The Second Viennese School in the 21st Century: Still New?

[Sid]

Last Friday week, I attended a public lecture at Sydney Conservatorium of Music given by composer, musicologist and broadcaster Andrew Ford. It preceded a performance of the music of Schoenberg and Berg, and discussed their work as well as that of Webern (the three making up the 'Second Viennese School'). The following is a condensed version of his lecture, some of it in my own words, some of it using quotes from him. I have tried not to comment here on what he said, simply relate it.

The main issue was whether what these guys did is of any importance to the composers of today. In other words, do the young composers of today think their work is relevant to what they are doing, and do they look for "inspiration, example or guidance" in the works of these composers?

Ford started by discussing how these three composers have had an aesthetic and intellectual "aura" around their work, which has (mainly) not been a helpful one. It was a "destructive attitude" which lead to much "terrible music" being composed by others who had a "rudimentary grasp of the concepts" established by the big three. It was damaging to the relationship between composers and their audience.

Ford discussed the time around 1975 when he first became aware of the works of the Second Viennese School as a music student in London. In the 1970's there were many LP recordings made of these composers works, particularly Schoenberg (1974 being the anniversary of his birth) and Berg (with the premiere of his opera Lulu in it's completed form in 1979). So these were "auspicious days" for these three composer's music.

In the music schools of England, there was an ideology of "regression versus stagnation" which had been exemplified by Pierre Boulez's comments to the effect that unless composers worked to "advance the language of music" then their works would be "useless." For Ford at 18, being at the vanguard of music was an "attractive, Romantic notion," and the Second Viennese School "clearly lead the way."

What attracted Ford and others to this music was it's completely different harmonies and the unique sounds that atonality could render. Schoenberg's (apparent) comment to friend Joseph Wolfe that his discovery of serialism would ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years was also read by Ford to mean (in his teens) that "this was the future of music."

The first serial pieces were composed in the mid-1920's. Since 1945, Webern's music in particular appealed to some composers (but not audiences). Webern's music was analysed and studied, and used as an example as to how to compose serial music. Ford said that with Webern's music "every note mattered" and in adopting this technique, composers were "slowed down a bit" and "made accountable" for everything they did.

There was a "purity" in Webern's music, and it was easy for young composers to "jump from that idea of purity to believe that we were coming up with something new." This attitude made them "dismiss and question music that didn't fit the bill" like Britten, Copland, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius. Ford said that he even got rid of his pop music collection at that time, only to buy it back again later. They also dismissed minimalism which was seen as "so simple, so missing the point of what music could be." Now, of course, it is seen as an important style.

As a young man, the "dogma" of serialism took hold of Ford's mind as a composer. The problem was not the music of the big three but the "dogma" of the establishment. Today, however, he says he has tried to rid himself of the dogma. Composers like Harrison Birtwistle show that Schoenberg's music doesn't have to be understood by the composers of today for them to be good composers. "Schoenberg never actually was the future of music, neither was Berg or Webern." We have come to "think of composers as composers and simply listen to their music, not necessarily think that it's the future (or not), just hear it as music."

Ford then discussed the music of each of the big three in more detail.

Webern was "poorly served by his admirers and proselatisers." Ford said that it was easy to analyse Webern's music as a student - "there are not many notes." "After an hour you could account for every note in the piece - see how it was all put together - yet you understood nothing of the music." The same with "row hunting" which "at the end said nothing about the rhythm or dynamics of a piece." & you "cant hear a 12 tone row, it's not meant to be heard like a theme." So analysis tended to "concentrate on something you couldn't hear" and wasn't "getting close to the music." But what strikes Ford now about Webern's music is it's beauty, the "radiant surfaces" and the "holes or gaps between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves." & the listener hears (say) the "three octave jumps" between the notes, not what the notes themselves are.

With Webern, "there isn't much there" in terms of content and it is "highly transparent" - "what you hear is what you get." The predicters of the future post-war "simply missed the point of what the composer was doing." Webern was "a very human composer" and his hobbies of mountain climbing and collecting crystals is perhaps connected to the angularity and feeling of refracted light in his music. The man "loved nature" and you can clearly hear this in his music.

Berg was seen as the "acceptable" face of the Second Viennese School. To the post-war theorists he was seen as somewhat of a "Romantic backslider and not as serious as the other two or a softie." Today, we can more clearly see the "complexity and multi-layered nature" of his music. Ford said that of the three, he most enjoys listening to the music of Berg, as it seems to offer something new with repeated listening.

& Schoenberg has been the most controversial one. "Claims have been made for and against him." In terms of the post war theorists like Boulez and Adorno, he was seen as being past his use by date because "he hadn't gone the whole hog - discovered serialism and retreated to a neo-classical world." But again, Ford says that today we are more able to "simply listen to the music" without making these judgements. In fact, a work that the two critics above targeted as being soft, the Serenade, is full of humour and references to the past - in an old as well as in a (perhaps) a post-modern kind of way. Keeping an ear out for these things, "the composer seems suddenly human."

Composers and listeners today are "coming to reject all of the dogma that surrounded these composers and just like or admire the music much more greatly." "The fierce ideological battles that went on in the Twentieth Century to do with how modern you were and what that meant have now more or less gone." Composers today just "listen to the sounds in their heads" and listeners are "unencumbered by feelings that they should or should not have." People don't care about what's too simplistic or more complex, they just listen to the music that they like.

To conclude, Ford commented that the Second Viennese School "didn't ensure the future of German or other music" but they were "great individualists and great original innovators and that was enough."

So what are people's thoughts and responses to what Andrew Ford said?. Feel free to discuss, I will join in later...

(P.S. I've posted this on another classical forum, but got no replies, so I thought I'd post it here as well. Perhaps people will take some time to read Ford's thoughts, which I thought were quite interesting and thought-provoking(?)).

[karlhenning]

. . . they were "great individualists and great original innovators and that was enough."

I like that; this will serve.

[Mirror Image]

As I have stated many times already, Berg is my favorite composer of the Second Viennese School. I think his music as Ford points out is highly complex and there's always something to discover in the music that you hadn't heard before. Obviously, Schoenberg has to be given credit for inventing the 12-tone system, but I think Berg did greater things with it than Schoenberg or Webern for that matter. The underlying lyricism of Berg is what keeps drawing me back to his music. It is highly emotive, dramatic music. He found a way to smooth the rough edges of the 12-tone technique and make it more accessible. Of course, we know that all three composeres were considered by many to be death of classical music. It's still amazing that even today these three composers are still viewed as musical degenerates by the more conservative concert goers. I had a person ask me the other day how could I listen to such nonsense. I told them "It's easy, I use both ears."

[jochanaan]

1.  The idea that anyone can "ensure the future of such-and-such music" can be easily debunked by a little historical study and the simple realization that we are each individually responsible for our musical choices.

2.  Any composer whose music I am just discovering is "new" to me.  The Second Viennese School is hardly "new" to me now, but to others who are just discovering their work it is most definitely new.

3.  When ideas become institutions, they are in danger of destroying themselves by their own institutional rigidity.  Schoenberg himself, I believe, was aware of this danger.  He said, famously, "A Chinese poet speaks Chinese--but what does he say?"

[DavidW]

By the time this Ford fellow was discovering these three, composers had moved past them.  Listeners were apathetic before 1975 and remained apathetic after the date at which that speaker discovered their music.  What has changed between 1975 and 2010?  Nothing.  I think that Ford himself matured as a listener and then projected that on to the whole music scene.

If anything it makes it sound like yet again, England is behind the times.  They play baroque music while the rest of Europe was into classical, play romantic while the rest listen to modern, and then hit atonal when postmodernism has taken root.

[Sid]

@ Mirror Image:

Berg was also my gateway into this type of music. When I was 19, I was reading a book on classical music which dealt in depth with Wozzeck. A few weeks later, I saw a recording on special at a cd shop, and bought it out of curiosity (how would this music that I had been reading about sound?). Upon the first few listenings, I immediately connected to the music and what Berg was doing in that work. I'm in my mid 30's now but I'm still discovering composers that are new to me (jochanaan, you are also right), but I think that that initial discovery and engagement with Wozzeck was a eureka moment in my classical music journey.

@ jochanaan:

I think that Ford, using other words and phrases, was getting at the kind of points you make. It is erroneous to make sacred cows or heroes about any kind of artistic figures, because the moment they are out of fashion, so are you. I think that Ford was thankful that the rigid dogmatic views of the immediate post wasr decades is gone, and have been replaced by a kind of plurality. I asked him if other composers now use the serial method, bringing up the name of Elliot Carter (whom Ford interviewed on his radio show a few years ago). Ford said that Carter is not a serialist, he does sometimes use tone rows, but they might not be 12 tone ones, or if they are, he is more flexible. So I guess I learned something new by going to the lecture.

@ DavidW:

I'm out of time, but will reply tomorrow...

[Josquin des Prez]

The real question is: are modern, young composers relevant in the grand scope of things? I challenge anyone to even name five contemporary composers that aren't already approaching senior citizenship.

[DavidW]

I think that is a virtue of classical music that composers take a life time becoming masters.  If you look at any age the people at the time are not likely to recognize who would be the greatest when they are young.  Think of young Bach hitchhiking across Europe, Haydn living nearly impoverished in his 20s. 

In popular music the young ones are the ones that have the fame, but that's because what they look like matters more than the music they create.

[Josquin des Prez]

Yes, but, for one, we are all connoisseurs here, none of us classify as "general listeners", and furthermore, we are no longer living in the 1700s, where information was a lot harder to come by. We have the internet now. It seems unlikely to me that a young composer of the caliber we are discussing here would fail to make that much of an imprint, unless of course such a person does not exist in the first place.

[karlhenning]

Yes, but, for one, we are all connoisseurs here, none of us classify as "general listeners", and furthermore, we are no longer living in the 1700s, where information was a lot harder to come by. We have the internet now. It seems unlikely to me that a young composer of the caliber we are discussing here would fail to make that much of an imprint, unless of course such a person does not exist in the first place.

I think you make an error in assuming that the Internet and the speed of communications necessarily means that compositional talent will therefore become Front Page Headline material. (Strikes me as a naive error, too.)

[DavidW]

Well JdP it is alot harder to get our attention these days, it seems that everything written in the past 400 years is at our fingertips and you could give away new, unheard music but nobody will listen.

[DavidW]

I think you make an error in assuming that the Internet and the speed of communications necessarily means that compositional talent will therefore become Front Page Headline material. (Strikes me as a naive error, too.)

You know it strikes me that I don't even know where to find new, undiscovered talent in classical!  It's tough.  That would be an interesting topic though.

[karlhenning]

Well JdP it is alot harder to get our attention these days, it seems that everything written in the past 400 years is at our fingertips and you could give away new, unheard music but nobody will listen.

One of the truths "in back of" JdP's remarks, though, is certainly that a lot of the oxygen in the room is already owned by established names.  And if you don't already have a name, making your name is one tough business.

[Philoctetes]

You know it strikes me that I don't even know where to find new, undiscovered talent in classical!  It's tough.  That would be an interesting topic though.

I've heard from some that youtube is awash with such talent.

[karlhenning]

As to "still new?" . . . I see no reason why the work of Schoenberg, Berg & Webern would not make new friends among listeners in each generation.  And whether their work continues to be compositionally "relevant" is likewise going to be a matter of individual composers finding inspiration in the music.

[some guy]

The real question is: are modern, young composers relevant in the grand scope of things?

Unless by "grand scope (sic) of things" you mean the "grand scope of art music things" then this is not only not the real question, it's not even a real question, but simply a provocation.

I challenge anyone to even name five contemporary composers that aren't already approaching senior citizenship.

The wording of this certainly suggests that my "provocation" theory is spot on. It's not much of a challenge, either.

Simon Steen-Andersen
Diane Simpson
Natasha Barrett
eRikm
Martin Tetreault
Horváth Balázs
Francisco López
Francisco Meirino
Anna Clyne
Bérangère Maximin
Ludger Brümmer

The challenge for me was when to stop.

[bhodges]

The challenge for me was when to stop.

Ditto.  In no particular order:

Lisa Bielawa
James Matheson
Olga Neuwirth
Missy Mazzoli
Philippe Bodin
Huang Ruo
Hannah Lash
Judd Greenstein

--Bruce

[Cato]

Yes, as mentioned above by Karl Henning, their music will be as new as any composer's music to anyone unacquainted with it.

I once read an essay c. 30 years ago, which stated that Serialism was actually quite mainstream, since a good number of film composers saw its potential and were using it for film scores.  Parts of Psycho by Bernard Herrmann use Schoenberg's method.

The amount of Webernesque garbage composed by professors, in the 50's and 60's especially, ("Augenmusik" as they say in German) must have been immense.

[Josquin des Prez]

Simon Steen-Andersen
Diane Simpson
Natasha Barrett
eRikm
Martin Tetreault
Horváth Balázs
Francisco López
Francisco Meirino
Anna Clyne
Bérangère Maximin
Ludger Brümmer

All of them the equal of a Schoenberg, or a Berg? Riiiiiiiight...

This is a clear example of how modern relativists work. By dropping down all standards, you can just make outlandish claims such as the one implied in the above list and be none the worst for it. Who's going to question the real worth of those composers without begging the question: what is worth? My inquiry was meant to provide a challenge to those who still recognize standards of worth and greatness. People like you, sir, do not apply.

The challenge for me was when to stop.

I can't even think of a time when such a list would exceed the number of one's own fingers. But today, apparently, we have geniuses popping out from every corner and every street. I rest my case.

[karlhenning]

All of them the equal of a Schoenberg, or a Berg? Riiiiiiiight...

This is a clear example of how modern relativists work. By dropping down all standards, you can just make outlandish claims such as the one implied in the above list and be none the worst for it. Who's going to question the real worth of those composers without begging the question: what is worth? My inquiry was meant to provide a challenge to those who still recognize standards of worth and greatness. People like you, sir, do not apply.

I can't even think of a time when such a list would exceed the number of one's own fingers. But today, apparently, we have geniuses popping out from every corner and every street. I rest my case.

Now, even allowing for the fact that not everyone shares your Iron Thimbleful concept of genius, you've changed your tune.  What you asked for was:

. . . I challenge anyone to even name five contemporary composers that aren't already approaching senior citizenship.