Schoenberg's Style and Idea Discussion

Started by DavidW, March 29, 2023, 12:18:59 PM

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pjme

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 04:58:00 AMI think that exposure and education from early age can be helpful.

I sincerely think that it helps. In most schools (Belgium/ the Netherlands) there is very little or no music "education" left at all, in schools.
Often it is zero-rien -nothing.

 

Florestan

Quote from: pjme on March 30, 2023, 06:14:23 AMI sincerely think that it helps. In most schools (Belgium/ the Netherlands) there is very little or no music "education" left at all, in schools.
Often it is zero-rien -nothing.

 


Same in Romania.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Karl Henning

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 01:58:09 AM"Personal outrage" is an overstatement.
Of course it was: a rhetorical device, friend.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

San Antone

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 05:36:24 AMI don't disagree --- but there are technicalities which can't be discovered intuitively simply by listening. Knowing them requires studying them. Enjoying music doesn't requires knowing them, though. I doubt that the average listener knows much, if at all, about tonics, dominants, plagal cadences, Alberti basses, Neapolitan chords and other such stuff.

While it is true that recognizing sonata form can bring a different level of understanding and appreciation of a classical piece of music.  And knowing the basic structure of a pop song (verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus) also brings a deeper level of appreciation.

But IMO these are superficial things.  It is like knowing the ingredients of one of your favorite dishes.  The enjoyment is not in reading the recipe but the taste of the food, or in the joy of preparing the meal.

Karl Henning

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 04:58:00 AMI was talking rather about the capacity to enjoy classical music than to understand its technicalities. IMO the former is not dependent on the latter.
True, just as it is true that I enjoy Indian music (e.g.) much more than I "understand" it. One point to which the former GMG'er I alluded to earlier remained forever impervious (as part of his schtick was castigating intellect) is that I know in my own case that intellectual awareness of the musical nuts and bolts is itself a mode of enjoyment.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Brahmsian

For me, sometimes I wish I did have even a small amount of musical education.  I would love to be able to describe more in depth why I enjoy certain passages of music or particular work, other than "it sounds nice, beautiful, energetic, wonderful, etc.".   :D

San Antone

Quote from: OrchestralNut on March 30, 2023, 08:21:01 AMFor me, sometimes I wish I did have even a small amount of musical education.  I would love to be able to describe more in depth why I enjoy certain passages of music or particular work, other than "it sounds nice, beautiful, energetic, wonderful, etc.".   :D

It could be that I take for granted my own knowledge and training.  When I am listening to something I unconsciously perform some crude analysis, sometimes seeing the score in my mind. I cannot unlearn what I know, but I want to hear the music and not think about it.

There have been works I've analyzed and enjoyed that endeavor quite a lot.  It is sort of the mirror reflection of composing.  I am a great fan of murder mysteries, and solving puzzles is very entertaining for me.  But these intellectual entertainments are mutually exclusive of the experience of music as  a nice way to spend time.

Florestan

Quote from: Karl Henning on March 30, 2023, 07:07:24 AMI know in my own case that intellectual awareness of the musical nuts and bolts is itself a mode of enjoyment.

No doubt about it. After all, you're a composer yourself. It probably would not be possible for you to ignore the technical aspects even if you wanted to.

But you made me curious: a former GMGer with an anti-intellectualist agenda... Who was he?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Karl Henning

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 11:49:57 AMNo doubt about it. After all, you're a composer yourself. It probably would not be possible for you to ignore the technical aspects even if you wanted to.

But you made me curious: a former GMGer with an anti-intellectualist agenda... Who was he?
Pink Harp
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Florestan

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Cato

Quote from: pjme on March 30, 2023, 06:14:23 AMI sincerely think that it helps. In most schools (Belgium/ the Netherlands) there is very little or no music "education" left at all, in schools.
Often it is zero-rien -nothing.

 


Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 06:28:54 AMSame in Romania.



Oy!  How disconcerting!  I have not visited German schools since 2005, but back then at least Music Education seemed fairly healthy.

I thought Music Education in America was fairly awful, outside of the private (Catholic) schools, with exceptions here and there.

The tradition of high-school marching bands still seems alive and has kept Music Education going - at least for those in the Band!

Concerning Schoenberg's writings, I am reminded of Alma Mahler's comment that Schoenberg reveled in his great contradictions during his visits, thereby sometimes causing a scene and a huffy departure...but was soon invited back anyway!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Madiel

Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 05:36:24 AMI don't disagree --- but there are technicalities which can't be discovered intuitively simply by listening. Knowing them requires studying them. Enjoying music doesn't requires knowing them, though. I doubt that the average listener knows much, if at all, about tonics, dominants, plagal cadences, Alberti basses, Neapolitan chords and other such stuff.

The average listener can sense a tonic instinctively even if they don't know it's called that. And I would think most likely the same for at least a couple of other things on your list.

Heck, I've even been to a Bill Bailey show where he made an Alberti bass part of his musical comedy routine. Did he have to tell most people it was called an Alberti bass? Yes. Did people recognise the thing itself without the name? I'm betting also yes.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Florestan

Quote from: Madiel on March 30, 2023, 12:24:32 PMThe average listener can sense a tonic instinctively even if they don't know it's called that. And I would think most likely the same for at least a couple of other things on your list.

Heck, I've even been to a Bill Bailey show where he made an Alberti bass part of his musical comedy routine. Did he have to tell most people it was called an Alberti bass? Yes. Did people recognise the thing itself without the name? I'm betting also yes.

Well, I have no idea what an Alberti bass is and I surely cannot tell one even when I hear it. Now, if you told me what an Alberti bass sounds like, I'd surely recognize it the next time I hear it --- but that's not knowledge I acquired intuitively simply by listening. It required my being taught.

Anyway, it doesn't matter too much, at least not to me. I have been listening to, and greatly enjoying, classical music for 35 years without knowing anything about the theory behind it. That doesn't mean that I deny, or minimize, the intellectual enjoyment that knowledgeable people derive from analyzing the score.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Madiel

And I still say you know some of the theory. You just wouldn't call it "theory" because you don't know the words for it.

But that's like saying that people don't know how to construct sentences if they haven't been taught the terms for parts of speech like nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Luke

#54
Quote from: Florestan on March 30, 2023, 12:47:44 PMWell, I have no idea what an Alberti bass is and I surely cannot tell one even when I hear it. Now, if you told me what an Alberti bass sounds like, I'd surely recognize it the next time I hear it --- but that's not knowledge I acquired intuitively simply by listening. It required my being taught.

Anyway, it doesn't matter too much, at least not to me. I have been listening to, and greatly enjoying, classical music for 35 years without knowing anything about the theory behind it. That doesn't mean that I deny, or minimize, the intellectual enjoyment that knowledgeable people derive from analyzing the score.

An Alberti bass is what you hear about 1.03 into Dudley Moore's famous Beethoven sonata parody....


...which is a joke that works precisely because we recognise stylistic and formal features of Beethoven's sonatas being applied in ridiculous ways to the tune of the Colonel Bogey march. It's not universal knowledge, we acquire it through exposure to Beethoven and others, but we do acquire it even if we don't know what it's called.

So in this case the Alberti bass is funny because it reminds us of other famous examples of the same texture, e.g. the infamous opening of Mozart's schoolkid's 'study' sonata. Perhaps it also raises a smile because it is so innocuous after so portentous an introduction,. The introduction  itself is funny a) because having a slow, serious minor key introduction reminds us of other slow, serious minor key introductions; b) because of the tune it is based on (I don't know about anywhere else but in the UK it used to be sung by schoolboys like me to the words 'Hitler has only got one ball/The other is in the Albert Hall etc etc); but also c) because said tune has been turned from cheery major to a dramatic, Beethovenian minor a l'Apassionata; and d) because Moore's treatment of the tune stays true to its banal, standard issue harmonic basis at the same time as reminding us that the same pair of chords lies behind the beginning of most classical era paragraphs of the time e.g. compare the opening of the Moore with the opening of Beethoven 5, or the 3rd Piano Concerto etc.

All this runs through our minds as we listen, whether we know the terminology or not. E.g. the harmonies I mentioned are the tonic and the dominant, the bread a d butter, alpha and omega of the classical style. Knowing that makes it easier to discuss them. But it doesn't make the joke, which you get if you know Beethoven, any funnier. Probably less  ;D

That's the first few seconds.  The rest of the piece does lots more, making great humour out of our ability to recognise technical features, knowingly or not.

Florestan

Quote from: Madiel on March 30, 2023, 12:51:53 PMthat's like saying that people don't know how to construct sentences if they haven't been taught the terms for parts of speech like nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles.

This analogy is not quite correct, because I don't construct music, I listen to it. If what you say were true, then anyone could, after extensive listening, begin to construct music, ie compose, using only their intuitively acquired knowledge. This is far from being the case. Furthermore, people begin learning to speak since their earliest childhood and are surrounded by speaking people --- a very different situation than that of classical music.

A relatively more correct analogy would be with listening to a foreign language without any dictionary or translator at hand. After a while, you begin to identify some patterns and recognize them when they occur --- but you can't begin to speak that language unless you are taught the meaning of those patterns and the way they are combined in meaningful sentences.

Anyway, this discussion carried us too far. My point is that formal technical knowledge is essential for the intellectual enjoyment of the score but inessential for the empirical (for lack of a better term) enjoyment of performed music. I'm concerned with the latter only but do acknowledge the importance and value of the former.





Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Madiel

#56
Quote from: Florestan on March 31, 2023, 01:45:49 AMAnyway, this discussion carried us too far. My point is that formal technical knowledge is essential for the intellectual enjoyment of the score but inessential for the empirical (for lack of a better term) enjoyment of performed music. I'm concerned with the latter only but do acknowledge the importance and value of the former.

I actually look at a score for music I'm listening to maybe once, twice a year. The stuff I'm talking about like recognising a piece is sonata form, I mostly get just by hearing. Sometimes it's also from the liner notes of an album or someone else's commentary mentioning that it is a sonata form, but generally I'm simply recognising it in the music, just as I recognise verses, choruses and bridges in pop songs.

I'm sure I learned those basic ideas by going through piano lessons and by playing, but a huge amount of time I'm hearing it in music where I've never seen the score and have no intention of seeing it.

I really wish you wouldn't describe this as "intellectual", because you keep giving the impression that it's somehow separate from just listening to the music. It isn't. Almost all music listening relies on pattern recognition. Music IS patterns. The whole reason that music doesn't sound like random noise is because we perceive the patterns. And you're using your brain to perceive those patterns.

EDIT: And every time you separate out some different "intellectual" thing, you're actually buying into Schoenberg's statement that upset you so much and saying you think there is something that an 'ordinary' person can't do. You're also saying that they don't NEED to do it, but your starting premise is that Schoenberg is right and there's something only a select few are capable of. Whereas as I would argue that an "elite" person is doing the same process as an 'ordinary' person, but through training as much as anything can hear more detail in the patterns.
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Florestan

Quote from: Madiel on March 31, 2023, 01:54:21 AMI really wish you wouldn't describe this as "intellectual", because you keep giving the impression that it's somehow separate from just listening to the music. It isn't. Almost all music listening relies on pattern recognition. Music IS patterns. The whole reason that music doesn't sound like random noise is because we perceive the patterns. And you're using your brain to perceive those patterns.

I used "intellectual" just as I used "empirical": for lack of a better term. You might agree, though, that studying the score without listening to the music is a more intellectual activity than listening to the music without the score.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Madiel

Quote from: Florestan on March 31, 2023, 02:02:41 AMI used "intellectual" just as I used "empirical": for lack of a better term. You might agree, though, that studying the score without listening to the music is a more intellectual activity than listening to the music without the score.

Yeah I can agree with that. Not least because I'm not one of those elites who can hear the music just by reading it.  8)
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

foxandpeng

Quote from: Florestan on March 31, 2023, 01:45:49 AMThis analogy is not quite correct, because I don't construct music, I listen to it. If what you say were true, then anyone could, after extensive listening, begin to construct music, ie compose, using only their intuitively acquired knowledge. This is far from being the case. Furthermore, people begin learning to speak since their earliest childhood and are surrounded by speaking people --- a very different situation than that of classical music.

A relatively more correct analogy would be with listening to a foreign language without any dictionary or translator at hand. After a while, you begin to identify some patterns and recognize them when they occur --- but you can't begin to speak that language unless you are taught the meaning of those patterns and the way they are combined in meaningful sentences.

Anyway, this discussion carried us too far. My point is that formal technical knowledge is essential for the intellectual enjoyment of the score but inessential for the empirical (for lack of a better term) enjoyment of performed music. I'm concerned with the latter only but do acknowledge the importance and value of the former.


This makes sense to me as a non-technical, amateur music lover. I haven't read all of the preceding discussion, however 🙂
"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people ... then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour — such is my idea of happiness"

Tolstoy