Comparing Composers

[Mirror Image]

Anyone who considers this to be 'progressive' is guilty of self deception.
http://www.youtube.com/v/9umvR9_3peQ&feature=related

It's easy to pull clips from YouTube and say something really negative, but it's a completely different animal altogether when you actually explain what you don't like about this work or that work or any work from the 20th Century. There were all kinds of music composed in a lot of many different styles during this period and you singling out one composer and making it look as though he's the only composer from the 20th Century makes you look rather ridiculous and also uneducated.

[greg]

Saul... I probably shouldn't say anything, and we should probably all just leave you and your opinions alone, since you don't listen to anyone.

You posted Schoenberg's Piano Suite and Webern's Symphony- both masterworks. Obviously, you don't understand the level of counterpoint that goes on there. It's actually not all too different from the same counterpoint that Bach used- the main differences being a different style of harmony and rhythm.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not great. These "rules" are simply the rules of your taste. And Schoenberg is classical music- there are subgenres, obviously. He would be 20th Century Classical (or "modern classical"), Bach would be Baroque, etc. Classical is just a broad term, kind of like "rock."

[Mirror Image]

Saul,

If you spent more time listening rather criticizing everything that doesn't fit into your own narrow-minded point-of-view, then you might just learn something.

You're exactly everything that is wrong with classical music discussions. Not because you enjoy talking about the music, and I know you're capable of having a decent conversation about a composer you enjoy, but because you expect everybody to uphold the same standards as you do. Not everybody enjoys what you enjoy. Most Baroque and Classical era composers bore me to no end, but you don't see me trying to prove my point to anyone and force my opinion on them. No, I don't do that. I simply state I don't like something and I move on. If somebody asks me to explain why I don't like this composer or that composer, then I tell them.

I think you're in a very dangerous frame of mind right now. You don't listen with an open-mind and you constantly put down others for not sharing your opinion. That, to me, is the sign of somebody who doesn't have anything worth contributing to a discussion.

[greg]

The mystery, of course, is why anyone else would participating (and yes, I realize this applies to me as well).

It's like looking at a traffic accident, except it's in someone's mind. 

[Saul]

You posted Schoenberg's Piano Suite and Webern's Symphony- both masterworks.

They are worthless piece of modern music and the world would have been a better place without them.
It has been a long time now since the word 'intellectual' was used to hide away the banal of modern music.
There is no classical counterpoint as you say, its a total different system.

[bhodges]

If you spent more time listening rather criticizing everything that doesn't fit into your own narrow-minded point-of-view, then you might just learn something.

Word.

--Bruce

[Scarpia]

They are worthless piece of modern music and the world would have been a better place without them.
It has been a long time now since the word 'intellectual' was used to hide away the banal of modern music.
There is no classical counterpoint as you say, its a total different system.

Why does it bother you so much that some people sincerely enjoy something that you don't enjoy?  I actually find some of those modern pieces uninteresting, but I don't see why I should try to convince people that do enjoy them that they shouldn't.

[karlhenning]

I'm not a big fan of Webern at all. In fact, my two favorite compositions by him are "Im Sommerwind" and "Passacaglia." It is in these works that we hear a man who was still writing tonal music. His 12-tone works almost seem directionless. Berg, on the other hand, is my favorite composer from "The Second Viennese School." He was essentially a Romantic, but composed music in the 12-tone method, but what makes his music so striking is that he actually uses tonal centers in his music. There is also a Romantic lyricism that runs deep through all of his works. He is one of my favorite composers and has really opened my ears up to 12-tone music. He just used this music in tonal way and that is very appealing style. His importance is also quite important, especially when you had composers like Dallapiccola and some Alwyn's works that use the 12-tone method but in a melodic way. The influence of Berg in these two composers is apparent.

Very interesting discussion, thank you!  It is very curious matter that of the three, it was Webern whose music had such an impact on Stravinsky in the 50s (and yet, his music remained very much his own).

I've reached a place where I genuinely like all three of the "Second Viennese Schoolers," each on his own terms.  I must at this point have recordings of very close to all of the Schoenberg works with opus numbers (and a good many without, of course) . . . and, come to think of it, complete sets of both Berg & Webern.

Dallapiccola I am still getting acquainted with!  Very much enjoy some of what I've heard, and the rest I suspect will grow on me.

I am struck by your comment "actually uses tonal centers in his music" . . . at this point, I really don't think there is any such thing as "atonality": but it is a question of where the center or centers of musical gravitation are, and how strong an attraction the material creates to that center (or to those centers).

[karlhenning]

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not great.

That is it, in a nutshell, Greg. Saul's fundamental error is in confusing what he likes, with what is musically great; in confusing what he fails to like or to understand, with what is "worthless."

[Saul]

Even my own Fantasi In F sharp minor is way more superior then the nonsense of Webern, and Schoenberg.

http://www.youtube.com/v/EmC_VyNHZFM

[greg]

They are worthless piece of modern music and the world would have been a better place without them.
It has been a long time now since the word 'intellectual' was used to hide away the banal of modern music.
There is no classical counterpoint as you say, its a total different system.

Wrong. Maybe some people in the world, if they cared enough. I know I wouldn't have been better without them. And many others.

Banal? How?

[karlhenning]

Saul,

If you spent more time listening rather criticizing everything that doesn't fit into your own narrow-minded point-of-view, then you might just learn something.

Who needs to learn anything, when you already know it all? ; )

Even my own Fantasi In F sharp minor is way more superior then the nonsense of Webern, and Schoenberg.

Apart from its immodesty (which of its own is unbecoming), that remark is arrant nonsense.

[karlhenning]

It's like looking at a traffic accident, except it's in someone's mind. 

Oh, there may well be a traffic accident in Saul's mind . . . could explain the impeded flow of reason ; )

[Saul]

Who needs to learn anything, when you already know it all? ; )
 
Apart from its immodesty (which of its own is unbecoming), that remark is arrant nonsense.

Explain to me why I was not right that My Fantasi is way better then thse composers?

You're a composer please explain why not.

[Brahmsian]

Saul, I really do believe it is in the 'ear of the beholder'.  There is great beauty in all classical music.  The failure to appreciate a certain piece or the music of a certain composer is not the failure of the composer, but of the listener.

[Mirror Image]

Very interesting discussion, thank you!  It is very curious matter that of the three, it was Webern whose music had such an impact on Stravinsky in the 50s (and yet, his music remained very much his own).

I've reached a place where I genuinely like all three of the "Second Viennese Schoolers," each on his own terms.  I must at this point have recordings of very close to all of the Schoenberg works with opus numbers (and a good many without, of course) . . . and, come to think of it, complete sets of both Berg & Webern.

Dallapiccola I am still getting acquainted with!  Very much enjoy some of what I've heard, and the rest I suspect will grow on me.

I am struck by your comment "actually uses tonal centers in his music" . . . at this point, I really don't think there is any such thing as "atonality": but it is a question of where the center or centers of musical gravitation are, and how strong an attraction the material creates to that center (or to those centers).

I guess what I meant to say is that Berg implies tonal centers in his music. I don't know anything about music theory and I'm not trained as a musician, so you have to excuse me for any kind of slip-ups I make when talking about the actual music.

Let's take Berg's "Violin Concerto," for example, which for me is the pinnacle of his orchestral writing, the work starts off with that very melodic tone row that forms the basis of the piece. He also uses a Carinthian folk melody he heard as a child and also he quotes a Bach chorale towards the end of the work. The way he interweaved these serial and tonal ideas together makes his music very compelling for me. There's also also so much emotion in his works. He was a very emotional composer, but he was also ingenius in the way he went about using the methods taught to him by Schoenberg. Listening to Anne-Sophie Mutter perform this incredible work with James Levine and the CSO is truly a magical experience.

[Mirror Image]

Saul, I really do believe it is in the 'ear of the beholder'.  There is great beauty in all classical music.  The failure to appreciate a certain piece or the music of a certain composer is not the failure of the composer, but of the listener.

Excellent post.

[greg]

Even my own Fantasi In F sharp minor is way more superior then the nonsense of Webern, and Schoenberg.

No, it isn't. It was okay, but nothing compared to, say, the Schoenberg Piano Suite which you just posted (and the later movements of that are even better). You just don't quite have the understanding of music theory that he did, for one.

Also, it's dumb to just call it all "nonsense." I might not like composers like Babbitt or Stockhausen much, but if I do listen to them, I'm receptive as possible- if I'm not, that only hurts me because I'd only be shutting my mind down to something I could potentially enjoy. If I just can't enjoy their music, oh well. It doesn't mean their music is nonsense- just means I can't enjoy it.

[Franco]

Quote from: Saul on Today at 12:13:07 PM
Even my own Fantasi In F sharp minor is way more superior then the nonsense of Webern, and Schoenberg

Really, quite a remarkable statement.  I daresay I am quite impressed with the lack of tact it took to expose it in public.

[Saul]

No, it isn't. It was okay, but nothing compared to, say, the Schoenberg Piano Suite which you just posted (and the later movements of that are even better). You just don't quite have the understanding of music theory that he did, for one.

Also, it's dumb to just call it all "nonsense." I might not like composers like Babbitt or Stockhausen much, but if I do listen to them, I'm receptive as possible- if I'm not, that only hurts me because I'd only be shutting my mind down to something I could potentially enjoy. If I just can't enjoy their music, oh well. It doesn't mean their music is nonsense- just means I can't enjoy it.

Its nothing compared to, say, the Schoenberg Piano Suite because I'm not him. If I was Schoenberg you would have called it a great work. But because its me Saul Dzorelashvili, a relatively unknown young composer you dismiss it as 'ok' even though I have written it in a combination of Baroque and Romantic styles with passion and the music sounds beautiful, I know you will admit to that, but you would never say it because it would be un intellectual on your part.

Then this again brings us back to attribute greatness to fame, the thing goes like this, if he was famous therefore he was great.

This is a flawed argument because Schoenberg and the Rest of his camp never composed anything of greatness not because they couldn't or didn't have great minds, but because they decided to create music based on completely new modern ideas, and that disturbed their great potential in my opinion.