# Without Schoenberg There Would Be No...



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Try to finish the sentence, example: without Schoenberg there would be no Berg or Webern. What other important modern music has its root in Schoenberg? By why limit it to music, Schoenberg impacted art in general.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Boulez is an interesting question in this respect. Was his fairly superficial use of Schönberg and Webern necessary, in order to go beyond Messiaen (and behind him, ultimately, the god Debussy)? Or would he have managed somehow in any case?

La Monte Young and all subsequent minimalists are maybe also an interesting question. It seems, maybe, like they needed Schönberg - no atonality, no minimalist reaction. But then, maybe they could have happened anyway, in reaction to whatever style would have become the fashionable antithesis to Neoclassicism in the late '40s, in the absence of the Second Viennese School. Come to think of it, that probably would have been Messiaen!

So maybe the correct answer - maybe always the correct answer to such questions - is that without Schönberg, there would have been no Schönberg. (The Quran is Mohammed's miracle.)


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2016)

No music that movie score composers can rip off in various cliché scenes in horror movies, etc. 

... No Bartok as we know him... Certainly his quartets would sound a lot more tame.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

I was going to joke "No Schönberg, no Adorno," but it occurs to me that we've probably reached the point where Adorno is too old to be the old guard, and attacking Adorno _is_ the old guard.

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Harold in Columbia said:


> Boulez is an interesting question in this respect. Was his fairly superficial use of Schönberg and Webern necessary, in order to go beyond Messiaen (and behind him, ultimately, the god Debussy)? Or would he have managed somehow in any case?


Continuing in this line: Maybe one of the major stories of music in the 20th century is the extinction of the German and Russian classical traditions, as a result of the Nazis and communists repressing the music of the foremost exponents of the time, Schönberg and Stravinsky, for racial and ideological reasons respectively.*

Though, of course, if all classical music is dead to the Baby Boomers and subsequent generations, then even the French and (such as it was) American traditions only survived about a quarter of a century longer.

* Come to think of it, this may also explain why English poetry goes off a cliff after Byron.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

No Schoenberg, no "Why do you hate Schönberg?"
I regret absolutely nothing.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

No Schoenberg, no Shostakovich as some know him. His music would have been more Stravinskian without the models of Schoenberg, Berg, and Mahler.



DoReFaMi said:


> No music that movie score composers can rip off in various cliché scenes in horror movies, etc.


Suspense movies in the 50s and 60s, yes, but not modern horror. Modern horror movie clichés are almost exclusively derived from Penderecki-style devices which Schoenberg never used and had nothing to do with the development of.

Which brings me to the next one:
No Schoenberg, no Bernard Herrmann.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Everybody thinks that Schoenberg was the only possible pathway for the creation/development of the stuff he worked with?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> *No Schoenberg, no Shostakovich as some know him. * His music would have been more Stravinskian without the models of Schoenberg, Berg, and Mahler.


This assertion is ludicrous. Care to support it? What relationship do you hear with Schoenberg, other than the occasional use of twelve-tone techniques? More Stravinskian? In what way? What on earth makes you think this?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Klassic said:


> Try to finish the sentence, example: without Schoenberg there would be no Berg or Webern. What other important modern music has its root in Schoenberg? By why limit it to music, Schoenberg impacted art in general.


I am in disagreement with the basic premise of this thread, that Schoenberg was the 'root' of all modern innovation in music.

The 'modernist' ideas were already in the air. These were in contrast to tonality, which is based on harmonic considerations and a 7-note scale. 
More modern musical thought began to gradually creep up as chromaticism. This led to the entire 12-note chromatic scale used geometrically, using various forms derived from the division of 12 (whole tone and diminished scales, recursive intervals).

Schoenberg's 12-tone method was only innovative in that it gave a new starting point which placed harmony as a secondary consequence of ordered melodic factors.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> This assertion is ludicrous. Care to support it? What relationship do you hear with Schoenberg, other than the occasional use of twelve-tone techniques? More Stravinskian? In what way? What on earth makes you think this?


I've already argued this to you before. You ignored my response.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2016)

Ukko said:


> Everybody thinks that Schoenberg was the only possible pathway for the creation/development of the stuff he worked with?


I do believe that people would have found their way to complex set theory or formula composition either way. That much was inevitable. Whether the twelve-tone technique and its neat integration of horizontal and vertical components would have been used as we know it, who knows.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> I've already argued this to you before. You ignored my response.


Something tells me you could safely respond to many people this way by now


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> I've already argued this to you before. You ignored my response.


Where ?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Ukko said:


> Everybody thinks that Schoenberg was the only possible pathway for the creation/development of the stuff he worked with?


No. So-called atonal music already existed before him, and a kind of 12-tone method was developed by his contemporary, Hauer. The difference is that Schoenberg did it and created masterpieces.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I've already argued this to you before. You ignored my response.


No, you haven't. If you think I am in error in saying this, please cite this argument with a link or a thread title.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> Where ?


Here.

http://www.talkclassical.com/41120-why-12-tone-music-19.html#post986425


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Here.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/41120-why-12-tone-music-19.html#post986425


Here is the relevant paragraph:

As for Shostakovich, he tells us himself in the 1930s that Schoenberg is up there with Hindemith, Stravinsky, Krenek, and Berg as one of his favorite composers. The work of this period that most clearly reveals that influence is the Five Fragments for Orchestra, which is itself something of a study for the Fourth Symphony (which does sound closer to Hindemith often). His increased clarity of orchestration starting around this time owes as much to Schoenberg as Mahler (whose orchestration, while frequently soloistic, also frequently uses lush Straussian sonorities), and certainly more than Stravinsky (whose orchestration is based more on winds than the string-focused Schoenberg or Shostakovich). One of the climaxes in the Eighth Symphony seems ripped out of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces.

I didn't ignore this! I didn't respond to it because you didn't provide anything of substance to respond to. I was letting you off the hook! If you want to climb back on, okay. You are claiming that this backs up your assertion that Shostakovich as we know him wouldn't have existed without Schoenberg? So your argument consists of:

1. Shostakovich said Schoenberg was among his favorite composers, and
2. His clarity of orchestration around the time of the Fourth Symphony owes something (something you fail to define!) to Schoenberg?

Shostakovich's clarity of orchestration was present from his First Symphony, which he wrote at the age of 19! Do you seriously think he had to go to Schoenberg for tips on orchestration? And there goes your single substantive (and I use the word loosely) point.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> I didn't ignore this! I didn't respond to it because you didn't provide anything of substance to respond to. I was letting you off the hook! If you want to climb back on, okay. You are claiming that this backs up your assertion that Shostakovich as we know him wouldn't have existed without Schoenberg? So your argument consists of:
> 
> 1. Shostakovich said Schoenberg was among his favorite composers, and
> 2. His clarity of orchestration around the time of the Fourth Symphony owes something (something you fail to define!) to Schoenberg?
> ...


The orchestration of the First Symphony does not sound like the later Shostakovich at all.

That was not the entirety of my point. Shostakovich's melodic lines also bear Schoenberg's influence. Take a look, once again, at the aforementioned Five Fragments, and also the second theme of the Fifth Symphony. He assimilated elements of Schoenberg's own lyricism into his style, and even the harmony, albeit heavily diluted.

Because some of the elements that define the later Shostakovich are ultimately a product of his exposure to Schoenberg's music (although I'm not sure how much of it he knew), his style would have been different if Schoenberg had never composed, as Ravel said in relation to his own Chansons Madecasses.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Without Schönberg there would be no excuse for the current unpopularity of classical music. (Or at least none so convenient.)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Without Schönberg there would be no excuse for the current unpopularity of classical music. (Or at least none so convenient.)


It would have happened regardless. You think if there was no serialism millions of young people would be listening to Mozart, Brahms and Bach instead of Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Katy Parry?

Doubt it.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Somebody would have discovered the effectiveness of pitch ordering in the melodic-harmonic unity of totally chromatic music, and this person instead would have been demonized. It might have taken 10 or 20 years later, but it definitely would have happened.

(Oh never mind somebody did it concurrently with Schoenberg.)


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

violadude said:


> It would have happened regardless. You think if there was no serialism millions of young people would be listening to Mozart, Brahms and Bach instead of Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Katy Parry?
> 
> Doubt it.


You seem to have misunderstood. That's my _point_.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Klassic said:


> Try to finish the sentence, example: without Schoenberg there would be no . . . Webern.


This is a little off topic, but this statement makes me sad. Webern would have been more like Zemlinsky if Schoenberg hadn't opened up his skull and tweaked him into submission. But without Schoenberg, we still would have had Webern.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> You seem to have misunderstood. That's my _point_.


'Fraid I don't get your point then.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Without Schoenberg, there would be no late Stravinsky which hardly anybody listens to. (Hey, I listen to it and think it's great. But I'm just saying . . .)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

DoReFaMi said:


> ... No Bartok as we know him... Certainly his quartets would sound a lot more tame.


Is that true? I recall that he picked up tone clusters from hearing Henry Cowell in the next room. It seems like without Schoenberg, he would have been just as noisy. Am I mistaken?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

violadude said:


> 'Fraid I don't get your point then.


I thought it was clear, but alright, I'll try again: Classical music is unpopular, and Schönberg makes an excellent scapegoat for people who don't want to face the fact that the reasons for this go far beyond what any one composer did or didn't do (the poor visual arts and literary worlds have to make do with blaming the Cubists and James Joyce).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Manxfeeder said:


> Is that true? I recall that he picked up tone clusters from hearing Henry Cowell in the next room. It seems like without Schoenberg, he would have been just as noisy. Am I mistaken?


Schoenberg was never known for using tone clusters, anyway.

Bartok's personality was relatively fully formed through his personal development based on Strauss and Debussy before he ever encountered Stravinsky and Schoenberg. On the other hand, I think DoReFaMi is referring to the Third Quartet, which was inspired by Berg's Lyric Suite.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> Webern would have been more like Zemlinsky if Schoenberg hadn't opened up his skull and tweaked him into submission. But without Schoenberg, we still would have had Webern.


Alternately: Maybe we would have had a Webern in any case, but Schönberg being available, Webern found it useful to be the older composer's sub, as a means for getting closer to his own artistic goals.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Which brings me to the next one:
> No Schoenberg, no Bernard Herrmann.


Herrmann was a fan of Ives, but I wouldn't certainly say "No Ives no Herrmann". And musically his connection with Schoenberg does not seem so strong to me. Actually I think I've listened a lot of the production made by Herrmann especially for the movies and I don't remember right now a movie of him that showed his influence.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Herrmann was a fan of Ives, but I wouldn't certainly say "No Ives no Herrmann". And musically his connection with Schoenberg does not seem so strong to me. Actually I think I've listened a lot of the production made by Herrmann especially for the movies and I don't remember right now a movie of him that showed his influence.


If you can listen to the music Herrmann wrote for Vertigo or Psycho or any number of other movies and not recognize the fingerprints of Schoenberg's influence, you don't know much about Schoenberg.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> If you can listen to the music Herrmann wrote for Vertigo or Psycho or any number of other movies and not recognize the fingerprints of Schoenberg's influence, you don't know much about Schoenberg.


It's possible, but still what should be his specific influence?
I haven't listened those soundtracks for years, but for instance I don't remember any tone row (while if I remember correctly Herrmann used a lot of ostinatos).
Also, Herrmann's music was quite eclectic, Taxi driver showed the influence of jazz for instance (a curiosity: I think that the main theme is very similar to this tune written by Django Reinhardt: 



), so this is another reason why saying that his music would have been radically different without the influence of a single composer seems very forced to me. 
Schoenberg was incredibly influential but I don't see Herrmann between those who can be seen as his heirs.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> It's possible, but still what should be his specific influence?
> I haven't listened those soundtracks for years, but for instance I don't remember any tone row (while if I remember correctly Herrmann used a lot of ostinatos)


Why on earth do people think that Schoenberg is equal to the 12-tone method? That's like saying if it doesn't have a fugue it doesn't sound like Bach. You can sound like 12-tone Schoenberg without using a tone row, and you can definitely sound like Schoenberg in general without using a tone row.

I'm referring to specific elements of harmony, including the so-called Viennese trichord (perfect fourth plus augmented fourth), used in a non-common practice manner, as well as a certain brand of melodic writing.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Why on earth do people think that Schoenberg is equal to the 12-tone method?


Because Schoenberg is considered one of the most influential composers exactly because of this.



Mahlerian said:


> That's like saying if it doesn't have a fugue it doesn't sound like Bach. You can sound like 12-tone Schoenberg without using a tone row, and you can definitely sound like Schoenberg in general without using a tone row.
> 
> I'm referring to specific elements of harmony, including the so-called Viennese trichord (perfect fourth plus augmented fourth), used in a non-common practice manner, as well as a certain brand of melodic writing.


it doesn't seem an argument so strong to say that Hermann's music would have not existed without him (see also the comment above, I've added something).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Without Schoenberg, there would be no: world hunger . . . homelessness . . . poverty . . . Hitler . . . Dengue fever . . . Shostakovich threads . . . reality TV . . . mismatched socks . . . World Wrestling Federation . . .

The possibilities are endless! 

Or, in the words of one translation of _Ubu Roi_: "If it weren't for Poland, there would be no Poles."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Because Schoenberg is considered one of the most influential composers exactly because of this.


No, he was influential before he created the 12-tone method and would still have been extremely influential if he had died in 1920.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> No, he was influential before he created the 12-tone method and would still have been extremely influential if he had died in 1920.


sure, he wrote early atonal stuff, but there were earlier examples of that. 
And anyway back to Herrmann: 



If I have to point an influence listening to the first minutes here I hear more Wagner.

and here if I should mention an influence I'd say Holst:


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Without Schoenberg there wouldn't be this thread....


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> sure, he wrote early atonal stuff, but there were earlier examples of that.
> And anyway back to Herrmann:
> 
> 
> ...


If you mean the Holst of "The Planets", then you're referring to a work that again exists in part thanks to the influence of Schoenberg.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> The orchestration of the First Symphony does not sound like the later Shostakovich at all.


Wrong but irrelevant in any case. You claimed the clarity of his orchestration owed something to Schoenberg. In fact, he seems to have been born with it.



Mahlerian said:


> That was not the entirety of my point. Shostakovich's melodic lines also bear Schoenberg's influence. Take a look, once again, at the aforementioned Five Fragments, and also the second theme of the Fifth Symphony. He assimilated elements of Schoenberg's own lyricism into his style, and even the harmony, albeit heavily diluted.


You are claiming that Shostakovich's melodic style bears an audible influence of Schoenberg? And you can separate this from the influence of Mahler, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and Tchaikovsky? Yeah, right. The example of the Fifth Symphony is nonsense.



Mahlerian said:


> Because some of the elements that define the later Shostakovich are ultimately a product of his exposure to Schoenberg's music (although I'm not sure how much of it he knew), his style would have been different if Schoenberg had never composed, as Ravel said in relation to his own Chansons Madecasses.


This is an empty claim with no substance. You apparently can point to no general stylistic similarity that justifies the ridiculously overblown claim you began with. Time to put up or recant.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> If you mean the Holst of "The Planets", then you're referring to a work that again exists in part thanks to the influence of Schoenberg.


Maybe, but I don't think that anybody listening to Mars would think of Schoenberg.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Maybe, but I don't think that anybody listening to Mars would think of Schoenberg.


Whether or not they would think of it is irrelevant. The fact is that Holst heard Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, went out and bought the score, and then started composing his own suite, initially with the title "Seven Pieces for Orchestra," which eventually became The Planets.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Wrong but irrelevant in any case. You claimed the clarity of his orchestration owed something to Schoenberg. In fact, he seems to have been born with it.


I said the _increased_ clarity in orchestration starting in the 1930s works. Yes, he had always had a penchant for more incisive textures from the beginning, but the First Symphony owes more obvious debts to Stravinsky, for example, and I don't hear anything Schoenbergian about his music until later.



EdwardBast said:


> You are claiming that Shostakovich's melodic style bears an audible influence of Schoenberg? And you can separate this from the influence of Mahler, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and Tchaikovsky? Yeah, right. The example of the Fifth Symphony is nonsense.


Yes, actually, I am, and I don't think the Fifth is a bad example at all.



EdwardBast said:


> This is an empty claim with no substance. You apparently can point to no general stylistic similarity that justifies the ridiculously overblown claim you began with. Time to put up or recant.


Ridiculously overblown? You're the one claiming that Shostakovich was clearly left untouched by one of the major composers of the 20th century, a composer whose music he is on record as admiring.

How can you hear something like this without recognizing Schoenberg's influence?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Whether or not they would think of it is irrelevant. The fact is that Holst heard Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, went out and bought the score, and then started composing his own suite, initially with the title "Seven Pieces for Orchestra," which eventually became The Planets.


so just the fact that Holst was influenced by Schoenberg made any original contribution just a contribution of Schoenberg? Even that rhytmic drive that is associated by tons of listeners (and musicians too I'd say) with The planets?
That's like saying that Schoenberg didn't bring anything original because he was influenced by previous composers.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> so just the fact that Holst was influenced by Schoenberg made any original contribution just a contribution of Schoenberg?


No, it means that the work was influenced by Schoenberg, that's all. I don't understand the concerted effort of some to try to block their own pet composers off from being connected with his music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> No, it means that the work was influenced by Schoenberg, that's all. I don't understand the concerted effort of some to try to block their own pet composers off from being connected with his music.


let me reminds you that you were saying that Bernard Herrmann would have not existed without Schoenberg, and that I pointed out that Herrmann was actually very eclectic (even in the same soundtrack it's possible to find completely different influences) and that's why I mentioned that Death hunt to me sounds like Holst (and not Schoenberg). And that other pieces were influenced by other composers and even different genres. I was just adding arguments to the fact that your idea about Herrmann as someone so influenced by Schoenberg that his music would have been completely different without him is (or seems to me if you prefer) very forced.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> let me reminds you that you were saying that Bernard Herrmann would have not existed without Schoenberg, and that I pointed out that Herrmann was actually very eclectic (even in the same soundtrack it's possible to find completely different influences) and that's why I mentioned that Death hunt to me sounds like Holst (and not Schoenberg). And that other pieces were influenced by other composers and even different genres. I was just adding arguments to the fact that your idea about Herrmann as someone so influenced by Schoenberg that his music would have been completely different without him is (or seems to me if you prefer) very forced.


I didn't literally mean that his career would not have existed. I was only using that sentence structure because of the OP's topic name.

Even the most clearly Schoenbergian of composers, like Alban Berg, Roger Sessions, or Leon Kirchner, would clearly have formed a style in Schoenberg's absence, but like with my other examples, their styles would not have developed in the same way.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> I didn't literally mean that his career would not have existed. I was only using that sentence structure because of the OP's topic name.
> 
> Even the most clearly Schoenbergian of composers, like Alban Berg, Roger Sessions, or Leon Kirchner, would clearly have formed a style in Schoenberg's absence, but like with my other examples, their styles would not have developed in the same way.


but Berg, Sessions, Webern, Skalkottas, mr. "Schoenberg is dead" Boulez and tons of others (late Stravinsky) were a lot more deeply influenced by him than Herrmann
If you think that I'm just "defending" Herrmann you're completely off-track. I'm just saying that if he was influenced by him, certainly that influence wasn't so decisive.
Just for curiosity I've put on google Bernard Herrmann and Schoenberg, and this is the first result from the page dedicated to Herrmann:

_Perhaps Herrmann had a bit more in common with composers such as Honegger who also was eclectic and rather a romanticist himself (but who also played with various devices to suit his musical purposes, whether from Neo-Classicism or whatever). I think being eclectic is rather a healthy approach, showing a willingness to adapt in order to serve one's musical effect. But Herrmann was selective. *He showed little interest in Schoenberg's form of chromatic atonalism,* nor the Schenkerian mathematical approach (although many of his CBS cronies studied Heinrich Schenker's ideas quite avidly). He also did not enthusiastically foster in his own music the uniquely American contribution of popular music such as jazz and ragtime (Taxi Driver is one exception and a few of his "contemporary" radio scores in the Late Thirties such as Rhythm of the Jute Mill)_

and also:
_ The English Nationalists such as V. Williams, Percy Grainger, *and especially Holst *(composer of The Planets) seemed to have influenced Herrmann, and Herrmann certainly had that Anglophile tie. And, as we all know, Herrmann settled in England towards the end of his life. Nevertheless, none of them had such a major impact that it would dominate his overall style. _

I hand't read this before, so it seems I'm not the only one who hear that.
http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/misc-nature/


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> sure, he wrote early atonal stuff, but there were earlier examples of that.


He wrote _Pierrot lunaire_, the second most famous atonal work - the most famous being _Wozzeck_, another non-12 tone work, and of course it wouldn't exist without the precedent of Schönberg - for three decades, until people started paying attention to the 12 tone works, after World War II.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

Schoenberg in the musical messiah.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> but Berg, Sessions, Webern, Skalkottas, mr. "Schoenberg is dead" Boulez and tons of others (late Stravinsky) were a lot more deeply influenced by him than Herrmann


I don't think late Stravinsky really sounds all that much like Schoenberg. I think that Herrmann's suspense scores more clearly show Schoenberg's influence than Threni or Requiem Canticles.



norman bates said:


> If you think that I'm just "defending" Herrmann you're completely off-track. I'm just saying that if he was influenced by him, certainly that influence wasn't so decisive.
> Just for curiosity I've put on google Bernard Herrmann and Schoenberg, and this is the first result from the page dedicated to Herrmann:
> 
> _Perhaps Herrmann had a bit more in common with composers such as Honegger who also was eclectic and rather a romanticist himself (but who also played with various devices to suit his musical purposes, whether from Neo-Classicism or whatever). I think being eclectic is rather a healthy approach, showing a willingness to adapt in order to serve one's musical effect. But Herrmann was selective. *He showed little interest in Schoenberg's form of chromatic atonalism,* nor the Schenkerian mathematical approach (although many of his CBS cronies studied Heinrich Schenker's ideas quite avidly). He also did not enthusiastically foster in his own music the uniquely American contribution of popular music such as jazz and ragtime (Taxi Driver is one exception and a few of his "contemporary" radio scores in the Late Thirties such as Rhythm of the Jute Mill)_


What does "chromatic atonalism" even mean? The paper you cited says the music isn't in a key, is chromatic, but isn't atonal. Huh?

If it isn't in a key, then it isn't tonal, period. If you want to make atonal mean anything narrower than "chromatic post-tonal music" but wider than "a specific short period of expressionist music limited to a few people who later moved on to serialism" you're launching yourself off the deep end.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> I don't think late Stravinsky really sounds all that much like Schoenberg. I think that Herrmann's suspense scores more clearly show Schoenberg's influence than Threni or Requiem Canticles.
> 
> What does "chromatic atonalism" even mean? The paper you cited says the music isn't in a key, is chromatic, but isn't atonal. Huh?


he's referring to the first part of the article where he says: 
_ Moreover, Herrmann's homophonic style tended to utilize, most characteristically, sustained chord accompaniment (his standard type of accompaniment). This generally meant long, drawn-out, rather slow-moving chords. Occasionally his music was monophonic (unaccompanied "melody" or lyric line) such as his main title for White Witch Doctor that I believe utilized the pentatonic scale. Of course he would also utilize passages where there is no "melody" or lyrical passage (usually soloistic instruments or soloistic choir of instruments such as tutti violins I). Herrmann's music also expressed overwhelmingly strong tonal harmony in the standard sense of conventional chords such as the frequent use of minor/major triads (minor especially), half-diminished sevenths (his favorite or most frequently used seventh), and so forth. So Herrmann's very strong focus on harmony/chords was applied in a homophonic manner. T*he harmonic language or tonal context was overwhelmingly tertian (stacked thirds) in nature, whether as block chords or openly spaced or inverted*. Some scores (such as Jason & the Argonauts) were predominantly triad-based. Occasionally Herrmann would engage in quartal harmony (C/F/Bb, for instance, instead of the tertian harmony of C/E/G). An example would be the opening of "The Stone Faces" cue from North by Northwest. Normally, however, Herrmann's harmony was based on the intervals of major and minor thirds, the most familiar framework of Western traditional music.

*However, "tonal" here does not mean that he generally applied his music in a diatonic (stepwise intervals in seconds such as D to E to F#). For instance, Beethoven's famous 4th movement in his Ninth Symphony (utilizing the D half note to E to F# quarter notes in 4/4 time) shows diatonic movement. Herrmann's harmonic structure was still built on the modern minor and major scale overall, but he generally tended to stay clear of being in some key. Although there are exceptions in his scores (such as Citizen Kane), Herrmann normally did not frequent the use of key signatures. You'll notice this if you study his written scores. Rather, he tended to be quite chromatic (movement in half-steps).* This word is based on the Greek chroma (or color) which fits the dramatic/romantic emotional effect or approach that Herrmann was so fond of. Of course, the King of Chromaticism, Wagner, was a monumental figure, and you'll find many "influences" of Wagner in Herrmann's overall approach. _


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2016)

I think some of the denial here stems from the confused notion that, if one accepts Schoenberg's massive influence, one might accidentally come off as liking Schoenberg (the horror!!)


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Klassic said:


> Try to finish the sentence, example: without Schoenberg there would be no Berg or Webern. What other important modern music has its root in Schoenberg? By why limit it to music, Schoenberg impacted art in general.


... Alfred Schnittke (whose music strikes me as very Schoenberg influenced).


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Stealing my brain.*



Harold in Columbia said:


> Without Schönberg there would be no excuse for the current unpopularity of classical music. (Or at least none so convenient.)





Dim7 said:


> Without Schoenberg there wouldn't be this thread....


I hate you guys.  
You have beat me to it.
Have you infected my computer and stealing my thoughts? Are those little voices I am hearing you guys?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Certainly not. I would never be so careless as to talk out loud while stealing thoughts.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

nathanb said:


> I think some of the denial here stems from the confused notion that, if one accepts Schoenberg's massive influence, one might accidentally come off as liking Schoenberg (the horror!!)


I like Webern
I like Berg
I like Skalkottas
I like late Stravinsky

and many other composers all deeply influenced by Schoenberg (and I like some Schoenberg too).
So no, my denial about Herrmann does not have anything to do with this.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I said the _increased_ clarity in orchestration starting in the 1930s works. Yes, he had always had a penchant for more incisive textures from the beginning, but the First Symphony owes more obvious debts to Stravinsky, for example, and I don't hear anything Schoenbergian about his music until later.


You haven't demonstrated anything Schoenbergian that is extensive enough to justify your initial claim, that Shostakovich as we know him would not exist without Schoenberg.



Mahlerian said:


> Ridiculously overblown? You're the one claiming that Shostakovich was clearly left untouched by one of the major composers of the 20th century, a composer whose music he is on record as admiring.
> 
> How can you hear something like this without recognizing Schoenberg's influence?


I made no such claim! All I have argued is that _your_ claim, that Shostakovich as we know him would not have existed without Schoenberg, is ludicrous, overblown nonsense. The best you have come up with in your defense is one obscure work that sounds similar and vague claims about melodic similarities you can't back up. You have utterly failed to defend your statement, this fact is painfully obvious, and now you are trying to deflect the burden of proof to me. Once again, I ask you to either make some meaningful effort to defend your claim or else retract it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> You haven't demonstrated anything Schoenbergian that is extensive enough to justify your initial claim, that Shostakovich as we know him would not exist without Schoenberg.
> 
> I made no such claim! All I have argued is that _your_ claim, that Shostakovich as we know him would not have existed without Schoenberg, is ludicrous, overblown nonsense. The best you have come up with in your defense is one obscure work that sounds similar and vague claims about melodic similarities you can't back up. You have utterly failed to defend your statement, this fact is painfully obvious, and now you are trying to deflect the burden of proof to me. Once again, I ask you to either make some meaningful effort to defend your claim or else retract it.


Your entire argument has consisted in calling my claims ridiculous. You have never demonstrated very much of an awareness of Schoenberg's music. While I'm sure I don't know Shostakovich as well as you do, surely you must know that I know his music to some extent. I hear and have long heard traits which he likely learned from Schoenberg in it.

What I mean is simply that Shostakovich's style is recognizably related, and for that reason would not be the same if that influence were not a part of it.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Your entire argument has consisted in calling my claims ridiculous. You have never demonstrated very much of an awareness of Schoenberg's music. While I'm sure I don't know Shostakovich as well as you do, surely you must know that I know his music to some extent. I hear and have long heard traits which he likely learned from Schoenberg in it.
> 
> What I mean is simply that Shostakovich's style is recognizably related, and for that reason would not be the same if that influence were not a part of it.


I haven't presented an argument at all! All I have done is state that your claim is wrong on its face in ways that are obvious to people who know Shostakovich's music. I am fully capable of demonstrating how Shostakovich's language derives from that of his Russian forebears, among others, and if there is ever a thread in which that is relevant I will do so. As I made no claims whatever about Schoenberg, my awareness of Schoenberg's music has nothing to do with this discussion.

Anyway: So you have retracted your initial claim then. It is no longer "couldn't have existed without Schoenberg" and is now "recognizably related" (to you, apparently in ways you are not currently ready to demonstrate) or "would not be the same" without (also in ways you have not elaborated). Good enough.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I guess there's a little bit of miscommunication as it's a little hard to interpret what it means to say "there would be no X without X". Obviously, since there is no way to observe alternate universes, this all is kind of just a guessing game at best.

I give this thread an D+.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> I haven't presented an argument at all! All I have done is state that your claim is wrong on its face in ways that are obvious to people who know Shostakovich's music. I am fully capable of demonstrating how Shostakovich's language derives from that of his Russian forebears, among others, and if there is ever a thread in which that is relevant I will do so. As I made no claims whatever about Schoenberg, my awareness of Schoenberg's music has nothing to do with this discussion.


How is Shostakovich's language deriving from his Russian forebears and others mutually exclusive with its being influenced by Schoenberg?



EdwardBast said:


> Anyway: So you have retracted your initial claim then. It is no longer "couldn't have existed without Schoenberg" and is now "recognizably related" (to you, apparently in ways you are not currently ready to demonstrate) or "would not be the same" without (also in ways you have not elaborated). Good enough.


I have elaborated on what I meant, you've just said that my claims don't deserve any thought.

And my original claim was always meant to be that. If there weren't the particular collection of influences that made Shostakovich's later style, there would be no Shostakovich "as we know him," would there?


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> How is Shostakovich's language deriving from his Russian forebears and others mutually exclusive with its being influenced by Schoenberg?
> 
> I have elaborated on what I meant, you've just said that my claims don't deserve any thought.
> 
> And my original claim was always meant to be that. If there weren't the particular collection of influences that made Shostakovich's later style, there would be no Shostakovich "as we know him," would there?


You're saying that without an influential composer's existence, things would be different? RIDICULOUS ASSERTION, 0/10, ENTIRELY DEVOID OF LOGIC, IGNORE ABOVE POST LOL.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

nathanb said:


> You're saying that without an influential composer's existence, things would be different? RIDICULOUS ASSERTION, 0/10, ENTIRELY DEVOID OF LOGIC, IGNORE ABOVE POST LOL.


A agree with Mahlerian. I can also see that his analysis of the objections that stand against him are accurate: *"I have elaborated on what I meant, you've just said that my claims don't deserve any thought."*

The ridiculous assertion is the claim that influence is irrelevant to being. Does Schoenberg _have no part_ in the musical existence of that being we call Shostakovitch? This statement is not consistent with reality.


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