# Webern: Im Sommerwind



## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

I confess that I've never really paid attention to Im Sommerwind, but yesterday I listened to it twice and enjoyed it greatly.
You-all like it?

dj


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2009)

I wouldn't want to be without _any_ Webern, early or late, though I much prefer late. The early works are nice, but they're apprentice works, full of the past. Webern's later works are echt Webern, the product of a mature, sophisticated, brilliant, and original mind. Plus they're good to listen to, much more rewarding than the early works, easier to listen to repeatedly without fatigue or impatience.


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

some guy.. a Webern listener.. fantastic..!


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

some guy said:


> I wouldn't want to be without _any_ Webern, early or late, though I much prefer late. The early works are nice, but they're apprentice works, full of the past. Webern's later works are echt Webern, the product of a mature, sophisticated, brilliant, and original mind. Plus they're good to listen to, much more rewarding than the early works, easier to listen to repeatedly without fatigue or impatience.


There's nothing brilliant about Webern's music or any composer who wrote in the serialistic style. It's organized noise and that's me being nice about it.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> There's nothing brilliant about Webern's music or any composer who wrote in the serialistic style. It's organized noise and that's me being nice about it.



It is brilliant, indeed, thoughtful, well composed, rich in timbre. Webern is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> It is brilliant, indeed, thoughtful, well composed, rich in timbre. Webern is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.


In your opinion, I personally find his music to be noise pollution.


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## PartisanRanger (Oct 19, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> There's nothing brilliant about Webern's music or any composer who wrote in the serialistic style. It's organized noise and that's me being nice about it.


Weren't you just stressing the subjective nature of music appreciation in the other thread?


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> In your opinion, I personally find his music to be noise pollution.


Explain, please, how your opinion is better than ours.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

some guy said:


> Explain, please, how your opinion is better than ours.


I never said my opinion was better than anybody's. All I did was give my opinion of Webern like everybody else does.

Serialism, in my opinion, is merely a mathematical sound experiment, but only the experiment is in the form of composition. It would be different if these composers did experiments on their own with this stuff, but no they chose to dedicate their lives to writing in this style, which I think this method of composition lacks melody, harmony, motivic development...it just sounds like nonsense. It's too chaotic.

There's nothing concrete about it. It just sounds totally random. Perhaps I don't understand to the extent that you do, but then again I have never tried, because it goes against what I believe in ----- musically speaking.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Usually with nicely-titled atonal compositions I get disappointed, because I expect to feel some gentle Sommerwind on my Zkin, but instead I get schrieking neuses und a note hier und zere. However, Pierrot lunaire makes a notable exception.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I haven't heard much Webern, but if you're talking atonal composers, I like those who branched out & integrated it into their individual style, like Berg, Martin & Henze. I would be fascinated, though, to hearing that Webern piece, as I'm pretty much open to this type of music, as most others in classical...


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Lisztfreak said:


> Usually with nicely-titled atonal compositions I get disappointed, because I expect to feel some gentle Sommerwind on my Zkin, but instead I get schrieking neuses und a note hier und zere. However, Pierrot lunaire makes a notable exception.


Um, Im sommerwind is not atonal.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Are there any good recordings of this work? & also the Passacaglia?...


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> There's nothing brilliant about Webern's music or any composer who wrote in the serialistic style. It's organized noise and that's me being nice about it.


Im Sommerwind isn't a serial work


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Reiner Torheit said:


> Im Sommerwind isn't a serial work


I didn't say it was.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> I never said my opinion was better than anybody's. All I did was give my opinion of Webern like everybody else does.


Actually, no. You did more than that. You gave your opinion of other people's opinions, setting yours over theirs as more valid.

But your opinion isn't terribly useful, based as it is merely on some vague impressions, not on any notable experience. Take this, for example: "I think this method of composition lacks melody, harmony, motivic development...it just sounds like nonsense. It's too chaotic" which is demonstrably untrue. Anyone who listens to Webern, or any serial composer, with any understanding hears melody, harmony, motivic development (whew! es_pec_ially this one!!).

As for it's sounding like nonsense, perhaps the only just response to that is to borrow a phrase from you, "_in your opinion_"!!

Now, you'll grant that if I listen to a recording of a piece by Webern, and if you listen to the same recording, then the sounds we both hear are the same, no? So if there's any difference from that point, that difference is between us, and nothing to do with Webern. Fair enough? I listen to Webern and hear all the things you do not. Sounds like it's possible that you aren't listening well enough, maybe perhaps.

As for it's being chaotic, well maybe you could set aside a few hours to spend analyzing some scores. I think you'll find after that exercise that far from being chaotic, Webern's music is extraordinarily well constructed. Just a thought.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think it is a pity that some people simply dismiss composers like Webern, as some guy suggests, based on their preconceptions. I hear quite a varied emotional range in this type of music. It might not be the same as listening to other classical music, but you will get something out of it if you approach it with a different set of ears, so to speak...


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

airad2 said:


> Um, Im sommerwind is not atonal.


Honestly, I didn't know that. But in fact I just used the nice title to make a comparison with other works of Webern I've heard, like the Symphony, whose names sound kinda nice and then you realise the music isn't really. Although you're definitely right, I should've checked some data about the work before using it as a starting point of an argument...


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

folx, just listen to the dang piece and see if you like it. 

dj


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

some guy said:


> Actually, no. You did more than that. You gave your opinion of other people's opinions, setting yours over theirs as more valid.
> 
> But your opinion isn't terribly useful, based as it is merely on some vague impressions, not on any notable experience. Take this, for example: "I think this method of composition lacks melody, harmony, motivic development...it just sounds like nonsense. It's too chaotic" which is demonstrably untrue. Anyone who listens to Webern, or any serial composer, with any understanding hears melody, harmony, motivic development (whew! es_pec_ially this one!!).
> 
> ...


Trust me I've heard enough Webern to know that I don't like his music. The same could be said for all other serialist.

I just don't enjoy organized noise. Thanks, but no thanks. Give me some Brahms anyday.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> Give me some Brahms anyday.


You can have mine, with the greatest of pleasure. And Bruckner too


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> I just don't enjoy *organized* noise.


So you do agree that atonal music has got some structure to it, at least?...


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Twelve-note rows, when treated serially, are completely emotionless.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Lisztfreak said:


> Twelve-note rows, when treated serially, are completely emotionless.


Yes, they certainly are. Drivel is what it sounds like.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2009)

Lisztfreak said:


> Twelve-note rows, when treated serially, are completely emotionless.


Really? Hmmm, not in my experience.*



Mirror Image said:


> Yes, they certainly are. Drivel is what it sounds like.


Well, it's certainly neither here nor there that your ears are in such terrible shape, but to take pride in their shortcomings, to elevate their shortcomings into virtues, well, that's quite another thing.

*That is, if "twelve-tone rows, when treated serially" makes any sense, which I'm not at all sure it does. What do you mean by "treated serially"?


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Lisztfreak said:


> Twelve-note rows, when treated serially, are completely emotionless.


not if performed with emotion.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

to echo a previous post concerning my op...this selection is NOT atonal Webern.

dj


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> Yes, they certainly are. Drivel is what it sounds like.


If this






is drivel... then give me more drivel, please!!


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

some guy said:


> *That is, if "twelve-tone rows, when treated serially" makes any sense, which I'm not at all sure it does. What do you mean by "treated serially"?


I mean when treated in a fully Schoenbergian manner, respecting the order of tones, the intervals, using inversion, retrograde inversion etc., and not treating them melodically, as some composers like Britten and Walton did.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Reiner Torheit said:


> If this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sounds like a student orchestra warming up with a street violinist.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2009)

Lisztfreak said:


> Sounds like a student orchestra warming up with a street violinist.


Well Reiner (et al.), what say we just let the deaf be deaf? They're not going to listen, not on our say so, anyway, and nor are they going to stop their scurrilous attacks of the beauties they simply do not understand.

Sad, really, how insistent some people are that ignorance and a lack of understanding are virtues.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

some guy said:


> Well Reiner (et al.), what say we just let the deaf be deaf? They're not going to listen, not on our say so, anyway, and nor are they going to stop their scurrilous attacks of the beauties they simply do not understand.
> 
> Sad, really, how insistent some people are that ignorance and a lack of understanding are virtues.


Well I have high musical standards and unfortunately serialism doesn't make the cut.


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2009)

Hmmm, well I too have high musical standards, and serialism _does_ make the cut.

So where does _that_ leave us, eh? At an impasse?

Well, I don't think so. I see your putative high standards and raise you knowledge/experience/enjoyment.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I must say that in spite of the fact that I can appreciate some rather experimental literature (Beckett, Borges, Eliot, Joyce, Anne Carson) and art (I better be able to, being an artist), I've never been overly fond of serialism... or a great deal else of the more experimental strains of Modernist music. Oddly enough I do appreciate a good deal of Minimalism... but then that runs more toward the tonal or at least modal and rarely ever grates on the nerves. There are certainly exceptions. I love the Rite of Spring and a great deal of Bartok and even Ligetti's Mechanical Music (except for that stupid John Cage-like piece with the hundred metronomes). I may be able to appreciate such music on an intellectual level... but to me it seems that music is such an organic and emotional experience that it needs to deliver a sensual/sensory sense of pleasure as well. Without it I find myself thinking, "Hmmm, that was clever... different... original, perhaps... but I'll never want to listen to that crap again." That's pretty much my take on Webern, Schoenberg, Berg, etc...


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

some guy said:


> Hmmm, well I too have high musical standards, and serialism _does_ make the cut.
> 
> So where does _that_ leave us, eh? At an impasse?
> 
> Well, I don't think so. I see your putative high standards and raise you knowledge/experience/enjoyment.


If you enjoy it, then knock yourself out. I'll happily bow out and say that it's noise pollution and just leave it at that.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Why does there have to be a debate & big fuss about the merits of atonal music whenever the topic even remotely comes up? Why can't people, if they don't like this music, just leave it at that. There's no need to make value judgements about the music. It may not be to everyone's taste, but that does not mean other people can't enjoy it. I firmly disagree that it lacks quality or emotion. One just has to give it a chance & listen closer. But if it doesn't appeal to you at all, I'm fine with that...

& if you do want to give it a chance, I wouldn't perhaps start with the original atonal composers (Berg, Schoenberg, Webern), whose music can be quite hard to listen to. I'd start with later composers who either experimented with atonality in their music or embraced it fully, but with a strongly individual approach. One of the former is Walton in his very listenable _String Quartet in A minor_. A few of the latter are Martin, Henze & Leyendecker, all of whose music is strongly atonal but very engaging. I also know that Stravinsky embraced serialism later in his life, but I haven't heard any of those works, so I can't judge.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Andre said:


> Why does there have to be a debate & big fuss about the merits of atonal music whenever the topic even remotely comes up? Why can't people, if they don't like this music, just leave it at that. There's no need to make value judgements about the music. It may not be to everyone's taste, but that does not mean other people can't enjoy it. I firmly disagree that it lacks quality or emotion. One just has to give it a chance & listen closer. But if it doesn't appeal to you at all, I'm fine with that...


Not liking is something, I don't like several C20th compsoers, and several compositions by Webern and Schoenberg (I actually can't stand any of Schönberg's twelve tone compositions besides the Variations for orchestra), but calling it crap or "organized noise" is simply a refusal to understand their music and its goals, you may say you don't like, but there must be a musical reason to this, you must understand what that music means and then say what it doesn't work to you. My case, I don't like Schönbergs use of neoclassical forms using his new composition technique because the sonata form works only within a clear tonal environment, its usage by late-Romanticism and Modernism, with some brilliant exceptions (most by Bartóks sonata-parodies like Str. Qt. no. 5), is just meaningless, Schoenberg concerti and late quartets sound artificial it is like he had discovered a brilliant way to compose music in works like the three piano pieces and Pierrot Lunaire only to throw it all away.

Calling it noise is just a refusal to understand what it means, and some people just can't feel musically outwitted...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> Calling it noise is just a refusal to understand what it means, and some people just can't feel musically outwitted...


It just shows how truly radical atonalism still is, even after about 100 years of it being around!

I can't say that I 'enjoy' it exactly as I'd enjoy a Haydn symphony or something like that, but the works of Berg are 'enjoyable' to me in other ways...


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Andre said:


> It just shows how truly radical atonalism still is, even after about 100 years of it being around!
> 
> I can't say that I 'enjoy' it exactly as I'd enjoy a Haydn symphony or something like that, but the works of Berg are 'enjoyable' to me in other ways...


I think I should say this: I admire Schoenberg. In fact, I admire him a lot. He did exactly what he wanted to do, regardless if people liked it or not. He had a lot of courage as did Berg and Webern, but this alone, in my opinion, doesn't constitute good music, but it doesn't change my admiration for them.


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

some guy said:


> I wouldn't want to be without _any_ Webern, early or late, though I much prefer late. The early works are nice, but they're apprentice works, full of the past. Webern's later works are echt Webern, the product of a mature, sophisticated, brilliant, and original mind. Plus they're good to listen to, much more rewarding than the early works, easier to listen to repeatedly without fatigue or impatience.


I like his Op. 5 too. The most phantastic is the String trio, but several others are great too: Quartets Op. 22, 28, the 2d Cantate... Unfortunately the Complete editions of his works are not good enough, I think. Robert Craft's is rather dull, Boulez' is better but not too much. All single works of Webern I have on various records are more vividly played than in box.

It seems Im Sommerwind is an early work?


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## Guest (Jul 24, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> Well I have high musical standards and unfortunately serialism doesn't make the cut.


Your loss.

But as we've seen, you don't even know which works are actually serial anyhow.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

' It seems Im Sommerwind is an early work? '

...yes, and a very nice one.

dj


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