Mendelssohn vs. Schoenberg

[Teresa]

I voted for Mendelssohn, I really love his Hebrides Overture and can hear his talent in works of his I am not that fond of. 

Schoenberg on the other hand took many young modern composers down the atonal and hard dissonance road, so I see him as a negative influence.  Thank god Respighi created the neo-classical movement to rebel against Schoenberg.  Because of Respighi's movement at least half of modern classical works are tonal.

[Luke]

Not going to dispute the main thrust of your post, even though personally I adore Schoenberg etc - you are right that neo-classicism represented the main 'other way' to atonality and modernism in the first decades of the 20th century (though Schoenberg himself was certainly not unaffected by neo-classicism himself - just check out his op 23-5 for starters - pure neo-classicism, albeit in an atonal harmonic language).

But just to point out, Respighi isn't really much to do with it, certainly not a creator of the style. FWIW the Wiki page on neo-classicism in music doesn't even mention Respighi, not even at the bottom of the page in its list of notable neo-classical composers. Which is not to say that Respighi isn't great fun every now and then, nor to say that he didn't have his neo-classical moments.

[Teresa]

Not going to dispute the main thrust of your post, even though personally I adore Schoenberg etc - you are right that neo-classicism represented the main 'other way' to atonality and modernism in the first decades of the 20th century (though Schoenberg himself was certainly not unaffected by neo-classicism himself - just check out his op 23-5 for starters - pure neo-classicism, albeit in an atonal harmonic language).

But just to point out, Respighi isn't really much to do with it, certainly not a creator of the style. FWIW the Wiki page on neo-classicism in music doesn't even mention Respighi, not even at the bottom of the page in its list of notable neo-classical composers. Which is not to say that Respighi isn't great fun every now and then, nor to say that he didn't have his neo-classical moments.

Thanks Luke I stand corrected, not sure why I thought Respighi was the head of the movement in opposition to Schoenberg, after reading the definition of neo-classical I am now not even sure that is the right movement. 

From Respighi's listing in Wikipedia

"In his role as musicologist, Respighi was also an enthusiastic scholar of Italian music of the 16th-18th centuries. He published editions of the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi, and of Benedetto Marcello's Didone. Because of his devotion to these older figures and their styles of composing, it is tempting to see him as a typical exponent of Neo-classicism. In fact, Neo-Renaissance or Neo-Baroque would probably more accurately describe his compositions that are based on earlier work. Respighi generally kept clear of the musical idiom of the classical period, unlike most neo-classical composers. He preferred combining pre-classical melodic styles and musical forms (like dance suites) with typical late 19th century romantic harmonies and textures."

My favorite contemporary composer's are Neo-Romantics, Neo-Classicists, Neo-Moderns and I guess Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque. 

[Wendell_E]

It's a trick question in any case.  Any fool knows Muhammad Ali was "The Greatest".

[jowcol]

It is a mark of how little attention I pay to Schoenberg that when you said "Arnold" here, first I thought, "But Malcolm Arnold wasn't an option in the poll!" And then I thought, "Neither was Arnold Bax." And then, "Maybe it's a Schwarzenegger joke." Followed at last by, "...Oh."

Silly me. I thought the discussion was about Arnold the Pig from Green Acres.



Tragically, as you all may know, the first actor to play the role of Arnold the Pig when to the great GMG Poll in the sky in 1972.   If you wish to visit the resting place for his mortal remains, you may find them here.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=14282158

What is not widely known about Arnold the Pig was that he was neither interested in the "Classical" or "Modern" periods, but rather Renaissance era Madrigals...

[Saul]

I voted for Mendelssohn, I really love his Hebrides Overture and can hear his talent in works of his I am not that fond of. 

Schoenberg on the other hand took many young modern composers down the atonal and hard dissonance road, so I see him as a negative influence.  Thank god Respighi created the neo-classical movement to rebel against Schoenberg.  Because of Respighi's movement at least half of modern classical works are tonal.

Thank you.

[Josquin des Prez]

I don't see how anyone could not like these early tonal works of Schoenberg. They're steeped in the German Romantic tradition. Thick harmonies and orchestration abound. Deep melodies that cry out into the night. Quite beautiful music indeed.

Schoenberg's early works are just as frigthening as his latter ones. There is no trace of German Romanticism in his music. Even his tonal works are a psychological nightmare of Kafkan proportions. The man was too disturbed to produce anything that might be considered beautiful. It was up to Webern, who had no darker side in his soul, to introduce beauty into the contorted idiom of the first. 

[karlhenning]

Schoenberg's early works are just as frigthening as his latter ones.

Well, but then you spook so easily, you tender-eared fellow ; )

[knight66]

Schoenberg's early works are just as frigthening as his latter ones. There is no trace of German Romanticism in his music. Even his tonal works are a psychological nightmare of Kafkan proportions. The man was too disturbed to produce anything that might be considered beautiful. It was up to Webern, who had no darker side in his soul, to introduce beauty into the contorted idiom of the first.

Simply not true! The opening of Gurrelieder with its evocation of nature is explicitly an extension of Mahler. Ditto 'The Song of the Wood dove' from the same piece, it also echos Wagner.

Verklärte Nacht sounds to me like a development of the sounds heard in Mahler's 9th symphony.

Later he turned his back on this form of music, but the influences are clearly there in these earlier works.

Mike

[karlhenning]

The assertion that Schoenberg was "was too disturbed to produce anything that might be considered beautiful" is rubbish on several levels.  It is an ad hominem irrelevance in the first place. In the second, the idea that a person being "disturbed" is therefore precluded from the creation of the beautiful, joins a long parade of tendentious bogusness to come from "Josquin."  Most people allow that Dostoyevsky's fiction contains many passages of great beauty;  and one can argue that he was to some degree or another "disturbed" as a result of his near-execution.

[knight66]

Conclusive evidence of beauty. I rest my case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8hNxAGivMc

Mike

[Luke]

(that's Berg, not Schoenberg, Mike; beautiful nonetheless)

also odd to read that the composer of Gurrelieder had 'no trace of German Romanticism in his music' - surely it is one of the key, textbook works in the German Romantic line. All the hallmarks are there, writ as large as possible (makes no difference that the source poem is Danish!)

[karlhenning]

Dolcissima, Mike, thanks!

[knight66]

You are of course right and thanks Luke, I will leave my error intact.

Mike

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Verklärte Nacht sounds to me like a development of the sounds heard in Mahler's 9th symphony.

Which is a neat trick, considering that it predates Mahler's 9th by about 10 years.

The assertion that Schoenberg was "was too disturbed to produce anything that might be considered beautiful" is rubbish on several levels.

Though such pearls of wisdom are typical of "Josquin," I have to admit that he inadvertently hit on one of the reasons for Schoenberg's appeal, at least to me. Hell, I like nightmarish, Kafkaesque music. Twelve-Tone Arnie really delivered the goods in that department.

Me, I'm bracing myself for a listen to my recently-acquired disc of Arnie's String Trio: his heart attack set to music.

[knight66]

Which is a neat trick, considering that it predates Mahler's 9th by about 10 years.

I did make one daft mistake, but that was not it. I do know which came first, but I was trying to point out the way in which Schoenberg fed off that late Romantic music, especially of Mahler and that they do sound as though written sequentially the other way round.

Thanks,

Mike

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I did make one daft mistake, but that was not it.

Indeed. VN shows the degree to which Sch. was ahead of his time. Somebody commented that the score looked like a Wagner score smeared while the ink was still wet, or words to that effect.

[Clever Hans]

Schoenberg is fun. His music is a new way of looking at the world. He was and is able to cause peculiar sensuous, cultural and intellectual aversion in people by prodding their assumptions and habituations.
He was also kind of a musical scientist. The Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen was a great idea (excluding critics), and it's interesting that he didn't allow any of his own work to be performed there for two years.

[jochanaan]

Yea .. you touch on something here; is Mendelssohn's music ever really dark, intense, forceful or even disturbing ever? Does it really penetrate the consciousness in a big way? Sure, it's sunny, pretty & beautifully & exquisitely crafted but it often lacks depth or something, it's superficial sounding .. passive, buttoned up even frivolous.. it's the same sort of vibe I get listening to stuff like Mozart.

Does music have to be dark to move?  I find much of Mozart's music, and Mendelssohn's too, deeply moving without darkness...

Yea ... there is a big misconception about the 2nd Viennese school i find (mostly amoungst folks who hear bits, but aren't that deeply exposed to it), and it's that these guys operated in a vacuum with little connection with the musical past. Or that they created new genres etc. Total bunk of course, it arose from what came before. Webern being the most unique however, as he distilled & purified & reduced his music so much so that traces of that are very hard to detect. One of the reasons why I dig him so much tho. And still ... they all wrote for the traditional models-instruments-vehicles too ... string quartet, orchestra, choir, cantatas, variations, symphonies, operas, concertos, lieder etc ...

That was another characteristic of much music from the 20th century's first half: looking forward by looking back if you will.  Of course there were Stravinsky and the other Neoclassic composers, but Webern also looked back in this way; he modeled his Concerto for Nine Instruments after the Bach Brandenburgs despite its very different melodic, harmonic and rhythmic material.

[Josquin des Prez]

and Mendelssohn's too... deeply moving

Does not compute.