Composers before originality....

[Brahmsian]

After Bach, all attempts at music were simply exercises in futility!   

[Grazioso]

After Bach, all attempts at music were simply exercises in futility!   

That's why Czerny wrote his 125 Exercises in Futility, to help piano students master the new decadent style 

[karlhenning]

. . . Only a gullible person would believe tonality is exhausted, the symphony is dead, etc.

QFT

[not edward]

Nor are Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Part convincing arguments as Schnittke is not only a third fiddle composer, but a symptom of decadence, what with his ecclecticism - i.e. that monotonous blend of satirized modernism, over-sentimentalized pastiches of the eighteenth century - and what might be called the Shostakovich factor, which Shostakovich factor gets worse and worse as Schnittke gets older...

I really think this does greatly oversimplify Schnittke--there's lots of stuff out there which really doesn't fit the modernism/pastiche dichotomy. Even within the works that do, any notion of a retreat to the past is surely torpedoed by the number of times that it's the tonal music which is the agent of catastrophe in these works.

One area, though, that I wish he had explored more was the concept of a dialectic between tonal and atonal material as a structural linchpin analogous to sonata form. It's something I feel had some potential to it, and if I'd been better at writing music I might well have made some efforts to explore this area. (I guess his ideas in this regard form a bit of an analogue to Busoni's Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music--something Busoni, like Schnittke, either wasn't able to or didn't wish to follow up on.)

... The kind of nonsense people end up writing when they take Adorno seriously (which the intellectual equivalent of taking singing lessons from Marcel Marceau).

I don't have an issue with taking Adorno seriously (some of his commentary, particularly on Mahler and early-20th-century composers, seems to me to be rather astute). I do have one with taking him uncritically, given that his musical criticism was always in service of a particular agenda, and most distinctly self-serving. (I'd like to read the full texts of Ligeti's vituperative response to Vers une musique informelle, if it was ever put into print.)

[Cato]

And what if the music of Gesualdo had been more known?

I have not looked at this topic until today, and see that it reinvents some of our previous discussions.  Somewhere recently I mentioned the famous scene in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus where The Devil      offers a composer the gift of dodecaphony, so that he can become an original voice.

One of the hopes of a hundred years ago was an expansion of the scales into microtonal areas, and some great works were composed in that style.  They remain of course basically unknown to the average person.  But we have discussed this before: the average person apparently becomes seasick - or wrinkles their nose as if the sounds reeked of Limburger cheese - rather than finding the sounds fascinating.

Or the reaction of a friend to one of my quarter-tone works written a la Bach: "This will be evidence against you at your sanity hearing."   0:)

Over 60 years ago, Schoenberg did not predict or even advocate the death of C major.  But have we had any great works written in C major in the last 50 years...?  Any nominees? 

And Penderecki's Polymorphia does not count!   

More on topic: I think of the rather Schubertian Symphony #0 and the "Study Symphony" of Bruckner in comparison to the later symphonies, but even the First Symphony is beyond Schubert in every way.

[Brahmsian]

Over 60 years ago, Schoenberg did not predict or even advocate the death of C major.  But have we had any great works written in C major in the last 50 years...?  Any nominees? 

OK - Stravinsky's Symphony in C is past the due date, I realize (1940)

[Brahmsian]

Terry Riley's 'In C'?

[starrynight]

But have we had any great works written in C major in the last 50 years...?  Any nominees? 

Well you can look yourself too.  And really it might depend on how you define 'great', whether you think a piece is in the key of C enough as well as probably other factors.  But I've no doubt there have been some excellent pieces written around the key of C in the last 50 years.  There may be some pieces I know but in some cases I might not know they are in C anyway.

[Cato]

Well you can look yourself too. 

But I don't want to!




Certainly Minimalism can use C major in Minimalism's idiosyncratic way.  (ChamberNut mentioned In C)

Have the Minimalists opened up new areas for a new generation of composers, i.e. if the earlier works of now 45-year old composer Johann Camille Von Poseur y Santa Ana showed the influence of Glass, Adams, etc., what does his style now show?

The answer: whatever he wants it to show!  I am not sure that a linear logic, as mentioned earlier, is an imperative. 

[eyeresist]

I have not looked at this topic until today, and see that it reinvents some of our previous discussions.

And how!

Over 60 years ago, Schoenberg did not predict or even advocate the death of C major.  But have we had any great works written in C major in the last 50 years...?  Any nominees? 

Terry Riley has already been mentioned (we need not dispute its greatness or otherwise here). The main thing is that it has become unfashionable to denote music as being in a certain key.

[Cato]

And how!

Terry Riley has already been mentioned (we need not dispute its greatness or otherwise here). The main thing is that it has become unfashionable to denote music as being in a certain key.

Some months ago I wrote to Karl Henning about my non-quarter-tone style from the days when I was composing.

Maybe he has it on file: but to summarize it quickly, I had developed a tonal system based on 9-tone scales which linked together in groups of 3's and led to 9-part (nonuple) polyphonic textures.  I conceived of music as a painting, with the music paper as my canvas.

I can guarantee that it did not sound like anything you have ever heard, and yet contained many traditional features albeit in a transmogrified fashion.

Was it in a key?  Not exactly, but in another sense, yes it was.

[Ten thumbs]

Since I've just begun a thread on Stephen Heller, I will introduce him again here because although he is not classed as a great composer one could say that we have not yet caught up with him.
He was at first associated with Schumann and his early works are in the style of the day. However, this was not the style of yesterday. Most students of the piano know him from these works e.g the Op.16 Art of Phrasing and the Op.45-47 Studies but somewhere around Op.50 he disengages himself from this style. The second Sonata is a dramatic example of the effects of this. I don't think he was consciously trying to be new. He probably heard the music he wanted to write and wrote it no matter what others thought. Unfortunately for him the tide of musical advancement was towards greater and greater tonal freedom and the structural changes he was employing went unnoticed containing as they do some of the elements of modern minimalism (eg constant repetition of phrase fragments).

[starrynight]

I can guarantee that it did not sound like anything you have ever heard, and yet contained many traditional features albeit in a transmogrified fashion.

That's a bit of a contradiction imo. 

[jochanaan]

Webern's Passacaglia, Op. 1 sounds pretty original, to me.  But that's just me.

Have you heard his earlier Im Sommerwind?  Sort of a "kinder, gentler" Richard Strauss...

[Brahmsian]

Have you heard his earlier Im Sommerwind?  Sort of a "kinder, gentler" Richard Strauss...

Yes I have.  It is a gorgeous piece! 

[mszczuj]

I think it can work the other way. Beethoven's earliest works like his piano trio are more refined than anything he wrote after. I like his later music but nothing matches these works and also his Septet. Same with Bartok, after about the end of the first war he lost his way, his music became ugly and harsh. Before that he was at the level of Debussy, after he just made things very hard for listeners more interested in refined music.

I must say the way you use the word "refined" is rather refined.

[Opus106]

[W]ith Bartok, after about the end of the first war he lost his way, his music became ugly and harsh. Before that he was at the level of Debussy, after he just made things very hard for listeners more interested in refined music.

But his most popular works, by which I mean  loved by many and less "ugly and harsh", are from the later stages of his life.

[Mirror Image]

Same with Bartok, after about the end of the first war he lost his way, his music became ugly and harsh. Before that he was at the level of Debussy, after he just made things very hard for listeners more interested in refined music.

In the beginning, Bartok's music was nothing more than an emulation of R. Strauss with some Debussy thrown in. Nothing original or innovative about him, but when he started to develop a deep interest in Hungarian folk music his music became much more interesting rhythmically, harmonically, melodically, and it incorporated more dissonances, which gave his music a sweet/sour mood, which I love. Bartok's music has been an inspiration for me and he's one of the reasons I got into classical music to begin with. Nobody will judge you for not liking his music, but if you have a problem with dissonance then you should most definitely stay away from 20th Century music.

[madaboutmahler]

In the beginning, Bartok's music was nothing more than an emulation of R. Strauss with some Debussy thrown in. Nothing original or innovative about him, but when he started to develop a deep interest in Hungarian folk music his music became much more interesting rhythmically, harmonically, melodically, and it incorporated more dissonances, which gave his music a sweet/sour mood, which I love. Bartok's music has been an inspiration for me and he's one of the reasons I got into classical music to begin with. Nobody will judge you for not liking his music, but if you have a problem with dissonance then you should most definitely stay away from 20th Century music.

I absolutely love Bartok's music as well! When do you think his more original style started to come through John? Kossuth? Wooden Prince ballet maybe?
I know that Bartok's music recieves very mixed views - for example, I cannot remember who said it, but a quote I remember is "listening to Bartok is more painful than visiting the dentist".
Obviously I do not agree with this!

[Mirror Image]

I absolutely love Bartok's music as well! When do you think his more original style started to come through John? Kossuth? Wooden Prince ballet maybe?
I know that Bartok's music recieves very mixed views - for example, I cannot remember who said it, but a quote I remember is "listening to Bartok is more painful than visiting the dentist".
Obviously I do not agree with this!

I would say Bartok's full orchestral style started to develop quite rapidly by the time he finished The Wooden Prince and Bluebeard's Castle. This marked a new direction for his music and by the time he completed The Miraculous Mandarin this new style had fully blossomed.