern music?
William Sommerwerck
> elliptical, and abrasive?
> is there any happy modern music?
If it were "happy," then it wouldn't be serious.
One might just as well look at all Western art music for the last 500 years.
Most of it is "serious."
I think the question you're really asking is... Why is that so much "serious"
music written over the past 60 years is often "strange," and rarely immediately
appealing?
PS: How do you feel about Mahler? Just a few years ago, a music critic (in The
New Yorker, IIRC), condemned Mahler's music as "neurotic."
David Brooks
news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com...
> prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and abrasive?
>
> is there any happy modern music?
Things that make me want to laugh for joy:
Several John Adams pieces(Short Ride, violin concerto, Harmonielehre 3rd
movement)
Joy of the Blood of the Stars from Turangalila
I know, don't feed the trolls.
-- David Brooks
Samuel Vriezen
> Several John Adams pieces(Short Ride,
I've always found Short Ride on a Fast Machine the ultimate misnomer.
--
samuel
concerten.free.fr
http://composers21.com/compdocs/vriezens.htm
Nobody out there but us. And I can never figure out who that was or will
be, much less is.
- Charles Bernstein
David Hurwitz
>
>is there any happy modern music?
Sure there is. Lot's of it. But before I waste time on a list, please prove to
me that you would recongnize "happiness" in music, modern or otherwise, if you
encountered it.
David Hurwitz
Walter Ramsey
> > prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird,
> > elliptical, and abrasive?
> > is there any happy modern music?
>
The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
along with their works.
> If it were "happy," then it wouldn't be serious.
Those who believe that happiness is only a trite trifle, will never
find happiness in this lifetime. It is true that many compositions of
the past Masters have started out on a "happy" or at least buoyant
note, and turned dark - and then light again. For a prime example
listen to the first movement of the Mozart piano concerto in C major,
K467. Yet there is still the cheer, the brightness, the sheer joy of
creation and submitting oneself in humility, that is so conspicuosly
missing from today's compositional products. The above statement is
illustrative of a trend, that says music must be mathematically and
architecturally complex, or else it is superficial. The trend is
exposed for the vapidness which it cannot deny.
Matthew Fields
Walter Ramsey <ramse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"William Sommerwerck" <will...@nwlink.com> wrote in message
>news:<10psfqh...@corp.supernews.com>...
>> > prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird,
>> > elliptical, and abrasive?
>> > is there any happy modern music?
>>
>
>The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
>achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
>creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
>followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
>really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
>excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
>along with their works.
Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>> If it were "happy," then it wouldn't be serious.
>
>
>Those who believe that happiness is only a trite trifle, will never
>find happiness in this lifetime.
Can you name an example of such a composer?
> It is true that many compositions of
>the past Masters have started out on a "happy" or at least buoyant
>note, and turned dark - and then light again.
Others have not.
> For a prime example
>listen to the first movement of the Mozart piano concerto in C major,
>K467.
And for a typical counterxample consider the Crucifixit of Bach's
"B-minor mass".
> Yet there is still the cheer, the brightness, the sheer joy of
>creation and submitting oneself in humility, that is so conspicuosly
>missing from today's compositional products.
Can you name a specific "compositional product" to which this claim
applies?
> The above statement is
>illustrative of a trend, that says music must be mathematically and
>architecturally complex, or else it is superficial.
Can you name an example of this trend? Can you offer an example of
a mathematically and architecturally more complex work that Beethoven's
Grosse Fuge?
> The trend is
>exposed for the vapidness which it cannot deny.
A trend of zero entities is nonsense.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://personal.www.umich.edu/~fields
Music: Splendor in Sound
To be great, do things better and better. Don't wait for talent: no such thing.
Brights have a naturalistic world-view. http://www.the-brights.net/
Tim
I very much enjoy the sequence of Video Dream, India, China.. from
Philip Glass. Adam's Harmonium (not to be confused with the
Harmonielehre) is one of the best modern (I take this to mean past few
decades) works I know. The last mvmt "Wild Nights" based on poetry by
Dickensen is exhilarting and awesome.
Tim
Porky Pig Jr
> prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and abrasive?
>
> is there any happy modern music?
of course, there is. Like Britney Spears.
Samuel Vriezen
> "William Sommerwerck" <will...@nwlink.com> wrote in message news:<10psfqh...@corp.supernews.com>...
>
>>>prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird,
>>>elliptical, and abrasive?
>>>is there any happy modern music?
>>
>
> The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
> achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
> creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
> followed by harmonic release.
Apart from being a Usenet bore, what about doing something about it.
Write a piece that shows us how it should be done or just stop whining.
Walter Ramsey
> >The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
> >achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
> >creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
> >followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
> >really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
> >excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
> >along with their works.
>
> Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
stage for the current times.
>
> >> If it were "happy," then it wouldn't be serious.
> >
> >
> >Those who believe that happiness is only a trite trifle, will never
> >find happiness in this lifetime.
>
> Can you name an example of such a composer?
This response is not an illustration of composers, but a direct
response to the implication that serious by definition has nothing to
do with happiness.
>
> > It is true that many compositions of
> >the past Masters have started out on a "happy" or at least buoyant
> >note, and turned dark - and then light again.
>
> Others have not.
Again, the point is that the idea of a work being a serious
composition, does not exclude the possibility of happiness in that
work.
>
> > For a prime example
> >listen to the first movement of the Mozart piano concerto in C major,
> >K467.
>
> And for a typical counterxample consider the Crucifixit of Bach's
> "B-minor mass".
>
But nobody has argued that there are serious works that are not happy.
Rather, someone attempted to argue that seriousness and happiness are
not to be intermingled - listening to much music from the second half
of last century, perhaps that idea is more widespread than I would
have imagined.
Ross
in news:19c14b3f.04112...@posting.google.com:
>> >
>> >The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
>> >achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
>> >creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
>> >followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
>> >really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
>> >excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
>> >along with their works.
>>
>> Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>
> Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> stage for the current times.
That is factually incorrect. Schoenberg did not invent the concept of the
tone row, nor did he 'retro fit' it on to his compositons.
If by describing him as an 'unfortunate revolutionary' you really mean you
don't like his music or serialism, that's fine. Just don't expect that
your opinions will be universally accepted as objective truths.
--
Go not to Usenet for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.
Ross
scribbled this in news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com:
> prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and
> abrasive?
>
> is there any happy modern music?
Just two off the top of my head....
- Lux Aeterna by Ligeti
- Princess of the Stars by R. Murray Schafer
Matthew Fields
Walter Ramsey <ramse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
>> >achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
>> >creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
>> >followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
>> >really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
>> >excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
>> >along with their works.
>>
>> Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>
>Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
>Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
>stage for the current times.
Can you name a single case where he did that? I think you're talking
out your ass, frankly. Schoenberg was never a revolutionary and is
not a contemporary in any case.
>
>>
>> >> If it were "happy," then it wouldn't be serious.
>> >
>> >
>> >Those who believe that happiness is only a trite trifle, will never
>> >find happiness in this lifetime.
>>
>> Can you name an example of such a composer?
>
>This response is not an illustration of composers, but a direct
>response to the implication that serious by definition has nothing to
>do with happiness.
In other words, then, it's non sequitur.
>>
>> > It is true that many compositions of
>> >the past Masters have started out on a "happy" or at least buoyant
>> >note, and turned dark - and then light again.
>>
>> Others have not.
>
>Again, the point is that the idea of a work being a serious
>composition, does not exclude the possibility of happiness in that
>work.
In other words, you buy entirely into the doctrine that affects
are in the music. In that, you are wrong. Music is a sound we make
for each other, and it's the PEOPLE at the listening end who have
affects, not the music. Music is not capable of being happy or sad,
but only of being experienced by PEOPLE.
>
>>
>> > For a prime example
>> >listen to the first movement of the Mozart piano concerto in C major,
>> >K467.
>>
>> And for a typical counterxample consider the Crucifixit of Bach's
>> "B-minor mass".
>>
>
>
>But nobody has argued that there are serious works that are not happy.
> Rather, someone attempted to argue that seriousness and happiness are
>not to be intermingled - listening to much music from the second half
>of last century, perhaps that idea is more widespread than I would
>have imagined.
That's a straw man which has nothing at all to do with the topic at hand.
William Sommerwerck
> revolutionary, Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his
> theory before his music set the stage for the current times.
Not so. Schoenberg's twelve-tone system was a conscious codification of what he
was doing more or less unconsciously.
Jerry Kohl
> > >
> > >The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
> > >achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
> > >creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
> > >followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
> > >really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
> > >excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
> > >along with their works.
> >
> > Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>
> Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> stage for the current times.
Well, I think we can safely discount any evidence offered on this subject
by *you* :-) The theories promulgated by Schoenberg were almost all
to do with tonal music, even if Structural Functions does examine the
extended forms used in the 19th century, and the early 20th, including
some of Schoenberg's early works. Note that Structural functions was
written some thirty or forty years *after* the composition of those
pieces.
--
Jerry Kohl <jerom...@comcast.net>
"Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal."
A Tsar Is Born
>
> is there any happy modern music?
Define "modern" ?
If you mean: Since World War I, listen to Milhaud and Poulenc. (Also
Carlos Chavez and Heitor Villa-Lobos.)
If you mean: Since World War II, listen to Bernstein, Thomson,
Copland, Corigliano and Steve Reich. And the Bartok Orchestra
Concerto.
If you mean: The last ten years, try Meredith Monk and John Adams.
Hans Lick
Walter Ramsey
> >> Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
> >
> > Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> > Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> > stage for the current times.
>
> That is factually incorrect. Schoenberg did not invent the concept of the
> tone row, nor did he 'retro fit' it on to his compositons.
It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
>
> If by describing him as an 'unfortunate revolutionary' you really mean you
> don't like his music or serialism, that's fine. Just don't expect that
> your opinions will be universally accepted as objective truths.
Schoenberg wanted to overthrow a system that had been in place, and
used to great achievement by Masters whence he claimed to be derived,
and replace it with a new system, a new order. He was thus by
definition revolutionary. He was unfortunate because unlike the
Masters of the past, he had to destroy in order to create. Those who
are fortunate, create without feeling the need to destroy.
Walter Ramsey
> >Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> >Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> >stage for the current times.
>
> Can you name a single case where he did that? I think you're talking
> out your ass, frankly. Schoenberg was never a revolutionary and is
> not a contemporary in any case.
>
It is well-known that Schoenberg derived the serial theory before
composing any serial music. He was a revolutionary because he set out
to replace one order with another; such is the definition of
revolutionary. He may not be contemporary in the literal sense, but
it is my argument that he set the stage for the current trends in
depravity, by rejecting the past sound world of the Masters, and thus
escaping the anxiety of their influence.
> >> Can you name an example of such a composer?
> >
> >This response is not an illustration of composers, but a direct
> >response to the implication that serious by definition has nothing to
> >do with happiness.
>
> In other words, then, it's non sequitur.
>
You seem to be misreading these posts - the first poster simply
claimed, that serious music had nothing to do with happiness. I
replied that that was quite mistaken. What is non sequitur about it?
> >
> >Again, the point is that the idea of a work being a serious
> >composition, does not exclude the possibility of happiness in that
> >work.
>
> In other words, you buy entirely into the doctrine that affects
> are in the music. In that, you are wrong. Music is a sound we make
> for each other, and it's the PEOPLE at the listening end who have
> affects, not the music. Music is not capable of being happy or sad,
> but only of being experienced by PEOPLE.
>
And yet who feels overjoyed when listening to the Crucifixus of the b
minor mass? Music is written in such a way by people, to other
people. And thus there is communication.
> >
> >But nobody has argued that there are serious works that are not happy.
> > Rather, someone attempted to argue that seriousness and happiness are
> >not to be intermingled - listening to much music from the second half
> >of last century, perhaps that idea is more widespread than I would
> >have imagined.
>
> That's a straw man which has nothing at all to do with the topic at hand.
Not at all; the whole topic I was responding to was the idea that
seriousness and happiness are on two opposite poles, and never the
twain shall meet. But I endeavor to suggest that this kind of
thinking, represents a widespread trend in the way that we judge and
evaluate new music. The tendency is to dismiss "lighter" or
"beautiful" music in favor of music that is written with deliberate
complexity, and often willful ugliness. I don't say there are no
exceptions, but it is the general atmosphere of the time. It is true
from time immemorial, that we would judge a tree by its fruit.
Walter Ramsey
> > Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> > Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> > stage for the current times.
>
> to do with tonal music, even if Structural Functions does examine the
> extended forms used in the 19th century, and the early 20th, including
> some of Schoenberg's early works. Note that Structural functions was
> written some thirty or forty years *after* the composition of those
> pieces.
It's true that Schoenberg theorized widely and deeply about tonal
music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
the power of nature, we only prove it.
Jerry Kohl
Now I'm getting confused. "Serial theory" was devised to overthrow
Schoenberg, and certainly not *by* him!! If you are talking about
*12-tone* theory, then I would ask you to identify any book or
article by Schoenberg that discusses this technique, predating his
first use of it in his actual compositions (which would be the Wind
Quintet, IIRC). Further, I would be very interested to learn where
Schoenberg ever said that this "system" was intended to "replace"
some system or other that might have existed prior to it--healthily
or unhealthily.
David Nakamoto
news:41A0457E...@comcast.net...
I agree with Jerry's view of where Schoenberg thought of himself. He viewed
his music as an extension and evolution of the German tradition that grew
out of at least Beethoven. He also did not invent Serialism, if you define
this style as using mathematics to define every parameter of a composition,
so that the composer doesn't make many decisions after starting the write
the actual music. Serialism was developed, in part, to avoid the perceived
Romantic tendencies in Schoenberg's music, even when he used 12-tone.
I know Schoenberg used atonal techniques before inventing his 12-tone
system, although he considered the results unsatisfactory, which is why he
invented 12-tone.
And because people are asking for references, one of mine for all of this is
"Exploring Music", third edition, by Robert Hickok
My personal rejection of 12-tone in general and Serialism in particular is
based on many factors. I believe and like an indistinct tonal center, but
not a total rejection of a tonal center. I like some emotion in my music,
which Serialism in particular tried to dispense with, by the admission of at
least the academics who trumpeted and advocated it for decades. So I can
listen and enjoy Stravinsky and Ligeti, among others.
--
Sincerely,
--- Dave
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It don't mean a thing
unless it has that certain "je ne sais quoi"
Duke Ellington
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Fields
>> >
>> > Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
>> > Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
>> > stage for the current times.
>>
>> That is factually incorrect. Schoenberg did not invent the concept of the
>> tone row, nor did he 'retro fit' it on to his compositons.
>
>
>It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
>origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
>method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
>Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
Okay, this is a factual declaration which you've just pulled out of
your ass. Or do you have any references to documentation and facts?
>>
>> If by describing him as an 'unfortunate revolutionary' you really mean you
>> don't like his music or serialism, that's fine. Just don't expect that
>> your opinions will be universally accepted as objective truths.
>
>Schoenberg wanted to overthrow a system that had been in place, and
>used to great achievement by Masters whence he claimed to be derived,
>and replace it with a new system, a new order. He was thus by
>definition revolutionary. He was unfortunate because unlike the
>Masters of the past, he had to destroy in order to create. Those who
>are fortunate, create without feeling the need to destroy.
And this is a lot of BS predicated on your previous BS.
Matthew Fields
Look, Ramsey, you have just engaged in the fallacy of argumentum ad
nauseum. The onus is on you to show documentation of the creation of
serial theory prior to 1921, and documentation of your "revolutionary"
stance. I suggest you puruse Style And Idea for starters.
Samuel Vriezen
>>>The composer of today have generally rejected the tools and
>>>achievements of the past Masters, and thus are generally incapable of
>>>creating music that gives the satisfcation of harmonic tension,
>>>followed by harmonic release. Now it is sound for the sake of sound,
>>>really a euphemism for noise, with no external organizing conditions,
>>>excepting that composers are very happy to invent "systems" to go
>>>along with their works.
>>
>>Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>
>
> Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate revolutionary,
> Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before his music set the
> stage for the current times.
Yes, it's always a pleasant pastime to have a discussion about things
that you know nothing about.
Samuel Vriezen
> Schoenberg wanted to overthrow a system that had been in place, and
> used to great achievement by Masters whence he claimed to be derived,
> and replace it with a new system, a new order. He was thus by
> definition revolutionary. He was unfortunate because unlike the
> Masters of the past, he had to destroy in order to create.
I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
Samuel Vriezen
> I know Schoenberg used atonal techniques before inventing his 12-tone
> system, although he considered the results unsatisfactory, which is why he
> invented 12-tone.
That seems inaccurate. I can't imagine a composer being unsatisfied with
say the Orchestral Piece op 16. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the
compositional *process*?
> My personal rejection of 12-tone in general and Serialism in particular is
> based on many factors. I believe and like an indistinct tonal center, but
> not a total rejection of a tonal center. I like some emotion in my music,
> which Serialism in particular tried to dispense with,
Is that really true? I've never seen any serious manifesto by any
composer that claimed to dispense with emotion. And for me, most of the
early works of the Darmstadt school are emotionally extremely charged.
> by the admission of at
> least the academics who trumpeted and advocated it for decades.
Who?
> So I can
> listen and enjoy Stravinsky and Ligeti, among others.
Well, they're fantastic composers.
Samuel Vriezen
> neurocratic malfunction pulled a bright blue crayon out of the box and
> scribbled this in news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com:
>
>
>>prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and
>>abrasive?
>>
>>is there any happy modern music?
>
>
> Just two off the top of my head....
>
> - Lux Aeterna by Ligeti
>
> - Princess of the Stars by R. Murray Schafer
>
Complete works of Conlon Nancarrow.
Peter T. Daniels
> It is well-known that Schoenberg derived the serial theory before
> composing any serial music. He was a revolutionary because he set out
> to replace one order with another; such is the definition of
> revolutionary.
He did nothing of the sort.
> He may not be contemporary in the literal sense, but
> it is my argument that he set the stage for the current trends in
> depravity, by rejecting the past sound world of the Masters, and thus
> escaping the anxiety of their influence.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
William Sommerwerck
backwards codification of what he was unconsciously trying to do in his earlier
music.
There is no question that the 12-tone system "grew out" of the increasing
chromaticism of late-Romantic music.
William Sommerwerck
> in place, and used to great achievement by Masters whence
> he claimed to be derived, and replace it with a new system,
> a new order. He was thus by definition revolutionary. He was
> unfortunate because unlike the Masters of the past, he had
> to destroy in order to create.
This is simply untrue. The destruction of the previous "system" -- the existance
of at least an implicit tonal center in a work -- had been going on, poco a
poco, since at least Bach's era.
All "revolutionary" changes require -- at least -- the destruction of prior
views of what is and isn't acceptable practice.
William Sommerwerck
> claimed, that serious music had nothing to do with happiness. I
> replied that that was quite mistaken. What is non sequitur about it?
I said that, and I was not the first poster. My point was meant to be
sarcastic -- that "happy" music is not something "serious" listeners and
reviewers take seriously. Which is one of the reasons "modern" music rarely
"lightens up."
William Sommerwerck
> music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
> music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
> consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
> very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
> the power of nature, we only prove it.
Our view of what is and is not acceptable to the ear changes. Modern listeners
accept as perfectly natural -- and beautiful -- sounds that people of just a
century ago found unacceptable (qv, Debussy).
Listen to the opening theme of the Eroica, which is 200 years old: "Dah, dah
dah, dah dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-DAH!
Ouch! Even to a modern listener, that last DAH is "wrong."
Ross
this in news:19c14b3f.04112...@posting.google.com:
>> >>
>> >> Can you name an example of such a composer and such a composition?
>> >
>> > Of course, the prototypical example is that unfortunate
>> > revolutionary, Arnold Schoenberg, who by deriving his theory before
>> > his music set the stage for the current times.
>>
>> That is factually incorrect. Schoenberg did not invent the concept
>> of the tone row, nor did he 'retro fit' it on to his compositons.
>
>
> It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
> origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
> method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
> Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
He played with the and extended the concepts, but how could he possibly
have derived a compositional tool that predates him by centuries? The
idea of a series of notes that are repeated in different contexts has
been around since, at least, the Middle Ages -- more likely longer than
that.
>>
>> If by describing him as an 'unfortunate revolutionary' you really
>> mean you don't like his music or serialism, that's fine. Just don't
>> expect that your opinions will be universally accepted as objective
>> truths.
>
> Schoenberg wanted to overthrow a system that had been in place, and
> used to great achievement by Masters whence he claimed to be derived,
> and replace it with a new system, a new order.
This is undiluted bovine scatology. Schoenberg insisted that his
students were well educated and practiced in traditional harmony before
they were allowed to use serial techniques. He honoured the traditions
upon which his music is based. He wrote a number of very moving works
using the harmonic idiom of the late romantic period, not to mention the
arrangements he made of Strauss Waltzes.
> He was thus by definition revolutionary. He was unfortunate because
> unlike the Masters of the past, he had to destroy in order to create.
> Those who are fortunate, create without feeling the need to destroy.
This reflects your ignorance of the man, his work in music theory and
composition. If you don't like his music, say so and let it be. If you
want to make statements about the man (as opposed to your feelings about
his works), do so out of some factual basis instead of your opinions on
his output.
For my own part, I like the serial works of some other composers better
than I like many of Schoenberg's works in the same idiom, but that's just
my opinion.
R.
--
...deficient support can be a virtue. It keeps the amateurs off.
--Bjarne Stroustrup
Walter Ramsey
> > music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
> > music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
> > consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
> > very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
> > the power of nature, we only prove it.
>
> Now I'm getting confused. "Serial theory" was devised to overthrow
> Schoenberg, and certainly not *by* him!! If you are talking about
> *12-tone* theory, then I would ask you to identify any book or
> article by Schoenberg that discusses this technique, predating his
> first use of it in his actual compositions (which would be the Wind
> Quintet, IIRC). Further, I would be very interested to learn where
> Schoenberg ever said that this "system" was intended to "replace"
> some system or other that might have existed prior to it--healthily
> or unhealthily.
Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series. In his
published explication of his method, Schoenberg called his innovation,
the Twelve-Tone Method, but any number of distinguished scholars
freely identify it as Serial music, for instance Charles Rosen. There
was a movement that has been identified as Total Serialization,
deriving from some experiments of Messiaen, but it was not an attempt
to overthrow Schoenberg, but simply to intensify his own already
destructive attempts.
For Schoenberg's texts on the matter, which describe the process he
went through in the 1910's devising his theory, look to his letters,
or the collection of writings published under the title Style and
Idea. The Wind Quintet was published in the early 1920's if I am not
mistaken, and several times Schoenberg refers to the period before
that as a time when he devised his method.
And finally, Schoenberg did intend his method to replace the tonal
system that preceded it. Perceiving wrongly that system to be
atrophied and dead, he declared that he "ensured the supremacy of
German music for the next one hundred years." He made the logically
extreme case that because composers like Wagner and Debussy employed
non-functional harmonies, there was no need for the existence of a
central key, and all of the facets of musical composition that went
along with that natural philosophy - which had been born out of years
of development and struggle, and not invented by one man in a
cluttered study - were thus thrown out the window. Tools such as
modulation and thematic development were apparently just hand-held
screwdrivers, to Schoenberg's electric.
Samuel Vriezen
> Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series. In his
> published explication of his method, Schoenberg called his innovation,
> the Twelve-Tone Method, but any number of distinguished scholars
> freely identify it as Serial music, for instance Charles Rosen. There
> was a movement that has been identified as Total Serialization,
> deriving from some experiments of Messiaen, but it was not an attempt
> to overthrow Schoenberg, but simply to intensify his own already
> destructive attempts.
Would you please stop all this unnecessary destructive violence of yours
against beautiful music, Walter? It's very bad for everybody's health.
Matthew Fields
And furthermore, you can see this happening in minute stages in his
works and the works of others in his mileau, including Zemlinsky,
Hauer, Schreker, Mahler, and Reger.
Jerry Kohl
And composers of relentlessly cheerful music have frequently been
reproached for it, from Haydn to Messiaen. It may in fact be a fair
criticism that their music therefore lacks breadth of expression.
Jerry Kohl
> > > It's true that Schoenberg theorized widely and deeply about tonal
> > > music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
> > > music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
> > > consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
> > > very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
> > > the power of nature, we only prove it.
> >
> > Now I'm getting confused. "Serial theory" was devised to overthrow
> > Schoenberg, and certainly not *by* him!! If you are talking about
> > *12-tone* theory, then I would ask you to identify any book or
> > article by Schoenberg that discusses this technique, predating his
> > first use of it in his actual compositions (which would be the Wind
> > Quintet, IIRC). Further, I would be very interested to learn where
> > Schoenberg ever said that this "system" was intended to "replace"
> > some system or other that might have existed prior to it--healthily
> > or unhealthily.
>
> Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series.
This is not quite correct. In English and French, this association has
come about thanks to René Leibowitz's decision to translate (in his
books on Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) the German terms
"Zwölftonmusik" and "Reihenmusik" with the French "musique
sérielle". These enormously influential books were translated into
English almost immediately after their original publications in the
late 1940s, and the word "serial" was used instead of reverting to
"12-tone", which was already current in English.
However, in German the term "serielle Musik" was coined by
Stockhausen and Eimert to describe a much wider range of
compositional techniques, some of which (especially those of
Stockhausen, Berio, Goeyvaerts, and Pousseur) studiously
avoided the recurrence of *anything*, let alone pitches. When
the writings of these composers were translated from German
into English, the term "serielle Musik" was also rendered as
"serial music", in part through a mistaken belief that they were
using 12-tone rows as part of their compositional technique.
Other asociated composers (notably Boulez, Barraqué, Fano,
Nono, and Maderna) *did* include 12-tone rows in their
compositions, and in later works, so did Stockhausen, Berio,
and Pousseur--but only after the celebrated "abandonment of
strict serialism" in about 1954-55.
This assumption that "serial music" has necessarily to do with
12-tone rows has been the largest single stumbling block to
understanding not only the technique but the aesthetic of the
music of these composers.
> In his
> published explication of his method, Schoenberg called his innovation,
> the Twelve-Tone Method, but any number of distinguished scholars
> freely identify it as Serial music, for instance Charles Rosen. There
> was a movement that has been identified as Total Serialization,
> deriving from some experiments of Messiaen,
Not really, no. There were some *compositions* by Messiaen, most
notably the "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités", that inspired some of the
European composers who became associated with Darmstadt. Boulez
in particular paid homage to this piece in his first book of Structures,
which has become the sole work used to define "total serialism" in
many standard references (New Grove, for example), though it is not
characteristic even of Boulez's output, let alone those Darmstadt
composers whose "conception of the phenomenon of 'seriality'", in
Konrad Boehmer's words, was "diametrically in opposition to that
of Boulez." (Boehmer refers specifically to Stockhausen.)
> but it was not an attempt
> to overthrow Schoenberg, but simply to intensify his own already
> destructive attempts.
Read Stockhausen on this subject, in particular: "Schoenberg used these
series as a theme in the traditional sense. I tried to transform
Schoenberg's method into what I call structural composition, where
the intervals being used were constantly permutated in a way in which
you couldn’t recognize a 'theme', the series as such, as a determined
sequence." (Interview with David Felder, Perspectives of New Music
16 no. 1 (1977), p. 92) and "I insisted therefore, as I still insist, in
German, on not employing the term 'Reihenmusik' (row music) for
my music, because the composer Hermann Heiß was at that time a
protagonist for 'Reihenmusik', as were Hans Erich Apostel, Hans
Jelinek, Ernst Krenek and others" ("Es geht aufwärts . . . ," Texte 9,
451.)
> For Schoenberg's texts on the matter, which describe the process he
> went through in the 1910's devising his theory, look to his letters,
> or the collection of writings published under the title Style and
> Idea. The Wind Quintet was published in the early 1920's if I am not
> mistaken,
1921, to be precise.
> and several times Schoenberg refers to the period before
> that as a time when he devised his method.
But Schoenberg's earliest written reference to "developing the 'technique
of twelve-tone composition'" (NB: not "theory") dates from 13
September 1924, when he reports having tried out the "first steps" in
"certain movements of the Serenade and the Five Piano Pieces, and
particularly in the Piano Suite and the Wind Quintet." He further says
in that brief document (published in Style and Idea, pp. 23-24 of the
1975 edition) that he plans to write an article, to be titled "Laws of
Composition with Twelve Tones". By the time he did get around to
writing that article, it was 1941, and he had composed quite a few more
pieces in the idiom. In short, Schoenberg worked out his techniques
compositionally, and only much later formulated his theories about them.
BTW, there is one earlier item, from 1923, misleadingly titled "Twelve-
Tone Composition", but it does not refer to 12-tone rows at all, but rather
describes Schoenberg's views at that time of what we call today "atonal
music".
> And finally, Schoenberg did intend his method to replace the tonal
> system that preceded it.
Possibly, but could you give a citation, please? The 1923 article I just
cited appears to say just the opposite. Referring to the avoidance of
major and minor triads, diminished triads and seventh chords in his
newest music, he declares that "this is not because of any natural law
of the new art. . . . At the root of all this in the unconscious urge to
try out these new resources independently, to wrest from them
possbilities of constructing forms, to produce with them alone all
the effects of a clear style. . . . A later time will perhaps (!) be
allowed to use both kinds of resources in the same way, one
alongside the other. . . ."
> Perceiving wrongly that system to be
> atrophied and dead, he declared that he "ensured the supremacy of
> German music for the next one hundred years."
Where does he say this, please? I recall this s a quotation from Sir
Thomas Beecham, referring ironically to a disastrous concert of
all-British music during or just after the First World War.
> He made the logically
> extreme case that because composers like Wagner and Debussy employed
> non-functional harmonies, there was no need for the existence of a
> central key, and all of the facets of musical composition that went
> along with that natural philosophy - which had been born out of years
> of development and struggle, and not invented by one man in a
> cluttered study - were thus thrown out the window.
Citation, please? I can't find this anywhere in Style and Idea.
> Tools such as
> modulation and thematic development were apparently just hand-held
> screwdrivers, to Schoenberg's electric.
Huh??
Jerry Kohl
> Ross wrote:
>
> > neurocratic malfunction pulled a bright blue crayon out of the box and
> > scribbled this in news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com:
> >
> >
> >>prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and
> >>abrasive?
> >>
> >>is there any happy modern music?
> >
> >
> > Just two off the top of my head....
> >
> > - Lux Aeterna by Ligeti
> >
> > - Princess of the Stars by R. Murray Schafer
> >
>
> Complete works of Conlon Nancarrow.
>
Complete works of Olivier Messiaen and Niccolò Castiglioni.
Joachim Pense
>
> It's true that Schoenberg theorized widely and deeply about tonal
> music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
> music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
> consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
> very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
> the power of nature, we only prove it.
But tonal music for some centuries does not on "the power of nature" but
depends on a compromise (Well-Tempered Tuning) that depends on the
deficiencies of our ears.
And then, even Just Intonation is sort of a compromise: you want to
introduce pure thirds and end up with two different whole steps. So let's
forget Beethoven and go back to Pythagoras. (How boring.)
Another thing: Many forms of Free Jazz to mee looks fairly close to the
"Power of Nature", certainly closer than any classical composition comes.
Joachim
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <10q1cev...@corp.supernews.com>,
> William Sommerwerck <will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
> >I read (somewhere) that Schoenberg explicitly stated the 12-tone system was a
> >backwards codification of what he was unconsciously trying to do in his earlier
> >music.
> >
> >There is no question that the 12-tone system "grew out" of the increasing
> >chromaticism of late-Romantic music.
> >
>
> And furthermore, you can see this happening in minute stages in his
> works and the works of others in his mileau, including Zemlinsky,
> Hauer, Schreker, Mahler, and Reger.
Not to mention, in his milieu as well.
The first time I heard Webern's Symphony -- by the U of C's Contemporary
Chamber Players, dir. Ralph Shapey -- I wrote, "Is this not Mahler's
Eleventh?"
Peter T. Daniels
> Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series.
Britten's *Turn of the Screw* is twelve-tone, but it's certainly neither
Schoenbergian nor serial.
Peter T. Daniels
> > And finally, Schoenberg did intend his method to replace the tonal
> > system that preceded it.
>
> Possibly, but could you give a citation, please? The 1923 article I just
> cited appears to say just the opposite. Referring to the avoidance of
> major and minor triads, diminished triads and seventh chords in his
> newest music, he declares that "this is not because of any natural law
> of the new art. . . . At the root of all this in the unconscious urge to
> try out these new resources independently, to wrest from them
> possbilities of constructing forms, to produce with them alone all
> the effects of a clear style. . . . A later time will perhaps (!) be
> allowed to use both kinds of resources in the same way, one
> alongside the other. . . ."
And he continued to use the earlier techniques to the end of his career
-- the concert band piece and the organ piece, for instance.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>
> > Ross wrote:
> >
> > > neurocratic malfunction pulled a bright blue crayon out of the box and
> > > scribbled this in news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com:
> > >
> > >
> > >>prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and
> > >>abrasive?
> > >>
> > >>is there any happy modern music?
> > >
> > > Just two off the top of my head....
> > >
> > > - Lux Aeterna by Ligeti
> > >
> > > - Princess of the Stars by R. Murray Schafer
> >
> > Complete works of Conlon Nancarrow.
>
> Complete works of Olivier Messiaen
Last time you only implied it, but this time you said it -- *Quartet for
the End of Time* is "happy"?
(There's a new book about it -- should I watch for the pbk. reissue?)
and Niccolò Castiglioni.
(Who he?)
Jerry Kohl
> Walter Ramsey wrote:
>
> > Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> > word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series.
>
> Britten's *Turn of the Screw* is twelve-tone, but it's certainly neither
> Schoenbergian nor serial.
I think we've been around the block a few times on this in the past, Peter.
Turn of the Screw has a 12-note theme, certainly, but the manner of its
composition does not include 12-tone technique. The same is true of
the Cantata Academica.
Jerry Kohl
> Jerry Kohl wrote:
> >
> > Samuel Vriezen wrote:
> >
> > > Ross wrote:
> > >
> > > > neurocratic malfunction pulled a bright blue crayon out of the box and
> > > > scribbled this in news:1d7e2eb0.04111...@posting.google.com:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >>prickly, neurotic, disturbed, distressed, weird, elliptical, and
> > > >>abrasive?
> > > >>
> > > >>is there any happy modern music?
> > > >
> > > > Just two off the top of my head....
> > > >
> > > > - Lux Aeterna by Ligeti
> > > >
> > > > - Princess of the Stars by R. Murray Schafer
> > >
> > > Complete works of Conlon Nancarrow.
> >
> > Complete works of Olivier Messiaen
> ^^^^^^^^
> Last time you only implied it, but this time you said it -- *Quartet for
> the End of Time* is "happy"?
Absolutely. I'm surprised you can even ask such a question. It is filled
with ecstatic rapture from start to finish. Messiaen was once asked why
he never wrote somber music, and he said something to the effect that
his faith in God made that impossible for him. There is a similar
quotation from Haydn, concerning his religious music, which was
regarded by some contemporary critics as insufficiently serious.
> (There's a new book about it -- should I watch for the pbk. reissue?)
>
> and Niccolò Castiglioni.
>
> (Who he?)
Italian composer who favors bright, high-register coloration. He has
composed a piano concerto that scarcely uses the lower two-thirds
of the keyboard, and all of his music that I have heard is filled with
impish good humor.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> > Walter Ramsey wrote:
> >
> > > Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> > > word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series.
> >
> > Britten's *Turn of the Screw* is twelve-tone, but it's certainly neither
> > Schoenbergian nor serial.
>
> I think we've been around the block a few times on this in the past, Peter.
>
> Turn of the Screw has a 12-note theme, certainly, but the manner of its
> composition does not include 12-tone technique. The same is true of
> the Cantata Academica.
That's what I said.
Peter T. Daniels
> > > > >>is there any happy modern music?
> > > Complete works of Olivier Messiaen
> > ^^^^^^^^
> > Last time you only implied it, but this time you said it -- *Quartet for
> > the End of Time* is "happy"?
>
> Absolutely. I'm surprised you can even ask such a question. It is filled
> with ecstatic rapture from start to finish. Messiaen was once asked why
> he never wrote somber music, and he said something to the effect that
> his faith in God made that impossible for him. There is a similar
> quotation from Haydn, concerning his religious music, which was
> regarded by some contemporary critics as insufficiently serious.
It's _conceivable_ that it _now_ has extramusical associations, since it
was the last work performed in a Downtown concert before 9/11, but in
fact it had extramusical associations the day it was premiered. (Did he
avoid the notes that were missing on the piano they had available?) I
didn't come out of that concert feeling "happy." In fact, I wandered
down to the Battery Park City riverside to stare at the water and the
opposite shore for quite a while.
> > (There's a new book about it -- should I watch for the pbk. reissue?)
> >
> > and Niccolò Castiglioni.
> >
> > (Who he?)
>
> Italian composer who favors bright, high-register coloration. He has
> composed a piano concerto that scarcely uses the lower two-thirds
> of the keyboard, and all of his music that I have heard is filled with
> impish good humor.
Finally! a piece for the Right Hand!
(Alkan has one, too -- in a set of three, the others being for the Left
and for Both.)
Samuel Vriezen
> Finally! a piece for the Right Hand!
>
> (Alkan has one, too -- in a set of three, the others being for the Left
> and for Both.)
Ah! But now we have a work by Martijn Voorvelt called "1/2" which is
actually 2 pieces. "1" is for the left hand, a strangely sluggish piece
in quarter note = 63. "2" is for the right hand, a more virtuoso piece,
totally different in character, full of trills and tremolic figures, at
quarter note = 104.
And in "1/2" the pianist somehow has to play both pieces at the same
time (and somehow find a way to deal with conflicting pedal instructions
between the pieces). You'll understand that this is very difficult in a
very unusual way.
The combined version was premiered yesterday in Utrecht by Dante Oei,
and I think it's a very exhilerating effect. There are moments in it
where you can't quite tell what it is you're hearing, if it's one piece,
two pieces, or both.
(There's also Finnissy's "Alkan/Paganini" from the History of
Photography in Sound which starts left for Alkan, then right hand for
Paganini, then both together)
Jerry Kohl
What you said could be read in that way, but could also be understood
rather differently. When one says that a musical composition "is twelve-
tone", it normally means it is composed using 12-tone technique. It is
equally true that much serial music is not 12-tone, either, and Schoenberg's
style is recognizable whether he is composing with 12-tone technique or
not. I was merely trying to clarify the issue.
Matthew Fields
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>> Complete works of Olivier Messiaen
> ^^^^^^^^
>Last time you only implied it, but this time you said it -- *Quartet for
>the End of Time* is "happy"?
Of course.
According to the composer, "Ecstatic with orange-purple clusters."
chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Finally! a piece for the Right Hand!
> >
> > (Alkan has one, too -- in a set of three, the others being for the Left
> > and for Both.)
>
> Ah! But now we have a work by Martijn Voorvelt called "1/2" which is
> actually 2 pieces. "1" is for the left hand, a strangely sluggish piece
> in quarter note = 63. "2" is for the right hand, a more virtuoso piece,
> totally different in character, full of trills and tremolic figures, at
> quarter note = 104.
I think it's Ned Rorem's Third Piano Concerto (definitely one of them!)
which has one of the movements for right hand alone. (He's also written
a left hand concerto for Gary Graffman.)
In his impressive ongoing series of piano etudes, David Rakowski has one
etude (Schnozzage) which involves playing with the nose as well. He has
at least two for the right hand, and I'd be surprised if there weren't
one at least for the left hand alone!
--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
Walter Ramsey
> backwards codification of what he was unconsciously trying to do in his earlier
> music.
>
Of course, Schoenberg stated many things, but in the end we must judge
a tree by its fruit. Although one could probably tell that the man
who composed op.11, was the same who composed op.33, it is true that
when he was composing op.33, he was doing it with a system that he had
invented, for the sake of replacing a previous system, that had not
been invented by any one person, but rather grew from the ingenious
contributions of many people from many nationalities, over many
centuries. The two simply cannot be compared.
> There is no question that the 12-tone system "grew out" of the increasing
> chromaticism of late-Romantic music.
Although Schoenberg said this many times, the sound-world of Brahms,
Mahler, and Reger, the strongest exponents of the Germanic
late-Romantic music, has little in common with the serial music of
Schoenberg. It has been stated elsewhere that the Schoenberg Piano
Concerto is Brahmsian - if so, it is only in its mould, and not its
content. The sound of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto, has nothing to
do with the sound of any work of Brahms. That is evident after
listening to only two or three bars.
In an intellectual way, perhaps it is safe to assume that 12-tone
music grew out of the previous music. However if we value the
intellect in music above the sound of music, we are doing music no
service. Intellectually, or perhaps better stated, Mechanically,
Schoenberg proved that limits of tonal theories could be reached -
parodied - and thus that it had reached those limits, and was ready to
be disbanded. These days, we would call him an "activist judge."
However Schoenberg's mastery of the tonal theory was entirely
mechanical, and it was his intellect alone that made him abandon the
tried and true sound world of the past Masters.
Samuel Vriezen
>>There is no question that the 12-tone system "grew out" of the increasing
>>chromaticism of late-Romantic music.
>
>
> Although Schoenberg said this many times, the sound-world of Brahms,
> Mahler, and Reger, the strongest exponents of the Germanic
> late-Romantic music, has little in common with the serial music of
> Schoenberg. It has been stated elsewhere that the Schoenberg Piano
> Concerto is Brahmsian - if so, it is only in its mould, and not its
> content. The sound of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto, has nothing to
> do with the sound of any work of Brahms. That is evident after
> listening to only two or three bars.
It's more to do with Brahms than with Monteverdi. And I would also say
Brahms has more to do with Schoenberg than with Monteverdi.
Walter Ramsey
> >It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
> >origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
> >method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
> >Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
>
> your ass. Or do you have any references to documentation and facts?
>
Well, one could read the recollections of Webern, who stated that in
1917, "[Schoenberg] explained to me that he was 'on the way to
something quite new.'" By the early 1920's he had fully worked out
the method, and was teaching it to his students. He has published
essays concerning his theory, and written about the difficulty he had
in forming it in the previous years.
Perhaps these days, some composers have introduced new techniques to
be appleid to serial music. Regardless, the point is that when a
composer must invent a system for his works to live, it can only go
awry. A system existed already, that was not manmade, but grew from
the efforts of several men and Masters over the course of centuries.
Schoenberg rejected that system, and in the process set a trend that
music is still attempting to recover from.
L David Matheny
> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>
> > > You seem to be misreading these posts -- the first poster simply
> > > claimed, that serious music had nothing to do with happiness. I
> > > replied that that was quite mistaken. What is non sequitur about it?
> >
> > I said that, and I was not the first poster. My point was meant to be
> > sarcastic -- that "happy" music is not something "serious" listeners and
> > reviewers take seriously. Which is one of the reasons "modern" music
> > rarely "lightens up."
>
> And composers of relentlessly cheerful music have frequently been
> reproached for it, from Haydn to Messiaen. It may in fact be a fair
> criticism that their music therefore lacks breadth of expression.
>
taken seriously or that he lacks breadth of expression.
Walter Ramsey
> I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
> Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
>
>
Yes, Brahms notoriously destroyed manuscripts of his own music. But
his music lives on, carrying on a glorious tradition that he submitted
himself to with humility. Witness his age upon the completion of his
first symphony.
But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
will find, it has been destroyed by Schoenberg. Because Schoenberg
was the person in the
best position, to "ensure the supremacy of German music." He was a
composer of great skill, and a teacher of great skill, and could have
carried on the tradition of the Masters, but chose not to. Therefore
he did destroy it, because now that composers who reject the serial
method are "useless" in the words of Boulez, nobody will approach the
great tradition, with the fear of being accused of being out of date.
Jerry Kohl
Mozart, however, was also capable of solemnity in his church music. Haydn
seems to have been incapable of this. It is also one thing to say that Mozart
wrote a lot of cheerful music (which is certainly true), and quite another to
say that he was incapable of writing in any other manner.
Walter Ramsey
> This is simply untrue. The destruction of the previous "system" -- the existance
> of at least an implicit tonal center in a work -- had been going on, poco a
> poco, since at least Bach's era.
>
There is a theory in cosmology that says the universe is expanding. I
have heard the opposite, that it is shrinking, but regardless, many
respected scientists have propagated the former view. In that case,
is the universe on a path of destruction? When the harmonies of
Chopin were still new, and the relationship of key in movements of
Beethoven seemed eccentric at best, was that just another step towards
destruction? No, this was an expansion, a building on what came
before. It was an additive process, and the composers at the heart of
it never saw the need to destroy anything. The destruction came from
the choices of Schoenberg, who abandoned the system altogether, even
after writing rather beautiful works in that tradition. The efforts
of Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, and Bruckner cannot be called
destructive, since they were adding new things, and paying hommage to
what came before.
> All "revolutionary" changes require -- at least -- the destruction of prior
> views of what is and isn't acceptable practice.
Exactly. Which is why Schoenberg deemed it necessary in his new
theories, to abandon principles of composition, such as modulation and
thematic development, that proved so fertile for the Masters of
previous generations. With his system, many of the previously used
compositional tools were declared out-moded, and useless. Of course
that is true- for his system.
It reminds me of an amusing video I once saw of Noam Chomsky, who was
asked after a lecture he gave, "is it important to know what President
Bush and his cohorts are thinking?" He responded no, the only thing
that is important is the framework. In a lunatic framework, their
choices are quite logical.
Matthew Fields
Walter Ramsey <ramse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I read (somewhere) that Schoenberg explicitly stated the 12-tone system was a
>> backwards codification of what he was unconsciously trying to do in
>his earlier
>> music.
>>
>
>Of course, Schoenberg stated many things, but in the end we must judge
>a tree by its fruit. Although one could probably tell that the man
>who composed op.11, was the same who composed op.33, it is true that
>when he was composing op.33, he was doing it with a system that he had
>invented, for the sake of replacing a previous system, that had not
>been invented by any one person, but rather grew from the ingenious
>contributions of many people from many nationalities, over many
>centuries. The two simply cannot be compared.
In other words, since you have no evidence, you have resorted to handwaving.
[more handwaving of the same sort snipped]
Matthew Fields
Walter Ramsey <ramse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
>> >origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
>> >method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
>> >Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
>>
>> Okay, this is a factual declaration which you've just pulled out of
>> your ass. Or do you have any references to documentation and facts?
>>
>
>Well, one could read the recollections of Webern, who stated that in
>1917, "[Schoenberg] explained to me that he was 'on the way to
>something quite new.'" By the early 1920's he had fully worked out
>the method, and was teaching it to his students.
Not exactly.
> He has published
>essays concerning his theory, and written about the difficulty he had
>in forming it in the previous years.
Which essays exactly? The only published word of Schoenberg I've ever
seen is "You have a row, and then you compose as usual."
>Perhaps these days, some composers have introduced new techniques to
>be appleid to serial music. Regardless, the point is that when a
>composer must invent a system for his works to live, it can only go
>awry.
So, for instance, systematically writing a prelude and fugue
in each major and minor key was bound to go awry...
> A system existed already, that was not manmade, but grew from
>the efforts of several men and Masters over the course of centuries.
Make up your mind, was it made by humans or wasn't it? This sentence
contradicts itself!
>Schoenberg rejected that system, and in the process set a trend that
>music is still attempting to recover from.
You have once again stated your conclusion with no evidence. Argumentum
ad nauseum may seem effective if you're overexposed to television,
on which advertisers use repetition as their primary way of pursuading
you to buy their wares, but really the number of times you claim
Schoenberg rejected the past has no bearing on the facts of the matter.
Walter Ramsey
> > Now I'm getting confused. "Serial theory" was devised to overthrow
> > Schoenberg, and certainly not *by* him!! If you are talking about
> > *12-tone* theory, then I would ask you to identify any book or
> > article by Schoenberg that discusses this technique, predating his
> > first use of it in his actual compositions (which would be the Wind
> > Quintet, IIRC). Further, I would be very interested to learn where
> > Schoenberg ever said that this "system" was intended to "replace"
> > some system or other that might have existed prior to it--healthily
> > or unhealthily.
>
>
> his music as an extension and evolution of the German tradition that grew
> out of at least Beethoven. He also did not invent Serialism, if you define
> this style as using mathematics to define every parameter of a composition,
> so that the composer doesn't make many decisions after starting the write
> the actual music. Serialism was developed, in part, to avoid the perceived
> Romantic tendencies in Schoenberg's music, even when he used 12-tone.
>
I do not deny that Schoenberg felt he was acting out of necessity.
(Interestingly, he said the ideal of the artist was one who submits
wholly to his own inclinations - a hedonistic philosophy - and, that
that is "revolution.") Perhaps also many men who have commited
crimes, felt that they asked out of necessity. I am not saying
Schoenberg is a common criminal; rather that we must judge a tree by
its fruit, and nothing else. He wrote many times that his work grew
naturally out of the tradition whence it came. However his music, in
sound, has nothing to do with the music that preceded it, except for
the fact that he used the same instruments. In a far-reaching,
logically extreme way, he connects his twelve-tone method with the
system that produced such glorious, aromatic fruit in generations
past. Perhaps it is difficult to argue with his logic - after all he
had a superior intellect. But our ears tell us a different story, and
in the end it is the ears that judge music, and not logic or pure
intellect.
The term Serialism has possibly taken on new semantic properties.
However it is objectively defined as a series, and in music used to
mean compositions based on a predetermined series of the chromatic
scale. It is true Boulez made a lot of rhetoric concerning
Schoenberg's new wine in old skins, a thesis Glenn Gould called
"predictable," but it is also true that composer in the vein of
Boulez, who have dominated the compositional scene for many years,
would not have existed without Schoenberg, who seemed to give the
ultimate permission to reject the glories of the past.
> I know Schoenberg used atonal techniques before inventing his 12-tone
> system, although he considered the results unsatisfactory, which is why he
> invented 12-tone.
>
> And because people are asking for references, one of mine for all of this is
> "Exploring Music", third edition, by Robert Hickok
>
> My personal rejection of 12-tone in general and Serialism in particular is
> based on many factors. I believe and like an indistinct tonal center, but
> not a total rejection of a tonal center. I like some emotion in my music,
> which Serialism in particular tried to dispense with, by the admission of at
> least the academics who trumpeted and advocated it for decades. So I can
> listen and enjoy Stravinsky and Ligeti, among others.
Jerry Kohl
> > >
> > >It is quite correct; although there has always been argument about the
> > >origins of the so-called "tone row," the serial principles and the
> > >method of composition using serial tools were all derived by
> > >Schoenberg, needless to say before he wrote any serial music.
> >
> > Okay, this is a factual declaration which you've just pulled out of
> > your ass. Or do you have any references to documentation and facts?
> >
>
> Well, one could read the recollections of Webern, who stated that in
> 1917, "[Schoenberg] explained to me that he was 'on the way to
> something quite new.'"
Of course Schoenberg could have been referring to any number of things
as this point in time. It is also noteworthy that Webern actually seems to
have beaten Schoenberg to the punch is actually deploying a 12-tone
compositionally. However, both composers had been using systematic
exhaustion of the chromatic total for several years. This is the mode by
which a 12-tone row is made, though the repetition of one such ordering
is another thing altogether.
> By the early 1920's he had fully worked out
> the method, and was teaching it to his students. He has published
> essays concerning his theory, and written about the difficulty he had
> in forming it in the previous years.
Yes. As I already said, he published the first such essay in 1941. I thought
you were going to show us that he formed his 12-tone theory first, and
only afterward composed music according to it.
> Perhaps these days, some composers have introduced new techniques to
> be appleid to serial music.
This is nonsensically redundant. Serial techniques are serial techniques.
They are various, and their compositional exploitation is limited only by
the imagination of the composer.
> Regardless, the point is that when a
> composer must invent a system for his works to live, it can only go
> awry.
Rubbish.
> A system existed already, that was not manmade, but grew from
> the efforts of several men and Masters over the course of centuries.
That is, by definition ,"man-made". Furthermore, if you are talking
about "tonality" as a system, it may be said that it evolved over a
period of centuries, but in its clearly recognizable form, lasted about
150 years, by which time (ca. 1850) it had evolved into something
quite different.
If on the other hand you are talking about something stretching
over a longer span of time (let us say, from the origins of polyphony
down to the present day), it will be difficult indeed to define what
sort of "system" you are talking about.
>
> Schoenberg rejected that system,
Absolute balderdash.
> and in the process set a trend that
> music is still attempting to recover from.
"Music" isn't attempting anything at all. Composers do this or that,
and if some of them feel a need to "recover from" some trend or
other, that is their right and privilege. Harry Partch, as I have already
mentioned, felt it necessary to go back to Ancient Greek roots, and
rejected wholesale every vestige of music from after that time.
Whose traditions we choose to extend, and which to reject, are a
matter of individual choice--not some "group mentality" or a "will"
possessed by a field of art collectively.
Walter Ramsey
> >music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
> >music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
> >consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
> >very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
> >the power of nature, we only prove it.
>
> nauseum. The onus is on you to show documentation of the creation of
> serial theory prior to 1921, and documentation of your "revolutionary"
> stance. I suggest you puruse Style And Idea for starters.
Schoenberg himself has said many times that the developed the theory,
after seeing the limitations of writing "atonal" - I also use the term
with trepidation - music. He also described, I believe the Wind
Quintet, as the first work he composed with his "new method."
In reference to Style and Idea, I suggest that before you infer I have
not done my reading, you read it yourself. In Style and Idea
Schoenberg writes, "After many unsuccessful attempts during a period
of approximately twelve years [referring to the 1910's], I laid the
foundations for a new procedure in musical construction which seemed
fitted to replace those structural differentiations provided by tonal
harmonies. I called this procedure, Method of Composing with Twelve
Tones Which are Related Only with One Another."
He also states that for each new composition, a new set must be
"invented." This idea has been overblown, so that entire
justifications for works are invented. A composer recently on his
weblog, Marcus Maroney, said that from some unknown source, he feels a
pressure that with each new work, he must create something new. This
is because there is no one system to support life; that system which
existed for many centuries was cast aside by Schoenberg, creating a
sort of musical anarchy, which leaves many people in spiritual crisis.
Although a composer such as Beethoven appeared to write so many new
things, time after time, in so many successive works, we mustn't
forget all of the smaller works that came in between, which are not so
grandiose in their conception. The humility of submitting oneself to
a greater cause other than oneself has been lost, and so it is that
composers feel the need to be so individual that their music resembles
no other.
Jerry Kohl
> >
> > I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
> > Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
> >
> >
>
> Yes, Brahms notoriously destroyed manuscripts of his own music. But
> his music lives on, carrying on a glorious tradition that he submitted
> himself to with humility. Witness his age upon the completion of his
> first symphony.
Why is that evidence of humility, rather than of lack of self-confidence?
> But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
> will find, it has been destroyed by Schoenberg.
Nonsense. Even assuming that you do *not* find anything "in this
tradition being created today" (which is a preposterous statement--I
find such pieces on almost a daily basis, though very few that are
worth paying much attention to), you still have got a long way to go
to show that Schoenberg had anything at all to do with the entire
musical population of the planet changing course.
> Because Schoenberg
> was the person in the
> best position, to "ensure the supremacy of German music."
As I've already pointed out, that was Sir Thomas Beecham, not
Schoenberg.
> He was a
> composer of great skill, and a teacher of great skill, and could have
> carried on the tradition of the Masters, but chose not to.
This is correct except for one small detail: he *did* choose to do so.
If he did not choose to continue this tradition in the way you might
have preferred, you are free to follow up other composers who chose
different courses. Shostakovich, for example, or Stravinsky. Or Virgil
Thomson, or George Gershwin, or Heitor Villa-Lobos, or Henry
Cowell, or William Walton, or Manuel de Falla, or Count Basie, or
George Enescu, or Ralph Vaughan Williams, or Paul Hindemith, or
Albert W. Ketelby, or Marc Blitzstein, or Boris K. Morris.
> Therefore
> he did destroy it, because now that composers who reject the serial
> method are "useless" in the words of Boulez, nobody will approach the
> great tradition, with the fear of being accused of being out of date.
So now you are moving on the the equally wrong-headed idea that
Boulez legislates taste for everyone? You would also do well to read
more of the context of Boulez's words, but that might cause you
distress when you find they do not confirm your fantasies about what
he was on about, any more than Schoenberg's music and writings
confirm your preposterous statements about him.
Walter Ramsey
> accept as perfectly natural -- and beautiful -- sounds that people of just a
> century ago found unacceptable (qv, Debussy).
>
> Listen to the opening theme of the Eroica, which is 200 years old: "Dah, dah
> dah, dah dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-DAH!
>
> Ouch! Even to a modern listener, that last DAH is "wrong."
It might also be said, that the more technologically advanced we have
become, the more saturated are our lives with music and noise, and the
more dull our ears have become, accepting sounds that have nothing to
do with beautiful music. There is something wonderful and surprising
about the opening of the Eroica, as well as many other parts of the
score, and yet it is a relatively small idea that did not seek to
replace anything that came before it, and could be understood
theoretically in the epoch's context.
Schoenberg and Kandinsky collaborated for a time on an ideal image of
the arts that were in "total abstraction." Of course music is always
an abstraction, but perhaps the meaning of their goal was really to
reject all the previously techniques of the past, which definitely for
Schoenberg, were so well-defined as to be meaningless. Bear in mind
the statement of the great living painter Gerhard Richter, who said
that in all abstract art, it is natural for a person to seek out
familiar objects and forms, and thus there can be no pure abstraction.
Ross
this in news:19c14b3f.0411...@posting.google.com:
>>
>> I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
>> Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
>>
>>
>
> Yes, Brahms notoriously destroyed manuscripts of his own music. But
> his music lives on, carrying on a glorious tradition that he submitted
> himself to with humility.
Or, as it has been pointed out, his lack of confidence. I don't
subscribe to the story that Brahms was oh-so humble.
> Witness his age upon the completion of his
> first symphony.
That does not necessarily indiciate humility.
> But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
> will find, it has been destroyed by Schoenberg.
<PAF!>
What about Stravinsky? Shostakovitch? Charles Ives? Debussy? Ravel?
...and others too numersous to mention...
Schoenberg is long dead. Serialism has not 'taken over'. Schoenberg had
a great reverence for the music of Brahms. Why else would he create such
an orchestration of his Piano Quartet?
> Because Schoenberg was the person in the best position, to "ensure the
> supremacy of German music."
Sure...and there was Mahler and Bruckner, just to mention two.
> He was a composer of great skill, and a
> teacher of great skill, and could have carried on the tradition of the
> Masters, but chose not to. Therefore he did destroy it...
Nonsense. He wrote music in a romantic idiom and arranged the works of
other composers.
> ...because now that composers who reject the serial method are
> "useless" in the words of Boulez, nobody will approach the great
> tradition, with the fear of being accused of being out of date.
You would seem to imply that all contemporary composers use serialism.
What total drivel! Most will have played with it, fewer will use it at
selected times and some will reject it out of hand.
You clearly don't like certain music. Don't attempt to assert that your
tastes represent any sort of objective standard. Your likes and dislikes
(just like mine) do not reflect any standards of 'good' or 'bad' in
music.
--
Go not to Usenet for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.
Matthew Fields
In other words, hand-waving based on your inability to read.
Jerry Kohl
> >
> > This is simply untrue. The destruction of the previous "system" -- the existance
> > of at least an implicit tonal center in a work -- had been going on, poco a
> > poco, since at least Bach's era.
> >
>
> There is a theory in cosmology that says the universe is expanding. I
> have heard the opposite, that it is shrinking, but regardless, many
> respected scientists have propagated the former view. In that case,
> is the universe on a path of destruction?
That is the theory, yes.
> When the harmonies of
> Chopin were still new, and the relationship of key in movements of
> Beethoven seemed eccentric at best, was that just another step towards
> destruction?
Yes, it can be so seen.
> No, this was an expansion, a building on what came
> before.
Which inevitably involves at least *some* destruction, as well.
Otherwise there is zero change, and no "expansion"--though
"evolution" would be a better word.
> It was an additive process,
Well, you're weong there, too. It did not involve preserving everything
and merely adding to a "cumulative stylistic treasure-trove".
> and the composers at the heart of
> it never saw the need to destroy anything.
Can you prove this? It sounds plausible, of course, but how can you
know whether every single one of the composers you are vauguely
waving at did or did not feel the need to destroy *anything*?
> The destruction came from
> the choices of Schoenberg,
Wrong again. Jeez, you are sure persistent!
> who abandoned the system altogether,
Rubbish,
> even
> after writing rather beautiful works in that tradition. The efforts
> of Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, and Bruckner cannot be called
> destructive, since they were adding new things, and paying hommage to
> what came before.
Just like Schoenberg. QED.
One major error of thinking here that has not yet been brought up is the
notion of hegemony--that cherished fantasy of 19th-century German
philosophy that has been shattered now for over 150 years: the belief
that there is just *one*, central stream of thought (or "tradition"). This
concept of a "totalizing discourse" has been largely displaced since
1848 by an increasing awareness of the plurality of traditions. To take
an example from the present discussion, I see the names of four
German/Austrian composers and one Pole in the above list--but what
cognizance is taken of the French stream, for example, or of the Italians?
Does Berlioz belong to this same "central tradition", or is he a marginal
figure? What about Verdi? Moving a little further down the timeline,
what of Chausson, Delibes, or Debussy? Fauré or Ravel? Respighi or
Boito? Moving a bit further from Germany, what about Mussorgsky?
Liszt, of course, was quite at the center of things, but his harmonic
language often strains at the limits of the German "tradition", and
certainly rejects outright much of it. Indeed, Wagner and Bruckner
are both particularly bad examples to choose for a "preservationist"
view of European music history, and Chopin is almost as bad. By
the end of the 19th century, there are clearly many distinct "traditions"
in European music, leading in quite different directions. The famous
Brahmsian/Wagnerian split is probbly the best-known illustration,
and there are more and more as time goes on. In order to go on
maintaining that there is "only one language that matters", it is
necessary to pronounce all the others as somehow "irrelevant", and
that is not really possible to do anymore.
> > All "revolutionary" changes require -- at least -- the destruction of prior
> > views of what is and isn't acceptable practice.
>
> Exactly. Which is why Schoenberg deemed it necessary in his new
> theories, to abandon principles of composition, such as modulation and
> thematic development, that proved so fertile for the Masters of
> previous generations.
Well, here are two more examples of things Schoenberg emphatically
did not do. You really ought to read his essays on the "developing
variation", in which he closely follows the evolution of developmental
technique from Beethoven onward, in order to see how he extended
thematic development in his own compositions. It is precisely
Schoenberg's *adherence* to thematicism that Stockhausen and
Boulez found to be a problem. As to modulation, you had better
define what this means, in a context of post-tonal (i.e., post-1850)
music, before you contend that Schoenberg either did or did not
"abandon" it.
> With his system, many of the previously used
> compositional tools were declared out-moded, and useless.
Quite so. This is of course true of every composer of any stature
whatever: Ockeghem, Monteverdi, Corelli, Bach, Beethoven,
Schumann, Brahms, etc. So what?
Jerry Kohl
What you mean is that it seems so to you. It obviously doesn't seem that
way to many other people on this newsgroup. What does that tell you?
> But our ears tell us a different story,
Please use the singular and not the plural. "Our" ears (meaning everyone
else but you) do not seem to be telling "us" the same story that you are
telling yourself.
> and
> in the end it is the ears that judge music, and not logic or pure
> intellect.
Absolutely true. Who has been saying otherwise?
>
> The term Serialism has possibly taken on new semantic properties.
> However it is objectively defined as a series, and in music used to
> mean compositions based on a predetermined series of the chromatic
> scale.
That is one narrow definition--the one you will read in New Grove. It
does not, however, apply to a great deal of music that has been termed
"serial" since abut 1950. Should we be calling this music something
else? If so, what?
> It is true Boulez made a lot of rhetoric concerning
> Schoenberg's new wine in old skins, a thesis Glenn Gould called
> "predictable," but it is also true that composer in the vein of
> Boulez,
There are others in Boulez's "vein"? Do tell us who they are, please!
> who have dominated the compositional scene for many years,
> would not have existed without Schoenberg, who seemed to give the
> ultimate permission to reject the glories of the past.
This is a very dubious claim, at best. Schoenberg showed one possible
way forward, which many other composers have found fruitful. This
has nothing whatever to do with rejecting the glories of the past, which
are still there for anyone to enjoy who so wishes. Or to reject, if anyone
so wishes. How do you feel about the music of Machaut? Of Ciconia?
Of Froberger? Of Vivaldi? Of Reijcha? I'll bet you don't value them all
equally.
Jim Curtis
> >
> >is there any happy modern music?
>
> me that you would recongnize "happiness" in music, modern or otherwise, if you
> encountered it.
>
> David Hurwitz
Oh go ahead. What do you got to lose?
But before you proceed, how can we be certain that you are a qualified
judge on "happy"? You might give the poster something that is the
antithesis of happy just to see if he can assimilate it as such.
Jerry Kohl
> Schoenberg himself has said many times that the developed the theory,
> after seeing the limitations of writing "atonal" - I also use the term
> with trepidation - music.
Cheap shot.
> He also described, I believe the Wind
> Quintet, as the first work he composed with his "new method."
Along with the Serenade and the Five Piano Pieces, as I quoted him in
an earlier post, yes.
> In reference to Style and Idea, I suggest that before you infer I have
> not done my reading, you read it yourself. In Style and Idea
> Schoenberg writes, "After many unsuccessful attempts during a period
> of approximately twelve years [referring to the 1910's], I laid the
> foundations for a new procedure in musical construction which seemed
> fitted to replace those structural differentiations provided by tonal
> harmonies. I called this procedure, Method of Composing with Twelve
> Tones Which are Related Only with One Another."
He also says, in 1941, "In the last hundred years, the concept of harmony
has changed tremendously through the development of chromaticism. . . .
Richard Wagner's harmony had promoted a change in the logic and
constructive power of harmony. One of its consequences was the so-called
impressionistic use of harmonies, especially practised by Debussy."
> He also states that for each new composition, a new set must be
> "invented." This idea has been overblown, so that entire
> justifications for works are invented. A composer recently on his
> weblog, Marcus Maroney, said that from some unknown source, he feels a
> pressure that with each new work, he must create something new. This
> is because there is no one system to support life;
Is this Maroney's opinion, or your own interpretation? Either way, it
sounds insupportable, no matter how emotion-laden.
> that system which
> existed for many centuries was cast aside by Schoenberg, creating a
> sort of musical anarchy, which leaves many people in spiritual crisis.
> Although a composer such as Beethoven appeared to write so many new
> things, time after time, in so many successive works, we mustn't
> forget all of the smaller works that came in between, which are not so
> grandiose in their conception. The humility of submitting oneself to
> a greater cause other than oneself has been lost, and so it is that
> composers feel the need to be so individual that their music resembles
> no other.
Well, as you say, the pressure to create something "entirely new" with
each nw work was already well in place by Beethoven's time. This is in
fact routinely invoked to explain why he was able to write only nine
symphonies, compared to Haydn's 100+ and Mozart's 50+. There is
no reason to suppose that this trend was temporary, and became reversed
afterward. Twentieth-century composers who churned out work after
work of a similar nature have found themselves hard-pressed to refute
the claim that they lack self-criticism. So as not to remain in a
theoretical
vacuum, let me name Alan Hovhaness and Heitor Villa-Lobos as examples.
his trend can be traced much further back in history, as well, to a time
when
an artwork was not regarded as a personal expression at all, and so was
rarely signed (in the case of paintings, sculptures, etc.) or ascribed to a
composer in manuscript collections. This befins to change roughly in the
14th century, most significantly in the composer-supervised manuscript
collections of the "complete" works of Guillaume de Machaut. This
"cult of individual expression" is of course a hallmark of the Modern
Period, beginning roughly in 1600. We esteem J. S. Bach over his
contemporaries precisely because his music is unmistakeably his own,
not merely because it is well-crafted. The same is true of Mozart, of
Betthoven, etc. From one generation to the next, the pressure inexorably
increases. It is the way things are--not the way things have been made
by any one individual.
Jerry Kohl
> > Our view of what is and is not acceptable to the ear changes. Modern listeners
> > accept as perfectly natural -- and beautiful -- sounds that people of just a
> > century ago found unacceptable (qv, Debussy).
> >
> > Listen to the opening theme of the Eroica, which is 200 years old: "Dah, dah
> > dah, dah dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-DAH!
> >
> > Ouch! Even to a modern listener, that last DAH is "wrong."
>
> It might also be said, that the more technologically advanced we have
> become, the more saturated are our lives with music and noise, and the
> more dull our ears have become, accepting sounds that have nothing to
> do with beautiful music.
It might be said. Is it true, though?
> There is something wonderful and surprising
> about the opening of the Eroica, as well as many other parts of the
> score, and yet it is a relatively small idea that did not seek to
> replace anything that came before it, and could be understood
> theoretically in the epoch's context.
I could agree with tht proposition.
> Schoenberg and Kandinsky collaborated for a time on an ideal image of
> the arts that were in "total abstraction."
I was wondering how long it was going to be before you raised the
term "abstraction". Interesting how it follows hard on the heels of
complaining of over-particularisation, in the framework of the
demand that each work be totally new.
> Of course music is always
> an abstraction, but perhaps the meaning of their goal was really to
> reject all the previously techniques of the past, which definitely for
> Schoenberg, were so well-defined as to be meaningless.
You do surprise me. However, this rubbish is not new rubbish, so
I won't waste any time refuting it, again.
> Bear in mind
> the statement of the great living painter Gerhard Richter, who said
> that in all abstract art, it is natural for a person to seek out
> familiar objects and forms, and thus there can be no pure abstraction.
Quite. The well-known "Rohrschach Inkblot Test" approach to
abstract visual art. Since you have said that all music is abstract,
anyway, how does this differ in the musics of, for example,
Josquin des Prez, Arcangelo Corelli, Anton Bruckner, and
Arnold Schoenberg?
Samuel Vriezen
> Schoenberg rejected that system,
yadda yadda yadda
> and in the process set a trend that
> music is still attempting to recover from.
It's just incredible that someone should be so hung-up on the work of a
composer now more than half a century dead, when living composers have
in the mean time just gone on to do their own things, many influenced by
Schoenberg, many not influenced by Schoenberg. One really has to stick
one's head in a very tiny hole for a very long time to get that
obsessed. Walter gives the impression of having lived in a basement in
the middle of the desert, in Utah or something, for the past thirty
years (window closed).
Samuel Vriezen
>>All "revolutionary" changes require -- at least -- the destruction of prior
>>views of what is and isn't acceptable practice.
>
>
> Exactly. Which is why Schoenberg deemed it necessary in his new
> theories, to abandon principles of composition, such as modulation and
> thematic development,
Schoenberg abandoned thematic development.
And Saddam had WMD to destroy the world ten times over.
Samuel Vriezen
Of course, this bizarre mode of thinking in terms of a single monolithic
tradition is necessary for the paranoid who would have Schoenberg
single-handedly destroy this tradition. Or perhaps it's a delusion of
grandeur projected onto one's pet dislikes.
Samuel Vriezen
>>I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
>>Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
>>
>>
>
>
> Yes, Brahms notoriously destroyed manuscripts of his own music. But
> his music lives on, carrying on a glorious tradition that he submitted
> himself to with humility. Witness his age upon the completion of his
> first symphony.
> But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
> will find, it has been destroyed by Schoenberg.
Quite so.
Last time I started out writing a late-style Intermezzo for piano, I
felt a very cold, slightly sticky tug at my shoulder. It was the ghost
of Schoenberg, coming to prevent me.
To my dismay, this apparition then took possession of my arm! And
horrified, I had to watch while my hand started writing one crazy
dissonance after another! Sweat broke out all over my body, I tried to
scream, but all I could hear was endless minor ninths and Schoenberg's
horrible manic laughter.
But at least the result of this nightmare composing session was
something satisfyingly fashionable.
After the performance of "Turgid Agonies Nr. 3", critics, who were too
frightened to admit otherwise, praised the work, it was shown on MTV, I
got a secure teaching job and I now get to have sex with beautiful girls
all the time.
All this merely for giving up writing like Brahms!
Risto Karttunen
>
> (...) This is the mode by
> which a 12-tone row is made, though the repetition of one such ordering
> is another thing altogether.
>
--
risto
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Finally! a piece for the Right Hand!
> >
> > (Alkan has one, too -- in a set of three, the others being for the Left
> > and for Both.)
>
> Ah! But now we have a work by Martijn Voorvelt called "1/2" which is
> actually 2 pieces. "1" is for the left hand, a strangely sluggish piece
> in quarter note = 63. "2" is for the right hand, a more virtuoso piece,
> totally different in character, full of trills and tremolic figures, at
> quarter note = 104.
>
> And in "1/2" the pianist somehow has to play both pieces at the same
> time (and somehow find a way to deal with conflicting pedal instructions
> between the pieces). You'll understand that this is very difficult in a
> very unusual way.
Maybe it needs an organist to do it justice.
> The combined version was premiered yesterday in Utrecht by Dante Oei,
> and I think it's a very exhilerating effect. There are moments in it
> where you can't quite tell what it is you're hearing, if it's one piece,
> two pieces, or both.
Do you get the two parts first?
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <41A11D...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Complete works of Olivier Messiaen
> > ^^^^^^^^
> >Last time you only implied it, but this time you said it -- *Quartet for
> >the End of Time* is "happy"?
>
> Of course.
> According to the composer, "Ecstatic with orange-purple clusters."
Ani lo xoshev kax.
Peter T. Daniels
> Which essays exactly? The only published word of Schoenberg I've ever
> seen is "You have a row, and then you compose as usual."
That's odd; he published a number of books, and quite a few essays, many
of which were gathered into quite a large book.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> > >
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > Serial music and 12-tone music are interchangable terms, since the
> > > > > word Serial only means, notes appearing in a fixed series.
> > > >
> > > > Britten's *Turn of the Screw* is twelve-tone, but it's certainly neither
> > > > Schoenbergian nor serial.
> > >
> > > I think we've been around the block a few times on this in the past, Peter.
> > >
> > > Turn of the Screw has a 12-note theme, certainly, but the manner of its
> > > composition does not include 12-tone technique. The same is true of
> > > the Cantata Academica.
> >
> > That's what I said.
>
> What you said could be read in that way, but could also be understood
> rather differently. When one says that a musical composition "is twelve-
> tone", it normally means it is composed using 12-tone technique. It is
> equally true that much serial music is not 12-tone, either, and Schoenberg's
> style is recognizable whether he is composing with 12-tone technique or
> not. I was merely trying to clarify the issue.
What I said was all that was needed to refute Mr. Ramsey's claim.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Concision of expression in the service of general enlightenment
outvalues corroborative detail for the purpose of artistic
verisimilitude.
Peter T. Daniels
> Mozart, however, was also capable of solemnity in his church music. Haydn
> seems to have been incapable of this.
Do you not know the opening of *The Creation*, or the relevant portions
of the many Masses? Are his "Crucifixus"es no less solemn than anyone
else's?
> It is also one thing to say that Mozart
> wrote a lot of cheerful music (which is certainly true), and quite another to
> say that he was incapable of writing in any other manner.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >
> > I'm not aware of Schoenberg having destroyed anything. The music of
> > Brahms was mostly destroyed by Brahms himself.
> >
> >
>
> Yes, Brahms notoriously destroyed manuscripts of his own music. But
> his music lives on, carrying on a glorious tradition that he submitted
> himself to with humility. Witness his age upon the completion of his
> first symphony.
> But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
> was the person in the
> composer of great skill, and a teacher of great skill, and could have
> carried on the tradition of the Masters, but chose not to.
You mean he could have been Richard Strauss (who lived, incidentally,
until not many months before Schoenberg died)? For me, a measure of an
artist's greatness is inversely proportional to the consistency of style
in his output. Loewe's ballads, for instance, are all masterfully
crafted -- but you can't tell whether he wrote any particular one at 20
or at 60.
*Intermezzo* and the Four Last Songs are ravishing, but there's nothing
in them that he couldn't have written forty years earlier. (Indeed, I'm
sorry I missed the opportunity to see *Daphne* at City Opera this fall.)
Whereas Schoenberg began in the same tradition, and outgrew it.
> Therefore
> he did destroy it, because now that composers who reject the serial
> method are "useless" in the words of Boulez, nobody will approach the
> great tradition, with the fear of being accused of being out of date.
Was that the Young Turk Boulez of 50+ years ago, or the great conductor
of the Romantic repertoire of today?
Samuel Vriezen
> Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>
>>Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Finally! a piece for the Right Hand!
>>>
>>>(Alkan has one, too -- in a set of three, the others being for the Left
>>>and for Both.)
>>
>>Ah! But now we have a work by Martijn Voorvelt called "1/2" which is
>>actually 2 pieces. "1" is for the left hand, a strangely sluggish piece
>>in quarter note = 63. "2" is for the right hand, a more virtuoso piece,
>>totally different in character, full of trills and tremolic figures, at
>>quarter note = 104.
>>
>>And in "1/2" the pianist somehow has to play both pieces at the same
>>time (and somehow find a way to deal with conflicting pedal instructions
>>between the pieces). You'll understand that this is very difficult in a
>>very unusual way.
>
>
> Maybe it needs an organist to do it justice.
Dante actually is an organist...
>>The combined version was premiered yesterday in Utrecht by Dante Oei,
>>and I think it's a very exhilerating effect. There are moments in it
>>where you can't quite tell what it is you're hearing, if it's one piece,
>>two pieces, or both.
>
>
> Do you get the two parts first?
In Utrecht, the LH part was played seperately, but the two pieces are
sufficiently distinct that it would not be necessary.
Samuel Vriezen
>>But look for something in this tradition being created today, and you
>>will find, it has been destroyed by Schoenberg. Because Schoenberg
>>was the person in the
>>best position, to "ensure the supremacy of German music." He was a
>>composer of great skill, and a teacher of great skill, and could have
>>carried on the tradition of the Masters, but chose not to.
>
>
> You mean he could have been Richard Strauss (who lived, incidentally,
> until not many months before Schoenberg died)?
Schoenberg outlived Strauss? By many months, even!? Well, how much more
proof do we need that Schoenberg destroyed the tradition?
> For me, a measure of an
> artist's greatness is inversely proportional to the consistency of style
> in his output.
I rather like On Kawara...
Matthew Fields
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>That's published into quite a large book.
>--
>Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
I'm sure you can make things look odd when you cut enough context.
Jerry Kohl
I should have thought that was obvious: coherence. It provides what is
smetimes called a "proto-thematic" basis from which the composer's
imagination forms the motivic/harmonic elements of the composition.
Jerry Kohl
> Jerry Kohl wrote:
>
> > Mozart, however, was also capable of solemnity in his church music. Haydn
> > seems to have been incapable of this.
>
> Do you not know the opening of *The Creation*, or the relevant portions
> of the many Masses? Are his "Crucifixus"es no less solemn than anyone
> else's?
Yes, indeed I do. I wasreferring to his contemporaries, however, some of
whom criticized Haydn for inappropriate cheerfulness. Charles Rosen
goes on about it at some length in his book on the Classical Style.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <41A1F3...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >That's published into quite a large book.
> I'm sure you can make things look odd when you cut enough context.
Especially if you do it dishonestly by removing intervening words
without indication the omissions.
Matthew Fields
>>
>Especially if you do it dishonestly by removing intervening words
>without indication the omissions.
That's just one way you can be dishonest, Peter.
I've seen you accomplish a far wider variety, and I've always assumed
it's for comic relief.
Nightingale
>>It's true that Schoenberg theorized widely and deeply about tonal
>>music. It is also true that not all of his theories were about tonal
>>music, but "almost all." Because he did create serial theory, and
>>consciously invented a system in order to replace one that had existed
>>very healthily before him. It has always been true, that by denying
>>the power of nature, we only prove it.
>
>
> accept as perfectly natural -- and beautiful -- sounds that people of just a
> century ago found unacceptable (qv, Debussy).
>
And it has worked the opposite way as well. People put a lot of effort
into period performances, but the audiences don't have period ears.
--
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
Walter Ramsey
> > Quintet, as the first work he composed with his "new method."
>
> Along with the Serenade and the Five Piano Pieces, as I quoted him in
> an earlier post, yes.
>
The point being, that the method came before the music. This is a
conspicuous reversal from times past, when the theorists constructed
their theories, after the music came along.
>
> He also says, in 1941, "In the last hundred years, the concept of harmony
> has changed tremendously through the development of chromaticism. . . .
> Richard Wagner's harmony had promoted a change in the logic and
> constructive power of harmony. One of its consequences was the so-called
> impressionistic use of harmonies, especially practised by Debussy."
>
It is an interesting statement no doubt, and throws further light on
how much do we judge a composer by their words, and how much by their
works. Debussy of course would have nothing to do with Wagner, save
for a satire here and there, and probably would not have reacted well
to the suggestion that he was an offshoot of Wagnerian music. Perhaps
Schoenberg is correct; perhaps it is a subjective matter. But
Schoenberg's abandonment of the music of the past altogether, is a
logically extreme case. It is the insistence, that since no one key
center binds the harmonies of the music of Debussy, there is no need
for a key. But still the traditional associations of the harmonies,
and often the progressions themselves, were intact.
> Is this Maroney's opinion, or your own interpretation? Either way, it
> sounds insupportable, no matter how emotion-laden.
>
Who puts pressure on a composer to create something brand-new, every
time? A Gestaltist would say, only themselves. I say no man is an
island, and musicians exist within a society of musicians, albeit of
their choice - but societies are no islands either - that have their
own expectations, and values, no matter how backwards. Perhaps
critical response to new music has conditioned younger composers that
to make their name known, something new must always be done. Perhaps
it is instruction from professors. The immediate influence is not
always known. But we can trace it back in history. All this
discussion has led me to flip again through Style and Idea, where I
discovered the statement, that in the near future, any composition
student who does not compose in twelve-tone rows will not be admitted
to the conservatories.
> Well, as you say, the pressure to create something "entirely new" with
> each nw work was already well in place by Beethoven's time. This is in
> fact routinely invoked to explain why he was able to write only nine
> symphonies, compared to Haydn's 100+ and Mozart's 50+. There is
> no reason to suppose that this trend was temporary, and became reversed
> afterward. Twentieth-century composers who churned out work after
> work of a similar nature have found themselves hard-pressed to refute
> the claim that they lack self-criticism. So as not to remain in a
> theoretical
> vacuum, let me name Alan Hovhaness and Heitor Villa-Lobos as examples.
>
I disagree, only because so many of Beethoven's contemporaries
produced in prolific vein, such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms.
Perhaps Beethoven himself felt that each symphony was such a
monumental statement that he could not write casually. Definitely
this had influence on the production of the symphony itself, as we see
from Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler. But didn't those men also write
works for the joy of writing, rather than the agenda of creating
something new?
Yes, there are composers fromr ecent times who were quite prolific in
many genres. But we look at general trends, after all, and range of
influence; I know only a few works of Hovhaness but doubt that he has
much influence, and his works are rarely performed anyways.
> It is the way things are--not the way things have been made
> by any one individual.
Perhaps I am not content to sigh, and say, this is the way it is. The
Democrats must say that now, but they weren't saying it three weeks
ago. When we see the way things are, and we see better ways those
things have been done, it is our responsiblity, to overcome the
intertia, and question, or fight for change.
Walter Ramsey
> > It might also be said, that the more technologically advanced we have
> > become, the more saturated are our lives with music and noise, and the
> > more dull our ears have become, accepting sounds that have nothing to
> > do with beautiful music.
>
> It might be said. Is it true, though?
No, merely hypothetical. Another hypothesis would be, that perhaps
the ear can tolerate such discord nowadays because it has been so
relentlessly present in the music of the past century.
>
> > There is something wonderful and surprising
> > about the opening of the Eroica, as well as many other parts of the
> > score, and yet it is a relatively small idea that did not seek to
> > replace anything that came before it, and could be understood
> > theoretically in the epoch's context.
>
> I could agree with tht proposition.
>
> > Schoenberg and Kandinsky collaborated for a time on an ideal image of
> > the arts that were in "total abstraction."
>
> I was wondering how long it was going to be before you raised the
> term "abstraction". Interesting how it follows hard on the heels of
> complaining of over-particularisation, in the framework of the
> demand that each work be totally new.
>
Of course, that refers to a specific goal that Schoenberg and
Kandinsky had in mind, which was the dissociation of their respective
arts from all traditional forms of understanding. The fact that
Schoenberg wrote a piece called 'Suite,' or used a sonata scheme,
means little for the actual understanding of the piece.
>
> > Bear in mind
> > the statement of the great living painter Gerhard Richter, who said
> > that in all abstract art, it is natural for a person to seek out
> > familiar objects and forms, and thus there can be no pure abstraction.
>
> Quite. The well-known "Rohrschach Inkblot Test" approach to
> abstract visual art. Since you have said that all music is abstract,
> anyway, how does this differ in the musics of, for example,
> Josquin des Prez, Arcangelo Corelli, Anton Bruckner, and
> Arnold Schoenberg?
Composers of the past willfully existed within traditions, in which
combinations of sounds, characters of melodies and rhythms, and so
many other factors were readily identifiable by their listeners. Yes,
they were abstractions, but abstractions that, even though difficult
or momentarily unpleasant, such as the Eroica, could be understood
within the epoch's context. Schoenberg rejected the most expressive
of the tools to create such communications, and insisted on making a
new system, from scratch.
Walter Ramsey
> This is not quite correct. In English and French, this association has
> come about thanks to René Leibowitz's decision to translate (in his
> books on Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) the German terms
> "Zwölftonmusik" and "Reihenmusik" with the French "musique
> sérielle". These enormously influential books were translated into
> English almost immediately after their original publications in the
> late 1940s, and the word "serial" was used instead of reverting to
> "12-tone", which was already current in English.
>
Thank you for the information, and the civilized reply. I didn't know
about the dissemination of the word, but I think it still remains,
that if distinguished scholars on the subject, such as Charles Rosen,
use the terms interchangably, or at least in the case of Schoenberg,
it is reason enough to accept. If it necessitates a change in the
names of other composers' styles, who used the name serial but no
twelve-tone rows, perhaps that is a job that should be designated to
theorists of the future, and not composers themselves.
>
> Read Stockhausen on this subject, in particular: "Schoenberg used these
> series as a theme in the traditional sense. I tried to transform
> Schoenberg's method into what I call structural composition, where
> the intervals being used were constantly permutated in a way in which
> you couldn?t recognize a 'theme', the series as such, as a determined
> sequence." (Interview with David Felder, Perspectives of New Music
> 16 no. 1 (1977), p. 92) and "I insisted therefore, as I still insist, in
> German, on not employing the term 'Reihenmusik' (row music) for
> my music, because the composer Hermann Heiß was at that time a
> protagonist for 'Reihenmusik', as were Hans Erich Apostel, Hans
> Jelinek, Ernst Krenek and others" ("Es geht aufwärts . . . ," Texte 9,
> 451.)
>
At the time it was the general feeling that Schoenberg did not go far
enough in his modernism, possibly because of his nominal use of old
skins for his new wine. I wonder if Stockhausen's thoughts on the
subject are not more subjective , since he declares that he wanted to
distance himself personally from other composers, for whom he probably
had little respect. I don't know. But it reflects Schoenberg's
influence also as a "progressive" and "modernistic" figure; the future
generations were always trying to outdo him.
> But Schoenberg's earliest written reference to "developing the 'technique
> of twelve-tone composition'" (NB: not "theory") dates from 13
> September 1924, when he reports having tried out the "first steps" in
> "certain movements of the Serenade and the Five Piano Pieces, and
> particularly in the Piano Suite and the Wind Quintet." He further says
> in that brief document (published in Style and Idea, pp. 23-24 of the
> 1975 edition) that he plans to write an article, to be titled "Laws of
> Composition with Twelve Tones". By the time he did get around to
> writing that article, it was 1941, and he had composed quite a few more
> pieces in the idiom. In short, Schoenberg worked out his techniques
> compositionally, and only much later formulated his theories about them.
It is generally unquestioned among academics that in Schoenberg's dry
spell before the 1920's, he was formulating the theories to organize
the hurricane he had unleashed by formally abandoning the traditions
of the past. Schoenberg makes many references to those formative
years, including gathering his students around him to teach them
specifics of his new method. I don't doubt that during that time he
was writing notes on paper. But it ws really the invention of a
theoretical system which was his main concern.
> > And finally, Schoenberg did intend his method to replace the tonal
> > system that preceded it.
>
> Possibly, but could you give a citation, please? The 1923 article I just
> cited appears to say just the opposite. Referring to the avoidance of
> major and minor triads, diminished triads and seventh chords in his
> newest music, he declares that "this is not because of any natural law
> of the new art. . . . At the root of all this in the unconscious urge to
> try out these new resources independently, to wrest from them
> possbilities of constructing forms, to produce with them alone all
> the effects of a clear style. . . . A later time will perhaps (!) be
> allowed to use both kinds of resources in the same way, one
> alongside the other. . . ."
>
To complete the quote, "...although it would be a stretching point to
call that a happy mixture." Perhaps Schoenberg said many times that
he was not intending to replace tonality. And yet he made the willful
choice, to reject it, and to pass that choice along to his pupils.
His actions are what opened the floodgates.
An interesting case to think about is Scriabin. Scriabin, in his
early music especially, was described always as "influenced" by
Chopin. He admitted it at one point himself. Scriabin was born many
years after the death of Chopin, and didn't even reach his formative
years until the deaths of Wagner and Liszt. But who today would have
the courage to say, that their music is influenced by Brahms? By
Wolf? By Debussy? Who today would have the courage to write such
music. Many pay lip service, especially now to more ancient
composers. But it is the sound that we listen to, that connects one
thing with another, rather than words. Those traditions have been
rejected, and deemed not applicable to the modernistic agenda.
> > Perceiving wrongly that system to be
> > atrophied and dead, he declared that he "ensured the supremacy of
> > German music for the next one hundred years."
>
> Where does he say this, please? I recall this s a quotation from Sir
> Thomas Beecham, referring ironically to a disastrous concert of
> all-British music during or just after the First World War.
>
Perhaps Beecham used it Ironically. I am sorry I cannot find exactly
where the quote comes from, but here are three websites that verify
it, websites that I only searched for after the question arose.
http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2000/03/embdead2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/al6an6erg/essays.html Second Footnote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg under Schoenberg's Work
and Ideas.
>
> > Tools such as
> > modulation and thematic development were apparently just hand-held
> > screwdrivers, to Schoenberg's electric.
>
> Huh??
What I meant to say was that although composers from one generatino to
the next, have expanded on tools of their forebearers, none went so
far as to reject such major principles such as modulation.
Schoenberg's new system logically had no use for modulation, a tool
basic to music, and he willfully ignored the infinite possibilties
offered by such a tool. He conceived of modulation as old-fashioned,
and out of date.
Walter Ramsey
> Of Froberger? Of Vivaldi? Of Reijcha? I'll bet you don't value them all
> equally.
No, and should one? But their contributions have not gone overlooked.
In the case of Vivaldi perhaps his main contribution was with string
technique. Perhaps that overshadowed the content of his music.
Definitely his innovations in writing for strings have been
assimilated, and passed down through the generations. It is
well-known that Bach used some of Vivaldi's music as inspiration.
Schoenberg rejected an entire tradition, an entire way of doing
things, in favor of his own invented, new way. It cannot be said of a
keyboardist who introduces the usage of thumbs, that he destroys the
old technique. He has added another finger. In Schoenberg's system,
there is no place for basic tools of the previous techniques. It was
a willful rejection, a conscious revolution.
Walter Ramsey
> He played with the and extended the concepts, but how could he possibly
> have derived a compositional tool that predates him by centuries? The
> idea of a series of notes that are repeated in different contexts has
> been around since, at least, the Middle Ages -- more likely longer than
> that.
>
If you are referring to scales, or modes, do not forget that those
"series" of notes were goverened by strict rules relating to their
juxtapositions, the counterpoint derived from them, their modulations
and cadences. Many of these rules were based on properties so strong
they could immediately be felt. Schoenberg made a conscious decision
to reject these tools of working with music, and invented a system
from scratch, declaring the previous to be atrophied. For him perhaps
it was; after all he demonstrated a superior intellectual
understanding of the tonal system. But where is the spiritual
involvement. It cannot be denied that Schoenberg willfully rejected
the previous tools; it is my hypothesis that this revolution came from
a kind of spiritual boredom, from the limitations of intellectual
mastery.
William Sommerwerck
> of doing things, in favor of his own invented, new way.
I still feel this is not a "correct" view of things.
Schoenberg's approach did not occur suddenly. It is arguably the logical (???)
end of a process that had already been going on for at least a century.
Regardless of what you think of Lenny, or whether his analysis of musical
"grammar" is "correct," I urge everyone in this group to view his Harvard
lectures, "The Unanswered Question." One of the issues he discusses is the
gradual movement away from tonal centers.
Samuel Vriezen
>>>It might also be said, that the more technologically advanced we have
>>>become, the more saturated are our lives with music and noise, and the
>>>more dull our ears have become, accepting sounds that have nothing to
>>>do with beautiful music.
>>
>>It might be said. Is it true, though?
>
>
> No, merely hypothetical. Another hypothesis would be, that perhaps
> the ear can tolerate such discord nowadays because it has been so
> relentlessly present in the music of the past century.
Dissonance is not always a very useful concept in atonal music. In a
sense, then, Bach's music, and Mozart's, is much more dissonant than
Webern's.
>>I was wondering how long it was going to be before you raised the
>>term "abstraction". Interesting how it follows hard on the heels of
>>complaining of over-particularisation, in the framework of the
>>demand that each work be totally new.
>>
>
>
> Of course, that refers to a specific goal that Schoenberg and
> Kandinsky had in mind, which was the dissociation of their respective
> arts from all traditional forms of understanding. The fact that
> Schoenberg wrote a piece called 'Suite,' or used a sonata scheme,
> means little for the actual understanding of the piece.
That was Josh P. Hill's line, too. I just don't get it. As if he named
it Suite for no reason at all. As if you know better than Schoenberg -
and better than all those people who simply have no problem relating.
It's so f*****g arrogant!
> Composers of the past willfully existed within traditions,
Was that a choice? Wasn't this tradition most of the time a post-facto
historical interpretation?