Webern's Vibe

[Catison]

I'll sign on there, too.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who likes only a little Webern.  He's more of an all or nothing type of composer.

[greg]

Me too.

Me 3.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who likes only a little Webern.  He's more of an all or nothing type of composer.

Nice to meet you.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

All Im saying is that there is better out there, DG is often guilty of distance/reverb issues with their recordings...and I especially don't like listening to Webern like that, it's far too ambient and inappropriate. I don't like to hear all the instruments smoothed and blurred together like that...painting ambience on top of the music.

Yes, but James, good friend, fellow Webernite, that doesn't apply to the DG set, as we're all at pains to point out to you.

The sound on DG is clean and clear with plenty of warmth and color. And it isn't overloaded with reverb.

So c'mon already!

[haydnguy]

Is this the Sony Webern set that James referred to as his preference to the DG set??  Thanks...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Yes.

[mahler10th]

REPOST FROM "wHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO"

Some snippets of this online and from discs here and there...

Passacaglia For Orchestra - this is more like it.  Big music with a reflective edge.

Das Augenlicht - The ocular light, The eyes light, The eyesight...translations I got for Das Augenlicht, so it's something to do with eyesight!  Anyway, it's creepy but beautiful, I'll find out more about it.  I love the use of the chorus though at this time I don't know what they're singing.

Cello Sonata - random jumble of Piano and Cello would take some getting used to.  Lasts 1m 49.  Don't know what the point of it is.  Exactly the kind of irregular carry on which made me dismiss the 2nd Viennese lot.

So far, a lot of this stuff is beautiful (Three Poems, etc), but much of it struggles to be musical at all. 

[sul G]

...so I might as well repost here what I just responded to it there  :

My point from yesterday, though (re Schoenberg but obviously applicable here too) is that if the Passacaglia (say - Gurrelieder or Verklarte Nacht in S's case) impresses you, that in itself helps. If you can see that the composer knows what he's about in these earlier works that ought to make it easier to give him a little trust on the trickier ones - so, IOW, not thinking that some of the music 'struggles to be musical' (the composer has proved his musicality) but simply that you struggle to hear it as such, at the moment. So much of appreciating this music lies in not dismissing it because one doesn't get it at first listen, and in trusting in the composer - not that I'm implying you're doing anything other than this.

You're right, though, to imply that the later stuff needs listening to with differrent expectations - IMO it is these expectations which are what one is really struggling to find in oneself, and once one can listen that way, the whole thing clicks. That's true even though the seeds of the later music  are there in the Passacaglia and even earlier.

[haydnguy]

...so I might as well repost here what I just responded to it there  :

My point from yesterday, though (re Schoenberg but obviously applicable here too) is that if the Passacaglia (say - Gurrelieder or Verklarte Nacht in S's case) impresses you, that in itself helps. If you can see that the composer knows what he's about in these earlier works that ought to make it easier to give him a little trust on the trickier ones - so, IOW, not thinking that some of the music 'struggles to be musical' (the composer has proved his musicality) but simply that you struggle to hear it as such, at the moment. So much of appreciating this music lies in not dismissing it because one doesn't get it at first listen, and in trusting in the composer - not that I'm implying you're doing anything other than this.

You're right, though, to imply that the later stuff needs listening to with differrent expectations - IMO it is these expectations which are what one is really struggling to find in oneself, and once one can listen that way, the whole thing clicks. That's true even though the seeds of the later music  are there in the Passacaglia and even earlier.

I know the first piece of Schoenberg's I ever turned on was Serenade. It sounded like noise! So I backed up and listened to Verklarte Nacht several times, at one point listened to Gurrelieder and loved it the first time!. Now, I listen to Serenade and it's like listening to anything else. There are STILL pieces I don't get. Maybe there will always be. But as time has gone by, I have "gotten" more and more.

[jowcol]

I don't think I've ever met anyone who likes only a little Webern.  He's more of an all or nothing type of composer.

For me-- it's like Neil Young(maybe I'm the first to draw that comparison.)   I go through binges, and then I go through long periods without listening to him. Typically , during stretches when I'm under a lot of stress and not getting much sleep.

wjp

[greg]

Quote from: Catison on September 23, 2008, 10:15:28 AM
I don't think I've ever met anyone who likes only a little Webern.  He's more of an all or nothing type of composer.

I only like a little Webern- I mean, I like it moderately but I'm not fanatical about his music.
I hear this about a lot of composers- Scriabin is one I can think of... maybe I'm an exception?

[snyprrr]

though i generally prefer anything by Webern to Schoenberg, i do prefer Schoenberg's final flowering in the '49 string trio to Webern's austere rigidness in his last corresponding chamber work, str. qrt. op.28.

it seems to me that these guys played hopscotch with my prefenerences, however, were Webern allowed to live i think he would have incorporated the added fantastical/expressive freedom that Schoenberg, for me, only achieved in this last-ish work. to hear what Webern would have done had he started adding back the 6 bagatelles-era special effects to his crystalline world be interesting. i'm thinking late Nono.

[sul G]

though i generally prefer anything by Webern to Schoenberg, i do prefer Schoenberg's final flowering in the '49 string trio to Webern's austere rigidness in his last corresponding chamber work, str. qrt. op.28.

it seems to me that these guys played hopscotch with my prefenerences, however, were Webern allowed to live i think he would have incorporated the added fantastical/expressive freedom that Schoenberg, for me, only achieved in this last-ish work. to hear what Webern would have done had he started adding back the 6 bagatelles-era special effects to his crystalline world be interesting. i'm thinking late Nono.

Not doing anything original here, merely reposting the fascianting paragraph Karl quoted in his OP, because it seems highly relevant to questions of 'what would Webern have done if he had lived':

Thus towards the end of his life Webern's mystical tendencies led to a kind of 'Meta-music' which did not need to be written down on paper and realized in sound.  [Cesar?] Bresgen says of this: 'It is highly improbable that Webern worked at any piece of music on paper in those last months of his life in Mittersill:  in any case there is no one to whom he spoke about it.  On the other hand one could often see Webern in most stimulating work, which consisted of drawing with pencil and compasses on a poor quality table or on a wooden board.  I well remember his system of lines, in which could be seen geometrical figures or fixed points with markings.  Once—it was the middle of August 1945—Webern said on one of my visits thaht he had just finished some work which had occupied him a great deal.  He had completely organized a piece, i.e. he had fixed all the notes in it in respect of their pitch (sound) and also their duration in time.  I cannot remember the series, but I remember Webern's remark about "time fulfilled".  With this graphic plan on the table Webern regarded the real work as completed.  More than once he made the assertion that he would never wish to hear his piece (played by musicians).  He said that the work "sounds by itself"—he himself could "hear it right through"—it was enough for him that the piece was now finished in itself:  "the sound is always there"—"a performance would not bring it out as perfectly as it had already become sound in himself".  Apart from this Webern was convinced that what he had done was no private or arbitrary step;  he said "one will hear this music as if it had always been, it will be like a morning breeze, a liberation . . . in fifty years one will find it obvious, children will understand and sing it".'

[snyprrr]

thank you...illuminating.

[Catison]

http://www.youtube.com/v/NAS_dKaPEmg

Can you tell which Webern piece this is?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Can you tell which Webern piece this is?

Hmm...can't tell if Carrol Burnett and Co. are actual fans of modern classical or they hate it. Either way this is a particularly effective parody.

[greg]

http://www.youtube.com/v/NAS_dKaPEmg

Can you tell which Webern piece this is?

[CRCulver]

Hmm...can't tell if Carrol Burnett and Co. are actual fans of modern classical or they hate it. Either way this is a particularly effective parody.

I don't think this is a parody of modern music at all. I think the humour in this comes from a portrayal of a recital by several people who don't actually know how to play instruments or sing.

[karlhenning]

I'm of two minds regarding the utter 'tidiness' of construction of some of his pieces.  He pulls it off musically, so I have no quarrel with it;  but for whatever reason, much though I enjoy the music, that model doesn't inspire me, musically (not that Webern is obliged to, in that dimension).

[not edward]

I sometimes wonder if there is a sense in which Webern is "young man's music."

First understanding Webern was a very powerful shock to my musical system; everything fit so logically and the music felt so "right" that though I never agreed with Boulez's 1940s rantings, I could understand the emotions and reasons behind them.

I still think Webern is one of the greatest 20th century composers--but I don't find this "rightness" so compelling now. Perhaps it's that my musical outlook has diversified; perhaps I just find other things more important to me as I have grown older; perhaps others have gone through a similar process?

[karlhenning]

I only like a little Webern- I mean, I like it moderately but I'm not fanatical about his music.

What's your catalogue of Webern you like, Greg?