Modern composers

[Maciek]

Would this be the same thing?

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~kallberg/ChopinEbminorPrelude.mp3

(I found the link on the guy's site. He actually wrote a book entitled Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex History, and Musical Genre LOL)

(OK, sorry for straying off topic. 0:))

[Maciek]

Well, that's what it says on the guy's own site! 0:) The Harvard UP site has a simpler title, with a comma between "sex" and "history". Not that it makes it any less funny.

[lukeottevanger]

You are a wonderful human being   

Odd piece, isn't it?

[lukeottevanger]

My searching didn't hit the bullseye as yours did, but I did find this:

http://www.nifc.pl/=files/doc/269/kallberg_2006_en.pdf

which is another little essay by Kallberg which gives us (among other things) Chopin's alternative ending to the op 9/2 Nocturne. 

[Maciek]

Odd piece, isn't it?

To the point of absurdity - yes. And I absolutely love it!

(I notice the first article give examples from the Eb min Etude and Prelude which are also my favorites in the "odd - in a great way - pieces by Chopin" genre.)

BTW, I think the title of Kallberg's book would benefit if the author decided to remove the word "history" in later editions...

Oh, I really need to go now - I'll read both articles later in the week.

See you around - it's always a pleasure!
Maciek

[lukeottevanger]

Interestingly enough, that very F minor Mazurka (the composer's last piece) is another Chopin work - the only one, in fact - that exists only in sketch form, like the E flat minor prelude. You can read Kallberg's interesting discussion of what the implications are for the 'canonical status' of both works in part 3 of the PDF I posted on the previous page.


Another interesting page on the E flat minor piece

And another

[Maciek]

There is nothing commonplace about Lutoslawski.

I never said that. Why would I say something like that about a favorite composer? (Of course, the fact that someone is a great artist doesn't automatically make that someone into a great thinker - but it doesn't preclude it either, and Lutosławski seems to have been a very intelligent person). But what Lutosławski says about Chopins in general or this specific Mazurka - I should have checked this yesterday but somehow missed the fact that you gave both key and opus number, sorry - is anything but new, at least in Polish musicology. In Poland, Chopin was considered a "modern" composer as far back as the early 20th century (e.g. by Szymanowski), and possibly even earlier.

Re the specific piece: It is pretty well known by virtue of it probably being Chopin's last completed (?) piece. The Mazurka is opused which means it was published (back in 1855 by Chopin's friend Julian Fontana) - the publication was prepared by Franchomme who tried to decipher the illegible manuscript (I haven't seen it but they say it's impossible to decipher it definitely). Another reconstruction, by Jan Ekier, was published in 1965 - it contains the middle, F Major section that Franchomme omitted (though Zieliński says the section is "not very interesting"). But this really doesn't make that much of a difference - Franchomme's version (the only one I know ) is extremely chromatic (parts of the melody are essentially based on the chromatic scale) and contains the Tristan chord. (BTW, the series of chords in this Mazurka is constructed along very similar lines to the E Minor prelude! ) I'm not sure what more there could be in the "unpublished bars" - the sources I have at hand claim that Franchomme's edition is a pretty good approximation of Chopin's manuscript, even if some of the details may differ (again, the text is difficult to decipher).

But anyway, my point is this: you really don't have to be Lutosławski in order to notice a Tristan chord or a very chromatic melody. And saying that musical modernity started in this or that specific piece will always remain a moot point, I think. Why not say it started in Beethoven's late quartets?

Incidentally, one of the "modal" mazurkas I had in mind was another from op. 68: no. 3 in F Major - a very early Chopin mazurka and not really a masterpiece but that middle sections is mind-boggling (at least to me 0:)).

[Teresa]

Thanks for this clarification. I think I like atonal music more, although I like Satie also (you can maybe call it "soft modernism" :-)). I also like Elliot Carter. I found a list of composers who wrote atonal music:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism
I read that in atonal music all tones are evenly important in opposition to tonal music.

Henk

A 12-tone row is sort of like equal rights for musical notes.

In composition class at the end of the school year we got to write a 12-tone row in which we got to break all the rules we learned throughout the year, but using different weird rules.

The 12-tone 4 part (1 melody and 3 harmony lines) row exercise we were given had the following rules:

In the melody each of the scales 12 notes had to be used before one could be used again, we could repeat or hold-over a note but once that note was left we could not use it again until the other 11 were used.  Also the notes didn't have to be in the same octave.

In the three harmony lines we could have NO tonal intervals such as, 3rds, 5ths, 7ths, etc.  Minor 2nds were encouraged, as were diminished 13ths and tone clusters.  A tone cluster is playing adjacent notes such as C, C#,D, D#.  Tone clusters are often used in scary movies for chilling effect.  Unlike the melody line there was no demand to use a note before the other 11 were used, we were free to reuse notes as we wished as long as they were not tonal.

Then we played our compositions, some really weird and to me ugly music was heard.  This is the only time I wrote atonal music I much prefer tonal music.  But like you I like modern music the best.   I do like dissonance as long as it is used in a tonal structure much like Bartok and Stravinsky use.  But I don't like serial music or any other form of pure atonal music.  Of the composers you like Varese does not sound atonal to me, I have his orchestral works (heavy on percussion) "Amériques" and "Arcana" and his work for 13 percussionists: "Ionisation".  They are modern and exciting but to my ears not atonal at least not the way Schoenberg, Webern and Berg are.

My favorite modern composers in are from the Modern, Neo-Classical (i.e. the Respighi school) Neo-Romantic (i.e. the Howard Hanson school) and some of the less repetitious minimalists compositions.

I have alway thought of Eric Satie as a Impressionist composer (like Ravel and Debussy) if you love Eric Satie there is a fantastic double album of his orchestral works with the Utah Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maurice Abravanel on Vanguard Cardinal VCS-10037/38.

Here is what it includes
  Les Adventures de Merecure
  La Belle Excentrique: Grande Ritournelle
  Cinq Grimaces pour un Songe d'une nuit d'été
  Deux Préludes posthumes et une Gnossienne
  Le Fils des Etoiles
  Gymnopédies Nos. 1 & 3
  En Habit de Cheval "In Riding Clothes"
  Jack In The Box
  Parade: Complete Ballet
  Relâche: Complete Ballet
  Trios Morceaus en forme

[Henk]

A 12-tone row is sort of like equal rights for musical notes.

In composition class at the end of the school year we got to write a 12-tone row in which we got to break all the rules we learned throughout the year, but using different weird rules.

The 12-tone 4 part (1 melody and 3 harmony lines) row exercise we were given had the following rules:

In the melody each of the scales 12 notes had to be used before one could be used again, we could repeat or hold-over a note but once that note was left we could not use it again until the other 11 were used.  Also the notes didn't have to be in the same octave.

In the three harmony lines we could have NO tonal intervals such as, 3rds, 5ths, 7ths, etc.  Minor 2nds were encouraged, as were diminished 13ths and tone clusters.  A tone cluster is playing adjacent notes such as C, C#,D, D#.  Tone clusters are often used in scary movies for chilling effect.  Unlike the melody line there was no demand to use a note before the other 11 were used, we were free to reuse notes as we wished as long as they were not tonal.

Then we played our compositions, some really weird and to me ugly music was heard.  This is the only time I wrote atonal music I much prefer tonal music.  But like you I like modern music the best.   I do like dissonance as long as it is used in a tonal structure much like Bartok and Stravinsky use.  But I don't like serial music or any other form of pure atonal music.  Of the composers you like Varese does not sound atonal to me, I have his orchestral works (heavy on percussion) "Amériques" and "Arcana" and his work for 13 percussionists: "Ionisation".  They are modern and exciting but to my ears not atonal at least not the way Schoenberg, Webern and Berg are.

My favorite modern composers in are from the Modern, Neo-Classical (i.e. the Respighi school) Neo-Romantic (i.e. the Howard Hanson school) and some of the less repetitious minimalists compositions.

I have alway thought of Eric Satie as a Impressionist composer (like Ravel and Debussy) if you love Eric Satie there is a fantastic double album of his orchestral works with the Utah Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maurice Abravanel on Vanguard Cardinal VCS-10037/38.

Here is what it includes
  Les Adventures de Merecure
  La Belle Excentrique: Grande Ritournelle
  Cinq Grimaces pour un Songe d'une nuit d'été
  Deux Préludes posthumes et une Gnossienne
  Le Fils des Etoiles
  Gymnopédies Nos. 1 & 3
  En Habit de Cheval "In Riding Clothes"
  Jack In The Box
  Parade: Complete Ballet
  Relâche: Complete Ballet
  Trios Morceaus en forme

I have to reread this post later. (Internet is also good for educational purposes.). I will come back on this.

[Henk]

8<

My favorite modern composers in are from the Modern, Neo-Classical (i.e. the Respighi school) Neo-Romantic (i.e. the Howard Hanson school) and some of the less repetitious minimalists compositions.

I have alway thought of Eric Satie as a Impressionist composer (like Ravel and Debussy) if you love Eric Satie there is a fantastic double album of his orchestral works with the Utah Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maurice Abravanel on Vanguard Cardinal VCS-10037/38.

Here is what it includes
  Les Adventures de Merecure
  La Belle Excentrique: Grande Ritournelle
  Cinq Grimaces pour un Songe d'une nuit d'été
  Deux Préludes posthumes et une Gnossienne
  Le Fils des Etoiles
  Gymnopédies Nos. 1 & 3
  En Habit de Cheval "In Riding Clothes"
  Jack In The Box
  Parade: Complete Ballet
  Relâche: Complete Ballet
  Trios Morceaus en forme

I have ordered a disc with some of these recordings, it's not a double album.

Modern composers I definitely like:
Glass
Ives
Ligeti
Bartok
Varese
Satie
Rzewski
Takemitsu
Messiaen
Scelsi
Schoenberg

No German composers for me anymore. I still have doubts about Kagel.

[Maciek]

Henk, is this a sign of quickly evolving taste or a slip of the pen?

Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio.

Modern composers I definitely like:
Glass
Ives
Ligeti
Bartok
Varese
Satie
Rzewski
Takemitsu
Messiaen
Scelsi
Schoenberg

If you do like Messiaen, and Takemitsu, I'd venture to say you will probably like post-1955 Lutoslawski as well.

It might be a good idea to browse through The Broadcast Corner. You'll find quite a few modern music downloads there.

[Henk]

Henk, is this a sign of quickly evolving taste or a slip of the pen?

If you do like Messiaen, and Takemitsu, I'd venture to say you will probably like post-1955 Lutoslawski as well.

It might be a good idea to browse through The Broadcast Corner. You'll find quite a few modern music downloads there.

Thanks for that link. I've used soulseek a lot, it's illegal, but it's a good way to explore music.

Quickly evolving taste. Nietzsche let me think that modern German composers are bad and theatre should always be subordinate to music (wagner, Nono, Kagel). I think he was right. I like Lutoslawski as well (for example his symphony no. 3), this was just a short list, I like more composers then I mentioned.

[Haffner]

. Nietzsche let me think that modern German composers are bad and theatre should always be subordinate to music (wagner, Nono, Kagel). I think he was right. I like Lutoslawski as well (for example his symphony no. 3), this was just a short list, I like more composers then I mentioned.

Nietzsche had an agenda that was ripe with sour grapes. As Ernest Newman succinctly put it, Nietzsche and Wagner were in most ways identical philosophically. Neither could STAND someone else disagreeing with them as individuals. They each cultivated "friends" whom only stayed such as long as they were sycophantic to Nietzsche or Wagner. Reading Newman's "Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. 4" is an immensely refreshing viewpoint from the other side.

[Henk]

Nietzsche had an agenda that was ripe with sour grapes. As Ernest Newman succinctly put it, Nietzsche and Wagner were in most ways identical philosophically. Neither could STAND someone else disagreeing with them as individuals. They each cultivated "friends" whom only stayed such as long as they were sycophantic to Nietzsche or Wagner. Reading Newman's "Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. 4" is an immensely refreshing viewpoint from the other side.

I'm really not interested, Andy. Sorry, man.

[Harry]

I'm really not interested, Andy. Sorry, man.

If I do remember correctly you claimed to be a intelectual person right.
So if you are not interested you say, that strikes me as rather odd, considering your claimed capacities.

[Henk]

If I do remember correctly you claimed to be a intelectual person right.
So if you are not interested you say, that strikes me as rather odd, considering your claimed capacities.

Why should I explain? I'm not obliged to that. I'm simply not interested.

[jochanaan]

BTW, naming Chopin as the precursor of musical modernity is a commonplace in Polish musicology. Tadeusz Zieliński's textbook on 20th century music idioms has a large quotation form the E Minor Prelude in the opening chapter...

Aside from any nationalistic pride, those Polish scholars have a point.  The E minor Prelude (I assume from the Opus 28 set of 24, modeled after The Well-tempered Clavier) indeed anticipates, not atonality necessarily, but certainly indeterminate tonality of the Liszt-Wagner type.  Even more extraordinary is the A minor Prelude from the same set, where not until the very last chord does the A minor tonality become clear.

But, in several senses, tonality began to break down almost as soon as it was fully established.  Just look at the extreme dissonances in Bach's famous D minor Toccata!

[jochanaan]

...not atonality necessarily, but certainly indeterminate tonality of the Liszt-Wagner type...

Having said that, I guess I should clarify the difference. The Étude sans tonalité, the Tristan prelude and the rest suggest tonalities that shift constantly and have no center; thus "indeterminate."  What Schoenberg, Berg and Webern practiced was music in which there are no tonal implications at all.

[Haffner]

I'm really not interested, Andy. Sorry, man.

No big deal, Henk. Enjoy what you do read, amico mio!

[Haffner]

What an odd thing for Ernest Newman to say 

Nietzsche was a classicist, Wagner a romantic.
Nietzsche was anti-religious, Wagner was religious.
Wagner believed in the salvation of Man through the love of women;  Nietzsche was mysoginous.
Wagner was anti-semitic, Nietzsche was judeophile.
Wagner was Nationalist.  Nietzsche, who was European, as Goethe was European, believed nationalism was a creed for guttersnipes, on a par with christianism and anti-semitism.
Nietzsche was aristocratic, Wagner believed in Das Volk.

Big differences...


P.S.  I knew I forgot someone:  Stravinsky, Le Sacre, Ebony Concerto, the Symphony in Three Movements and the Mass of 1945.

Nietzsche was far more Lutheran than he would ever have admitted. His doctrines of Will to Power, Ubermensch, etc. all have Lutheran parrallels. Check out translator R.J. Hollingdale's take on Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Most of Nietzsche's sources of "Contra Wagner" were very much in an obviously rebellious vein.  Wagner was a father to Nietzsche, and the latter reacted against him exactly like any rebellious son would.
Finally, Nietzsche stated before the end of his life that Wagner was the greatest benefactor he ever had. Just like, ultimately, any father is to a son.

Try reading G.W.F. Hegel's "Encyclopeadia of Philosophical Sciences"

Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, repeat ad infinitum.