Schoenberg Problem

[Franco]

It struck me today that Schoenberg's 12-tone method is not much different from the contrapuntal rules developed after the medieval period, e.g. avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, as a method to write music and deliberately diverging from the methods (and sound) of the past.

[greg]

If that album contains music by Liszt, Berg and Webern, why did they put Schoenberg on the cover?

lol

[Saul]

***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD*** ***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***

Schoenberg.
What is it about Schoenberg?  You know, I only have Pellias und Mellisande by him, only listened to once a long time ago, so maybe I have to dig it out of that old digital collection of mine.  My problem is that he is known as the father of 12 tone and atonal music, which to me is as silly as trying to get everyone to speak esperanto.  I just don't dig what he and his second Viennese cronies did with music, manipulating it in a clever but fairly pointless way and being indirectly responsible for the rarely musical avant garde kak that flourished after his death.
Please someone put me out of my misery and explain what is so good about someone who made up his own laws of music.  What big and interesting piece of music should I get by him to switch me on instead of avoiding him as I have done (and Berg, etc.)??

Its good to know that you guys are never tired with arguing.

[snyprrr]

I just get tired of his personality. What a victim!

[Mirror Image]

I think it's good to find a 12-tone work that will act as your "gateway" into this music. Of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, Berg is my favorite composer, which I have detailed many times in other threads. The work that got me hooked was his "Violin Concerto." This is such an honest piece of music that reflects the great agony of loss. People, who are so wrapped up in Romantic ideals, ask me how can I listen to (to use their own words) "crap"? I honestly don't see this work as a breakaway from that Romantic notion that so many hold so dear to their hearts. Berg's music oozes Romanticism. He simply took what he was taught from Schoenberg and forged his own path.

Many people talk about how if you like Schoenberg you're going to like Berg or if you like Webern then you will like Schoenberg. I honestly see these three composers very differently. If anything, Schoenberg and Webern have more in common with each other than with Berg, but that's just a personal opinion. That said, these three composers are looked at some kind of evil monsters that "destroyed" classical music. I think this assertion couldn't be any further from the truth. What the Second Viennese School did was wake people up to new ways of thinking and hearing music.

And judging from these posts and the amount of controversy these three composers stir up, they have certainly attained their goals.

[just Jeff]

THE SCHOENBERG BOX SET

(doesn't "polygram" own Decca, DG, et al?)

Moses und Aron (decca/Solti) (2 cd)

Gurrelieder (dg/Abbado or philips/Ozawa) (2)

Erwartung (decca/Silja or philips/Price)

piano- dg/Pollini
str qrts- dg/ LaSalle
str. trio- dg/Kremerata + misc.
"all" other chamber music- decca/atherton (or some dg/Boulez)

(chamber-wise, I think, the only thing missing is that which appears on the arditti's 5 cd survey)

Verklarte Nacht/ 5 pieces/ Pelleas/ Variations- dg/Karajan or...?
Piano cto/Violin cto- dg/ Brendel +

Chamber Sym 1- take yer pick (ph/Ozawa for 1-2)
Chamber Sym 2, suite f. str, "band" variations, "motion picture scene"-
decca/"Schoenberg in Hollywood"

It seeeems that the Schoenberg box is already do-able, no? what am i missing?

Does not look like you are missing too much there.  But I went ahead (not waiting for UMG) and did my own 5-CD-R BOX SET of the Atherton/London Sinfonietta Decca LP set for personal listening/use.  Look at the original LP track listing below, and then below that you'll see my new CD track sheet which came out really nice imo.

Customers?

Universal music group still does not make a practice of mixing labels.  They have sometimes made an exception for Decca/Philips when the same artist recorded for both, but I don't think they have issued a set that mixed DG with Decca or Philips.

They might get desperate yet, things are changing.... and not for the better.

[Scarpia]

They might get desperate yet, things are changing.... and not for the better.

Since that comment was made they have changed their policy and have more-or-less erased the dividing line between the labels (They don't even have the rights to the Philips trademark anymore).

[Norbeone]

Any day is a day for the Serenade, Opus 24, in my book.

Thanks very much for mentioning this piece, as I'd never heard it! Quite delicious

[karlhenning]

Cool!

[Josquin des Prez]

It struck me today that Schoenberg's 12-tone method is not much different from the contrapuntal rules developed after the medieval period, e.g. avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, as a method to write music and deliberately diverging from the methods (and sound) of the past.

The difference is that one naturally moved towards tonality while the other one deliberately moved away from it.

[Josquin des Prez]

lol

My memory is so bad it took me a couple of minutes to understand my own joke. God.

[greg]

The difference is that one naturally moved towards tonality while the other one deliberately moved away from it.

When I was studying it, after awhile, I came to somewhat the same conclusion. Other differences, yes, but a waaaay more similar practice than what I was led to believe.

My memory is so bad it took me a couple of minutes to understand my own joke. God.

That was a good one... actually been laughing the last few minutes after reading it again. Poor ugly Schoenberg. 

[karlhenning]

Schoenberg's Problem is that he wasn't Malibu Ken?

[Mirror Image]

***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD*** ***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***

Schoenberg.
What is it about Schoenberg?  You know, I only have Pellias und Mellisande by him, only listened to once a long time ago, so maybe I have to dig it out of that old digital collection of mine.  My problem is that he is known as the father of 12 tone and atonal music, which to me is as silly as trying to get everyone to speak esperanto.  I just don't dig what he and his second Viennese cronies did with music, manipulating it in a clever but fairly pointless way and being indirectly responsible for the rarely musical avant garde kak that flourished after his death.

Please someone put me out of my misery and explain what is so good about someone who made up his own laws of music.  What big and interesting piece of music should I get by him to switch me on instead of avoiding him as I have done (and Berg, etc.)??

I'm not sure calling Schoenberg's students Berg and Webern cronies is going to score you any points with anyone here who happen to enjoy these composer's music. Schoenberg's music, at its best, transcends time and space. His early music is clearly late-Romanticism, but is only a fragment of his represented output. I think in order to understand his later music, you have to clear your mind and leave your notions of that early Romantic period at the doorstep. I suppose he's still considered a controversial figure in 20th Century music, but I'm not really sure why the music is still not being accepted by a larger classical audience today. In our time of eclecticism, you would think Schoenberg wouldn't be too hard to grasp now?

I think you should go ahead and dive right into works like his Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, Variations for Orchestra, Five Pieces for Orchestra, and A Survivor From Warsaw. Check these works out first. I think there's much to enjoy here, but the most important thing, is to remain open-minded about the music.

[mahler10th]

MI:  

I'm not sure calling Schoenberg's students Berg and Webern cronies is going to score you any points with anyone here who happen to enjoy these composer's music. Schoenberg's music, at its best, transcends time and space. His early music is clearly late-Romanticism, but is only a fragment of his represented output. I think in order to understand his later music, you have to clear your mind and leave your notions of that early Romantic period at the doorstep. I suppose he's still considered a controversial figure in 20th Century music, but I'm not really sure why the music is still not being accepted by a larger classical audience today. In our time of eclecticism, you would think Schoenberg wouldn't be too hard to grasp now?

***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***      ***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***

I have tried since first writing in this thread.  I have tried and tried and even tried. 
My conclusion was this some time back: 
His tonal music is beautiful, I fully agree.  It really is strikingly beautiful, and his tonal stuff sits well in my collection.  The rest is pretentious pish, not worth the time and space it occupies/transcends at any given moment.  His music is not being accepted by a larger classical audience today because most of it is not music.  Perhaps if he stuck at what he really did have a talent for, he would be the most widely played composer today because his tonal music has some of the most beautiful orchestratons I've ever heard.  But the rest?  Pah...

Thank you for re-igniting my feelings on Schoenberg and his gullable students!

[some guy]

So where's the controversy? You like the music of Schoenberg that fits your model of what music should sound like, and you dislike the music of Schoenberg that does not. Plus, you also shove the responsibility of your own lacks as a listener entirely* onto the music, as most people do.

No controversy there.

Since you say that you have tried and tried and even tried, do you mind if I ask a few questions? One is "why?" Why if you didn't like it at first, did you keep trying and trying? (It seems, from your post, that the answer to this might very well be "To prove to myself if not to others that Schoenberg's pan and twelve tone music is crap." You do realize, don't you, that if that's true, you've just set up a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy?)

Another question is "what?" What do you mean by tried and tried and even tried? Did you listen, carefully, at what was there? Not trying to make it be something else. Not pissed off if it wasn't something else. Just listening to what was there. Now "what was there" may never please you. Chopin will possibly never please me. But that doesn't mean I go around saying "I've tried and tried and even tried, but most of Chopin is not music. Pah!"

If, however, by "tried and tried and even tried," you mean that you went into it with a positive or at least a neutral attitude.... But of course, it is clear from your post that you did not. Now, I must put on some Merzbow to sooth my spirits....

[Scarpia]

MI:  
***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***      ***WARNING***CONTROVERSY AHEAD***

I have tried since first writing in this thread.  I have tried and tried and even tried. 
My conclusion was this some time back: 
His tonal music is beautiful, I fully agree.  It really is strikingly beautiful, and his tonal stuff sits well in my collection.  The rest is pretentious pish, not worth the time and space it occupies/transcends at any given moment.  His music is not being accepted by a larger classical audience today because most of it is not music.  Perhaps if he stuck at what he really did have a talent for, he would be the most widely played composer today because his tonal music has some of the most beautiful orchestratons I've ever heard.  But the rest?  Pah...

Thank you for re-igniting my feelings on Schoenberg and his gullable students!

So you are prepared to claim that what I consider my genuine and intense pleasure at listening to some of Schoenberg's post-tonal works is not valid?   There is a lot of stuff by Schoenberg that I find I have no interest it, mainly those short  "pieces" for orchestra that were emulated by other second Viennese school composers, but the Serenade, the Quintet for winds, these are magical works in my experience.  You are not content to say that they don't speak to you, but must pronounce them "not music?"  You are proud the pronounce your own personal reaction as "fact."  If that is so, I'm afraid you have dropped a few notches in my estimation.

[mahler10th]

Voicing that Schoenbergs second viennese stuff is unacceptable as music, and so is all the rest of it, seems to be the equivalent of being aetheist in a church full of worshippers.  There may be some nice, strategic note placement in the atonal, but never any clear and present music, as in music. 
I may rocket down in estimation with my tabloid like views, but no-one else will say it (probably because I'm so completely wrong)  .
I am not degrading anyones listening to it, not intentionally anyway.   I love people who find spiritual pleasure in music, and if it comes through Schoenberg, good on em, but not for me.
Oh well.  Back to Suitners Dvorak...

[petrarch]

There may be some nice, strategic note placement in the atonal, but never any clear and present music, as in music. 

How do people listen to music, how do audiences hear it? Apparently, they need to hold on to certain images, to 'states of mind'; they'll feel at a loss if they can't see a garden that is green, a sky that is blue or something like that. (Webern)

[Cato]

Voicing that Schoenbergs second viennese stuff is unacceptable as music, and so is all the rest of it, seems to be the equivalent of being aetheist in a church full of worshippers.  There may be some nice, strategic note placement in the atonal, but never any clear and present music, as in music. 
I may rocket down in estimation with my tabloid like views, but no-one else will say it (probably because I'm so completely wrong)  .
I am not degrading anyones listening to it, not intentionally anyway.   I love people who find spiritual pleasure in music, and if it comes through Schoenberg, good on em, but not for me.
Oh well.  Back to Suitners Dvorak...

What you might need is simply more time: there are a good number of people, who had your views, but  who have been converted!   0:)

Alexander Tcherepnin's very simple advice to me, whenever I expressed similar views, was to keep listening to as many different kinds of music, and to think and wait.  This worked with me and Schoenberg: e.g. (I have told the story some years ago) Pelleas und Melisande (hardly atonal, although highly polyphonic and the harmony is at the edge of the solar system) remained a puzzle to me for some time, when I was very young.

I knew two things: Schoenberg was a great composer, and I was sensing that there was something in this work that was eluding me,.

Only by trying it again and again, after waiting and thinking, did one day the Aha-moment arrive.  And now it is one of my most favorite works, and I preach its worth to all who will listen!   

Perhaps try the Second String Quartet or Erwartung as bridges into his middle and later periods.  And listen again to Des Sommerwindes Wilde Jagd from Gurrelieder as it contains all kinds of hints of Schoenberg's future!