# An Interesting Year in Classical Composition



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I have been slowly working my way historically through unfamiliar works from the Medieval to the Modern eras. I'm presently in the early Modern era. I was suddenly struck by the decidedly different paths taken by composers born very close in time. Schoenberg, Holst, Ives, and Ravel were born within 7 months of each other and wrote romantic works during their formative years. Roughly a decade later, they had diverged greatly. I list the composers birth dates and two compositions (not at all unfamiliar) from 1899 and roughly a decade later below.

Schoenberg (b. 9/13/1874)
Verklärte Nacht (1899) Late Romantic
5 Pieces for Orchestra (1909) Total chromaticism

Holst (b. 9/21/1874)
Suite de Ballet 1899 Romantic music
The Planets 1914-1918 Romantic music

Ives (b. 10/20/1874)
Symphony No. 1 (1898-1901) Romantic music
Central Park in the Dark (1906-1909) Layers of orchestral textures, polytonal atmosphere

Ravel (b. 3/7/1875
Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899) Romantic
Daphnis et Chloe (1909-1912) Impressionistic

I don't mean to suggest their music was identical in 1899, but they started in familiar, similar places and with the exception of Holst, who remained a romantic, they moved in very different directions musically. I'm not familiar with anything remotely like this earlier in classical music history. If others are, please let me know.

We've had many threads discussing the origin of modern music, but I'd be interested in people's views on this sudden divergence of musical styles.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I love it  There is so much fascinating music to explore. Unlike during the Baroque and earlier eras, later eras of music have consistently offered increasing levels of variety. I don't like all of the directions, but there are more to explore than I can manage. The more I know, the more I like works I had previously rejected. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle: once you have the surrounding pieces in place, the remainder begin to fit.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Romanticism was already beginning to splinter by the end of the 19th century, and the growing emphasis on successions or progressions of chords that did little or nothing to anchor functional tonality were eventually going to make it collapse under its own weight, so until the 1920s, there was a surge of experimentation in music searching for ways to create something that could make use of the newer harmonic idioms without losing formal definition.

The rapid development of the composers born in the 1880s (Stravinsky, Bartok, Berg, Webern) is relevant here as well. All of them grew up composing in a late/post-Romantic idiom but turned to various modern idioms by the 1910s.

Another interesting fact is that Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces (as well as Debussy's Nocturnes) did in fact influence Holst's famous suite, though probably in terms of orchestration more than content. Schoenberg (when not in his more nationalistic moods) thought highly of Ravel and Ives.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> ...
> 
> Another interesting fact is that Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces (as well as Debussy's Nocturnes) did in fact influence Holst's famous suite, though probably in terms of orchestration more than content. ...


Yes its thought that Holst may have heard those before he composed it. Holst is very interesting for his many interests, from English folk music - and also from places beyond, eg. he spent some time in North Africa - to Indian mythology to astrology to many aspects of Classical music tradition going way back. His music has such a wide range, from early flirtations with Wagner to The Planets which see him taking in things like bitonality, and then also Neo-Classicism, writing music for teaching purposes and the first original works (not merely transcriptions of orchestral music) for brass bands, and this late pared down Minimalism in his late choral works and Egdon Heath. I think he's fascinating but I'd call him an eclectic rather than a Romantic, perhaps looking forwards to the next generation of Brits (eg. Tippett, hard to put him in a box as well).

In terms of the Romantic philosophy, especially the aspect of expressing persona emtions, Schoenberg strikes me as the most Romantic of all those listed. I just read a quote of his from late in his career saying that music has to come from the heart more than from the head, and its not that different from what the likes of Rachmaninov had to say. Compare Arnie to Ravel, and he's quite distanced from that Romantic aesthetic, like Debussy and Stravinsky. They where not aiming to be Romantic, and all of them went into that swing against Romanticism with Neo-Classicism (Debussy just before his death, the other two into the 1920's, into the heart of that trend).

Ives did start with foundations from the past, especially Dvorak whose impact in the USA was huge, but also the three B's and probably Wagner. Once he got beyond his student years, he really did music that nobody ever did for decades. I've got a book on Modern music, and Ives is featured in the 1940's, so not chronologically like other composers. He simply doesn't fit into what most people where doing in the early 20th century, the actual time he composed his signature works like Central Park in the Dark. I think The Unanswered Question has a section where the conductor cues in various players according to his own will, so putting that element of chance in the score? Decades ahead of Cage and others. Its typical of Ives innovations. Liszt predated some of what he was doing but I'm unsure if Ives knew his music.

So there is that thing overal about aesthetics and what you do with the techniques you've got. There where innovations not only with tonality but also form and structure, orchestration, classical taking in things from non-Western music and jazz, eventually rock, many changes like this over time. Music really became a kind of eclectic mix in the 20th century.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The first decade of the 20th century is a remarkable period of 'explosion.' The older generation composing / writing mature masterpieces, the younger writing those innovative pieces usually the bailiwick of the younger artist.

But you have, for example, Rilke writing the Sonnets to Orpheus near parallel with a young writer named James Joyce, Mahler composing his later / last works with Schoenberg, Berg and Webern at his feet. Marie Curie discovers / identifies uranium... and about every other arena of art, science, literature, these polarities were present. 

In a way, there has not been such a dramatic shift / explosion in history until this crux point, the last vestiges of old society, how things were done, the tempo at which things were done, discovery, all finally catalyzed a little after the beginning of this century.

It seems about every later development in any field points right back to this fantastic decade, the growth since then exponential while all stemming from that period still.

The sum total of all that went before, the acceleration of exchange of information, all gradually brought the world to this first decade of the 20th century. I imagine many centuries will have to pass before any such similar a catalytic and dramatic shift takes place.

Yes, it is a more than fascinating time which I think no one will be fully able to explain.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Really intriguing topic. Although, I don't know if I'd assess early Ravel as a romantic. That is, compared to other 1899 romantic composers like Sibelius, R. Strauss, Scriabin or Reger - which were also interesting examples of stylistic evolution (Sibelius, Scriabin) as opposed to stylistic stagnation (Strauss, Reger).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Andreas said:


> Really intriguing topic. Although, I don't know if I'd assess early Ravel as a romantic. That is, compared to other 1899 romantic composers like Sibelius, R. Strauss, Scriabin or Reger - which were also interesting examples of stylistic evolution (Sibelius, Scriabin) as opposed to stylistic stagnation (Strauss, Reger).


Well, Ravel's models at that time were, as throughout his life, French rather than Germanic, and he was as more or less uninterested in post-Wagnerian music as he was in Wagner and Beethoven. His primary influences were Faure and Chabrier, I believe.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> The rapid development of the composers born in the 1880s (Stravinsky, Bartok, Berg, Webern) is relevant here as well. All of them grew up composing in a late/post-Romantic idiom but turned to various modern idioms by the 1910s.
> 
> Another interesting fact is that Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces (as well as Debussy's Nocturnes) did in fact influence Holst's famous suite, though probably in terms of orchestration more than content. Schoenberg (when not in his more nationalistic moods) thought highly of Ravel and Ives.


Apparently Holst owned a score of Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces and supposedly originally called the Planets, "Seven Orchestral Pieces".

I chose a single year, but if I had chosen a decade or so to include others, the variation would be even greater as you suggest.



PetrB said:


> The sum total of all that went before, the acceleration of exchange of information, all gradually brought the world to this first decade of the 20th century. I imagine many centuries will have to pass before any such similar a catalytic and dramatic shift takes place.
> 
> Yes, it is a more than fascinating time which I think no one will be fully able to explain.


I agree that the early 1900's were a phenomenal time for both art and science. I have read many pieces discussing how the two were related (or stemmed from a common source) although I'm not sure I fully believe that. It must have been amazing to participate in the art world (music, painting, and literature) or the science world (special relativity, general relativity, nuclear physics, and the origins of quantum mechanics). I can't imagine we'll quite have anything similar to the time again.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, Ravel's models at that time were, as throughout his life, French rather than Germanic, and he was as more or less uninterested in post-Wagnerian music as he was in Wagner and Beethoven. His primary influences were Faure and Chabrier, I believe.


He was quite interested in some German composers - Bach, Mozart, and Schumann were all influences. He also enjoyed Chopin, Liszt, Borodin and of course Debussy among others.

The only Ravel piece that seems fairly "Romantic" to me is Gaspard de la Nuit. Though you can hear influences from Romantic composers in some of his other pieces for example there is influence of Liszt and Paganini in Tzigane.


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