Composers before originality....

[karlhenning]

. . . Boulez is mostly just noise, except maybe his music with voice.

Oh, dear . . . .

[Grazioso]

The definition is indeed inept yet there is truth to it - dissonance is in the ears of the listener and when you have grasped the music of Schoenberg or Boulez it is as harmonious, beautiful and pleasant to the ear as anything by Mozart or Beethoven - in short, their music no longer hits you as dissonant.

The problem is that dissonance has very specific meanings in music theory/history, but then there's a vague non-technical "definition" of the term that people use to mean something like "discordant or ugly to me." People end up talking at cross purposes.

[bwv 1080]

but there are no consistent scholarly or technical definitions of dissonance  - just within particular styles of music.  What is considered dissonance in Renaissance polyphony is not the same as what is considered dissonance in common practice tonal harmony or in jazz harmony

[karlhenning]

I don't know much about wavelengths, but I know what I like . . . .

[madaboutmahler]

I don't really care that you don't care. And most of Kodaly's music, for me, is as tasteless as unbuttered toast. The end.

So which ones of his do you like, John? I love "Dances of Galanta"! But I do prefer Bartok, I find his music more effective and sophisticated, and more exciting!

I find his instrumentals confusing but I will investigate the Boulez thread later for more information on that.

I am sorry but I just write what I think. I am honest but maybe too much. I didn't know this place was very formal and controlled. I am new and I am learning how to talk. I dont want to insult you but no need to be insulted. I just want to let you know how I stand on music. What I like and don't like thats all.

Well, welcome to the forum! Don't be put off, this is a wonderful forum really, we do have excellent discussions!  For Boulez, take a listen to his Notations for Orchestra, if you do not know them, these are thrilling!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyXGfztLEMA

[Mirror Image]

So which ones of his do you like, John? I love "Dances of Galanta"! But I do prefer Bartok, I find his music more effective and sophisticated, and more exciting!

Yes, Dances of Galanta is quite good. I like Hary Janos Suite and Summer Evening as well. Kodaly really didn't compose that much music, but I've heard all of his orchestral works and these are the ones that stood out to me.

[karlhenning]

A lovely suite for cello solo, too, of course. Though I understand — no, I realize . . . I don't quite understand it ; ) — that you don't care for solo instrument lit, MI.

[Mirror Image]

A lovely suite for cello solo, too, of course. Though I understand — no, I realize . . . I don't quite understand it ; ) — that you don't care for solo instrument lit, MI.

Well Karl I've always liked combinations of instruments playing together. I like hearing people make music as one. I'm constantly fascinated by the way composer's assign different parts to each musician or section of an orchestra, but the end result is something that blends so well and becomes the voice of one. Does this make sense?

[karlhenning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/2qm7_cI2b30

[karlhenning]

Well Karl I've always liked combinations of instruments playing together. I like hearing people make music as one. I'm constantly fascinated by the way composer's assign different parts to each musician or section of an orchestra, but the end result is something that blends so well and becomes the voice of one. Does this make sense?

I think that probably we all like that, MI. I don't see it as any "conflict" with liking music for one musician solus.

[Mirror Image]

http://www.youtube.com/v/2qm7_cI2b30

Absolutely beautiful, Karl. I've heard this work before.

[Luke]

Well Karl I've always liked combinations of instruments playing together. I like hearing people make music as one. I'm constantly fascinated by the way composer's assign different parts to each musician or section of an orchestra, but the end result is something that blends so well and becomes the voice of one. Does this make sense?

Total sense, MI, yes. But - and you know this, of course - one of the many attractions of solo instrumental music is that the opposite can take place: that from one single source can come a whole world of sounds, an entire drama enacted by a single player. The great, great Kodaly Cello Sonata (his best piece, surely?) is a perfect example of this, and of a similar thing - the making of a single instrument into a whole orchestra  (the corollary and complement to your equally valid 'blending musicians so well that they becomes the voice of one', to almost-quote.)

BTW, almost OT and just to harken way back to something you said in passing earlier and as a point of detail and interest (to me anyway): You include Janacek in your list of early-twentieth century composers who use dissonance in emancipated and exciting ways. I'd never deny the emancipation and the excitement, speaking as a lover of dissonance and of Janacek, but to be exact, though there is of course dissonance in Janacek, what is reeally remarkable is the lack of it. Almost every moment is triadic, there is never atonality (Janacek was not exactly ideologically opposed to atonality, and he admired e.g. Berg deeply, but he felt no imperative to use atonality whatsoever as, he felt, it doesn't exist in folkmusic or in speech melodies...). What sounds like dissonance is more often just the result of the rapidity of thought, the ruggedness of orchestration, the abruptness of juxtaposition and transition, the angularity of register and rhythm etc. (much of this, BTW, could be said about the equally dissonant-sounding-but-triadic Havergal Brian too - it is their chief similarity and perhaps part of the reason they both appeal to me so much). But none of that is german here, so ignore it... 

[Mirror Image]

Total sense, MI, yes. But - and you know this, of course - one of the many attractions of solo instrumental music is that the opposite can take place: that from one single source can come a whole world of sounds, an entire drama enacted by a single player. The great, great Kodaly Cello Sonata (his best piece, surely?) is a perfect example of this, and of a similar thing - the making of a single instrument into a whole orchestra  (the corollary and complement to your equally valid 'blending musicians so well that they becomes the voice of one', to almost-quote.)

BTW, almost OT and just to harken way back to something you said in passing earlier and as a point of detail and interest (to me anyway): You include Janacek in your list of early-twentieth century composers who use dissonance in emancipated and exciting ways. I'd never deny the emancipation and the excitement, speaking as a lover of dissonance and of Janacek, but to be exact, though there is of course dissonance in Janacek, what is reeally remarkable is the lack of it. Almost every moment is triadic, there is never atonality (Janacek was not exactly ideologically opposed to atonality, and he admired e.g. Berg deeply, but he felt no imperative to use atonality whatsoever as, he felt, it doesn't exist in folkmusic or in speech melodies...). What sounds like dissonance is more often just the result of the rapidity of thought, the ruggedness of orchestration, the abruptness of juxtaposition and transition, the angularity of register and rhythm etc. (much of this, BTW, could be said about the equally dissonant-sounding-but-triadic Havergal Brian too - it is their chief similarity and perhaps part of the reason they both appeal to me so much). But none of that is german here, so ignore it... 

Luke, all this talk of Janacek is getting me in the mood for Glagolitic Mass again. Anyway, yes, I understand and agree with your point about Janacek. What an original voice he was and it's just remarkable the way he constructed his music. It's quite rough around the edges, but that's his style. I love it.

Speaking of Glagolitic Mass, have you heard MTT's performance of it with the LSO? This is my favorite recording of the work and his take on Sinfonietta is spot on.

[Brian]

But none of that is german here, so ignore it... 

No, it's in English!

(In all serious, a great post, and thank you for it!)

[Luke]

Oops! 

[not edward]

The great, great Kodaly Cello Sonata (his best piece, surely?)

Just quoting this because it's a work I really can't imagine not having to hand when I'm looking for what it has--particularly in Janos Starker's outrageously exhilarating reading. I know that the first time I heard the Starker, I had a huge grin on my face for much of the finale as I heard how effortlessly he threw off what I--as a lapsed string player--recognized as truly difficult writing.

I've not delved hugely into Kodaly, but the only piece of his that I can think as coming close to the sonata would be the wonderful Psalmus Hungaricus.

[Josquin des Prez]

In the beginning, Bartok's music was nothing more than an emulation of R. Strauss with some Debussy thrown in.

I think there's a bit more then just some Debussy thrown in. A purely Straussian influence can be felt up to the second suite for orchestra, around 1907, but after that Debussy begins to take a much greater role. The portraits and pictures for orchestra, the early piano works (all of which take after the late Debussy, which means they are extremely complex and difficult works), the first two string quartets and so forth. Indeed, i don't buy the notion those works are somehow "easy" compared to his later efforts. It just took him a while to find his own voice, but the complexity of the music was there from the beginning.

[Luke]

[responding to Edward]

Well the Duo for violin and cello comes close in an obvious way, but wonderful though it is, it doesn't have the sonata's fire and spark. Nothing really does, as Edward suggests.

[Luke]

I think there's a bit more then just some Debussy thrown in. A purely Straussian influence can be felt up to the second suite for orchestra, around 1907, but after that Debussy begins to take a much greater role. The portraits and pictures for orchestra, the early piano works (all of which take after the late Debussy, which means they are extremely complex and difficult works), the first two string quartets and so forth. Indeed, i don't buy the notion those works are somehow "easy" compared to his later efforts. It just took him a while to find his own voice, but the complexity of the music was there from the beginning.

Not that long - it appears in the piano music earlier than elsewhere perhaps . I'm guessing, but I think it is there in the op 10 (?) Bagatelles and even in the little-played but extraordinary op 8b (IIRC) Elegies.  (I'm no expert on Bartok, I might be wrong in my chronology and my stylistic assumptions)

edit - yes, I was wrong, the Bagatelles are op 6. Jim Sampson sees these as the beginnings of mature Bartok and a turning point in twentieth century music in his book Music in Transition (I hope I am paraphrasing correctly, I haven't read it for a long time)

[Josquin des Prez]

Yes, the bagatelles come first, followed by the first string quartet, the two elegies, the Romanian dances for piano, the sketches, the dirges and finally the burlesques. All this music takes straight off Debussy's etudes, which is no mean thing. At some point after the second string quartet he comes under the influence of Stravinsky, which is where his final style stems from. The music gets harder, but not necessarily that much more complex. It was always complex.