# Cage and Stravinsky on Schoenberg: Schoenberg "wasn't modern"



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Excerpt from an interview with Andrew Ford (Australian composer)

AF: Could we go back to your beginnings as a composer? Your own stimuli and early instruction were fairly conventional. Certainly studying with Schoenberg was arguably the most conventional thing any composer could have done. 
JC: There were only two things to do at the time, so it wasn't either conventional or unconventional: you could study either with Schoenberg or Stravinsky or someone moving in one of those directions. We didn't take Bartók seriously. And I chose the one that Schoenberg offered rather than the neo-classicism of Stravinsky, which struck me as not opening new doors but depending on the past. Later, I met Stravinsky, and he asked me why I chose Schoenberg rather than him, and I said something about the twelve tones and chromaticism as opposed to diatonicism. And he plainly objected. He said, "My music is also chromatic." And then he added, "What I never liked about Schoenberg's music was that it wasn't modern." And I've thought about that since then, and Stravinsky was absolutely right. Schoenberg would say, for instance, "Bach did such-and-such, Beethoven did such-and-such, Brahms did such-and-such, and _Schoenberg_ did such-and-such," referring to himself in third person. So that he didn't think of himself as changing the past, but rather as one who continued the past.

I would like to know to what extent TCers agree with this sentiment. Of course, it implies that Stravinsky was much more "modern" than Schoenberg.


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## PetrB

[As an aside, I never thought that Stravinsky taught, mentored or ever let young composers consult with him -- nor have I read or heard he ever did.]

Re: Schoenberg "Not Modern." 
It would be impossible for me to agree more. Empirically, I hear any of it, from the earliest to the last, as late Germanic high romantic, with all the accompanying sentiment and a sort of parochialism typical of that time, culture and place it came from. (I'm convinced Schoenberg the man and the composer was -- body, heart and soul -- a late arch romantic.)

Elliott Carter was asked why, even in his earlier formative years, he had not tried out any of the serial approach, ala Schoenberg. He said, _"I looked into it, but the more I looked, it seemed to me to was just more of that same old Brahms stuff."_ I think Mr. Carter was right.

Mitsuko Uchida, in a taped discussion on Schoenberg's _Piano Concerto,_ says much quite specifically of the same drift -- that Schoenberg's music is very German, very sentimental and romantic. In that interview (or possibly another interview on the Debussy _Études_) she also points out that it was Debussy, not Schoenberg, who made [snap of the fingers] a quick and clean break from old to truly modern.

To me, there is, as Mr. Ford said in your quoted article, nothing modern about Schoenberg.


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## brianvds

It is my understanding too that Schoenberg was at least not intentionally modern, and saw himself as continuing and extending an existing tradition. Not that you'd guess on a first listening. 

Of course, it isn't really possible to ever make a complete break with the past anyway.


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## Kilgore Trout

Indeed, Schoenberg saw himself as a successor. Atonality than serialism was to him a logical way to go after Wagner. He didn't see himself as revolutionary, quite the opposite. In a way, Stravinsky breaking away from traditional form in Petrushka and traditional rythm in Le Sacre is more "modern" than anything by Schoenberg.


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## Mandryka

I know AS wrote an essay arguing that his musical ideas took their inspiration from Mozart and Brahms. But was he right about thay? I can't say, it's an analytical point. Mahlerian, where are you?


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## norman bates

Kilgore Trout said:


> Indeed, Schoenberg saw himself as a successor. Atonality than serialism was to him a logical way to go after Wagner. He didn't see himself as revolutionary, quite the opposite. In a way, Stravinsky breaking away from traditional form in Petrushka and traditional rythm in Le Sacre is more "modern" than anything by Schoenberg.


If so, it would be interesting to know why when Schoenberg died Stravinsky started composing serial music.
Maybe that sentence about the lack of modernity of Schoenberg is due simply to the fact that there was a lot of resentment between the two men.


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## Guest

I completely understand the relationship of most Schoenberg to late romanticism, but, to me, to call A Survivor From Warsaw, the Variations For Orchestra, Moses Und Aron, etc "not modern" while simultaneously acknowledging the modernity of even the earliest Debussy...seems a little shaky to me.


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## PetrB

norman bates said:


> If so, it would be interesting to know why when Schoenberg died Stravinsky started composing serial music.
> Maybe that sentence about the lack of modernity of Schoenberg is due simply to the fact that there was a lot of resentment between the two men.


Maybe Stravinsky was cited as saying it in this or others instances, while the opinion that Schoenberg was not so particularly modern is far wider spread than the opinion of Stravinsky alone. There is enough documented, from Schoenberg himself, saying he neither intended or did made a break from the past, but that he saw his direction as a direct continuing of the line of (specifically) Germanic classical musical tradition from Mozart through to Schoenberg's own time.

Stravinsky was led to serialism at the prompting / urging of Robert Kraft, and the composer went in that direction gradually, from one piece progressively to the next._ (If you are already know as one of the world's greatest living composers, another part of 'switching techniques' at the height of that career would, I think, have a composer being very sure the first essay using the newly adopted technique did not in any way sound other than 'the next piece by an already established prominent composer (no room for "not bad, shows talent, may develop in the future" submissions for public scrutiny from a young and beginning composer, there _


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## norman bates

PetrB said:


> Maybe Stravinsky was cited as saying it, the opinion that Schoenberg was not modern is wider spread than the opinion of Stravinsky alone. There is enough, documented, of Schoenberg himself saying he neither intended or did made a break from the past, but that his thought he was continuing the line of (specifically) Germanic classical musical traditions from Mozart through to Schoenberg's own time.


like Stravinsky was continuing the tradition of Rimsky Korsakov or Mussorgsky and absorbing ideas of other composers like Schmitt. Tradition and innovation aren't irreconciliable concepts.


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## PetrB

norman bates said:


> like Stravinsky was continuing the tradition of Rimsky Korsakov or Mussorgsky and absorbing ideas of other composers like Schmitt. Tradition and innovation aren't irreconciliable concepts.


People are not born and do not work in a vacuum, and nary one innovator went about discarding the wheel merely to re-invent another.

In a way, it is a bit too bad that what was / is innovative necessarily gets spoken of in the technical jargon of music theory, because as much as most composers know theory, and may have even applied it somewhat directly to help clarify their new direction, most of them 'are just using and following their ears.'


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## SottoVoce

PetrB said:


> [As an aside, I never thought that Stravinsky taught, mentored or ever let young composers consult with him -- nor have I read or heard he ever did.]
> 
> Re: Schoenberg "Not Modern."
> It would be impossible for me to agree more. Empirically, I hear any of it, from the earliest to the last, as late Germanic high romantic, with all the accompanying sentiment and a sort of parochialism typical of that time, culture and place it came from. (I'm convinced Schoenberg the man and the composer was -- body, heart and soul -- a late arch romantic.)


I'm confused on how this would make him unmodern though. Modernism seems to be made up just as much of artists taking the Romantic style and ideology to the extreme as artists rejecting it. The Expressionists would be a nice example, or T.S Eliot and Hart Crane in poetry. Just as the Baroque is "the Renaissance style gone mad", a lot of Modernism could be interpreted as the same for Romanticism.

Plus, as loosely as Stravinsky meant it, disparaging an art because he wasn't "modern" is a pretty poor excuse. Stravinsky was pretty far himself from rejecting the "Bach did such-and-such, etc." mentality. Even Webern, the modernist who took after "Schoenberg's death" to the generations after, compared his String Quartet to Beethoven's 2-movement piano sonatas, and his Concertos to the Brandenburgs. No one would accept that Schoenberg wasn't _original_. Who cares if he wasn't modern? Under this criteria, Stravinsky wouldn't be modern himself (for example, he retained the traditional idea of rhythm, except with extreme accentual irregularity. Schoenberg made his rhythm like musical prose.) Schoenberg's rhythm, even in Sacre, is far more "modern" than Stravinsky's (I don't even know what the word means)


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## Andreas

The expressivity of Schoenberg's musical gestures, also in his twelve-tone works, seem late romantic to me through and through. With exceptions, of course, but on the whole. I feel that Schoenberg was searching for the same kind of wagnerian intensity in his serial works as in his earlier, tonal ones. Maybe the works of his free atonality phase, especially the piano pieces, move in a slightly different direction: less extrovert and grand. Perhaps Schoenberg's twelve-tone music, often sticking to familiar forms, didn't so much use a different grammar but a different orthography, so to speak.


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## Mahlerian

SottoVoce said:


> No one would accept that Schoenberg wasn't _original_. Who cares if he wasn't modern?


That's more or less my perspective on the matter. It does nothing to magnify Stravinsky's already considerable reputation and nothing to diminish Schoenberg's to call the former modern and the latter not. It is also absurd to try to predict which way the future of music lies, because at this point the influence of Schoenberg and the influence of Stravinsky are both ingrained in our musical heritage.


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## BurningDesire

Apparently harmony and aesthetics are not something that are taken into account for something being modern then? By this logic no music is modern. Stravinsky's music goes back to much more ancient forms of music than Schoenberg's. Therefore it isn't modern. I love how the article even brings up Stravinsky's whole neo-classicism, but then insists that Schoenberg is the truely false modernist.


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## Alypius

There are all manner of implicit--and, I believe, suspect--assumptions built into the opening post. "Modern" is implicitly christened as the "better." Of course, what constitutes "modern" is the point of dispute. But whatever it is, the more "modern" the better. We can supposedly divide the whole world of contested modernity into two warring camps: Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky. And, of course, this is all filtered through Cage's impromptu (vs. carefully written) account. And the interviewer, in fact, skews the discussion in all sorts of way, including chiding Cage about his "conventional" beginnings -- and, wink, wink, what could be more "conventional" than studying with Schoenberg. And throughout it, there is an implicit idea of someone winning, someone coming up short. The "more modern" one "wins" -- whatever that means.

This all seems to me to be a really lousy way to think about 20th-century music in general, as well as the music of Stravinsky and the music of Schoenberg (and, for that matter, of Cage). This interview might be instructive about how Cage thought of himself and about how composers in Cage's generation (such as the interviewer) thought of themselves; and if it is an accurate quotation from Stravinsky (I am somewhat skeptical), then it might tell us something about how Stravinsky thought of himself. But I believe it tells us very little about music, about what is good music, or even what is modern music. The early disregard of Bartok by Cage is telling. We wouldn't want a threesome in this discussion. We wouldn't want any real narrative complexity. At least with a two-some we can have a debate about who is the biggest whatever. 

This competitive casting is unhelpful, I believe. Both Stravinsky and Schoenberg can be demonstrated as having profound links with the past -- which they each negotiated in very complex ways; both can also be demonstrated to having made critical breaks with received traditions. Both also ended up negotiating into their music what the other had done, and did so in complex ways. Both composed works of genius that spoke to their contemporaries powerfully and often controversially. And both composers' music speaks powerfully -- and to a somewhat lesser degree, controversially -- to us who now see very different versions of modernity on our sonic landscape. 

I have brought this up before, namely, T.S. Eliot's classic essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent." It seems better to try and name the many and varied ways an individual talent finds his or her own voice by the way they negotiate the traditions they inherit (even the very choice of the traditions they choose to enter into dialogue with tells us something about the multi-form nature of tradition). They alter some things they inherit and leave others in place. To use a linguistic analogy, I didn't invent English. I was born into an English speaking world and slowly made the language I inherited my own. In fact, because I was born into a particular region, I speak a dialect of English. My ability as a speaker and a writer comes from the ability to take what I have inherited and make it my own, to speak new things, contemporary things, in this inherited tongue, things unique to me and to my region of the world and to what I most value in human experience. If I do so, whether in speeches or novels or poetry, in ways that others find communicative, evocative, and illuminating, then my artistry has both its individuality and its place in defining (in whatever way) my "modernity". I believe that any decent analysis of Stravinsky's career or Schoenberg's or Bartok's or Cage's needs to take that into account what they inherited, what they appropriated, changed, ignored, and rejected, and from that made something new, something expressive, something uniquely their own, and at the same time spoke to their generation and to ours. That is a better way, I believe, to do justice to their modernity.


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## PetrB

^^^ Thank you, Alypius, for strongly reminding us of the dynamic of the OP in relation to its times. That does have its own 'point of view' and somewhat a point to make... again, an ego / pissing contest from one type of 20th century musical genius about two other towering genii of the same time. Ranking, yet again... is only useful as a format of discussing differing qualities rather than coming to any conclusion of which was more modern 

I do think Schoenberg was personally a poster-boy late romantic and continued to be so, while Stravinsky was less interested, or not at all, in following or carrying that Germanic musical tradition forward, in either extending its harmonic-theoretical language and syntax, or that particular stamp of classical - romantic aesthetic, either.

Stravinsky seems to have had a nature of taking in older repertoire (his father a singer in the St. Petersburg opera had Stravinsky hearing all the old rep from Bellini to the more current, including current Russian works) and it is clear he also assimilated older rep previously unknown to him near instantly (being presented with Pergolesi and the music of others attributed to Pergolesi via a commission). With any of that material, and style of his neoclassical period, the take is fresh, not merely referential or loaded with gratuitous musical quotes, while Schoenberg stayed quite steadily and resolutely on his one path of 'continuing the Germanic musical tradition.

I think too, that Stravinsky was far less 'theory-bound' or concerned, and mainly followed his imagination and inner ear, wherever it took him. Is there really any other traceable set of moves or steps which accounts for the astonishing progression over but a few years from _L'oiseau de feu_, the vaulted jump to what is _Petrushka,_ and the broad jump over a chasm to _Le Sacre du Printemps_? I think not. Without thinking of assessment as contest, that is a journey from sounding well-influenced by another contemporary (_L'oiseau de feu_ / Rimsky Korsakov) into 'modern' rather unlike most any other. The only other similar dramatic leap from old harmony and syntax to new is the precedent of Debussy and _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune._

Schoenberg's progression of his own musical development was more incremental, and very much in a much straighter line.

Which was 'greater,' whose works had the greatest influence on music and its later generation of practitioners?

Ha haaaaa haaaaa. There is a reason each of these three composers are mentioned in virtually the same breath when it comes to greatly significant but immeasurable degrees of influence on 20th century 'modernity'.

ADD: I would have to toss Webern into that ring, though his most highly abstract and crystalline works did not really begin to have their influence until closer to the half-way mark in the 20th century.


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## aleazk

norman bates said:


> If so, it would be interesting to know why when Schoenberg died Stravinsky started composing serial music.
> Maybe that sentence about the lack of modernity of Schoenberg is due simply to the fact that there was a lot of resentment between the two men.


It's possible that Stravinsky waited (I mean, in a deliberate way) until Schoenberg's death in order to write 12-tone music. Certainly I think it is possible that Stravinsky didn't want to give Schoenberg the pleasure of seeing him writing with his method. But all this is because of certain animosity and resentment between the two.

But we must be careful and to resist the temptation of an identification between 12-music and its creator, Schoenberg. Schoenberg's music is one type of 12-music. A type with very strong ties to late romanticism and tradition in general, particularly in gesture, form and sentiment.

On the other hand, you have, e.g., Webern's music. Boulez said that Webern "was the composer that truly understood the type of soundworld implied by the 12-tone method" (a more modern one than Schoenberg's, of course).

And it's not a surprise that Stravinsky was fascinated with Webern's 12-tone music, not Schoenberg's. There are many quotes and the music itself composed by Stravinsky shows a very clear influence by Webern.

So, I think Stravinsky was free of contradiction in this aspect and was consequent with his sayings.


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## norman bates

aleazk said:


> It's possible that Stravinsky waited (I mean, in a deliberate way) until Schoenberg's death in order to write 12-tone music. Certainly I think it is possible that Stravinsky didn't want to give Schoenberg the pleasure of seeing him writing with his method. But all this is because of certain animosity and resentment between the two.
> 
> But we must be careful and to resist the temptation of an identification between 12-music and its creator, Schoenberg. Schoenberg's music is one type of 12-music. A type with very strong ties to late romanticism and tradition in general, particularly in gesture, form and sentiment.
> 
> On the other hand, you have, e.g., Webern's music. Boulez said that Webern "was the composer that truly understood the type of soundworld implied by the 12-tone method" (a more modern one than Schoenberg's, of course).
> 
> And it's not a surprise that Stravinsky was fascinated with Webern's 12-tone music, not Schoenberg's. There are many quotes and the music itself composed by Stravinsky shows a very clear influence by Webern.
> 
> So, I think Stravinsky was free of contradiction in this aspect and was consequent with his sayings.


sure, but Webern was a pupil of Schoenberg. Schoenberg created something technically new and was bound to an old aesthetic. Webern created a new detached aesthetic (but I'm not so sure it was so new: was Bach in the art of the fugue a romantic?) but using what was created by Schoenberg, and without Schoenberg you can't have Webern as we know him.


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## Guest

norman bates said:


> sure, but Webern was a pupil of Schoenberg. Schoenberg created something technically new and was bound to an old aesthetic. Webern created a new detached aesthetic (but I'm not so sure it was so new: was Bach in the art of the fugue a romantic?) but using what was created by Schoenberg, and without Schoenberg you can't have Webern as we know him.


But no one is arguing that you could have had Webern without Schoenberg. Or that Webern was not a student of Schoenberg's. Or even that Webern was not using what had been created by Schoenberg. None of those things is being argued.

So while everything you say here outside of the parentheses is true enough, it's impertinent. It's equally true that the sun is a great ball of molten gas, but that's not pertinent to this discussion. Let's argue with the points that have actually been made, not with points that have not been (nor probably ever would be).


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## Morimur

some guy said:


> But no one is arguing that you could have had Webern without Schoenberg. Or that Webern was not a student of Schoenberg's. Or even that Webern was not using what had been created by Schoenberg. None of those things is being argued.
> 
> So while everything you say here outside of the parentheses is true enough, it's impertinent. It's equally true that the sun is a great ball of molten gas, but that's not pertinent to this discussion. Let's argue with the points that have actually been made, not with points that have not been (nor probably ever would be).


Lawd! some guy must've majored in Logic! You a dangerous man, some guy, Mm-hmm.


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> But no one is arguing that you could have had Webern without Schoenberg. Or that Webern was not a student of Schoenberg's. Or even that Webern was not using what had been created by Schoenberg. None of those things is being argued.


My impression is the many here are saying that modernity is just a matter of aesthetic, while the technical innovations are if not irrelevant, a secondary aspect considering the modernity of the composer. But if it's true that in Schoenberg there are still significant traces of romanticism, it's also true that no romantic composer had used serial techniques. 
And by the way, even Wagner was still a romantic composer, and many saw his music as something new, and exactly because of the technical aspects.



some guy said:


> So while everything you say here outside of the parentheses is true enough, it's impertinent.


It would be interesting to discuss also the inside of the parentheses. After all what was considered old in romanticism? I guess especially the emotionally charged aspects of it, maybe also the fact that it was narrative music and Webern did something completely different. But it was so different considering the music before romanticism (my mention of Bach)?


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## Andreas

norman bates said:


> My impression is the many here are saying that modernity is just a matter of aesthetic, while the technical innovations are if not irrelevant, a secondary aspect considering the modernity of the composer.


Yes, a definition of the term modern seems in place, or at least an educated guess what Cage and Stravinsky understood modern to mean.
Personally, I define it as follows: when I listen to a CD, and I can't tell when one work ends and another begins, it's got to be modern. 
By that standard, Webern's usually modern, Schoenberg not.


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## Guest

arcaneholocaust said:


> I completely understand the relationship of most Schoenberg to late romanticism, but, to me, to call A Survivor From Warsaw, the Variations For Orchestra, Moses Und Aron, etc "not modern" while simultaneously acknowledging the modernity of even the earliest Debussy...seems a little shaky to me.


No one has yet responded to this post, so I'm going to go on with my belief that later Schoenberg is modern. Deal with it.


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## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> No one has yet responded to this post, so I'm going to go on with my belief that later Schoenberg is modern. Deal with it.


You can not argue with 'beliefs.' LOL.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> You can not argue with 'beliefs.' LOL.


Especially when you don't try.


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## BurningDesire

some guy said:


> But no one is arguing that you could have had Webern without Schoenberg. Or that Webern was not a student of Schoenberg's. Or even that Webern was not using what had been created by Schoenberg. None of those things is being argued.
> 
> So while everything you say here outside of the parentheses is true enough, it's impertinent. It's equally true that the sun is a great ball of molten gas, but that's not pertinent to this discussion. Let's argue with the points that have actually been made, not with points that have not been (nor probably ever would be).


Thats not even a valid response to what he said. And the sun ISN'T a ball of molten gas (which actually isn't a thing in itself, gas can't be molten), it is a miasma of plasma.


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## BurningDesire

PetrB said:


> You can not argue with 'beliefs.' LOL.


This whole thing is about beliefs. How people define terms arbitrarily. Almost everything in music really just comes down to an opinion, so I guess we can't argue anything about music. LOL.


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## BurningDesire

So far, not one of the proponents of this silly idea have justified why advancing a tradition disqualifies an artist from being modernist. Schoenberg still thought of himself as part of a tradition, yet he did many things that were very new and different from those who preceded him. People give Debussy all this credit for breaking from tradition, like he pulled these ideas out of thin air, but many of his ideas can be traced back to Russian Romantics, ancient music, Asian and folk music traditions, and Richard Wagner (so doesn't that make him part of that Germanic tradition too?). Simply being eclectic doesn't make you a modernist. If that was the case, Tchaikovsky would be one of the most modernistic composers of the 19th Century. It seems like there is this insinuation that his (Schoenberg's) music isn't as innovative or original, because he viewed himself as part of a tradition. I don't get it. Stravinsky really isn't that original when you get right down to it. He is just following in the tradition of Russian and French music, like bigger and better Rimsky-Korsakov with some Debussy/Satie/Ravel spice thrown in. Not to mention that much of his music is literally constructed from material from the past, whether it be music by Classical period composers, or Tchaikovsky, or ancient Russian folk music. So who really is stuck in the past, hmmm?

Don't get me wrong, I love Stravinsky, but this whole thread is absurd.


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## aleazk

I think Schoenberg was definitely modern. Stravinsky and Webern were far more modern, though. Pure and simple.


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## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> I think Schoenberg was definitely modern. Stravinsky and Webern were far more modern, though. Pure and simple.


Uhhh no they weren't. Both were heavily rooted in music of the past. Webern's music aesthetically owes alot to past German masters, in particular Bach, and Stravinsky's is rooted heavily in Baroque and classical period music, as well as the music of the Russians and French who preceded him. Its not pure and simple.


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## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> So far, not one of the proponents of this silly idea have justified why advancing a tradition disqualifies an artist from being modernist. Schoenberg still thought of himself as part of a tradition..., People give Debussy all this credit... like he pulled these ideas out of thin air....


"Nyah, nyah, I am more modern than you are!" But it seems at least (hot dirt) that:

Schoenberg was certainly not above that kind of thing, 
Cage, hah, evidently not, and 
Stravinsky had less interest in that 'contest,' though he could get his nose out of joint at some comments about him made by others.

Reminds me of the thread, "Composers doing completely normal stuff," LOL.


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## aleazk

PetrB said:


> Schoenberg was certainly not above that kind of thing,
> Stravinsky had less interest in that 'contest,' though he could get his nose out of joint at some comments about him made by others.
> 
> Reminds me of the thread, "Composers doing completely normal stuff," LOL.


-"_Modernsky!_"

-"_What I never liked about your music was that it wasn't modern!_"










"_...two bald men fighting over a comb_" - J.L.Borges.


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## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> Especially when you don't try.


It takes literally a mere virtual whisper of 'faith' or some such before a thread or comment gets re-directed to the 'religious music' category, and I'm not going there.


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## Guest

Well, I don't know if it's because I knew Cage, but I don't see his remarks as fitting into the "I am more modern than you" category.

After some thought, he says he agreed with Stravinsky that Schoenberg was not modern is all. As many other people, listeners as well as composers, have noticed over the years. Schoenberg and Stravinsky put out their first "modern" works at almost exactly the same time, so there's likely to be a bit of rivalry there. Plus, in that world, as in this world (still), the emphasis was on harmony, on the tonal system. Anything that tampered with the tonal system was seen as diabolical if not fiendish.* The kinds of things Stravinsky was doing at the time with rhythm and with phrasing were not seen as being as disruptive as the things Schoenberg was doing with tones.

And as time passed, more and more people (though still not everyone by any stretch) were able to notice that Schoenberg's music continued to sound late Romantic, and for good cause, it was late Romantic. It used all the logic of phrasing and development and orchestration and motifs that are characteristic of late Romantic. It lacked only keys. And even there....

Think about how each man thought about, and used, the past. Schoenberg continued working in a tradition. Stravinsky broke with tradition but ended up using older music for his own ends. I'd put it this way, Schoenberg emphasized the traditionality of modernity. Stravinsky discovered the modernity of antiquity. Remember, modernity as description means "of the present time." No matter how much Stravinsky used music of the past, his goals were all modern, all of the time he was in. His foray into twelve-tone was just one indication of that. Schoenberg continued the past into the present. His need to systematize pantonality is part of that. He needed something that would allow him to control musical shapes as tonality does. Which is why his late tonal pieces are not at all a radical turning back to older musical values. He never turned away from older musical values. Brahms (for instance) controlled things with a system, a system he inherited and added to. Schoenberg controlled things with a system he designed, a system that allowed him to continue to write the kind of music he inherited and to add to it. Stravinsky went his own way, part of which was finding the modern elements in older music. Not continuing a tradition, using elements of the past in new and modern ways.

*joke


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> Well, I don't know if it's because I knew Cage, but I don't see his remarks as fitting into the "I am more modern than you" category.
> 
> After some thought, he says he agreed with Stravinsky that Schoenberg was not modern is all. As many other people, listeners as well as composers, have noticed over the years. Schoenberg and Stravinsky put out their first "modern" works at almost exactly the same time, so there's likely to be a bit of rivalry there. Plus, in that world, as in this world (still), the emphasis was on harmony, on the tonal system. Anything that tampered with the tonal system was seen as diabolical if not fiendish.* The kinds of things Stravinsky was doing at the time with rhythm and with phrasing were not seen as being as disruptive as the things Schoenberg was doing with tones.
> 
> And as time passed, more and more people (though still not everyone by any stretch) were able to notice that Schoenberg's music continued to sound late Romantic, and for good cause, it was late Romantic. It used all the logic of phrasing and development and orchestration and motifs that are characteristic of late Romantic. It lacked only keys. And even there....
> 
> Think about how each man thought about, and used, the past. Schoenberg continued working in a tradition. Stravinsky broke with tradition but ended up using older music for his own ends. I'd put it this way, Schoenberg emphasized the traditionality of modernity. Stravinsky discovered the modernity of antiquity. Remember, modernity as description means "of the present time." No matter how much Stravinsky used music of the past, his goals were all modern, all of the time he was in. His foray into twelve-tone was just one indication of that. Schoenberg continued the past into the present. His need to systematize pantonality is part of that. He needed something that would allow him to control musical shapes as tonality does. Which is why his late tonal pieces are not at all a radical turning back to older musical values. He never turned away from older musical values. Brahms (for instance) controlled things with a system, a system he inherited and added to. Schoenberg controlled things with a system he designed, a system that allowed him to continue to write the kind of music he inherited and to add to it. Stravinsky went his own way, part of which was finding the modern elements in older music. Not continuing a tradition, using elements of the past in new and modern ways.
> 
> *joke


So do you think that Wagner was not a modern composer and just a traditionalist, considering that he was still a romantic composer as those before him?


----------



## PetrB

norman bates said:


> So do you think that Wagner was not a modern composer and just a traditionalist, considering that he was still a romantic composer as those before him?


Up until the mid to later 1800's, musicology, and 'music history,' with its definition of eras and styles, did not exist. Only until after that was established and became more commonly known did people generally think in terms of "Modern" or "Modernity" in music, anyway.

Ergo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and going up through and after Wagner, the culture and the composers themselves were merely composers of their own time. I doubt if anyone even gave a thought to their being "contemporary."

Within that frame, some were more noted for daring, or a shift of use of harmony which was well noted -- and probably thought of as very new, different, or 'radical.' In retrospect, Wagner, with the opening bars and the rest of _Tristan und Isolde_ really did 'bust open the former ways of common practice harmony.' Certainly it was considered at least new and quite different, daring, etc. Certainly Wagner was aware he had made something very new and different in the way music works and sounds -- as many a composer before Wagner was aware, and consciously interested in moving forward. Generally, there was not so much concern about 'carrying on past tradition,' or being counted as 'modern.' They were simply writing today's music....

All that sort of identity and identifying of music as 'modern' came about after Wagner's death. I would say Liszt, who was an in-law, was more self-conscious of 'being modern' and using unusual and new harmony, and calling it that, as were probably many a late romantic, while they too were not thinking so much of a radical break from the past as much as just continuing on with the music of their today. Prior -- by not so many years -- it was just not in the mentality. That mentality is much more very late 18th century, and it became something most were conscious of in the early 20th century.

Earlier in my life, the modern period in history was just that, the composers named as "Modern era composers." etc. Now, in textbooks, that group of early 20th century composers are being called _"Modernists,"_ attributed as having an agenda of consciously and aggressively wanting to break from past traditions... how much of that is an exaggeration made via using an even later mentality in assessing an earlier time (i.e. revisionist history) is, I think, very much up for debate


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

^^^^^adding to that, I believe that Berlioz definitely thought of himself as a "modernist," which is an interesting notion for a composer well established by 1830, according to your post, PetrB.


----------



## norman bates

PetrB said:


> Up until the mid to later 1800's, musicology, and 'music history,' with its definition of eras and styles, did not exist.
> 
> Only until after that was established and became more commonly known did people generally think in terms of "Modern" or "Modernity" in music, anyway.
> 
> Ergo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and going up through and after Wagner, the culture and the composers themselves were merely composers of their own time. I doubt if anyone even gave a thought to their being "contemporary."
> 
> All that sort of identity and identifying of music as 'modern' came about after Wagner's death. I would say Liszt, who was an in-law, was more self-conscious of 'being modern' and using unusual and new harmony, and calling it that, as were probably many a late romantic, while they too were not thinking so much of a radical break from the past as much as just continuing on with the music of their today. Prior -- by not so many years -- it was just not in the mentality. That mentality is much more very late 18th century, and it became something most were conscious of in the early 20th century.
> 
> Earlier in my life, the modern period in history was just that, the composers named as "Modern era composers." etc. Now, in textbooks, that group of early 20th century composers are being called _"Modernists,"_ attributed as having an agenda of consciously and aggressively wanting to break from past traditions... how much of that is an exaggeration made via using an even later mentality in assessing an earlier time (i.e. revisionist history) is, I think, very much up for debate


I remember to have read Gesualdo talking about some criticism about his music and his "new style", and in the history of art the notion of modernity existed long before that.
Also because modernity is not a concept that refers to the 20th century, but it's a relative concept to any era, if modernity means "something new". Considering history, modern Era goes from the discovery of america (by europeans).
Oh, and by the way, about Wagner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Romantics

_Although actual hostility between the two sides was to subside over the years, the 'war' was a clear demarcation between what was seen to be 'classical music' and 'modern music', categories which still persist (although differently defined) to the present day._


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## PetrB

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ^^^^^adding to that, I believe that Berlioz definitely thought of himself as a "modernist," which is an interesting notion for a composer well established by 1830, according to your post, PetrB.


"Moderne." Mais naturellement, il était français!


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## Mandryka

some guy said:


> Well, I don't know if it's because I knew Cage, but I don't see his remarks as fitting into the "I am more modern than you" category.
> 
> After some thought, he says he agreed with Stravinsky that Schoenberg was not modern is all. As many other people, listeners as well as composers, have noticed over the years. Schoenberg and Stravinsky put out their first "modern" works at almost exactly the same time, so there's likely to be a bit of rivalry there. Plus, in that world, as in this world (still), the emphasis was on harmony, on the tonal system. Anything that tampered with the tonal system was seen as diabolical if not fiendish.* The kinds of things Stravinsky was doing at the time with rhythm and with phrasing were not seen as being as disruptive as the things Schoenberg was doing with tones.
> 
> And as time passed, more and more people (though still not everyone by any stretch) were able to notice that Schoenberg's music continued to sound late Romantic, and for good cause, it was late Romantic. It used all the logic of phrasing and development and ....
> 
> Think about how each man thought about, and used, the past. Schoenberg continued working in a tradition. Stravinsky broke with tradition but ended up using older music for his own ends. I'd put it this way, Schoenberg emphasized the traditionality of modernity. Stravinsky discovered the modernity of antiquity. Remember, modernity as description means "of the present time." No matter how much Stravinsky used music of the past, his goals were all modern, all of the time he was in. His foray into twelve-tone was just one indication of that. Schoenberg continued the past into the present. His need to systematize pantonality is part of that. He needed something that would allow him to control musical shapes as tonality does. Which is why his late tonal pieces are not at all a radical turning back to older musical values. He never turned away from older musical values. Brahms (for instance) controlled things with a system, a system he inherited and added to. Schoenberg controlled things with a system he designed, a system that allowed him to continue to write the kind of music he inherited and to add to it. Stravinsky went his own way, part of which was finding the modern elements in older music. Not continuing a tradition, using elements of the past in new and modern ways.
> 
> *joke


Modernism is a movement in plastic arts and writing too, I'm reluctant to think that musical modernism isn't a related idea. My own view is that neither Schoenberg nor Stravinsky were modernists, roughly for the reasons you have stated so well in this post. But I think Cage was and I think Lachenmann and Hespos are.


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## BurningDesire

some guy said:


> Well, I don't know if it's because I knew Cage, but I don't see his remarks as fitting into the "I am more modern than you" category.
> 
> After some thought, he says he agreed with Stravinsky that Schoenberg was not modern is all. As many other people, listeners as well as composers, have noticed over the years. Schoenberg and Stravinsky put out their first "modern" works at almost exactly the same time, so there's likely to be a bit of rivalry there. Plus, in that world, as in this world (still), the emphasis was on harmony, on the tonal system. Anything that tampered with the tonal system was seen as diabolical if not fiendish.* The kinds of things Stravinsky was doing at the time with rhythm and with phrasing were not seen as being as disruptive as the things Schoenberg was doing with tones.
> 
> And as time passed, more and more people (though still not everyone by any stretch) were able to notice that Schoenberg's music continued to sound late Romantic, and for good cause, it was late Romantic. It used all the logic of phrasing and development and orchestration and motifs that are characteristic of late Romantic. It lacked only keys. And even there....
> 
> Think about how each man thought about, and used, the past. Schoenberg continued working in a tradition. Stravinsky broke with tradition but ended up using older music for his own ends. I'd put it this way, Schoenberg emphasized the traditionality of modernity. Stravinsky discovered the modernity of antiquity. Remember, modernity as description means "of the present time." No matter how much Stravinsky used music of the past, his goals were all modern, all of the time he was in. His foray into twelve-tone was just one indication of that. Schoenberg continued the past into the present. His need to systematize pantonality is part of that. He needed something that would allow him to control musical shapes as tonality does. Which is why his late tonal pieces are not at all a radical turning back to older musical values. He never turned away from older musical values. Brahms (for instance) controlled things with a system, a system he inherited and added to. Schoenberg controlled things with a system he designed, a system that allowed him to continue to write the kind of music he inherited and to add to it. Stravinsky went his own way, part of which was finding the modern elements in older music. Not continuing a tradition, using elements of the past in new and modern ways.
> 
> *joke


Except Stravinsky didn't break from the past any more than Schoenberg did. He still owes a considerable amount to the Russian composers and French composers who preceded him. You can make the argument that the Russian school is younger than the German school, but its still a tradition. I'd argue that just as much as Schoenberg grew from the past and added his own new ideas to it, so did Stravinsky. Now if we're gonna argue about people who literally broke from the past in a radical way that is almost without precedent (at least in Western music), I think that case could be made for Varese, or Cage, or Luigi Russolo. Stravinsky isn't more modern than Schoenberg.


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> Elliott Carter was asked why, even in his earlier formative years, he had not tried out any of the serial approach, ala Schoenberg. He said, _"I looked into it, but the more I looked, it seemed to me to was just more of that same old Brahms stuff."_ I think Mr. Carter was right.


I *don't* think Carter is a good example to posit against Schoenberg or serialism, because Carter used the serial "alphabet" and materials; he used all the sets listed in the back of Rahn's book (Basic Atonal Theory), which are nearly identical to Alan Forte's index of pitch-sets. Carter just came up with his independently, so they are ordered differently.

I think what Carter is railing against is the *use* of the row, to generate "themes" in the old sense.

Schoenberg and Stravinsky are both modernists, but Stravinsky is more like Bartok in his geometric division of the octave. Is this "more modern" than tone-rows? No, not inherently;

...because to be atonal is more "modern" or non-traditional, because it breaks the hierarchy of tonality. This is radical.

...yet at the same time, serial methods destroy the 'harmonic' hierarchy of tonality. Debussy, Stravinsky, and Bartok all wrote 'harmonic' music which was not serial, yet not tonal.

For a serialist to write 'harmonic' music within the serial method requires an extreme effort, almost an "in spite of " opposition to the method's tendencies, and it will never have the same consistent harmonic effect, at least not in my experience; so I accept serialism on its own terms: an organization of sound which exhibits structural characteristics, which are not necessarily ear-friendly in the harmonic sense.

So in my view, Schoenberg was more modern than Stravinsky because he used the serial method, but he used it thematically, so that's less modern; but the net effect of his music is still more radical than Stravinsky. But deep down inside, Schoenberg was more traditional than Igor.


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> I *don't* think Carter is a good example to posit against Schoenberg or serialism, because Carter used the serial "alphabet" and materials; he used all the sets listed in the back of Rahn's book (Basic Atonal Theory), which are nearly identical to Alan Forte's index of pitch-sets. Carter just came up with his independently, so they are ordered differently.
> 
> I think what Carter is railing against is the *use* of the row, to generate "themes" in the old sense.
> 
> Schoenberg and Stravinsky are both modernists, but Stravinsky is more like Bartok in his geometric division of the octave. Is this "more modern" than tone-rows? No, not inherently;
> 
> ...because to be atonal is more "modern" or non-traditional, because it breaks the hierarchy of tonality. This is radical.
> 
> ...yet at the same time, serial methods destroy the 'harmonic' hierarchy of tonality. Debussy, Stravinsky, and Bartok all wrote 'harmonic' music which was not serial, yet not tonal.
> 
> For a serialist to write 'harmonic' music within the serial method requires an extreme effort, almost an "in spite of " opposition to the method's tendencies, and it will never have the same consistent harmonic effect, at least not in my experience; so I accept serialism on its own terms: an organization of sound which exhibits structural characteristics, which are not necessarily ear-friendly in the harmonic sense.


If you ever heard Carter speak, he sounded near to nonchalant so matter of fact and simply direct was he. What was said was well thought before his mouth opened, and I'm pretty sure all he meant -- not railed against -- was that he had looked into the dodecaphonic serial method and thought it was "just more of that old Brahms stuff"

A friend of Freud's was commenting on _the real meaning_ of Freud smoking a cigar.
Freud: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."


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## Guest

In re Stravinsky and Schoenberg, I would paraphrase and summarize my points like this: Schoenberg was a traditionalist; Stravinsky was an iconoclast.


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## norman bates

talking about religious beliefs


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## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> If you ever heard Carter speak, he sounded near to nonchalant so matter of fact and simply direct was he. What was said was well thought before his mouth opened, and I'm pretty sure all he meant -- not railed against -- was that he had looked into the dodecaphonic serial method and thought it was "just more of that old Brahms stuff"


Babbitt, of course, loved to hear the very mention of the word "Brahms". Both men wrote interesting works (Philomel, All Set, and Correspondences are some of the pieces by Babbitt I've enjoyed), but Carter seems to have caught on more, and perhaps it is his oeuvre that will survive better.


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## Whistler Fred

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Excerpt from an interview with Andrew Ford (Australian composer)
> 
> AF: Could we go back to your beginnings as a composer? Your own stimuli and early instruction were fairly conventional. Certainly studying with Schoenberg was arguably the most conventional thing any composer could have done.
> JC: There were only two things to do at the time, so it wasn't either conventional or unconventional: you could study either with Schoenberg or Stravinsky or someone moving in one of those directions. We didn't take Bartók seriously. And I chose the one that Schoenberg offered rather than the neo-classicism of Stravinsky, which struck me as not opening new doors but depending on the past. Later, I met Stravinsky, and he asked me why I chose Schoenberg rather than him, and I said something about the twelve tones and chromaticism as opposed to diatonicism. And he plainly objected. He said, "My music is also chromatic." And then he added, "What I never liked about Schoenberg's music was that it wasn't modern." And I've thought about that since then, and Stravinsky was absolutely right. Schoenberg would say, for instance, "Bach did such-and-such, Beethoven did such-and-such, Brahms did such-and-such, and _Schoenberg_ did such-and-such," referring to himself in third person. So that he didn't think of himself as changing the past, but rather as one who continued the past.
> 
> I would like to know to what extent TCers agree with this sentiment. Of course, it implies that Stravinsky was much more "modern" than Schoenberg.


I wonder if what both Cage and Stravinsky was getting at here, and I remember Aaron Copland making similar comments in "The New Music," is that Schoenberg had tried to apply his 12 tone theories to traditional forms, mostly established in the German tradition. For example, his Suite for Piano, although using the advanced harmonic and melodic language implicit within the 12 tone system, still used the model of a prelude followed by various stylized dances that date back as least as far as Bach (French Suites, Partitas and so on). Webern is credited (at least according to both Stravinsky and Copland) as seeing that such a different approach to harmony and melody also needed to create different and more tightly controlled forms than the "traditional" forms used by Schoenberg.

For my part, I wonder if this is a bit of revisionist history, an after-the-fact attempt to take an idiosyncratic, but still essentially late-Romantic German composer and make him the prophet of 20th Century serialism. But whether or not, I think it matter less whether a composer is more or less "modern" as long as their music is worth listening to.


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## norman bates

Whistler Fred said:


> I wonder if what both Cage and Stravinsky was getting at here, and I remember Aaron Copland making similar comments in "The New Music," is that Schoenberg had tried to apply his 12 tone theories to traditional forms, mostly established in the German tradition. For example, his Suite for Piano, although using the advanced harmonic and melodic language implicit within the 12 tone system, still used the model of a prelude followed by various stylized dances that date back as least as far as Bach (French Suites, Partitas and so on). Webern is credited (at least according to both Stravinsky and Copland) as seeing that such a different approach to harmony and melody also needed to create different and more tightly controlled forms than the "traditional" forms used by Schoenberg.
> 
> For my part, I wonder if this is a bit of revisionist history, an after-the-fact attempt to take an idiosyncratic, but still essentially late-Romantic German composer and make him the prophet of 20th Century serialism. But whether or not, I think it matter less whether a composer is more or less "modern" as long as their music is worth listening to.


the fact is that what "modern" means for many here is still unclear. Because if modern means innovation, Schoenberg was an innovator. If it's just a temporal thing, every composer in the twentieth century is modern. If modern means just "not romantic" then Schoenberg isn't modern, but also Wagner or Liszt or the romantic composer Beethoven of the Grosse fuge (considered by Stravinsky "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever" ).


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## Sid James

norman bates said:


> like Stravinsky was continuing the tradition of Rimsky Korsakov or Mussorgsky and absorbing ideas of other composers like Schmitt. Tradition and innovation aren't irreconciliable concepts.





norman bates said:


> If so, it would be interesting to know why when Schoenberg died Stravinsky started composing serial music.
> Maybe that sentence about the lack of modernity of Schoenberg is due simply to the fact that there was a lot of resentment between the two men.





norman bates said:


> the fact is that what "modern" means for many here is still unclear. Because if modern means innovation, Schoenberg was an innovator. If it's just a temporal thing, every composer in the twentieth century is modern. If modern means just "not romantic" then Schoenberg isn't modern, but also Wagner or Liszt or the romantic composer Beethoven of the Grosse fuge (considered by Stravinsky "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever" ).


I am with you on this, Norman.

I've got that book, and its a treasure trove of significant composers who where around in 1990 (of course, some are no longer with us - like Cage - others are still around). My favourite line in the book is by Aussie composer Richard Meale, who says "there is no progress in music, only change."

Another thing I know Stravinsky admired, apart from the Grosse Fuge as you mention, is Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. He said it was amongst the most important works of the 20th century, and it influenced him in his own A Soldier's Tale. That combination of chamber ensemble and voice, which goes back to Debussy's Chansons Bilitis. They're all part of continuously evolving tradition.

Stravinsky said many things throughout his long life. I remember coming across a quote to the effect that he could mine the riches of tonality forever. Then he changed to being serial (and I think its no coincidence that he started doing that after Arnie's death).

I've got respect for Cage as a composer but am baffled at some of his pronouncements. For example, during that interview he is bemused at why someone would like to hear birdsong in the country and not prefer the noise of New York's traffic instead. I have made my position of such fallacies of Modernist ideology clear here (and gained many enemies as a result!). Ironically he also praises Satie, whose muzak (or arrangements of it) is played in supermarkets and hotel lobbies, and that's closer to the sounds of nature than traffic. Basically for its immersive quality. Cage says that if a person doesn't like traffic, he can't like contemporary music. Go figure?

I also think Boulez's attempt in the 1950's to separate serialism from the Romantic aesthetic failed. Even he in a half hearted way admits that in another interview in the book. In any case, even during the hot headed days of the 1950's, composers where already using serialism in their own way (eg. Barber, Walton, Dutilleux), and ignored this hard core strain of Modernist thought. By the 1970's it kind of toppled, and noone can argue that this type of hard line opinion is still of any sort of wide currency now.

If we want to throw out Schoenberg, we have to do the same to Webern. In the same book, Steve Reich says that while he was influenced by aspects of Webern, on the whole he saw the serialism as having too much Romantic baggage. So you can't have it both ways guys, throw out Schoenberg - and Berg goes without saying! - then so too Webern.

But I agree with Meale. Best line in the book imo. His rant cuts through the dogma that's plagued Modernist ideology for ages. Time for an overhaul there (but I'm not holding my breath!).


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## BurningDesire

This thread basically just seems like a session of slamming Schoenberg, and also putting down Romanticism and tradition as if they are inherently wrong or bad ways to write music. An aesthetic approach to art doesn't become invalid simply because new things have been invented, or because time has passed. If somebody wants to write something, in our current time, that is bound by the rules of the Classical period... I don't see why they should be begrudged for that. The point of modernism really wasn't so much just to jump ship from the past and give the finger to it. Its about freedom, including the freedom to create works in a conservative manner. If great music could be written in a particular style and with specific tools and rules back then, I don't see why great music can't be written in that style now, either. I thought we got over this snobby divide over the past few decades, with the minimalists and post-modern composers kinda breaking down all sorts of musical barriers, but apparently people still think in terms of camps.


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## Mahlerian

Sid James said:


> Another thing I know Stravinsky admired, apart from the Grosse Fuge as you mention, is Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. He said it was amongst the most important works of the 20th century, and it influenced him in his own A Soldier's Tale. That combination of chamber ensemble and voice, which goes back to Debussy's Chansons Bilitis. They're all part of continuously evolving tradition.


Sprechstimme is not Schoenberg's invention, either. It was used in a Humperdinck opera at some earlier point. What is different is that bizarre, fascinating combination of semi-spoken, semi-sung text with a complex and ever-changing chamber ensemble (no two songs use the same instrumental forces).

Pierrot lunaire and The Rite of Spring are interesting works to compare.

- They were premiered within a little over half a year of each other.
- Both marked a turning point in recognition for their respective composers, and instantly gained the respect of their modernist peers.
- Both have been imitated countless times, whether by great or lesser composers, but the originals have lost none of their freshness.
- Neither is quite like anything else in its composer's oeuvre.


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## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> This thread basically just seems like a session of slamming Schoenberg, and also putting down Romanticism and tradition as if they are inherently wrong or bad ways to write music. An aesthetic approach to art doesn't become invalid simply because new things have been invented, or because time has passed. If somebody wants to write something, in our current time, that is bound by the rules of the Classical period... I don't see why they should be begrudged for that. The point of modernism really wasn't so much just to jump ship from the past and give the finger to it. Its about freedom, including the freedom to create works in a conservative manner. If great music could be written in a particular style and with specific tools and rules back then, I don't see why great music can't be written in that style now, either. I thought we got over this snobby divide over the past few decades, with the minimalists and post-modern composers kinda breaking down all sorts of musical barriers, but apparently people still think in terms of camps.


If you relax a little, you will realize that nobody said any of the things you are condemning.


----------



## PetrB

Whistler Fred said:


> I wonder if what both Cage and Stravinsky was getting at here, and I remember Aaron Copland making similar comments in "The New Music," is that Schoenberg had tried to apply his 12 tone theories to traditional forms, mostly established in the German tradition. For example, his Suite for Piano, although using the advanced harmonic and melodic language implicit within the 12 tone system, still used the model of a prelude followed by various stylized dances that date back as least as far as Bach (French Suites, Partitas and so on). Webern is credited (at least according to both Stravinsky and Copland) as seeing that such a different approach to harmony and melody also needed to create different and more tightly controlled forms than the "traditional" forms used by Schoenberg.
> 
> For my part, I wonder if this is a bit of revisionist history, an after-the-fact attempt to take an idiosyncratic, but still essentially late-Romantic German composer and make him the prophet of 20th Century serialism. But whether or not, I think it matter less whether a composer is more or less "modern" as long as their music is worth listening to.


It is all after the fact, while the huge fashion near-academic regime shift to serialism in the late 1940's and in very full swing by the 1950's was, factoid, most stimulated not just by 'serialist method,' but by exactly that other aesthetic of Webern's -- It was Webern who was the later 'discovery' and with whose music and approach many in the mid 20th century felt a strong connection. That is not, then, a revisionist history, but it was not 'noted' or added to those textbooks in use for music history, or the large general encyclopaedic tomes most everyone hold in high regard.

This sort of 'news' may take several decades or longer to make it into print in general circulation, the consensus opinion often having been first arrived at independently and spontaneously by numbers of individuals within a widespread community. During such a time between event and being in print in general circulation, that 'news' is being verbally taught -- sometimes teachers instructing students to read, then remove, a whole chapter of an otherwise useful textbook because it is so out of date or incorrect in the light of later findings or events.

This is all only of any real (or mere academic) interest in a perfect 20-20 hindsight -- with its three-quarters of a century since it all happened making for that easy vision, of course.


----------



## Lukecash12

PetrB said:


> [As an aside, I never thought that Stravinsky taught, mentored or ever let young composers consult with him -- nor have I read or heard he ever did.]
> 
> Re: Schoenberg "Not Modern."
> It would be impossible for me to agree more. Empirically, I hear any of it, from the earliest to the last, as late Germanic high romantic, with all the accompanying sentiment and a sort of parochialism typical of that time, culture and place it came from. (I'm convinced Schoenberg the man and the composer was -- body, heart and soul -- a late arch romantic.)
> 
> Elliott Carter was asked why, even in his earlier formative years, he had not tried out any of the serial approach, ala Schoenberg. He said, _"I looked into it, but the more I looked, it seemed to me to was just more of that same old Brahms stuff."_ I think Mr. Carter was right.
> 
> Mitsuko Uchida, in a taped discussion on Schoenberg's _Piano Concerto,_ says much quite specifically of the same drift -- that Schoenberg's music is very German, very sentimental and romantic. In that interview (or possibly another interview on the Debussy _Études_) she also points out that it was Debussy, not Schoenberg, who made [snap of the fingers] a quick and clean break from old to truly modern.
> 
> To me, there is, as Mr. Ford said in your quoted article, nothing modern about Schoenberg.


And I'm glad we've got names like Bach, Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schoenberg. They embraced their roots and everyone was quick to fault them for not doing something that would have felt to them like they were bastardizing themselves.


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## PetrB

Lukecash12 said:


> And I'm glad we've got names like Bach, Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schoenberg. They embraced their roots and everyone was quick to fault them for not doing something that would have felt to them like they were bastardizing themselves.


Why people think any of this is as much a criticism or a devaluing of tradition in order to elevate modernism or vice versa -- vs. a discussion of various traits of several composers, is I suppose why people take 'ratings games' deathly seriously.

So. YAY for traditionalism: YAY for progressive modernism: HURRAH for them both.

Sure, there is an in intent to discern some of the aspects of the qualities of these outstanding composers, who are some of the greats, but is this discussion now going to either promote or demote its principals because one was more a traditionalist than the other?

Seriously


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## Lukecash12

PetrB said:


> Why people think any of this is as much a criticism or a devaluing of tradition to elevate modernism or vice versa -- vs. a discussion of various traits of several composers, is I suppose why people take 'ratings games' deathly seriously.
> 
> So. YAY for traditionalism: YAY for progressive modernism: Hurrah for them both.
> 
> Sure, there is a discerning a number of composers were just simply truly outstanding, and greater than other composers, but is this discussion now going to either promote or demote its principals because one was more a traditionalist than the other?
> 
> Seriously


Actually, I was referring to the interview from the OP and the Stravinsky's attitude alongside many of his peers, that music must always be "modern". I personally am glad that we have both types, I appreciate perspectives like Schoenberg's that to leave his roots by abandoning classical forms would be to bastardize himself. And I also appreciate others who didn't feel that way. What's more, I can even empathize with both perspectives and I don't think that's a contradiction. That's the wonderful thing about music, it takes all types.


----------



## aleazk

PetrB said:


> Why people think any of this is as much a criticism or a devaluing of tradition to elevate modernism or vice versa -- vs. a discussion of various traits of several composers, is I suppose why people take 'ratings games' deathly seriously.
> 
> So. YAY for traditionalism: YAY for progressive modernism: Hurrah for them both.
> 
> Sure, there is a discerning a number of composers were just simply truly outstanding, and greater than other composers, but is this discussion now going to either promote or demote its principals because one was more a traditionalist than the other?
> 
> Seriously


Exactly, we are just discussing actual traits present in the music. Nobody is making moral judgements or value judgements about these traits.


----------



## dgee

PetrB said:


> Why people think any of this is as much a criticism or a devaluing of tradition to elevate modernism or vice versa -- vs. a discussion of various traits of several composers, is I suppose why people take 'ratings games' deathly seriously.
> 
> So. YAY for traditionalism: YAY for progressive modernism: Hurrah for them both.
> 
> Sure, there is a discerning a number of composers were just simply truly outstanding, and greater than other composers, but is this discussion now going to either promote or demote its principals because one was more a traditionalist than the other?
> 
> Seriously


So here we go again - enter a discussion of "modernism" and welcome with it the deep and earnest concern over which techniques and which ideologies (gah!) had the upper hand at which point and where and who said what to whom and was this entirely consistent with everything else them and their followers said to anyone about anything ever

Just enjoy the music, folks


----------



## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> *This thread basically just seems like a session of slamming Schoenberg, and also putting down Romanticism and tradition as if they are inherently wrong or bad ways to write music.* An aesthetic approach to art doesn't become invalid simply because new things have been invented, or because time has passed. If somebody wants to write something, in our current time, that is bound by the rules of the Classical period... I don't see why they should be begrudged for that. The point of modernism really wasn't so much just to jump ship from the past and give the finger to it. Its about freedom, including the freedom to create works in a conservative manner. If great music could be written in a particular style and with specific tools and rules back then, I don't see why great music can't be written in that style now, either. I thought we got over this snobby divide over the past few decades, with the minimalists and post-modern composers kinda breaking down all sorts of musical barriers, but apparently people still think in terms of camps.


*Seems being the most operative word there, i.e. completely and utterly misunderstood.*

and ahhh.... freedom, freedom from, uh... The Oppressors ~ Tradition ~ Modernism? 
Dunno, my reception began to break apart about then, making that part sound like a stream of soap-boxish buzz-phrases vaguely translating into an advocacy of 'lets make it more so all the boats float in the water at the same level' -- I mean,_ after all, "its all the same,"_ isn't it?


----------



## PetrB

dgee said:


> So here we go again - enter a discussion of "modernism" and welcome with it the deep and earnest concern over which techniques and which ideologies (gah!) had the upper hand at which point and where and who said what to whom and was this entirely consistent with everything else them and their followers said to anyone about anything ever
> 
> Just enjoy the music, folks


Right -- of academic interest, which is a genuine sort of interest the nature of which is pretty effin' dry. and a place a number of us comfortably go, and enjoy from time to time.

But -- Jumpin' Jiminy (the "J's" sounds as a "Y" there), that does not include evaluating and tossing your personal feelings into the discussion ring as coin in lieu of thought 

If this had been "Vass Beethoven mohr Modern dann Brahmz?".... LOL. hardly a whimper or protest in sight, I would think.


----------



## Morimur

aleazk said:


> If you relax a little, you will realize that nobody said any of the things you are condemning.


Your statement is illogical, aleazk: you're asking someone with the name, 'BurningDesire' to 'relax'. Jeez!


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Your statement is illogical, aleazk: you're asking someone with the name, 'BurningDesire' to 'relax'. Jeez!


Friends about her carry spritz bottles of water to sometimes cool her down, but even then, _there is steam._ 
Actually, I pretty much would not have it any other way. 
Better a live wire than low or no charge at all.


----------



## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> If you ever heard Carter speak, he sounded near to nonchalant so matter of fact and simply direct was he. What was said was well thought before his mouth opened, and I'm pretty sure all he meant -- not railed against -- was that he had looked into the dodecaphonic serial method and thought it was "just more of that old Brahms stuff"
> 
> A friend of Freud's was commenting on _the real meaning_ of Freud smoking a cigar.
> Freud: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."


I'm saying Carter is being kind of hypocritical, because he was using serial ideas, like all-interval rows, and rows that are symmetrical under inversion.

I don't want the "net effect" of Carter's off-the-wall statement to lead anyone to the conclusion that Carter's methods were somehow 'radically different' or 'far removed' from serialism, because they weren't, and Carter used the same row set-permutations that serialists use.


----------



## millionrainbows

norman bates said:


> the fact is that what "modern" means for many here is still unclear. Because if modern means innovation, Schoenberg was an innovator. If it's just a temporal thing, every composer in the twentieth century is modern. If modern means just "not romantic" then Schoenberg isn't modern, but also Wagner or Liszt or the romantic composer Beethoven of the Grosse fuge (considered by Stravinsky "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever" ).


Modernism, in contrast to traditional tonality, reflects a different way of approaching the division and treatment of the 12 notes of the scale.

The 12-division was developed by Pythagoras in his attempt to project, multiply, or "stack" the interval of the fifth, and he stopped at 12 because it almost closed the spiral, but not quite (thus, the Pythagoran comma).

Remember, a fifth (3:2) is an acoustically consonant interval, so the whole scheme of stacking it, and stopping at 12, was to generate the other scale notes while attempting to preserve this consonant interval (the fifth or 3:2), and the octave (2:1), so it was based on *acoustic* factors of consonance, which is tonality.

By contrast, *"modern"* means a new use of the syntax of music. "Modern" means these factors:

1. The fourth and fifth are used *less* as the "main dividers" of the octave, or as root stations, and smaller recursive (repeating in cycles) intervals are used: m2,M2,m3,M3, and tritone. All of these intervals are "recursive" within their first cycle, and "return" to the octave and close it.

These smaller intervals all divide the octave symmetrically, and in themselves demonstrate symmetries.

Soundwise, these smaller intervals are more dissonant than the fifth/fourth, and all of them contribute to a "loosening" of the tonal center, since none of them have a fifth as a stabilizer, and are related to diminished and augmented structures.

The simple version is that tonality is based on dividing the octave by acoustic intervallic ratios - of acoustics;

...whereas modernism is based on *geometric* or *numeric* (not acoustic or ratio-based) divisions, using 12 as the basis of the divisions.

Thus, the 'halfway point' of the octave in modernism is the tritone (six half-steps; 12 divided by 2), a very dissonant interval:

...and in tonality, the 'halfway point' of the octave is the fifth (or fourth), the most consonant interval, which is the most acoustically prominent overtone.


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> Modernism, in contrast to traditional tonality, reflects a different way of approaching the division and treatment of the 12 notes of the scale. etc.
> numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc.numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc.numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc.numbers. etc. symmetry. etc. numbers. etc. symmetry. etc.


Yeah, right... think you're forgetting Debussy in all that.


----------



## Mandryka

millionrainbows said:


> Modernism, in contrast to traditional tonality, reflects a different way of approaching the division and treatment of the 12 notes of the scale.
> 
> The 12-division was developed by Pythagoras in his attempt to project, multiply, or "stack" the interval of the fifth, and he stopped at 12 because it almost closed the spiral, but not quite (thus, the Pythagoran comma).
> 
> Remember, a fifth (3:2) is an acoustically consonant interval, so the whole scheme of stacking it, and stopping at 12, was to generate the other scale notes while attempting to preserve this consonant interval (the fifth or 3:2), and the octave (2:1), so it was based on *acoustic* factors of consonance, which is tonality.
> 
> By contrast, *"modern"* means a new use of the syntax of music. "Modern" means these factors:
> 
> 1. The fourth and fifth are used *less* as the "main dividers" of the octave, or as root stations, and smaller recursive (repeating in cycles) intervals are used: m2,M2,m3,M3, and tritone. All of these intervals are "recursive" within their first cycle, and "return" to the octave and close it.
> 
> These smaller intervals all divide the octave symmetrically, and in themselves demonstrate symmetries.
> 
> Soundwise, these smaller intervals are more dissonant than the fifth/fourth, and all of them contribute to a "loosening" of the tonal center, since none of them have a fifth as a stabilizer, and are related to diminished and augmented structures.
> 
> The simple version is that tonality is based on dividing the octave by acoustic intervallic ratios - of acoustics;
> 
> ...whereas modernism is based on *geometric* or *numeric* (not acoustic or ratio-based) divisions, using 12 as the basis of the divisions.
> 
> Thus, the 'halfway point' of the octave in modernism is the tritone (six half-steps; 12 divided by 2), a very dissonant interval:
> 
> ...and in tonality, the 'halfway point' of the octave is the fifth (or fourth), the most consonant interval, which is the most acoustically prominent overtone.


All this stuff about tones makes modernism sound like a question of style. But it's way more interesting than that. Modernism is about how artists responded to the modern world, to urbanisation and to newly emerging class structures and to new ideas in science about man's place in the universe.

Ask yourself, why did people take up these style ideas, and you'll get to a more interesting conception of modernism. All the solfege is technical details, the heart of the matter is philosophical, moral.

You can write very consoling romantic music, not at all modernist, in an atonal way (some Grisey, I've just been listening to Henri Pousseur's Ephemerides d'Icare, maybe Bolcom's etudes) and you can write very modern, challenging music which is not atonal at all (Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien, some Mahler, maybe some Shostakovich)


----------



## Sid James

I would add to what I said about the interview in the book earlier that in it, Cage acknowledges that studying under Schoenberg had its advantages, namely a quite rigorous training in the fundamentals of music. However, Cage says that Schoenberg's approach was not for him, and after his studies he went into different directions. 

He also says that the reason he was attracted to Satie's approach was that unlike Beethoven (and even Ives, according to Cage), his was not bound to any goal or end point. It was music without that kind of fixed narrative (eg. Romantic). Then he gets to talking about other things, inlcuding Stravinsky's apparent views on Schoenberg. Another thing he mentions, which I alluded to, is that he isn't in any way startled by things like burglar alarms. He even says that people shouting on the streets of New York can be pleasant.

All this is fine for Cage, however it can be questioned. One thing is that Ives was doing chance based techniques in his pieces even before Cage was born. So too others like Percy Grainger and Carl Nielsen. I would think its kind of one-sided to toss them all in the Romantic basket. When Ford asks him if he's an anarchist, Cage says he is. Cage also talks about certain types of music being too emotional.

I think that ultimately all this wrangling over Romanticism and what's old and what isn't was a big concern for Cage's generation. Even though him and Boulez would differ on many points, the thing is that they wanted to distance themselves from expressing emotions in their music. In some ways they came about it through two extremes - one with a lot of control, the other with much less control.

Overall I think this is now not really a concern for most composers - and listeners - today. Music always was a sort of hybrid, to look at it as if its some piece of meat to be put on a slab and dissected - an operation seperating that which is emotional and that which his not - sounds ludicrous and isn't necessary anyway. This is music, not some sort of science, nor is it some sort of parallel universe where all people have to agree with certain views of what is modern or new. 

Cage, or those of his ways of thinking, has every right to enjoy things like burglar alarms but it doesn't mean everyone will or has to think like that. Its the same with the straightjackets of more rigid ideologies, those that are the opposite of anarchism.

We aren't over ideology, probably never will be, and I even have a feeling Stravinsky said this off the record to Cage. Not that it matters much, but I know for example that Stravinsky kept any criticism for Rachmaninov under wraps even when it was fashionable to deride him. After all, Rachmaninov influenced his music early on (the bell sounds in the piano part in Petrushka being a big example). 

I recently read about Britten, and how Stravinsky stole a 12 note row from the former's Turn of the Screw for The Flood. I don't know these pieces, however it looks to me like jumping onto the elevation of Webern - trendy during the postwar period - was yet another example of this kind of attempt to distance himself from composers who did have a good deal of expression in their music, even Romanticism. As if it was a dirty word. Well I don't think it is any longer. It's just a choice composers make.


----------



## Guest

Sid James said:


> Cage, or those of his ways of thinking, has every right to enjoy things like burglar alarms but it doesn't mean everyone will or has to think like that.


This is true, or "true," but it's odd to be saying it. Why? Because no one, now or ever, is saying, has said, or will say that "everyone will or has to think like that."

No one.

So it's odd.

As for our rights to enjoy things like burglar alarms, yes, that too does indeed go without saying.


----------



## aleazk

Sid James said:


> I don't know these pieces, however it looks to me like jumping onto the elevation of Webern - trendy during the postwar period - was yet another example of this kind of attempt to distance himself from composers who did have a good deal of expression in their music, even Romanticism. As if it was a dirty word. Well I don't think it is any longer. It's just a choice composers make.




Webern's music is extremely expressive and lyrical, as well as Stravinsky's music from his late period.


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## Morimur

Sid James, have a listen to Brian Ferneyhough, I think you'll find him to be quite expressive.


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## BurningDesire

some guy said:


> This is true, or "true," but it's odd to be saying it. Why? Because no one, now or ever, is saying, has said, or will say that "everyone will or has to think like that."
> 
> No one.
> 
> So it's odd.
> 
> As for our rights to enjoy things like burglar alarms, yes, that too does indeed go without saying.


Some Guy, I am on your side in supporting modern music, but can we please stop pretending that there wasn't a dogmatic atmosphere in the modernist circles in the mid-20th Century? That isn't to say that all composers were derisive to their more traditional-writing colleagues, but the whole Serialist movement was very much tied to this kind of attitude, and Cage and Feldman for example also exhibited it as well. Of course none of these composers could force others to write a particular kind of music, but they could insult and ostracize their peers for not being modern enough, and they could also force this mindset on their students, which is not their responsibility as teachers. There's plenty of accounts from composers who came of age and were studying in the 50s or 60s, and were being pressured into certain ways of writing and being pushed away from others.

I love modernism like you do some guy, but we can't say this kind of stuff never happened, because thats just not true.


----------



## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> Webern's music is extremely expressive and lyrical, as well as Stravinsky's music from his late period.


Hey Aleazk, he didn't say it wasn't. :3 But it is absolutely true that alot of serialists approached Webern with that mindset that it was more objective music (and many were arguably more interested in the scores themselves than the audible music).


----------



## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> Some Guy, I am on your side in supporting modern music, but can we please stop pretending that there wasn't a dogmatic atmosphere in the modernist circles in the mid-20th Century? That isn't to say that all composers were derisive to their more traditional-writing colleagues, but the whole Serialist movement was very much tied to this kind of attitude, and Cage and Feldman for example also exhibited it as well. Of course none of these composers could force others to write a particular kind of music, but they could insult and ostracize their peers for not being modern enough, and they could also force this mindset on their students, which is not their responsibility as teachers. There's plenty of accounts from composers who came of age and were studying in the 50s or 60s, and were being pressured into certain ways of writing and being pushed away from others.
> 
> I love modernism like you do some guy, but we can't say this kind of stuff never happened, because that's just not true.


As artists, the serialists were reacting to history and their times; they were not simply being 'modern' for the sheer sake of it, if that's what you're implying; nor were they simply joining a dogmatic movement.

Serialism is simply the fruition of the ideas which moved away from tonality. Historically, as Western tonality was the dominant syntax of the church, royalty, and the wealthy, then nationalism/the state, the move away from tonality was gradual, and was exacerbated by the events of WWI & II, and the atomic bomb.

After the decimation of Europe, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Cage decided that "Man's ego" was destroying the world, and wanted to create systems which were self-generating and self-sustaining, which would "bypass" the ego, and create a structural music based only on its own elements as much as possible.

Thus, the language and syntax of serialism was created out of an artistic aim. If other, newer composers did not "get" this, and simply adopted the serial idea at surface value, then I think the music suffers. But many younger composers were able to adopt the serial language in honest and artistic ways.

If younger composers want to write tonally, then perhaps now is the time, when once again "collective" forces and power bases are dominating artistic life, and these powers wish to use the familiar language and sound of tonality to propagate and "advertise" the new mindset.

Serialism was always an individualistic language, not designed for "mass consumption." As such, we can at least be assured that the resulting music, whether great or mediocre, was at least done under the umbrella of "art for art's sake" and was not the tool of a power structure, such as capitalism, the state, or some other collective mentality. Tonality is so familiar, that it is akin to using realistic images in the art of propaganda. As such, abstraction is "the enemy" of the state, as the Nazis recognized in calling it "degenerate" and counter-productive.


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> Sprechstimme is not Schoenberg's invention, either. It was used in a Humperdinck opera at some earlier point. What is different is that bizarre, fascinating combination of semi-spoken, semi-sung text with a complex and ever-changing chamber ensemble (no two songs use the same instrumental forces).
> 
> Pierrot lunaire and The Rite of Spring are interesting works to compare.
> 
> - They were premiered within a little over half a year of each other.
> - Both marked a turning point in recognition for their respective composers, and instantly gained the respect of their modernist peers.
> - Both have been imitated countless times, whether by great or lesser composers, but the originals have lost none of their freshness.
> - Neither is quite like anything else in its composer's oeuvre.


All one has to do is look to the tradition in Germanic cultures (and other European cultures) of their Cabaret-style song delivery, _and Lo, Sprechstimme!_ -- i.e. _the_ precedent, and long before it was any innovative deal in the context of classical music.

Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_ _was commissioned by a Cabaret performer._


----------



## Jobis

PetrB said:


> Yeah, right... think you're forgetting Debussy in all that.


To be fair his whole tone scale is a very numerical division of the scale, and perfectly symmetrical.


----------



## PetrB

Jobis said:


> To be fair his whole tone scale is a very numerical division of the scale, and perfectly symmetrical.


to be fair, any scale, regardless of the number of steps within an octave -- or even in a system whereby some clever devising / dividing makes no octave to be had over what is now nearly eight octaves on a piano -- is or can be reduced to being 'numbered.' LOL.

_Tuning systems, numbers, the acoustics of it prove all sorts of things about the fundamentals of the nature of sound, which is fine enough, but concentrating on acoustics alone is not what makes a piece of music, just like concentrating on color theory or what elements go into making the pigments and the specific shades of colors on the chart don't make for art, or interesting commentary on art._ Often, these are approached with a zeal as if altogether they might be a Rosetta stone for truly understanding music itself, or breaking the code of the meaning of music. :lol:

I advocate an apart theory / and or acoustics category for 'all that,' white lab coats -- or straightjackets (whichever is the more appropriate) -- and all


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## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> Hey Aleazk, he didn't say it wasn't.


Yes, he said it.



BurningDesire said:


> But it is absolutely true that alot of serialists approached Webern with that mindset that it was more objective music.


True, and I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning the use of the word "expression" for describing that. Bach, Mozart, Webern, Stravinsky, Boulez are objective and very expressive at the same time. The "objective" part has to do with the system and the aesthetic coherence and consistency the system brings to the music.

And if you are basing your assertions on that Boulez quote about "eliminating the composer" from the music, etc. THAT NEVER HAPPENED, as Boulez himself says. As Ligeti said, you cannot base all of your opinion of this epoch on this, since it was only a moment and a passing idea that never landed ("_Yes. I criticised Structures 1A. I thought this was serial music, of course it was a stupid, naive mistake because this is not the typical Boulez music. It was just one moment in his work_", here).

To say the music is not "expressive" is to perpetuate the very known and unfortunate cliche that serial music is just "math" rather than music.


----------



## PetrB

aleazk said:


> Yes, he said it.
> 
> True, and I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning the use of the word "expression" for describing that. Bach, Mozart, Webern, Stravinsky, Boulez are objective and very expressive at the same time. The "objective" part has to do with the system and the aesthetic coherence and consistency the system brings to the music.
> 
> And if you are basing your assertions on that Boulez quote about "eliminating the composer" from the music, etc. THAT NEVER HAPPENED, as Boulez himself says. As Ligeti said, you cannot base all of your opinion of this epoch on this, since it was only a moment and a passing idea that never landed ("_Yes. I criticised Structures 1A. I thought this was serial music, of course it was a stupid, naive mistake because this is not the typical Boulez music. It was just one moment in his work_", here).
> 
> To say the music is not "expressive" is to perpetuate the very known and unfortunate cliche that serial music is just "math" rather than music.


Too right.

Besides, everyone knows it is J.S. Bach's music which is utterly inexpressive and 'just math.'


----------



## Sid James

BurningDesire said:


> ...
> 
> I love modernism like you do some guy, but we can't say this kind of stuff never happened, because thats just not true.





BurningDesire said:


> Hey Aleazk, he didn't say it wasn't. :3 But it is absolutely true that alot of serialists approached Webern with that mindset that it was more objective music (and many were arguably more interested in the scores themselves than the audible music).


Thanks for your comments, however I think its fruitless to even converse about this type of thing on threads such as this. It ends up as a merry go round (or not so merry?). However I think this is a discussion well worth having. Unfortunately it ends up as a slanging match between extreme polarities and middle ground listeners are squeezed out.


----------



## aleazk

Sid James said:


> As for serialism and Webern, I didn't say he's not expressive. Its actually the reverse. Ideology of the post-war era dictated that you couldn't be too expressive or emotional, hence the dissing of Schoenberg and elevation of Webern. I read a book by Arnold Whittall on 20th century music, and he said that Webern made an error in being too emotional in some of his music (that's actually the piece I like most, it has a funeral march as a pivot, apparently written when his mother died). You can't be like that, its being too Romantic and sappy, basically. Whittall also said that the first three of Bartok's string quartets where much finer than his last three, because he later returned to more diatonic writing and less fragmented melody and counterpoint.
> 
> I wonder if people have read what was written then? It wasn't just Boulez either. And do I need to recite how many composers whose music has endured since then where dissed by these guys?


Modernism is a reaction against emotion and expression _à la_ Late Romanticism. So, please stop using the word "expression" without the required clarification. By doing that, you only help to perpetuate the cliche I mentioned (and if that's your intention, better to say it clearly). And it's not an "ideology": modernism is the desire to write fresh music, with no links (in the most notorious aspects) to the immediate past. Modernism arises, as Boulez said, as a necessity. And since in this case the immediate past was Late Romanticism, there you have it. Schoenberg remained being a Late Romantic at heart, and that's why he could never be considered a 100% modernist, since it conflicts the very definition of modernism. Composers not writing in a modernist language were seen, and I think in all justice, as obsolete. That's why the belligerence (that it indeed existed). To call that an "ideology" is to place yourself in some superior moral pedestal. One thing is reading about it 50 years later, and a very different thing is living the process. Ligeti suffered the dogmatism in person, and he condemned it, but he never extrapolated that condemnation to the actual core ideas of modernism (he remained being a modernist, in fact). That should be quite eloquent for those feeling "offended" by the incendiary claims of the very young (and therefore of volatile mood) composers of that time, and that use this as a bridge for building their condemnation, in moral grounds, of modernism as an "ideology".

Boulez, Ligeti... those are the big names and I care for what _they_ say, since these were the guys shaping the story. The rest is miscellaneous. These two composers already made very detailed critiques of the good and bad aspects of that epoch. I would say that's authoritative enough...



Sid James said:


> It's all just ideology, basically. I wish we could somehow energise the middle ground on this forum, who are perhaps the silent majority of listeners of new or more recent music. It would lead to more constructive debate about topics such as this, and less mud slinging. I would love to have a conversation that acknowledges aspects of the past, even those which are not so great, so we can reach a point of consensus. But that is unlikely to happen. Classical music is weighed down by hundreds of years of history, philosophy, ideology. All this can be interesting, but it can also be a burden. That's the problem here, I think. So we just have to accept all the contradictions of thought behind music, including the more recent music. Embrace all the diversity of views, not try to impose our own on others. BUt I'm probably dreaming!


Nice indeed. But I don't think the author of this is being consequent with his own sayings.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> Even though him (Cage) and Boulez would differ on many points, the thing is that they wanted to distance themselves from expressing emotions in their music.


I'm actually still puzzled (naively, I suppose) when it seems the majority of listeners find _only_ the music of the romantic era really "expressive," -- or perhaps believe that is the only way 'expressive' in music is.

It is, all of it, across the entire board and traversing the centuries, "expressive."



Sid James said:


> Rachmaninov influenced his (Stravinsky's) music early on (the bell sounds in the piano part in Petrushka being a big example).


Huh?... is this from yet another somebody's blog filled with empirically arrived at personal opinions, or a reliable source?


----------



## Guest

I like the idea that this is like the two bald men fighting over a comb...only there are four men, of course. It seems to be about which ego needs the greatest boost by being confirmed as the Great Protector of the Innovative Tradition (oxymoron?) It doesn't matter what they actually composed, so long as they are seen as the champion of the New (and their rivals dissed as tired traditionalists).

Did COAG or someone since give a source for the quote in the OP? Was it this book...?

http://www.amazon.com/Composer-Conversations-About-Contemporary-Music/dp/1863734430


----------



## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> Modernism is a reaction against emotion and expression _à la_ Late Romanticism. So, please stop using the word "expression" without the required clarification. By doing that, you only help to perpetuate the cliche I mentioned (and if that's your intention, better to say it clearly). And it's not an "ideology": modernism is the desire to write fresh music, with no links (in the most notorious aspects) to the immediate past. Modernism arises, as Boulez said, as a necessity. And since in this case the immediate past was Late Romanticism, there you have it. Schoenberg remained being a Late Romantic at heart, and that's why he could never be considered a 100% modernist, since it conflicts the very definition of modernism. Composers not writing in a modernist language were seen, and I think in all justice, as obsolete. That's why the belligerence (that it indeed existed). To call that an "ideology" is to place yourself in some superior moral pedestal. One thing is reading about it 50 years later, and a very different thing is living the process. Ligeti suffered the dogmatism in person, and he condemned it, but he never extrapolated that condemnation to the actual core ideas of modernism (he remained being a modernist, in fact). That should be quite eloquent for those feeling "offended" by the incendiary claims of the very young (and therefore of volatile mood) composers of that time, and that use this as a bridge for building their condemnation, in moral grounds, of modernism as an "ideology".
> 
> Boulez, Ligeti... those are the big names and I care for what _they_ say, since these were the guys shaping the story. The rest is miscellaneous. These two composers already made very detailed critiques of the good and bad aspects of that epoch. I would say that's authoritative enough...
> 
> Nice indeed. But I don't think the author of this is being consequent with his own sayings.


You literally just said that composers who weren't modernist are obsolete, and you expect me to believe that this thread isn't one for bashing more traditional music? Also, you keep assuming that me and Sid are insulting modernism or trying to paint it as some morally-wrong movement, which is absurd. I love modern music, as much as I love Romanticism. Among my biggest musical heroes are Cage and Ives, and they along with Stravinsky, Schnittke and many others are among my favorite composers and some of my biggest influences in my own writing. Hell, I consider my musical approach to be partly modernist. But I am also part Romantic, and I will defend that aesthetic. I also love many 20th Century and modern composers who write more traditional sounding music, even conservatively tonal music, and I will defend them when that way of writing is being insulted and belittled. Of course not all modernists were guilty of this kind of, well basically musical bigotry, but its an attitude that pervaded most of the scene. It was most prominent in the serialist movement during the 50s, but you can see this kind of thing from Carter, you can see it from Stravinsky, from Boulez then and now, to deny it is intellectually dishonest. That isn't to say there's something evil or wrong with the music, and I can understand where much of the attitude comes from. But I still stand against taking it to the point of calling other composers obsolete. To me that is a morally-low position to take.

Edit: Also, I consider plenty of modernist music to be highly expressive, so please don't try misrepresenting me like that again.


----------



## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> You literally just said that composers who weren't modernist are obsolete, and you expect me to believe that this thread isn't one for bashing more traditional music?


I said that I can understand, and agree, as to why composers doing traditional stuff at that time were seen as obsolete by the modernists. As I said, I agree with Boulez about modernism as a necessity, and in this point of view, traditionalists represented a danger for the solid settlement of modernism. And that's why they were belligerent (Boulez: "_I was a bully, I'm not ashamed; "Certainly I was a bully, I'm not ashamed of it at all. The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong. Sometimes you have to fight against your society."_, here). You say you are influenced by modernism, well, that's only possible because modernism "won" this little battle. Modernism may be the 'establishment' now, but not at that time. I'm just trying to understand the historical dynamics here, that's all.



BurningDesire said:


> Also, you keep assuming that me and Sid are insulting modernism or trying to paint it as some morally-wrong movement, which is absurd. I love modern music, as much as I love Romanticism. Among my biggest musical heroes are Cage and Ives, and they along with Stravinsky, Schnittke and many others are among my favorite composers and some of my biggest influences in my own writing. Hell, I consider my musical approach to be partly modernist. But I am also part Romantic, and I will defend that aesthetic. I also love many 20th Century and modern composers who write more traditional sounding music, even conservatively tonal music, and I will defend them when that way of writing is being insulted and belittled. Of course not all modernists were guilty of this kind of, well basically musical bigotry, but its an attitude that pervaded most of the scene. It was most prominent in the serialist movement during the 50s, but you can see this kind of thing from Carter, you can see it from Stravinsky, from Boulez then and now, to deny it is intellectually dishonest. That isn't to say there's something evil or wrong with the music, and I can understand where much of the attitude comes from. But I still stand against taking it to the point of calling other composers obsolete. To me that is a morally-low position to take.
> 
> Edit: Also, I consider plenty of modernist music to be highly expressive, so please don't try misrepresenting me like that again.


You are seeing all this from the contemporary point of view. We are in a post-modern style now, you can write with all the romantic influences you want, nobody is 'attacking' that today. You have heard my own compositions, I'm post-modern also.

Carter and Boulez were part of those old days, you can't expect them to be "updated". They belong to another generation and to another world (as Carter himself said).


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> I said that I can understand, and agree, as to why composers doing traditional stuff at that time were seen as obsolete by the modernists. As I said, I agree with Boulez about modernism as a necessity, and in this point of view, traditionalists represented a danger for the solid settlement of modernism. And that's why they were belligerent (Boulez: "_I was a bully, I'm not ashamed; "Certainly I was a bully, I'm not ashamed of it at all. The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong. Sometimes you have to fight against your society."_, here). You say you are influenced by modernism, well, that's only possible because modernism "won" this little battle. Modernism may be the 'establishment' now, but not at that time. I'm just trying to understand the historical dynamics here, that's all.


I've always liked Boulez. He was intelligent and ballsy enough to push things along.


----------



## Rapide

Modern or not for its time the critical fact today is Stravinsky is broadly more popular than Schoenberg.


----------



## Rapide

Vesuvius said:


> I've always liked Boulez. He was intelligent and ballsy enough to push things along.


And Boulez is more popular today than Stravinsky and Schoenberg combined, although that has much to do with his conducting career in addition to his illustrious composer career.


----------



## Blancrocher

aleazk said:


> I said that I can understand, and agree, as to why composers doing traditional stuff at that time were seen as obsolete by the modernists. As I said, I agree with Boulez about modernism as a necessity, and in this point of view, traditionalists represented a danger for the solid settlement of modernism. And that's why they were belligerent (Boulez: "_I was a bully, I'm not ashamed; "Certainly I was a bully, I'm not ashamed of it at all. The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong. Sometimes you have to fight against your society."_


Boulez is an interesting figure, both as a conductor and composer and--increasingly, for me--as a writer. Over the past year, I've gone back and reread some of his writings that I thought I remembered, such as his notorious screed "Schoenberg is Dead," which is certainly relevant to this thread. What I'd forgotten about this piece in particular were the _good_ things that he said about Schoenberg's music, such as implying that "Pierrot Lunaire" and one or two other of his compositions were permanent masterpieces. It's not exactly going out on a limb, but as I said--I'd forgotten that part. His views are more complicated than the soundbites would lead one to expect.

A little unnecessarily difficult in how he expresses himself at times, but let that pass.


----------



## Mahlerian

Blancrocher said:


> Boulez is an interesting figure, both as a conductor and composer and--increasingly, for me--as a writer. Over the past year, I've gone back and reread some of his writings that I thought I remembered, such as his notorious screed "Schoenberg is Dead," which is certainly relevant to this thread. What I'd forgotten about this piece in particular were the _good_ things that he said about Schoenberg's music, such as implying that "Pierrot Lunaire" and one or two other of his compositions were permanent masterpieces. It's not exactly going out on a limb, but as I said--I'd forgotten that part. His views are more complicated than the soundbites would lead one to expect.
> 
> A little unnecessarily difficult in how he expresses himself at times, but let that pass.


Boulez's views on Schoenberg are reiterated without nearly so much polemic in the essay "Schoenberg the Unloved?"

http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1034&Itemid=748&lang=en

One particularly important quote:
"In Schoenberg's case I am still fascinated by only one relatively short, but important period - though I hasten to add that *this includes almost all the chief discoveries of the twentieth century*, which have had an influence on music that cannot be gainsaid."



Rapide said:


> Modern or not for its time the critical fact today is Stravinsky is broadly more popular than Schoenberg.


Outside of his three early ballets and perhaps a handful of pieces, I venture to say that the disparity is not very great at all. Even Stravinsky's later Russian works, masterpieces such as Les Noces and A Soldier's Tale, are generally overlooked by wider audiences. The neglect of Stravinsky's late works is still far more than those of Schoenberg or Webern, a situation which we can only hope will change in the future.


----------



## Blancrocher

Mahlerian said:


> Boulez's views on Schoenberg are reiterated without nearly so much polemic in the essay "Schoenberg the Unloved?"
> 
> http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1034&Itemid=748&lang=en


It's an interesting contrast: less polemic, but also less detail about Schoenberg's work as a composer. It's fascinating to see him discuss the apparent contradiction in Schoenberg's tendency to compose hastily and in fits and starts, but always with one eye on futurity--fascinating in part because Boulez worries so much about his own methods of composition. Rather ingenious, to suggest that his own laborious reworkings of his scores represents a better way of living in the present!

Thanks for that site, Mahlerian--some wonderful appreciations of Schoenberg on there, such as a loving discussion of his melodic gifts by Webern.


----------



## aleazk

Blancrocher said:


> Boulez is an interesting figure, both as a conductor and composer and--increasingly, for me--as a writer. Over the past year, I've gone back and reread some of his writings that I thought I remembered, such as his notorious screed "Schoenberg is Dead," which is certainly relevant to this thread. What I'd forgotten about this piece in particular were the _good_ things that he said about Schoenberg's music, such as implying that "Pierrot Lunaire" and one or two other of his compositions were permanent masterpieces. It's not exactly going out on a limb, but as I said--I'd forgotten that part. His views are more complicated than the soundbites would lead one to expect.
> 
> A little unnecessarily difficult in how he expresses himself at times, but let that pass.


http://www.talkclassical.com/19749-pierre-boulez-2.html#post607636 

We are simply trying to discuss the music in an objective sense, to identify its traits and compare the different composers. That's what Boulez does, he points out what he thinks are the good and the 'bad' points in the style of the composers. I would have thought that's a very good exercise.

So, yeah, Boulez likes Schoenberg, although he has his reservations about certain traditional traits in his music. That was always his opinion. Not sure why some people get all emotional, it's just a discussion about the traits in the music and the historical significance of this. Meh...


----------



## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> I like the idea that this is like the two bald men fighting over a comb...only there are four men, of course. It seems to be about which ego needs the greatest boost by being confirmed as the Great Protector of the Innovative Tradition (oxymoron?) It doesn't matter what they actually composed, so long as they are seen as the champion of the New (and their rivals dissed as tired traditionalists).


Well that's how I see it too. I think its slightly disingenuous of Cage to do what is colloquially called "**** and tell." I read elsewhere that Schoenberg taught him free of charge, and at that time Cage was very poor.

I find quite a few of Cage's opinions in the interview to be quite contradictory (and playing that diss this, elevate that, Modernist game). One is his elevation of Satie as really Modern and corresponding labelling of Ives as Romantic (one reason he gives is Ives being too contrapuntal, too much concerned with end points, which is not true in relation to all of his music). He says Ives has more to do with Beethoven - well of course, he wrote symphonies - but Satie is something entirely different from Beethoven (so, in other words, better). And isn't Stravinsky contrapuntal too? And Schoenberg and Webern? Something fishy here, no?

He also gives the line about noise being enjoyable in itself, but then says that he doesn't own any compact discs and doesn't have a stereo system. So maybe we should just get rid of our cd's and go out and listen to traffic and burglar alarms? I don't know why its not commonsense that a city dweller has a weekend off in the country to hear birdsong. This seems to be something Cage finds hard to comprehend. To top it all off he says he's not a guru, but then a lot of what precedes his final sentences in the interview is him talking like someone on high, above us mere mortals.



> Did COAG or someone since give a source for the quote in the OP? Was it this book...?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Composer-Conversations-About-Contemporary-Music/dp/1863734430


[/QUOTE]

Yes, that's the one. I've read a number of Ford's books, two others I found good where "Illegal Harmonies" (a history of 20th century music) and "In Defence of Classical Music." He's a composer, broadcaster and writer on music, so you get that insider's perspective but he's always putting it into context - not only of classical music, but other music, as well as other things - and he's not afraid to talk about controversial topics and to challenge ideologies in music, even the more entrenched and taboo ones.



Vesuvius said:


> I've always liked Boulez. He was intelligent and ballsy enough to push things along.


I think that his attempt to separate serialism as technique from the Romantic aesthetic may have had some benefits for some composers - in an interview I read recently, Copland said that that's what got him doing serialism after 1945. However, I think it was a matter of style over substance. Boulez was like a bull in a China shop, to use the old cliche. Its no wonder Cage goes back to that - but I wonder why as late as 1991? - because it was fashionable to diss Schoenberg.

As I've talked to on other similar threads, the whole Modernist idea of clearly delineating "old" and "new" is riddled with contradictions. It partly goes back to the mid to late 19th century, a same sort of lame attempt to separate "absolute" and "program" music which was part of that turf war between the Central German and New German schools.



Blancrocher said:


> It's an interesting contrast: less polemic, but also less detail about Schoenberg's work as a composer. It's fascinating to see him discuss the apparent contradiction in Schoenberg's tendency to compose hastily and in fits and starts, but always with one eye on futurity--fascinating in part because Boulez worries so much about his own methods of composition. Rather ingenious, to suggest that his own laborious reworkings of his scores represents a better way of living in the present!
> ...


Its similar with Stravinsky. Apart from Boulez, he was the composer to diss his fellow composers the most. Its as if his own criticism - not always tactful or even necessary - turned in on itself. He felt that he had to justify his many switches in style and technique. Of course he was very politically correct in deifying Webern, he never acknowledged his borrowing (or stealing) from guys like Britten. That would have been leaning too far in the Romantic direction.

There where positive aspects to all this, as with Boulez, Stravinsky's move to serialism did a lot to break down the serialist hegemony, funnily enough. Here we had a composer who in some ways bridged the divide, and by the time he died all that hoopla over serialism being "the future" kind of evaporated.

Its not a matter of who's music is better - I've got all these composers in my collection - its ideology and cults. Whatever the turf wars of the last 200 years taught us, its that they are divisive and damage the very fabric of music, especially new music.


----------



## Guest

Sid James said:


> Whatever the turf wars of the last 200 years taught us, its that they are divisive and damage the very fabric of music, especially new music.


Easy to see how they are divisive. That's the nature of war, to divide. (So it's not something that has been taught us; it's part of the definition of war.) The rest, however.... It's difficult to see how a turf war could damage the very fabric of music, whether new or old. Might damage the fabric of a composer's shirt, if there were any fisticuffs, but otherwise.


----------



## millionrainbows

_ Originally Posted by *millionrainbows:*
_
_Modernism, in contrast to traditional tonality, reflects a different way of approaching the division and treatment of the 12 notes of the scale.

_


PetrB said:


> Yeah, right... think you're forgetting Debussy in all that.





Jobis said:


> To be fair his whole tone scale is a very numerical division of the scale, and perfectly symmetrical.


*News flash: Debussy was not a tonalist.* The whole tone scale is an 6-tone based on the projection of the major second. The scale's interval content is M2s, M3s, and tritones. It repeats symmetrically; no matter which note you begin on, the resulting intervals are the same. It divides evenly at the tritone.

Tonality uses the 7-note diatonic scale, and its "dividing point" is the fifth.

That's because the 12-note chromatic scale was derived from the projection of the fifth; thus the circle of fifths. This is an acoustically-based method.

But actually, the 12-note scale is an anomaly, an approximation, based on the attempt to close the octave after 212 cycles of 3:2 fifths.

Thus, "12" is the resulting mathematical result of this error or approximation; there is no acoustic ("tonal") reason for its existence, other than that it approximates fifths. In ET, all these fifths are 2 cents flat, to compensate for this error, and to close the octave, which would otherwise spiral onward into irrational values. No ratio, such as the 3:2 fifth, can be divided into "1" (the octave) as a whole number (such as 12).

Thus, all the resulting symmetries created by "12" are mathematical in nature, and thus have a way of degrading tonality's supposed "acoustic" nature of ratios, and turning it into a mathematically/geometrically based system. Thus, the "undoing" of tonality was always inherent in the "12" based scale of Pythagoras.

Symmetry is a feature of modernism.


----------



## Sid James

I thought I'd come back and quote Cage verbatim, the part about Ives (he didn't talk of counterpoint, but it didn't change the main thrust of what I remembered his argument as being). Below that I have typed another part of the interview dealing with Cage's anarchism, that he's against recordings, and doesn't even like live music that much.

This will be my final post here, I just came to clear it up, and I am not commenting further on this or the topic. I have vowed to avoid topics such as this, the main reason I contributed to this was that I have read the book. But it seems with Modernist thought that you can't like a composer's music but at the same time challenge his ideas. A forum is about sharing ideas, but it seems that on TC with certain topics that is becoming increasingly frought with danger and division. Positive thing is I'll try re-read the whole book in the near future.

AF (Andrew Ford) : Well, I was going to say the Dadaist movement, actually, or a composer like Satie. Is there a difference between what happened in America with Cowell and Ives?

JC (John Cage) : Oh, of course. Offhand, I would say Satie's shift from Beethoven is more radical than, say, any shift from Beethoven on the part of Charles Ives. There was in fact no shift on the part of Ives;, the idea of climax and balance, of complexity and simplicity, continued. Whereas between Satie and Beethoven there is a great break, and it's the break from a music that involves going somewhere and a music which is not going anywhere.

AF: Music which is content…

JC: …to say where it is. Amazing! And Satie is more radical [than Ives]. I think this is the great new beginning for music no matter what - cassette or no cassette - after Beethoven. In fact, without Satie we can't do anything.

AF: I'm not sure whether this is a useful distinction to make, but is Satie's music important in its own right, or simply in terms of what it makes possible?

JC: I think the answer is yes and yes. Satie speaks of 'interior immobility'in the introduction to the score of Vexations - none of that romantic passion; ;no governmental pronouncements. None of that.

AF: This leads directly to two areas you have spoken about a great deal; over the years, and two ideas which are particularly associated with you. One is the removal of the composer's ego from the composition, and the other is the deliberate avoidance of beauty.

JC: Not making choices.

AF: Yes. Would you see these as related?

JC: Oh yes. Well, beauty has no meaning.

AF: But you can really only avoid beauty on your terms, can't you? You can't prevent an audience from finding something you've written to be beautiful.

JC: There is nothing that is unable to be perceived as beautiful. I think one can say that.

AF: So how can you avoid it?

JC: You can't. You just don't notice it.

AF: So you don't strive to avoid it, then?

JC: How could you?

AF: It's simply not an issue for you?

JC: We change ourselves by changing our perceptions of beauty. And some of us move toward no limitations - or no distinction between the beautiful and the ugly. Wittgenstein said that beauty is what clicks. Now instead of thinking of it as clicking, you could keep a 'clicker' in your pocket, and if something didn't click for you, you could click it - transform it - transform your perception of it so that you would accept it. As the Japanese say in the world of Zen, 'Day, day, beautiful day,' which means every day is a beautiful day. And this is also said in the first paragraph of the third chapter of Joyce's Ulysses: 'the ineluctable modality of the visible' - then all things that we can see are suggested ; then in the second paragraph: 'the ineluctable modality of the audible' - all the things that we can hear. There's no limit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

JC: …I don't have a sound system, and so I obtain no pleasure from this.

AF: But are you pleased that people can go and buy a disc of your work?

JC: No, I've always been opposed to records…Why do I permit it?

AF: That was going to be my next question.

JC: Because other people insist upon it, and, as I said already, I don't wish to be a policeman. I have told people in my articles and so forth, that the more records you break, the more music you will have. Because ultimately you'll be obliged to sing yourself. I think it's the presence of records which has brought about such an unmusical society.

AF: Do you think they have any uses?

JC: Oh, of course they do, otherwise people wouldn't demand them so much. I would use them for a music circus.

AF: Apart from all this [the noisy street outside], what do you listen to yourself? Do you listen to music?

JC: No. I listen to music when I go to a concert.

AF: Which is often?

JC: Unfortunately it is.

AF: And you go because your own work is being played?

JC: Either that or someone whose music I haven't heard. I don't go to hear the same thing over again. Although I would go to hear any Satie replayed.

AF: But you're unlikely to be found at the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Verdi's whatever…

JC: Or even Corigliano.*

AF: Because you've heard Corigliano?

JC: No, I haven't.

AF: Then, because…

JC: I know it must not be interesting, otherwise he would not have been asked to write it. Isn't that clear?

* John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles had just opened at the Met, where it was the first new work to be commissioned by the company in 25 years.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Under certain definitions Schoenberg was the modernist, in the sense of expression and exploration through self-imposed restrictions. In the same vein Stravisnky could be called post-modern, i.e: taking whatever he needed at the time from any source by any means (which seems to be the trend today). Messiaen being somewhere in between. But I know some people have a little problem with labels and how those apply in different fields.

I am totally not sorry for reviving this, remember that the good threads died; whatever.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Under certain definitions Schoenberg was the modernist, in the sense of expression and exploration through self-imposed restrictions. In the same vein Stravisnky could be called post-modern, i.e: taking whatever he needed at the time from any source by any means (which seems to be the trend today). Messiaen being somewhere in between. But I know some people have a little problem with labels and how those apply in different fields.
> 
> I am totally not sorry for reviving this, remember that the good threads died; whatever.


I am quite humbled by your attribution of the label "good thread" to this one I made last year. 

However, labelling composers is often a tricky business....I tend to not like labelling composers in order to make a generalisation. But I don't think Schoenberg sqw himself as a modernist with no ties to the past, bulldozing his way through into a new era of music like a revolutionary crowning himself "king of modern music."

Stock houses believed he was an alien who had been brought to earth to save music.....well.........I don't know, he might be a crackpot but he composed music which I think is wonderful.


----------



## pianolearnerstride

What other systems of composition exist similar to the 12-tone system, prior to it? Does this type of system have any context in musical history?

I fail to see how this type of system is in the tradition of german music starting with Bach...


----------



## Mahlerian

pianolearnerstride said:


> What other systems of composition exist similar to the 12-tone system, prior to it? Does this type of system have any context in musical history?
> 
> I fail to see how this type of system is in the tradition of german music starting with Bach...


There is no such thing as a "12-tone system".

The "12-tone method" has its predecessors in any music that works using development of motifs, including Bach.






(NOTE: I realize the Schoenberg piece excerpted in the above video is not strictly 12-tone, though it is proto-serial in its treatment of motives and such.)


----------



## science

Sid James said:


> I thought I'd come back and quote Cage verbatim, the part about Ives (he didn't talk of counterpoint, but it didn't change the main thrust of what I remembered his argument as being). Below that I have typed another part of the interview dealing with Cage's anarchism, that he's against recordings, and doesn't even like live music that much.
> 
> This will be my final post here, I just came to clear it up, and I am not commenting further on this or the topic. I have vowed to avoid topics such as this, the main reason I contributed to this was that I have read the book. But it seems with Modernist thought that you can't like a composer's music but at the same time challenge his ideas. A forum is about sharing ideas, but it seems that on TC with certain topics that is becoming increasingly frought with danger and division. Positive thing is I'll try re-read the whole book in the near future.
> 
> AF (Andrew Ford) : Well, I was going to say the Dadaist movement, actually, or a composer like Satie. Is there a difference between what happened in America with Cowell and Ives?
> 
> JC (John Cage) : Oh, of course. Offhand, I would say Satie's shift from Beethoven is more radical than, say, any shift from Beethoven on the part of Charles Ives. There was in fact no shift on the part of Ives;, the idea of climax and balance, of complexity and simplicity, continued. Whereas between Satie and Beethoven there is a great break, and it's the break from a music that involves going somewhere and a music which is not going anywhere.
> 
> AF: Music which is content…
> 
> JC: …to say where it is. Amazing! And Satie is more radical [than Ives]. I think this is the great new beginning for music no matter what - cassette or no cassette - after Beethoven. In fact, without Satie we can't do anything.
> 
> AF: I'm not sure whether this is a useful distinction to make, but is Satie's music important in its own right, or simply in terms of what it makes possible?
> 
> JC: I think the answer is yes and yes. Satie speaks of 'interior immobility'in the introduction to the score of Vexations - none of that romantic passion; ;no governmental pronouncements. None of that.
> 
> AF: This leads directly to two areas you have spoken about a great deal; over the years, and two ideas which are particularly associated with you. One is the removal of the composer's ego from the composition, and the other is the deliberate avoidance of beauty.
> 
> JC: Not making choices.
> 
> AF: Yes. Would you see these as related?
> 
> JC: Oh yes. Well, beauty has no meaning.
> 
> AF: But you can really only avoid beauty on your terms, can't you? You can't prevent an audience from finding something you've written to be beautiful.
> 
> JC: There is nothing that is unable to be perceived as beautiful. I think one can say that.
> 
> AF: So how can you avoid it?
> 
> JC: You can't. You just don't notice it.
> 
> AF: So you don't strive to avoid it, then?
> 
> JC: How could you?
> 
> AF: It's simply not an issue for you?
> 
> JC: We change ourselves by changing our perceptions of beauty. And some of us move toward no limitations - or no distinction between the beautiful and the ugly. Wittgenstein said that beauty is what clicks. Now instead of thinking of it as clicking, you could keep a 'clicker' in your pocket, and if something didn't click for you, you could click it - transform it - transform your perception of it so that you would accept it. As the Japanese say in the world of Zen, 'Day, day, beautiful day,' which means every day is a beautiful day. And this is also said in the first paragraph of the third chapter of Joyce's Ulysses: 'the ineluctable modality of the visible' - then all things that we can see are suggested ; then in the second paragraph: 'the ineluctable modality of the audible' - all the things that we can hear. There's no limit.
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
> JC: …I don't have a sound system, and so I obtain no pleasure from this.
> 
> AF: But are you pleased that people can go and buy a disc of your work?
> 
> JC: No, I've always been opposed to records…Why do I permit it?
> 
> AF: That was going to be my next question.
> 
> JC: Because other people insist upon it, and, as I said already, I don't wish to be a policeman. I have told people in my articles and so forth, that the more records you break, the more music you will have. Because ultimately you'll be obliged to sing yourself. I think it's the presence of records which has brought about such an unmusical society.
> 
> AF: Do you think they have any uses?
> 
> JC: Oh, of course they do, otherwise people wouldn't demand them so much. I would use them for a music circus.
> 
> AF: Apart from all this [the noisy street outside], what do you listen to yourself? Do you listen to music?
> 
> JC: No. I listen to music when I go to a concert.
> 
> AF: Which is often?
> 
> JC: Unfortunately it is.
> 
> AF: And you go because your own work is being played?
> 
> JC: Either that or someone whose music I haven't heard. I don't go to hear the same thing over again. Although I would go to hear any Satie replayed.
> 
> AF: But you're unlikely to be found at the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Verdi's whatever…
> 
> JC: Or even Corigliano.*
> 
> AF: Because you've heard Corigliano?
> 
> JC: No, I haven't.
> 
> AF: Then, because…
> 
> JC: I know it must not be interesting, otherwise he would not have been asked to write it. Isn't that clear?
> 
> * John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles had just opened at the Met, where it was the first new work to be commissioned by the company in 25 years.


Some of that is really sad. I didn't realize Cage was so judgmental. I wouldn't have expected that.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

Sid James said:


> AF: But you're unlikely to be found at the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Verdi's whatever…
> JC: Or even Corigliano.
> AF: Because you've heard Corigliano?
> JC: No, I haven't.
> AF: Then, because…
> JC: I know it must not be interesting, otherwise he would not have been asked to write it. Isn't that clear?


What did Cage mean here? 
Cage himself wrote many commissioned works, which presumably he thought to be "interesting" enough. Why is he so dismissive of Corigliano, a composer he has presumably not yet even heard?


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> Some of that is really sad. I didn't realize Cage was so judgmental. I wouldn't have expected that.


The very soul of 20th Century Modernism. Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, the Oracles of Newness: all about judgment of what music should be and must no longer be and is going to be...

Of course the oracles turned out to be mere composers like all the rest, they did their various things, their successors used what they liked and discarded what they didn't. We listen to their music or not, and music moves on to new things. But it's a laugh riot - it doesn't make me sad, it's too far in the past and too demode - reading the pretentious drivel they uttered in apparent seriousness. Sing it for us, Pierre!

_"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because it does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."_


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

pianolearnerstride said:


> What other systems of composition exist similar to the 12-tone system, prior to it? Does this type of system have any context in musical history?
> 
> I fail to see how this type of system is in the tradition of german music starting with Bach...


In the works of Bach, just take a look at his c major 2 part invention, he varies the initial motif contrapuntally (the 2nd Viennese school was big on contrapuntal development) with inversions of the motif, fragmentations etc. which are often seen in 2nd Viennese school music. Don't forget that this piece in question is monothematic! Just like how there may only be one "row" in a 12-note piece of music. Essentially, the motif/theme/row is developed in a similar way, only with the 2nd Viennese school composers they broadened/expanded the possibilities of development.


----------



## violadude

pianolearnerstride said:


> What other systems of composition exist similar to the 12-tone system, prior to it? Does this type of system have any context in musical history?
> 
> I fail to see how this type of system is in the tradition of german music starting with Bach...


The system doesn't matter so much as the use of the system and to what effect. My suggestion would be to listen to a Wagner opera, then a Mahler symphony and then listen to Schoenberg's works in chronological order. Maybe if you do this, you will hear the evolution of that trend in music and how Schoenberg is connected to those roots.

Also, I don't know what exactly your opinion is on 12 tone music, but I know some people tend to get stuck on the idea that you "can't" repeat the same note until the other notes are sounded. This rule was broken all the time. Instead, think of the twelve tone row as just another scale at the disposal of those composers, like the C major scale, because that's essentially what it is. Schoenberg was basically just creating his own scales using all the chromatic notes of the Western tonal system.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> The very soul of 20th Century Modernism. Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, the Oracles of Newness: all about judgment of what music should be and must no longer be and is going to be...
> 
> Of course the oracles turned out to be mere composers like all the rest, they did their various things, their successors used what they liked and discarded what they didn't. We listen to their music or not, and music moves on to new things. But it's a laugh riot - it doesn't make me sad, it's too far in the past and too demode - reading the pretentious drivel they uttered in apparent seriousness. Sing it for us, Pierre!
> 
> _"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because it does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."_


I don't know if it's new to modernism. It seems like romantic artists were pretty hard on each other too. I wonder when it started.


----------



## science

MoonlightSonata said:


> What did Cage mean here?
> Cage himself wrote many commissioned works, which presumably he thought to be "interesting" enough. Why is he so dismissive of Corigliano, a composer he has presumably not yet even heard?


I'd be surprised if anyone can offer a kind interpretation of what he meant. He seems to have been stating outright that no commissioned work could be uninteresting. I'd like to see that idea defended.

But if he held that idea and yet accepted commissions, he'd be no more hypocritical than anyone else who's been offered money. I suppose he might actually say that his commissioned works weren't interesting either.


----------



## violadude

science said:


> I don't know if it's new to modernism. It seems like romantic artists were pretty hard on each other too. I wonder when it started.


Competition started when life started.


----------



## science

violadude said:


> Competition started when life started.


Trash-talking isn't always the best way to be competitive.

I think it's very interesting that MMA/NHB fighters (or any other actual pro athletes) almost never talk trash, while the characters in fake wrestling (and other fictional characters) do so without ceasing.

There must have been some kind of market incentives to talk trash... perhaps (this is just a first guess) because university faculty positions were at stake, and ideology mattered, so that creating ideological conflicts (however idle) was essentially a professional obligation.


----------



## isorhythm

The earliest work of western literature, the Iliad, is full of trash talk.

Anyway I never bought the line that Schoenberg was "not modern" just because he was continuing with Viennese expressionism. The complete break with tonality was radical. Like Stravinsky and Debussy, he was radical in some ways and not others.


----------



## KenOC

science said:


> I don't know if it's new to modernism. It seems like romantic artists were pretty hard on each other too. I wonder when it started.


Wasn't it Mozart who said, "The Italians are all charlatans."


----------



## violadude

KenOC said:


> Wasn't it Mozart who said, "The Italians are all charlatans."


Yes, in a rant about Clementi's piano playing. I think he said something along the lines of, 'they write presto but play allegro'.


----------



## pianolearnerstride

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> In the works of Bach, just take a look at his c major 2 part invention, he varies the initial motif contrapuntally (the 2nd Viennese school was big on contrapuntal development) with inversions of the motif, fragmentations etc. which are often seen in 2nd Viennese school music. Don't forget that this piece in question is monothematic! Just like how there may only be one "row" in a 12-note piece of music. Essentially, the motif/theme/row is developed in a similar way, only with the 2nd Viennese school composers they broadened/expanded the possibilities of development.


I see your point. But with Bach, the theme is meant to be heard and recognized in its different contexts within a fugue. Is the 12 tone row meant to be heard by the listener in the same way?


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

pianolearnerstride said:


> I see your point. But with Bach, the theme is meant to be heard and recognized in its different contexts within a fugue. Is the 12 tone row meant to be heard by the listener in the same way?


No it isn't, but it's the same basic method and that's what you were originally asking. Each composer has their own aesthetic and they use different or the same methods according to their needs.


----------



## pianolearnerstride

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> No it isn't, but it's the same basic method and that's what you were originally asking.


Yes, you're right.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> The very soul of 20th Century Modernism. Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, the Oracles of Newness: all about judgment of what music should be and must no longer be and is going to be...
> 
> Of course the oracles turned out to be mere composers like all the rest, they did their various things, their successors used what they liked and discarded what they didn't. We listen to their music or not, and music moves on to new things. But it's a laugh riot - it doesn't make me sad, it's too far in the past and too demode - reading the pretentious drivel they uttered in apparent seriousness. Sing it for us, Pierre!
> 
> _"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because it does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."_











A more Depressed Mode of _Italianité _can scarcely be imagined.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

science said:


> I'd be surprised if anyone can offer a kind interpretation of what he meant. He seems to have been stating outright that no commissioned work could be uninteresting. I'd like to see that idea defended.
> 
> But if he held that idea and yet accepted commissions, he'd be no more hypocritical than anyone else who's been offered money. I suppose he might actually say that his commissioned works weren't interesting either.


I don't think he is talking about commissioned music in general, but rather the commissioning of new works by an opera company who might not have a reputation for performing new works, possibly preferring standard repertoire over new repertoire.

In my town, we have two main opera companies, one of them has commissioned a new opera since the company's inception, and the other very very rarely commissions new repertoire. I have seen performances from both companies. I can safely say that if a new opera for each company was being performed one year written by a composer I had not heard of, I would be much more inclined to see the opera performed by the company who performs new works on a regular basis.

I think what Cage is getting at is that he isn't very interested in an opera company known for standard repertoire to be performing a new work, because he can assume (based on the company's reputation) that the piece may very well be much more of an [effectively] "approved-by-the-censors" opera (with added rehash) than something he might find invigorating and new to him.


----------



## science

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I don't think he is talking about commissioned music in general, but rather the commissioning of new works by an opera company who might not have a reputation for performing new works, possibly preferring standard repertoire over new repertoire.
> 
> In my town, we have two main opera companies, one of them has commissioned a new opera since the company's inception, and the other very very rarely commissions new repertoire. I have seen performances from both companies. I can safely say that if a new opera for each company was being performed one year written by a composer I had not heard of, I would be much more inclined to see the opera performed by the company who performs new works on a regular basis.
> 
> I think what Cage is getting at is that he isn't very interested in an opera company known for standard repertoire to be performing a new work, because he can assume (based on the company's reputation) that the piece may very well be much more of an [effectively] "approved-by-the-censors" opera (with added rehash) than something he might find invigorating and new to him.


Maybe.

Even if so, there's too much condescension there for me. Everyone with that kind of attitude needs a splash of cold water.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> I don't know if it's new to modernism. It seems like romantic artists were pretty hard on each other too. I wonder when it started.


The Conservative-Brahms vs. Progressive-Wagner/Liszt partisanship is often cited as the first "modernist" war. But the composers themselves were far less contentious than their groupies. Although the young Brahms was persuaded to draw up a manifesto denouncing the new trends in music, he was subsequently publicly quiet about the issue, and greatly respected and carefully studied Wagner's works. He said that he would have attended the premiere of _Parsifal_ at Bayreuth, but did not want to provide an excuse for the Wagner partisans to make a scene, and he insisted to those who wanted to draw him into arguments that he was the "best of all Wagnerians." Wagner, who never hid his opinions about anything, nonetheless made rather few and mild remarks about Brahms, one of which was "It is remarkable what can still be achieved with the old forms in the hands of someone who knows what to do with them." After his own period of youthful fervor for revolutionizing opera and society by means of it, he affirmed, especially in his mature years, his respect for the forms and requirements of absolute music, expressing disdain for those who would try to apply his operatic innovations to purely instrumental forms, and even stating his intention to compose symphonies after his declared final opera _Parsifal_. As for that other radical Liszt, he was characteristically supportive of fine music wherever he found it and not prone to disparage composers who did not aspire to the "avant garde" of the day.

Modernist ideology was rooted in part in the Romantic spirit of rebellion and revolution, the notion of the artist as revealer of the soul, and the myth of progress. But 19th-century theories of music's purpose and practice were relatively modest extensions of 18th-century aesthetic philosophy and were certainly not adopted by composers as needed rationalizations of their practice; even Wagner's extensive theorizing evolved primarily in his own wildly fertile brain as a way of understanding his own artistic impulses and goals, and changed, rather radically, as those changed. Whatever composers of the Romantic era thought of each other's work, their expressions of disapproval or dislike were generally expressed as personal judgments and not in the form of pretentious and provocative pronouncements on the cultural correctness, historical relevance, and ultimate value of their contemporaries and predecessors. Art as a validation of ideology, ideology as a justification of art, partisanships, orthodoxies, and verbal games of one-upmanship and put-downmanship - this was not, to my knowledge, characteristic of any era until the 20th century.

I've always enjoyed most those 20th-century composers who declined to wear the Modernist mantle - or at least wore threads of it lightly and intermittently, as needed - and didn't talk about the necessity and inevitability of rejecting the past or defining the future. I suppose that makes the pronouncements of the era's "bad boys" all the more amusing to me.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> The Conservative-Brahms vs. Progressive-Wagner/Liszt partisanship is often cited as the first "modernist" war. But the composers themselves were far less contentious than their groupies. Although the young Brahms was persuaded to draw up a manifesto denouncing the new trends in music, he was subsequently publicly quiet about the issue, and greatly respected and carefully studied Wagner's works. He said that he would have attended the premiere of _Parsifal_ at Bayreuth, but did not want to provide an excuse for the Wagner partisans to make a scene, and he insisted to those who wanted to draw him into arguments that he was the "best of all Wagnerians." Wagner, who never hid his opinions about anything, nonetheless made rather few and mild remarks about Brahms, one of which was "It is remarkable what can still be achieved with the old forms in the hands of someone who knows what to do with them." After his own period of youthful fervor for revolutionizing opera and society by means of it, he affirmed, especially in his mature years, his respect for the forms and requirements of absolute music, expressing disdain for those who would try to apply his operatic innovations to purely instrumental forms, and even stating his intention to compose symphonies after his declared final opera _Parsifal_. As for that other radical Liszt, he was characteristically supportive of fine music wherever he found it and not prone to disparage composers who did not aspire to the avant garde of the day.
> 
> Modernist ideology was rooted in part in the Romantic spirit of rebellion and revolution, the notion of the artist as revealer of the soul, and the myth of progress. But 19th-century theories of music's purpose and practice were relatively modest extensions of 18th-century aesthetic philosophy and were certainly not adopted by composers as needed rationalizations of their practice; even Wagner's extensive theorizing evolved primarily in his own wildly fertile brain as a way of understanding his own artistic impulses and goals, and changed, rather radically, as those changed. Whatever composers of the Romantic era thought of each other's work, their expressions of disapproval or dislike were generally expressed as personal judgments and not in the form of pretentious and provocative pronouncements on the cultural correctness, historical relevance, and ultimate value of their contemporaries and predecessors. Art as a validation of ideology, ideology as a justification of art, partisanships, orthodoxies, and verbal games of one-upmanship and put-downmanship - this was not, to my knowledge, characteristic of any era until the 20th century.
> 
> I've always enjoyed most those 20th-century composers who declined to wear the Modernist mantle - or at least wore threads of it lightly and intermittently, as needed - and didn't talk about the necessity and inevitability of rejecting the past or defining the future. I suppose that makes the pronouncements of the era's "bad boys" all the more amusing to me.


Fantastic post.

One thing I always admired in composers like Liszt, Kodaly, Bartok, Debussy, and Vaughan Williams is that-- as Woodduck mentions in a similar context above-- they were always searching for great music, wherever it may be, in order to inspire their own. They learn from, adapt, and incorporate what's exotic, sublime, mysterious, or beautiful from music besides classical. They don't reject the rich musical traditions of the world, but rather learn from them and grow. They don't pretend to be Promethean Super Men who can eclipse the centuries of creativity which came before them; but channel it into their own creativity.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

science said:


> Maybe.
> 
> Even if so, there's too much condescension there for me. Everyone with that kind of attitude needs a splash of cold water.


Too bad. He's dead.


----------



## Woodduck

marschallin blair said:


> View attachment 62276
> 
> 
> a more depressed mode of _italianité _can scarcely be imagined.


*"MONA'S REVENGE"*

Magnifico!

Where the heck did you find that? I want one to hang in my bathroom.


----------



## tdc

Marschallin Blair said:


> Fantastic post.
> 
> One thing I always admired in composers like Liszt, Kodaly, Bartok, Debussy, and Vaughan Williams is that-- as Woodduck mentions in a similar context above-- they were always searching for great music, wherever it may be, in order to inspire their own. They learn from, adapt, and incorporate what's exotic, sublime, mysterious, or beautiful from music besides classical. They don't reject the rich musical traditions of the world, but rather learn from them and grow. They don't pretend to be Promethean Super Men who can eclipse the centuries of creativity which came before them; but channel it into their own creativity.


If you check out this interview with Boulez (starting at about 4:19) he says that when he was composing _Le marteau sans maître_ one of his primary goals was to move away from the European sound of classical music and he ended up studying music of many different musical traditions such as Bali, Africa, Japan and China, and claims he feels it is important for composers to absorb sounds from other cultures.






*edit *- (thought this was the Boulez/Shosty thread, but still, I think the example applies. Additionally John Cage also studied Eastern music)


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> *"MONA'S REVENGE"*
> 
> Magnifico!
> 
> Where the heck did you find that? I want one to hang in my bathroom.


I just typed in the words: "It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because it does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed"--into the Startpage.com search engine, and different websites came up that had quotes by and about Boulez. The picture was on one of them, I don't remember which.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

tdc said:


> If you check out this interview with Boulez (starting at about 4:19) he says that when he was composing _Le marteau sans maître_ one of his primary goals was to move away from the European sound of classical music and he ended up studying music of many different musical traditions such as Bali, Africa, Japan and China, and claims he feels it is important for composers to absorb sounds from other cultures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *edit *- (thought this was the Boulez/Shosty thread, but still, I think the example applies. Additionally John Cage also studied Eastern music)


Thanks for that.

But does one really hear these influences in Boulez's main _oeuvre_?

I hear the influence of Javanese gamelan music in Debussy, and English folk music in Vaughan Williams, and Hungarian and gypsy folk music in Bartok and Kodaly, and even African tribal rhythms in Bow Wow Wow _;D_-- but where is the palpable influence in the vast majority of Boulez' music?


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> But does one really hear these influences in Boulez's main _oeuvre_?


Ignoratio elenchi.

The original proposition was that the composers you admire "don't reject the rich musical traditions of the world, but rather learn from them and grow. They don't pretend to be Promethean Super Men who can eclipse the centuries of creativity which came before them; but channel it into their own creativity."

The implication that there are other composers, whom you don't admire, who do reject the rich musical traditions of the world was refuted by the observation that Boulez and Cage, who are commonly portrayed as rejectors, as Promethean pretenders, have done the same kinds of things that Liszt and Bartok and company have done in regards to both the past and to traditions outside Western art.

The question of whether those influences can be heard or not is another topic.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> But does one really hear these influences in Boulez's main _oeuvre_?
> 
> I hear the influence of Javanese gamelan music in Debussy, and English folk music in Vaughan Williams, and Hungarian and gypsy folk music in Bartok and Kodaly, and even African tribal rhythms in Bow Wow Wow _;D_-- but where is the palpable influence in the vast majority of Boulez' music?


Everywhere. In the rhythms, in the textures, in the subtle scintillating beauty of it. Sur Incises, for example. There's much more gamelan in that than there ever was in Debussy.

As for those touting the composers who rejected the "modernist" label, why not go for the big two? _Stravinsky and Schoenberg_.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

some guy said:


> Ignoratio elenchi.
> 
> The original proposition was that the composers you admire "don't reject the rich musical traditions of the world, but rather learn from them and grow. They don't pretend to be Promethean Super Men who can eclipse the centuries of creativity which came before them; but channel it into their own creativity."
> 
> The implication that there are other composers, whom you don't admire, who do reject the rich musical traditions of the world was refuted by the observation that Boulez and Cage, who are commonly portrayed as rejectors, as Promethean pretenders, have done the same kinds of things that Liszt and Bartok and company have done in regards to both the past and to traditions outside Western art.
> 
> The question of whether those influences can be heard or not is another topic.


_Ignoratio elenchi_- is right: "The question of whether those influences can ben heard or not is another topic."

Why?-- just because _you_ say so?

So tell me: where _are_ the world music influences in the_ majority _of Boulez' _oeuvre_?

-- Whom, as the record will show, was the composer I was talking about, and not Cage.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Everywhere. In the rhythms, in the textures, in the subtle scintillating beauty of it. Sur Incises, for example. There's much more gamelan in that than there ever was in Debussy.
> As for those touting the composers who rejected the "modernist" label, why not go for the big two? _Stravinsky and Schoenberg_.


I'll grant you _Sur Incises_ has that Balinesian influence, but then you must grant me that this is the_ exception _and not the_ rule _for the_ majority _of Boulez' _oeuvre_-- which is what my original contention is.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> I'll grant you _Sur Incises_ has that Balinesian influence, but then you must grant me that this is the_ exception _and not the_ rule _for the_ majority _of Boulez' _oeuvre_-- which is what my original contention is.


I hear the influence of non-European musics in _Le marteau sans Maitre_, _Pli selon pli_, _Rituel_, the orchestral _Notations_, _Repons_, _Sur Incises_...the majority of his ensemble works from the mid-50s onwards.

But quantity was irrelevant to your original point, at any rate.



Marschallin Blair said:


> They learn from, adapt, and incorporate what's exotic, sublime, mysterious, or beautiful from music besides classical. They don't reject the rich musical traditions of the world, but rather learn from them and grow. They don't pretend to be Promethean Super Men who can eclipse the centuries of creativity which came before them; but channel it into their own creativity.


Clearly Boulez does not reject the traditions of the world, even if he incorporates that influence but a single time. That he has done this often shows the exact opposite.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Mahlerian: But quantity was irrelevant to your original point, at any rate.


Not really, q.v. post number 124 above.



> Mahlerian: I hear the influence of non-European musics in Le marteau sans Maitre, Pli selon pli, Rituel, the orchestral Notations, Repons, Sur Incises...the majority of his ensemble works from the mid-50s onwards.


Okay. . . 'six-plus' works.

But are these six-plus works the exception or the rule to the remaining_ fifty _of his _oeuvre?:_

Douze notations for piano (1945); expanded and reworked for orchestra (1978- )
Trois psalmodies for piano (1945); withdrawn
Variations for piano, left hand (1945); withdrawn
Quatuor pour quatre Ondes Martenot for Ondes Martenot (1945-46); withdrawn
Piano Sonata No. 1 (1946)
Sonatine for flute and piano (1946)
Le visage nuptial for soprano, mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra (1946; revised 1951; revised 1988-89)
Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra (1947); lost
Piano Sonata No. 2 (1948)
Sonata for Two Pianos for piano duo (1948); revision of the quartet for Ondes Martenot; withdrawn
Livre pour quatuor (1948); two movements were reworked for string orchestra as Livre pour cordes (1968; revised 1989; revised 2011/12)
Le soleil des eaux for soprano, chorus and orchestra (1948; revised 1950; revised 1958; revised 1965)
Polyphonie X for ensemble (1950-51); withdrawn
Deux études, musique concrète (1951-52)
Structures I for two pianos (1951-52)
Oubli signal lapidé for 12 solo voices (1952); withdrawn
Le marteau sans maître for alto and six instruments (1953-55; revised 1957)
La symphonie mécanique musique concrète for a film by Jean Mitry (1955)
L'Orestie incidental music for Aeschylus' trilogy the Oresteia, for voice and instrumental ensemble (1945)
Poésie pour pouvoir for tape and 3 orchestras (1955/58); withdrawn
Piano Sonata No. 3 (1955-57/63); unfinished
Strophes for flute (1957); unfinished
Le crépuscule de Yang Koueï-Fei musique concrète for the radiophonic play by Louise Fauré (1957)
Pli selon pli for soprano and orchestra (1957-58, as Improvisations sur Mallarmé 1-2; completed 1959-62; revised 1983; revised 1989)
Structures II for two pianos (1961)
Figures-doubles-prismes for orchestra (1957-58, as Doubles; revised 1964; revised 1968)
Éclat for ensemble (1965)
Éclat/multiples (1970); Éclat followed by a longer piece for a larger ensemble; unfinished
Domaines for clarinet (1968)
Domaines for clarinet and six instrumental groups (1968)
Improvisé-pour le Dr. Kalmus for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello (1969; revised 2005)
Über das, über ein verschwindelaren for mixed a cappella chorus (1969)
Cummings ist der Dichter for chorus and ensemble (1970; revised 1986)
"…explosante-fixe…" for flute, clarinet, and trumpet (1971-72)
"…explosante-fixe…" new version for flute, clarinet, trumpet, harp, vibraphone, violin, viola, cello, and electronics (1973-74)
Rituel - in memoriam Bruno Maderna for orchestra in eight groups (1974)
Ainsi parla Zarathoustra incidental music for voice and ensemble (1974)
Messagesquisse for solo cello and six cellos (1976)
Notations for orchestra (1978/1984/1997- )
Répons for two pianos, harp, vibraphone, xylophone, cimbalom, ensemble and live electronics (1980; revised and expanded 1982; revised and expanded 1984)
Dérive 1 for six instruments (1984)
Dialogue de l'ombre double for clarinet and electronics (1985)
Mémoriale ("…explosante-fixe…" originel) for flute and ensemble (1985); an arrangement of the central section from "...explosante-fixe..."
"…explosante-fixe…" version for vibraphone and electronics (1986)
Initiale for brass ensemble (1987)
Dérive 2 for eleven instruments (1988; revised 2002; expanded and completed 2006)
Anthèmes for violin (1991; revised and expanded 1994)
Fanfare for the 80th Birthday of Georg Solti for brass and percussion (1992)
"…explosante-fixe…" for solo MIDI flute, two "shadow" flutes, chamber orchestra, and electronics (1991-93); three of nine projected movements
Incises for piano (1994; revised and expanded 2001)
Dialogue de l'ombre double (transcribed for bassoon and electronics, 1985/1995)
Anthèmes 2 for violin and live electronics (1997)
Sur incises for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (1996-1998)
Une page d'éphéméride for piano (2005)


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## Morimur

Who cares if he "wasn't modern", quality trumps all. Schoenberg was, at least, Stravinsky's equal, and Cage wasn't really a composer at all, in the classical sense — more of a sonic artist, if you will.


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## Mahlerian

It was irrelevant to your original point, which was that there are two groups of composers, those who accept influences from outside of the classical tradition, and those who arrogantly believe themselves "Promethean Super Men" who do not need such things.

Quite apart from the fact that someone not being influenced by something hardly indicates that they reject that thing as being worthwhile, Boulez has been forthright about the influence of non-Western traditions on his work, and the influence is palpable in many of his major works. Your list contains works which he did not finish, works lasting perhaps a few minutes, alternate versions of the same work, and works that are not part of his oeuvre because they were rejected by the composer or predate the important part of his output.

How much is gamelan supposed to have influenced Debussy, anyway? Even if every single work he wrote after 1889 showed the distinct influence of non-Western music (which they do not), this would still leave about half of his oeuvre.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Morimur said:


> Who cares if he "wasn't modern", quality trumps all. Schoenberg was, at least, Stravinsky's equal, and Cage wasn't really a composer at all, in the classical sense - more of a sonic artist, if you will.


'Messiaen does not compose, he juxtaposes' - Boulez.


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## Fagotterdammerung

How composers see themselves and their work is somewhat separate from their work itself.

Schoenberg definitely saw himself as a continuation of a tradition. An innovator, certainly, but in no sense a revolutionary wanting to rid himself of the past.

At the same time, we tend to look too hard at the person to provide a narrative to their work.

We know Schoenberg - but what if we hadn't, and Schoenberg had been a hot-blooded Modernist like Boulez wishing to blow up the opera houses and so forth. We'd probably look at his music and see _that_ narrative in action.

Schoenberg wrote excellent music, and I'm quite happy to leave it at that. The music itself speaks better for itself than its context, or even its author.


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## tdc

Marschallin Blair said:


> Thanks for that.
> 
> But does one really hear these influences in Boulez's main _oeuvre_?
> 
> I hear the influence of Javanese gamelan music in Debussy, and English folk music in Vaughan Williams, and Hungarian and gypsy folk music in Bartok and Kodaly, and even African tribal rhythms in Bow Wow Wow _;D_-- but where is the palpable influence in the vast majority of Boulez' music?


I see where you are coming from, but I do think the influences are there. I suspect a large percentage of listeners in Bartok's time would've asked similar questions and found it challenging to hear the folk music influences in the majority of his work.


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## tdc

Mahlerian said:


> I hear the influence of non-European musics in _Le marteau sans Maitre_, _Pli selon pli_, _Rituel_, the orchestral _Notations_, _Repons_, _*Sur Incises*_...the majority of his ensemble works from the mid-50s onwards.


I listened to _Sur Incises_ today, and I did notice some non-European music influence. Towards the end of the work I believe he also quotes a passage from Bartok's _Piano Concerto No. 2_.


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## Marschallin Blair

tdc said:


> I see where you are coming from, but I do think the influences are there. I suspect a large percentage of listeners in Bartok's time would've asked similar questions and found it challenging to hear the folk music influences in the majority of his work.


Sure, some of the influences are obliquely there in a handful of his compositions.

To my ears, Boulez is more interested in sounding like Boulez more than anything else. He seems much more interested in being clever and counter-intuitive and iconoclastic and novel-- than in writing music that has intellectual or emotional profundity to it.


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## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> Sure, some of the influences are obliquely there in a handful of his compositions.


You have listened, carefully and intelligently, to all of Boulez's works? Only if you have would this grudging admission carry any weight.



Marschallin Blair said:


> To my ears, Boulez is more interested in sounding like Boulez more than anything else. He seems much more interested in being clever and counter-intuitive and iconoclastic and novel-- than in writing music that has intellectual or emotional profundity to it.


To anyone's ears, practically any composer sounds more like herself or himself than they do to anyone else. The ones who don't, don't last long.

Bach sounds more like Bach than like anyone else. Beethoven sounds more like Beethoven than like anyone else. Chopin, Berlioz, Bizet, Schumann, Wagner, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Oliveros, Gubaidulina, Saariaho. All of these people, and countless more, have distinctive sounds that distinguish them from every other composer, influences and echoes and even borrowings notwithstanding. Wagner could hardly have existed had it not been for Berlioz, but can you actually hear anything in Wagner that sounds like Berlioz. Even the most blatant borrowing of a distinctive chord from _Romeo et Juliette_ sounds completely different in _Tristan._ Stravinsky raided several earlier composers and never ever sounds like anything else but Stravinsky.

This is not an eccentric and deplorable thing unique to Boulez (or even to twentieth century avant-garde); this is simply a thing. Universal. (It's called style. It is what allows us to hear a piece we've never heard before by a composer we know well and identify it as being by that composer. Common, ordinary, neutral.)

As for intellectual or emotional profundity, surely you must know what a sticky wicket that collection of vocables constitutes. Some of the man's most well-known and most often played pieces are memorials for deceased colleagues. Emotional profundity galore.

And as for what Boulez does or does not think, aside from what he has written or spoken, you really have no idea. And even then.


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## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> You have listened, carefully and intelligently, to all of Boulez's works? Only if you have would this grudging admission carry any weight.


Wait, is one supposed to have listened to _*all*_ of a composer's works before giving an opinion about his music?

I guess I will be silent for a while, then


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## science

Stavrogin said:


> Wait, is one supposed to have listened to _*all*_ of a composer's works before giving an opinion about his music?
> 
> I guess I will be silent for a while, then


Me too! I almost never enter into a discussion like that. When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled!


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## Blancrocher

Stavrogin said:


> Wait, is one supposed to have listened to _*all*_ of a composer's works before giving an opinion about his music?
> 
> I guess I will be silent for a while, then


Great--no more jokes about Segerstam's symphonies, I suppose.


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## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> Wait, is one supposed to have listened to _*all*_ of a composer's works before giving an opinion about his music?


Only before giving the kind of opinion that Blair was offering, which was that you can't hear the various influences in Boulez's music, or you can, but only in a few pieces. Blair's opinion was predicated on knowing Boulez fairly well.

Generally speaking, however, I must say that people do seem to rush into conclusions on the scantiest of evidence. There was even a thread recently in which people talked about all the various (major) works they had never heard. The wider one's listening experience, the better the possibility that one's opinions will be valid. Yes, that is true.

But you knew that already, no?


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## Albert7

some guy said:


> Only before giving the kind of opinion that Blair was offering, which was that you can't hear the various influences in Boulez's music, or you can, but only in a few pieces. Blair's opinion was predicated on knowing Boulez fairly well.
> 
> Generally speaking, however, I must say that people do seem to rush into conclusions on the scantiest of evidence. There was even a thread recently in which people talked about all the various (major) works they had never heard. The wider one's listening experience, the better the possibility that one's opinions will be valid. Yes, that is true.
> 
> But you knew that already, no?


Wow, this is a really insightful series of posts.

I have been reflecting on Schoenberg's influence on the classical music a lot lately and whether or not he is a modernist is a matter of perspective in fact. For example, I think that from the viewpoint of a composer who focused on electroacoustic music would say that Schoenberg is relatively conservative and perhaps not modernist whereas a more traditional composer who was say, neo-classical in focus, would find Schoenberg too radical for his/her liking.

What is key is not how we just classify Schoenberg amongst other composers but the exact nature of music in terms of its impact on other composers that came after him accordingly.


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## Blake

some guy said:


> Only before giving the kind of opinion that Blair was offering, which was that you can't hear the various influences in Boulez's music, or you can, but only in a few pieces. Blair's opinion was predicated on knowing Boulez fairly well.
> 
> Generally speaking, however, I must say that people do seem to rush into conclusions on the scantiest of evidence. There was even a thread recently in which people talked about all the various (major) works they had never heard. The wider one's listening experience, the better the possibility that one's opinions will be valid. Yes, that is true.
> 
> But you knew that already, no?


I do dig Boulez... but I find my opinion on him is steadily changing. I love when he's conducting, but his compositions leave me feeling as dry as the Sahara.


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## Albert7

Blake said:


> I do dig Boulez... but I find my opinion on him is steadily changing. I love when he's conducting, but his compositions leave me feeling as dry as the Sahara.


Boulez's compositions seem to be academic but they are pretty visceral and crazy exciting for sure.


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## Blake

Albert7 said:


> Boulez's compositions seem to be academic but they are pretty visceral and crazy exciting for sure.


Yea, nothing's written in stone. But the way my mind leans now-a-days... I get about as exited listening to Boulez's compositions as I do reading a book on mathematics.

Interesting, meticulous... but so what? The conclusions are always planned. Where's the mystery?


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## Albert7

Blake said:


> Yea, nothing's written in stone. But the way my mind leans now-a-days... I get about as exited listening to Boulez's compositions as I do reading a book on mathematics.
> 
> Interesting, meticulous... but so what? The conclusions are always planned. Where's the mystery?


Interestingly enough, I found Feldman's permutation-based later pieces to be a lot more mathematically driven than Boulez's stuff. But that's just me.

Of course, I'm probably the wrong type of listener... I don't listen to be delving into classical music for excitement but to solve an aural Rubik's cube. I'm just a nerd I guess.


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## Blake

Albert7 said:


> Interestingly enough, I found Feldman's permutation-based later pieces to be a lot more mathematically driven than Boulez's stuff. But that's just me.
> 
> Of course, I'm probably the wrong type of listener... I don't listen to be delving into classical music for excitement but to solve an aural Rubik's cube. I'm just a nerd I guess.


Cool thing about music is I really don't think there are right or wrongs connected with listening. It may matter if you want to be hot stuff at a social gathering. But if it's really about the enjoyment... listen how you feel.


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## Albert7

Blake said:


> Cool thing about music is I really don't think there are right or wrongs connected with listening. It may matter if you want to be hot stuff at a social gathering. But if it's really about the enjoyment... listen how you feel.


And you're right about that in fact. When I plan to date again in the very long future ahead, I don't plan to woo any ladies with John Cage on the first date... that is unless she asks .


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## Mahlerian

Blake said:


> Yea, nothing's written in stone. But the way my mind leans now-a-days... I get about as exited listening to Boulez's compositions as I do reading a book on mathematics.
> 
> Interesting, meticulous... but so what? The conclusions are always planned. Where's the mystery?


But Boulez's music is not like that at all. The later works (from Le marteau on) are actually very freely constructed and move in a stream-of-consciousness manner. Of course, I listen to them first of all for their sheer sonic beauty, but the almost improvisational logic is also one of their great merits.


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## Blake

Mahlerian said:


> But Boulez's music is not like that at all. The later works (from Le marteau on) are actually very freely constructed and move in a stream-of-consciousness manner. Of course, I listen to them first of all for their sheer sonic beauty, but the almost improvisational logic is also one of their great merits.


I'll have to give them another listen. :tiphat:


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## Albert7

Mahlerian said:


> But Boulez's music is not like that at all. The later works (from Le marteau on) are actually very freely constructed and move in a stream-of-consciousness manner. Of course, I listen to them first of all for their sheer sonic beauty, but the almost improvisational logic is also one of their great merits.


This may explain why Boulez revised constantly perhaps.... Maybe he wanted a wider audience for his works later on? And to be less esoteric.


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