# Serialism



## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Hi folks,

Just thought i'd let you know, Radio 3 in UK did an excellent series of programmes in the first week of the new year on the Second Viennese school. If you are interested in serialism but don't know where to begin, i found the introductory programme...:



'Breaking Free: Tom Service on the Second Viennese School' to search if the link doesn't work.

...really helpful and inspiring - it absolutely opened the door for me. Discussion and excerpts.

I think this website is open to all the world, hope so - some of BBC isn't. So sorry if that is the case.

:tiphat:


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Thanks for sharing. At least here in the Netherlands it works.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

juliante said:


> Breaking Free: Tom Service on the Second Viennese School


Tom Service is an excellent journalist, and a strong advocate of contemporary music. A few years back, he wrote a series of 51 very interesting articles for the _Guardian_, which are still available to read online here. Well worth a look.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Thanks for the link. It works in the US (only 16 days left to listen). I thought the program was worth hearing, but I don't think it answered it's question, "How to listen to serial music?", in a very helpful way to those who find that music "difficult". The answer seemed to be "listen profoundly" and "listen repeatedly". I certainly agree with the later, and maybe he simply means "listen carefully" for the former. 

The one thing he said which would have made an impact on me in my early listening days was that serial music was expressive. When I first listened, that's one of the last words I would have used. But, of course, it is, and hearing a knowledgeable person say that over and over should make one reconsider. 

The term "atonal" even came up in a hilarious way. Service gave people "permission" to respond to the term in whatever negative manner they wished, but several minutes later the expert he had on the program used the phrase "Schoenberg's atonal music."


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

I somehow get the feeling that people not only dislike modern music here but that they absolutely want to abolish it


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> I somehow get the feeling that people not only dislike modern music here but that they absolutely want to abolish it


It's far from being just "here" at TC. Many Classical music listeners are very conservative in their musical tastes and find much 20th/21st century Classical music unpleasant and believe that because they do, it must mean that it's bad. And that opinion has been around for the last 100+ years.

Those of us who do like it can only nudge some of them towards trying some modern gems we think they might grow to like.


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

Vasks said:


> It's far from being just "here" at TC. Many Classical music listeners are very conservative in their musical tastes and find much 20th/21st century Classical music unpleasant and believe that because they do, it must mean that it's bad. And that opinion has been around for the last 100+ years.
> 
> Those of us who do like it can only nudge some of them towards trying some modern gems we think they might grow to like.


Before joining this site, I never knew classical listeners where so territorial towards new music. It's crazy and saddening 

I personally love lots of old music too but the common attitude towards new music is way beyond ridiculous


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Before joining this site, I never knew classical listeners where so territorial towards new music. It's crazy and saddening
> 
> I personally love lots of old music too but the common attitude towards new music is way beyond ridiculous


I think there was more animosity towards new music several years ago. Since then, more modern music lovers have joined or participated more, and there have been more pro modern music threads.

I agree with Vasks. The more we talk about modern/contemporary music and the more positive things are said, the more likely some of those who dislike the music could perhaps slowly change their minds.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Vasks said:


> Those of us who do like it can only nudge some of them towards trying some modern gems we think they might grow to like.


It's important that some people do that. I used to _loathe_ most modern music - serialism very much included - but these days I count composers like Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Messiaen, Gubaidulina, Saariaho and Boulez (to name a few) among my favourites, just because I was so curious to find out why so many artists and listeners enjoy their music. I decided to go through a lot of music from the 20th and the 21st centuries and see how I feel - and quite soon I found myself more and more interested in the composers I was listening to. Now listening to modern and contemporary music has become such a natural thing for me, it doesn't really require any effort at all. The language feels really natural, like an extension of all that came before it. Obviously we all have our tastes, and I'm not saying that such a "conversion" would happen to everyone, but for me: it paid off, and how!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Janspe said:


> It's important that some people do that. I used to _loathe_ most modern music - serialism very much included - but these days I count composers like Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Messiaen, Gubaidulina, Saariaho and Boulez (to name a few) among my favourites, just because I was so curious to find out why so many artists and listeners enjoy their music. I decided to go through a lot of music from the 20th and the 21st centuries and see how I feel - and quite soon I found myself more and more interested in the composers I was listening to. Now listening to modern and contemporary music has become such a natural thing for me, it doesn't really require any effort at all. The language feels really natural, like an extension of all that came before it. Obviously we all have our tastes, and I'm not saying that such a "conversion" would happen to everyone, but for me: it paid off, and how!


I will strongly second this view. Some people have loved modern music from the first time they heard it. Others, such as you and me, decidedly did not. I adored so much classical music but simply hit a wall with the vast majority of modern/contemporary music. I was not content to let that wall stand and miss out on a century of wonderful discoveries.

Tom Service is right that some of us must listen and listen and listen. And we must listen with the view that this music will eventually speak to us in a similar way as the older music we love speaks to us. I do not love all modern music, but my listening experience has changed almost magically such that Berg's Violin Concerto changed from a random series of notes to one of the most compelling works I've heard. Boulez's music changed from weird sounds to gorgeous motifs.

Every time a TC thread talks about modern/contemporary music I hope I will add new composers and works to my list of music to hear. When I first started to listen to classical, I used to love the anticipation of hearing a new beautiful work. That anticipation now exists every time I listen to a new modern composer. Most are not "great" just as most composers of any era are not, but when a composer such as Schnittke or Abrahamsen finally clicks for me, it's a wondrous feeling.

I do wish there were a more straightforward way to "explain" how to like modern music. Just do "this" and you'll love Lutoslawski as much as Dvorak. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, one must listen and maybe listen profoundly (whatever that exactly means).

Note: I guess this is a bit off the thread intent.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Thanks for the link. It works in the US (only 16 days left to listen). I thought the program was worth hearing, but I don't think it answered it's question, "How to listen to serial music?", in a very helpful way to those who find that music "difficult". The answer seemed to be "listen profoundly" and "listen repeatedly". I certainly agree with the later, and maybe he simply means "listen carefully" for the former.
> 
> The one thing he said which would have made an impact on me in my early listening days was that serial music was expressive. When I first listened, that's one of the last words I would have used. But, of course, it is, and hearing a knowledgeable person say that over and over should make one reconsider.
> 
> The term "atonal" even came up in a hilarious way. Service gave people "permission" to respond to the term in whatever negative manner they wished, but several minutes later the expert he had on the program used the phrase "Schoenberg's atonal music."


Yes i notice that! But yes for me it was the stress on how it's all about 'expression' that impacted on me, as you previously. alongside those poetic descriptions of the jewels across a night sky etc. I listen in a different way once i had taken this in then and was able to begin to revel in that distilled, enigmatic sound-world. And i keep getting drawn back.

However it clearly is not for everyone and i suspect it will never become my desert island genre. Ted Libbey (NP Radio) is someone who has half a lifetime more knowledge of CM than i will ever has and he described it as 'reductive, circumscribed and needlessly arcane...bereft of any recognisable emotion other than edginess.' !


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## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

I found the program very interesting. At the end, though, I don't think I have any better idea of "how to listen" than I did before. But I did start to understand the need to listen differently - the need to listen differently to different composers within the Second Viennese School (and those that followed). I have always found the music of Schoenberg and Berg more approachable than that of Webern. I think, in part, that my late-romantic ears can take in and understand much of Schoenberg's music, but not Webern's. I suspect if I looked closely at Schoenberg's music I would find a voice-leading rules - perhaps a new set of rules, but still voice-leading rules - that led to recognizable thematic lines. The more pointillistic approach of Webern requires some other tool, and I haven't found that tool yet.

At any rate, it was a very interesting program.
-
Patrick O'Keefe


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