A question on 12-tone Schoenberg

[Mirror Image]

I like my Schoenberg straight up, not shaken with a side of free atonality. More seriously, I dig his 'free atonal' period.

[Karl Henning]

Don't have the Norman.  Do have the Boulez and Sinopoli recordings.  The piece strikes me as ugly in both recordings.  Same with Pierrot Lunaire.  Whatever Arnold was doing in those two works, it doesn't work for me.

Although at this stage all the trouble is buried in the past, I did have a troubled history with Erwartung, Pierrot Lunaire, and (e.g.) the Berg Kammerkonzert.  The first I heard them, I was electrified, simply electrified (I mean, in an altogether affirmative way).  Sometime later, I was little more than baffled by them (in the case of Pierrot, my ear had somehow grown especially hostile to the Sprechgesang, though I practically always admired the chamber writing for the instruments).  And sometime later again, I went back to the three pieces, and the electrification came back, and stronger.

It may not work for you, Jeffrey; you may just never come to like these pieces (I am still puzzled at Sarge's non-absorption of the Shostakovich e minor symphony).  But FWIW, the vocal performance which won my ear over in the Schoenberg Op.21 was Anja Silja.  Now, my ear has no quarrel with the Boulez and Sinopoli performances you already know, so, take as many grains of salt as you feel appropriate with this.  But if at some point you want to give them a fresh try, and might find a different performance of service, I warmly recommend the Craft:

[asin]B000MRP1S2[/asin]

[asin]B001BLR7B2[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

You remind me, Karl, I really need to rip the Craft box sets of Schoenberg. Great stuff.

[Karl Henning]

You remind me, Karl, I really need to rip the Craft box sets of Schoenberg. Great stuff.

That it is.  There are some obscurer works I had never heard before fetching in the original Koch series, like the orchestrations of Bach.

[Mirror Image]

That it is.  There are some obscurer works I had never heard before fetching in the original Koch series, like the orchestrations of Bach.

I'm ashamed to say I really haven't explored Schoenberg's oeuvre in-depth. This will change. One Schoenberg work that I hadn't previously heard that I really enjoyed recently was Kol Nidre.

[Cato]

You remind me, Karl, I really need to rip the Craft box sets of Schoenberg. Great stuff.

That it is.  There are some obscurer works I had never heard before fetching in the original Koch series, like the orchestrations of Bach.

I'm ashamed to say I really haven't explored Schoenberg's oeuvre in-depth. This will change.

I am old enough to remember the Columbia Records "Complete Schoenberg Series" with Robert Craft conducting: the Erwartung performance with Helga Pilarczyk was particularly manic and claustrophobic, as was Die Glueckliche Hand !  (Yes, manic and claustrophobic in that good way you have heard about!  )



Volume I was one of my favorite sets, but they were all excellent.  And the booklet inside was exemplary: full of great essays and pictures!

[Sergeant Rock]

(I am still puzzled at Sarge's non-absorption of the Shostakovich e minor symphony).

After years of trying, Lenny finally made me appreciate the Leningrad...so there's hope for an eventual breakthrough with the E minor. Maybe I just need to find the right performance and really concentrate. Petrenko, maybe...he did make the opening movement less a chore when I last listened to it.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

After years of trying, Lenny finally made me appreciate the Leningrad...so there's hope for an eventual breakthrough with the E minor. Maybe I just need to find the right performance and really concentrate. Petrenko, maybe...he did make the opening movement less a chore when I last listened to it.

Sarge

I applaud your pluck, dear fellow!

[Mirror Image]

I am old enough to remember the Columbia Records "Complete Schoenberg Series" with Robert Craft conducting: the Erwartung performance with Helga Pilarczyk was particularly manic and claustrophobic, as was Die Glueckliche Hand !  (Yes, manic and claustrophobic in that good way you have heard about!  )



Volume I was one of my favorite sets, but they were all excellent.  And the booklet inside was exemplary: full of great essays and pictures!

I'm drooling at the very sight of that cover photo!

[SeptimalTritone]

Many thanks everyone. Big thanks. I fixed the error in my example, and tested it with tetrachords as well.

https://musescore.com/user/4084206/scores/2687666

Yes, the unfolding of the 12 tones of the chromatic scales, irrespective of any actual tone row and irrespective of any particular chordal set, determines the rate of harmonic rhythm and harmonic progression.

In fact, I looked at some of Schoenberg's 12 tone music scores, and yes, the feeling of stability or instability rests on the regularity/squareness of the unfolding of the chromatic scale, or the lack therof. And yes, linearity becomes an essential force. Progression from h1 to h2, played as simultaneity, provides a big feeling of cadence. However, just regularity of harmonic/linear rhythm can be evocative of resolution.

Take measure 10-11, and 12-13 of the wind quintet, the closing measures of that initial flute melody. In 10-11, the flute linearly plays the inverted tone row's h1 with h2 in the accompaniment, and in 12-13 the flute h2 and the accompaniment h1. This is the first time in the melody where there's a regular unfoldment of the 12 tones, and a regularity of the rhythm of said unfoldment, in contrast to the other measures. And yes, these last four measures are concluding and resolving, although of course other more powerful resolutions occur as the piece goes on.

So: Schoenberg is strongly dependent on the contrast between regularity or lack of regularity in the linear/harmonic rhythm. Which is of course what happens in high classical era music! In fact, because of the greater chromatic potential of linear melody and its greater implied harmonic salience, we can produce a greater variety in the continuum between stable and unstable.

And yes, for resolution, there's no need to resolve to particular chordal sets, although the motivic-harmonic development of the piece governed by the tone row makes certain sets more strongly resolving. For example, that last hexachord in the first movement of the fourth quartet that I was talking about is the home hexachord and provides greater feeling of finality than some of the other chordal simultaneity endings, although those weaker endings are satisfactory simply because of the force of fleshing out chromatic space.

Why didn't any book or article tell me this?!?!? Gaaaahhh. The kind of analysis where one circles sets in either linear or vertical elements is important for the question of "what is being said and how are things developed?" but not for "what is the propulsive weight of what is being said?" This is like a revelation.

[Cato]

In fact, I looked at some of Schoenberg's 12 tone music scores,

Why didn't any book or article tell me this?!?!? Gaaaahhh. The kind of analysis where one circles sets in either linear or vertical elements is important for the question of "what is being said and how are things developed?" but not for "what is the propulsive weight of what is being said?" This is like a revelation.

The best analysis always starts with the scores, and one can in traditional analysis do quite well with handling harmonic/key-changes, and do quite well with showing the polyphonic entanglements creating that harmony, similar to worrying about the 12-tone method's sets, but by ignoring or not properly attending to the rhythmic nature of the score, one will lack that special pathway to a certain clarity about the music's nature.

To be sure, there will always be mystery about the work, and analysis will perhaps let you see the Promised Land, but like Moses thou shalt not enter it! 0:)  For even the composer is not completely sure about the why and how of every note, and if he is completely sure, then he has calculated like an accountant with a ledger, and not created like an artist.

[Cato]

The best analysis always starts with the scores, and one can in traditional analysis do quite well with handling harmonic/key-changes, and do quite well with showing the polyphonic entanglements creating that harmony, similar to worrying about the 12-tone method's sets, but by ignoring or not properly attending to the rhythmic nature of the score, one will lack that special pathway to a certain clarity about the music's nature.

To be sure, there will always be mystery about the work, and analysis will perhaps let you see the Promised Land, but like Moses thou shalt not enter it! 0:)  For even the composer is not completely sure about the why and how of every note, and if he is completely sure, then he has calculated like an accountant with a ledger, and not created like an artist.

I was reminded today of Mahler's dictum that "there should be no harmony, only counterpoint."

[Uhor]

The sketches of the 10th suggest counterpoint as a secondary elaboration.

[Monsieur Croche]

...just regularity of harmonic/linear rhythm can be evocative of resolution.

So: Schoenberg is strongly dependent on the contrast between regularity or lack of regularity in the linear/harmonic rhythm. Which is of course what happens in high classical era music! In fact, because of the greater chromatic potential of linear melody and its greater implied harmonic salience, we can produce a greater variety in the continuum between stable and unstable.

Why didn't any book or article tell me this?!?!? Gaaaahhh. The kind of analysis where one circles sets in either linear or vertical elements is important for the question of "what is being said and how are things developed?" but not for "what is the propulsive weight of what is being said?" This is like a revelation.

Rhythm and harmonic rhythm are at least 'covered' in theory courses, while the best of us, as students, can and do all along the way get mired in the micro vs. the macro of theory.

In the "this is not your grandmother's tonality anymore" arena of music from Debussy on, rhythm, and the harmonic rhythm, whether it is deployed by way of a systematically calculated mean or from a more intuitive sense going as far as the composer simply flying by the seat of their pants, are pertinent and primary elements in shaping a piece. 

So: Schoenberg is strongly dependent on the contrast between regularity or lack of regularity in the linear/harmonic rhythm. Which is of course what happens in high classical era music!

I loved this, for your connecting the dots, your ensuing excited gestalt, and for what it so strongly demonstrates...  music theory is not a cumulative set of rules, but a panoply of premises with which past composers shaped what, then and now, is thought 'successful.'

You don't need to "Know the rules before you can break the rules."  We don't need no stinkin' rules.  What is needed is a hoard of premises to learn from to know how others made things work (the nuts, bolts, and tools are all pretty much listed in the syllabi of a full set of theory courses); it is to be hoped from that one then goes through the Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis shtick and comes out the other side able to make 'the stuff they are making up' work... without slavishly and dully 'following the rules.'  Again, what rules?

Once out of that intensive period of studying theory, it is also to be hoped that a lot of what was learned there eventually becomes so familiar after continued practice and use that one needs not think of it at all while composing, i.e. it is operating on an intuitive level, and is consciously pulled out of the drawer but once in a while to analyze some problem encountered along the way.

All those fundamental requisites under their belts, most composers will tell you that as invaluable as all the theory study is /was -- what follows assumes there is active grey matter between the named organs -- they rely upon their ears first and foremost.


Best regards.




 

[Monsieur Croche]

I was reminded today of Mahler's dictum that "there should be no harmony, only counterpoint."

Sounds almost exactly like what was said repeatedly throughout four years of music theory classes...

"Good counterpoint is good harmony :: Good harmony is good counterpoint."

[Cato]

Once out of that intensive period of studying theory, it is also to be hoped that a lot of what was learned there eventually becomes so familiar after continued practice and use that one needs not think of it at all while composing, i.e. it is operating on an intuitive level, and is consciously pulled out of the drawer but once in a while to analyze some problem encountered along the way.

All those fundamental requisites under their belts, most composers will tell you that as invaluable as all the theory study is /was -- what follows assumes there is active grey matter between the named organs -- they rely upon their ears first and foremost.

0:) AMEN!!! 0:)

And this reliance upon intuition, upon the unconscious as well as the conscious ear - I think - is what may have led to the "tortured, burning face"* on Arnold Schoenberg.  After reading many things about and by him, and listening to every work, it seems to me that the less than enthusiastic response to his later works puzzled him, because he was following his Muse: how could people not realize that he was relying upon his "ears first and foremost," and not just following the 12-tone method?


*Stravinsky's description of him when the two happened to meet in California once.

[jochanaan]

I was reminded today of Mahler's dictum that "there should be no harmony, only counterpoint."

The way I recall it is, "There IS no harmony; only counterpoint." Mahler loved hyperbole.

[Karl Henning]

Mahler loved hyperbole.

It was a way he had . . . .

[Monsieur Croche]

It was a way he had . . . .

[PotashPie]

Harmony in 12-tone music is just tension between groups of notes. The dissonance can be greater or lesser; but what really makes a difference is where these places are in the path.