Lance's Newbie Q&A Corner

[lordlance]

I've been listening to classical for over a decade but truthfully on a theoretical level understand almost nothing. I figure I can try asking questions here (and others) and see if the folks here can give answers that make a little bit of sense (attempts at reading these things online feel like Hebrew to me.)

Q1. Are movements supposed to be "obviously" connected? Because unless there is thematic connection/transformation (which would be obvious and I also think extremely rare), I find it hard to see how Bruckner 4.I is connected to II. Is all the info to be found only upon reading the sheet music?

Q2. I know that Mahler 10 sort of hints at the direction that Schoenberg was going but, to me, it really does feel like Schoenberg has absolutely no connection whatsoever to what preceded. I am befuddled as to how Wagner, Mahler, Strauss' next logical step would be Schoenberg. 

Q3. Is there any way to know what "being in key of <x>" means? I understand that notes themselves are pitches which are frequencies which is why I do not understand how a piece is in the "key of B minor."

[Jo498]

1 no. There is some expectation that movements are not haphazard and there are both fairly strict rules, e.g. a classical sonata or symphony MUST close in the same key (or major/minor variant) it began and almost always one, usually the slow movement is in a contrasting but related key, and some optional customs (e.g. some baroque suites have the courante and allemande movements thematically related). By the late romantic era, pieces could end in a completely different key, e.g. Mahler's 9th begins in D major and ends in D flat major and C major and a minor for the inner movements would also not have been typical keys in the early 19th century.
Most key relations the late 18th to mid 19th century would be based on 5th or 3rd steps from the main key, e.g. Beethoven's 7th: A major, a minor, F major (3rd down) A major. Or Brahms' 1st: c minor, E major (3rd up), A flat major (3rd down), c minor -> C major.

But there don't have to be obvious or hidden thematic relationships. However, many composers use such relationships and Bruckner almost always has some variant of the 1st movements main theme re-occur in the finale.

2. Listen to e.g. Wagner's Tristan and Verklärte Nacht, to a Quartet by Dvorak or Brahms and Schönberg's unnumbered (zeroth) string quartet or to a Reger quartet and Schönberg's 1st quartet. He was, in some sense a conservative composer (and aware of that, he mocked Stravinsky as "little Modernsky", the complaint being "shallow" denial of traditional organic unity, like a kid with drum provoking the adults)

3. Look into an introductory book on scales and major/minor keys and functional harmony (tonic, dominant etc.) to understand that. Being in a key means that the piece begins and ends with certain harmonies/chords defining that key (not only e.g. the main/root C major chord but related chords and their typical orders). It's not something I can explain in a few lines. There are probably also videos with sound examples that show how one "feels" that things are in a key.

[Mandryka]

Q2. I know that Mahler 10 sort of hints at the direction that Schoenberg was going
 

Where've you got this idea from? It's a new one on me.

Q2. I know that Mahler 10 sort of hints at the direction that Schoenberg was going but, to me, it really does feel like Schoenberg has absolutely no connection whatsoever to what preceded. I am befuddled as to how Wagner, Mahler, Strauss' next logical step would be Schoenberg.

 

Listen to the first couple of minutes of Mahler 1 and Schoenberg's Farben from his op 16 -- the way the timbres are layered.

 Brahms and  Wagner  liked to take little tunes and use as the basis for whole movements, by ringing the changes on them all the time. This is very much part of  Schoenberg's way of composing.

[Mandryka]

I find it hard to see how Bruckner 4.I is connected to II. 

To me those two movements sound obviously connected, at the level of timbre, texture certainly, and I bet there are even thematic connections, though I can't prove it.

[StudioGuy]

Q2. I know that Mahler 10 sort of hints at the direction that Schoenberg was going but, to me, it really does feel like Schoenberg has absolutely no connection whatsoever to what preceded. I am befuddled as to how Wagner, Mahler, Strauss' next logical step would be Schoenberg.

Q3. Is there any way to know what "being in key of <x>" means? I understand that notes themselves are pitches which are frequencies which is why I do not understand how a piece is in the "key of B minor."

This is going to be very difficult to explain because your Q2, the progression to Schoenberg, is all about keys and harmony but your Q3 indicates you don't really understand what keys (and therefore harmony) are. I advise as a previous poster already has, an introductory video/article on scales, chords and harmony. Extremely briefly and oversimplified; a key is based on a "scale" that has 7 notes and each note has a chord, which is a set of notes played at the same time. Using your example of B minor, the first note is obviously B and so chord I of B minor would be BDF#, chord II would be C#EG, etc. Harmony is a sequence of these chords and the "rules" of harmony (exactly which notes each chord could contain, which chords could be placed next to one another, etc.) were quite strict in the classical music period.

The progression to Schoenberg starts in the romantic/late romantic period when some of these rules started to be bent and certainly Wagner was one of the main players in this progression but then came the impressionists, who took it to a whole new level. By the time we get to Debussy, the rules of harmony are so bent out of shape it's hard to even recognise what they are. Where do you progress from a set of rules that are so bent/broken they're hardly rules anymore? One logical progression would be to effectively ban those rules entirely and come up with a new, unrelated set of rules. That is the logical progression of Schoenberg, his new set of rules is called "the twelve tone technique" (or serialism) and those who followed them are called the 2nd Viennese School.

Again, this is a massive oversimplification and the progression was far less simple and obvious than I've made it out to be, but it's the best I can come up with in a few minutes.

[lordlance]

This is going to be very difficult to explain because your Q2, the progression to Schoenberg, is all about keys and harmony but your Q3 indicates you don't really understand what keys (and therefore harmony) are. I advise as a previous poster already has, an introductory video/article on scales, chords and harmony. Extremely briefly and oversimplified; a key is based on a "scale" that has 7 notes and each note has a chord, which is a set of notes played at the same time. Using your example of B minor, the first note is obviously B and so chord I of B minor would be BDF#, chord II would be C#EG, etc. Harmony is a sequence of these chords and the "rules" of harmony (exactly which notes each chord could contain, which chords could be placed next to one another, etc.) were quite strict in the classical music period.

The progression to Schoenberg starts in the romantic/late romantic period when some of these rules started to be bent and certainly Wagner was one of the main players in this progression but then came the impressionists, who took it to a whole new level. By the time we get to Debussy, the rules of harmony are so bent out of shape it's hard to even recognise what they are. Where do you progress from a set of rules that are so bent/broken they're hardly rules anymore? One logical progression would be to effectively ban those rules entirely and come up with a new, unrelated set of rules. That is the logical progression of Schoenberg, his new set of rules is called "the twelve tone technique" (or serialism) and those who followed them are called the 2nd Viennese School.

Again, this is a massive oversimplification and the progression was far less simple and obvious than I've made it out to be, but it's the best I can come up with in a few minutes.

Fair enough but from what I did glean, it does seem that Schoenberg did indeed break radically from what preceded because... Nowhere else left to go?

Incidentally, much like programming, I think music is actually much better interactively through video / audio. Music is... Sound after all. I imagine just reading these things would make them much more abstract

[StudioGuy]

Fair enough but from what I did glean, it does seem that Schoenberg did indeed break radically from what preceded because... Nowhere else left to go?

Certainly, throwing out virtually all the traditional rules of tonal harmony was extremely radical and stylistically significantly different to the impressionists. On the other hand, the result of Schoenberg's new rules was not as shockingly different as would be expected from effectively banning many of the rules of harmonic tonality. Meanwhile, harmonic analysis of say Debussy and some other impressionists indicates their compositions should sound more discordant (less tonal) than they actually do. The end result is that although radical, the difference is not as great as it might at first appear. It could be argued that the difference between the high baroque and the classical period is stylistically greater.

It's not really that there was "nowhere else left to go", post-romanticism was one way to go and there were potentially others. It's more a case of it being a logical progression from routinely breaking the rules to just abandoning them entirely. So it's not the sudden, unexpected, shocking break from tradition as it may appear to be. Ultimately, Schoenberg's "twelve tone technique" was somewhat of a dead end but it did raise deep philosophical/psychological questions about the perception of tonality/atonality and fundamentally of what music is, and in this sense at least, it was therefore a very significant influence on nearly all of the "avant garde" C20th classical music movements that were to follow.

Again, this is all a serious oversimplification. Schoenberg wasn't alone and there were others independently exploring the same aspects of tonality/atonality, Charles Ives would be one example.

[lordlance]

Certainly, throwing out virtually all the traditional rules of tonal harmony was extremely radical and stylistically significantly different to the impressionists. On the other hand, the result of Schoenberg's new rules was not as shockingly different as would be expected from effectively banning many of the rules of harmonic tonality. Meanwhile, harmonic analysis of say Debussy and some other impressionists indicates their compositions should sound more discordant (less tonal) than they actually do. The end result is that although radical, the difference is not as great as it might at first appear. It could be argued that the difference between the high baroque and the classical period is stylistically greater.

It's not really that there was "nowhere else left to go", post-romanticism was one way to go and there were potentially others. It's more a case of it being a logical progression from routinely breaking the rules to just abandoning them entirely. So it's not the sudden, unexpected, shocking break from tradition as it may appear to be. Ultimately, Schoenberg's "twelve tone technique" was somewhat of a dead end but it did raise deep philosophical/psychological questions about the perception of tonality/atonality and fundamentally of what music is, and in this sense at least, it was therefore a very significant influence on nearly all of the "avant garde" C20th classical music movements that were to follow.

Again, this is all a serious oversimplification. Schoenberg wasn't alone and there were others independently exploring the same aspects of tonality/atonality, Charles Ives would be one example.

Is your characterization of it being dead end a personal (and controversial?) opinion or does everyone agree with that view now? Dave has often talked about how dogmatic that lot was mid-20th century but eventually the movement just couldn't sustain itself... Nowhere to go.

In my view, even a century later, the 2nd Viennesse composers remains as inaccessible now as then (and music written much later is easier to appreciate even if... Well, an acquired taste.) 

[Jo498]

I think the "dead end" metaphor doesn't say very much about the quality of the music (if it makes sense at all).
How many masterpieces does a style have to give rise to for it not to be a "dead end"?
"Wagnerianism" was a "dead end" in a sense that 1930s musical theatre mostly didn't sound like Wagner and there were strong "counterreactions" alread around 1900 but does this take anything away from Wagner's own or Strauss' and some other operas?

[Mandryka]

What Schoenberg's work showed was that you could make good music without the straightjacket of tonal harmony. I think this is uncontentious, certainly among musical people. No-one today would say that Pierrot Lunaire or Moses and Aaron are not good music, apart from Colonel Blimp type reactionaries. Of course, not everyone likes it - the same is true for all composers.

Where it led to was the adoption of the same approach to other aspects of composition - not just harmony but also timbre, rhythm etc.

All this sounds to me like ancient history. Music wiped its hands of serialism in the 1980s - nearly half a century ago.

[Mandryka]

I think the "dead end" metaphor doesn't say very much about the quality of the music (if it makes sense at all).
How many masterpieces does a style have to give rise to for it not to be a "dead end"?
"Wagnerianism" was a "dead end" in a sense that 1930s musical theatre mostly didn't sound like Wagner and there were strong "counterreactions" alread around 1900 but does this take anything away from Wagner's own or Strauss' and some other operas?

Wagnerism, not his harmonic language but his aesthetics of Gesamtkunstwerk, lived a long time after -in e.g. Licht, Prometeo, the Xenakis polytopes. Rumours of its demise are exaggerated.

[relm1]

Where've you got this idea from? It's a new one on me.

Schoenberg adored Mahler.  He says so.  Check it out here starting on the Mahler chapter.  He also felt like he was the heir to Brahms and Mahler.  He said in 1950 he wasn't a revolutionist but an evolutionist, doing what they were heading towards.  In his mind, he felt they were pushing the boundaries of tonality and structure, and he kept going on that path to the point where tonality no longer mattered but believing they were going to make the same conclusion had they lived long enough. He talks about that all the time and in multiple sources.  He wasn't anti-tonality.  He believed he was fulfilling the direction tonality was heading.

[Mandryka]

Schoenberg adored Mahler.  He says so.  Check it out here starting on the Mahler chapter.  He also felt like he was the heir to Brahms and Mahler.  He said in 1950 he wasn't a revolutionist but an evolutionist, doing what they were heading towards.  In his mind, he felt they were pushing the boundaries of tonality and structure, and he kept going on that path to the point where tonality no longer mattered but believing they were going to make the same conclusion had they lived long enough. He talks about that all the time and in multiple sources.  He wasn't anti-tonality.  He believed he was fulfilling the direction tonality was heading.

That may well be the case, but the point I was asking for clarification about was slightly more specific, that Mahler 10 "sort of hints" at the direction that Schoenberg was going.

[steve ridgway]

All this sounds to me like ancient history. Music wiped its hands of serialism in the 1980s - nearly half a century ago.

It's all history - just a matter of which rooms of the museum you like to explore .

[StudioGuy]

Is your characterization of it being dead end a personal (and controversial?) opinion or does everyone agree with that view now? Dave has often talked about how dogmatic that lot was mid-20th century but eventually the movement just couldn't sustain itself... Nowhere to go.

In my view, even a century later, the 2nd Viennesse composers remains as inaccessible now as then (and music written much later is easier to appreciate even if... Well, an acquired taste.)

No, my characterisation of it being a dead end (I actually stated "somewhat of a dead end") isn't personal and it's not really controversial, except that as mentioned, it was a huge oversimplification for brevity and was inevitably therefore somewhat inaccurate. One could argue that the strict (new) rules of Schoenberg were essentially a dead end and therefore the 2nd Viennese School ended with its main protagonists Webern and Berg. On the other hand, one could argue that it didn't really die, it just evolved or was subsumed into other movements. Copland and Stravinsky for example used large parts of Schoenberg's twelve tone technique in some of their later compositions. It's underlying principle of "serialism" was taken up (in some of their compositions) by a wide range of composers post WWII, from Benjamin Britten to Bartok, John Cage to Stockhausen and even Frank Zappa, and various others.

The average listener has a rather simplistic view of music as a pleasant entertainment, although they are somewhat aware that it's an art form that both drives and responds to culture ("pop culture" most obviously). The 2nd Viennese School continued this tradition and while "atonalism" started in the early 1900's, the "culture" that the 2nd Viennese School was largely responding to was industrialisation and the horrors of the 1st World War. The "Expressionist" movement of which Schoenberg was arguably the principle music proponent, allowed expressing this "horror" in a more subjective/realistic way, unlike in the previous movements it could employ "unpleasantness". This of course contradicts the simplistic view of music being a "pleasant entertainment", which is why  it's "inaccessible" for many people. To gain an appreciation requires understanding what it is trying to express, realising that pleasantness is a limitation and that unpleasantness can be an artistic tool.

Again, this is still an oversimplification. "Expressionism", other "contemporary" movements and the evolution of classical music in the C20th is very complex and not easily defined or explained, especially in just a paragraph or two!

[hopefullytrusting]

Ron Jarzombek's 12-tone system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpJAnT9loiI

Summary of his book, just published this year, I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phI33TZUcq0

[Mandryka]

Interesting essay (written in 1960) by Krenek on this subject

https://www.krenek.at/krenek-online/lm-ii-005-02