Serialism

[Josquin des Prez]

I can go as far as Webern (whom i consider a genius) but after that i don't see it as music anymore, since the order of the various 'series' cannot be heard in sounds, and their manipulation is thus redundant.

[ChamberNut]

Some of my favorites in this genre 

[Ephemerid]

Wasn't Webern accidentally (?) shot by some American soldiers?  Would that make the soldiers that killed him serial killers? 

[pjme]

NO.

[pjme]

Serialism can be beautiful.  A good example : some of the works of Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts ! Still, to my  ears, the Sonata for two pianos ( his best known work - ca 1951 - which I've heard a couple of times) sounds "dry" and "laboured" - but not devoid of " very cool poetry" ... The late works ( Aquarius, Litanies) sound lush and extatic in comparison.


From wiki:

Karel Goeyvaerts (Antwerp 8 June 1923–February 3, 1993, Antwerp) was a Belgian composer. After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, he studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen. He also studied ondes Martenot with Maurice Martenot.

In 1951, Goeyvaerts attended the famous Darmstadt New Music Summer School where he met Karlheinz Stockhausen who was five years younger. Both were devout Catholics and found ways of integrating religious numerology into their serial compositions. They found themselves deep in conversation, and performed a movement from Goeyvaerts's "Nummer 1", Sonata for 2 pianos in the composition course by Theodor Adorno there. They were both astonished upon hearing for the first time Messiaen's "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" (from Quatre Études de rhythme), in a recording by the composer which Antoine Goléa played at a lecture. These experiences together convinced Stockhausen he should study with Messiaen.

Goeyvaerts became very excited in 1952 when he learned that Stockhausen had access in Paris to a generator of sinus waves. Goeyvaerts saw them as an important discovery for music: the purest sound possible. At the time, Stockhausen did not share his enthusiasm, owing partly to the inability with the equipment at hand to superimpose sinus tones. Only later, after taking up his new post at the WDR Electronic Music Studio in Cologne, did Stockhausen find more suitable equipment, in July 1953 (Toop 1979). One of the first works produced there was Goeyvaerts's Nr. 5 with Pure Tones, which Stockhausen helped his friend to realize. (When Stockhausen seemingly abandoned his work with sine waves and returned to writing compositions for solo piano, Goeyvaerts felt that Stockhausen was abandoning an important discovery and took up the matter from a philosophical point of view himself.)

There has been some controversy about who wrote the first European "total" serial composition. His Nummer 2 (1951) for 13 instruments is one of the contenders (Delaere 1994, 13), as is his Nummer 1 (1950) Sonata for Two Pianos, and the Sonata for Two Pianos by Michel Fano (1950), depending on definitions of "total serialism" (Toop 1974).

After withdrawing from the musical world for a while, he accepted a position in 1970 at the Institute for Psychoacoustic and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent, which led to several other prestigious appointments in Belgium. His works from after 1960 take on aspects of minimalism, the best-known examples being his series of five Litanies (1979–82) and his final work, the opera Aquarius (1983–93). Though minimalism is ordinarily thought of as a reaction against serialism, analyses of his early serial compositions (especially the electronic Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen [with pure tones]) reveal how close the connections actually are (Sabbe 1977). Goeyvaerts died suddenly in 1993.


Peter

[Ephemerid]

NO.

Please don't ban me! 

[pjme]

Ok, I'm in a generous mood : you can stay!  .

.. but next time :




And the complete works of Dieter Schnebel, Lucien Goethals, K.H.Stockhausen and Lamonte Young will be broadcast simultaniously in your cell.

[Ephemerid]

Ok, I'm in a generous mood : you can stay!  .

.. but next time :




And the complete works of Dieter Schnebel, Lucien Goethals, K.H.Stockhausen and Lamonte Young will be broadcast simultaniously in your cell.

0:)

[San Antone]

Interesting.  I am bumping this thread; hoping to rekindle the discussion.

[Karl Henning]

Chances are, I voted already in an earlier "incarnation," so my Quite often, I like the music vote may be a double-dip.

[San Antone]

I think there are some misconceptions about serialism.  The idea of total serialism, when all parameters of the music are controlled or dictated by a series of intervals, or relationships, was a short-lived phenomenon.  At most a couple of years in the early '50s.   Boulez and Stockhausen were the primary exponents of it, and each discarded the complete serialisation of the process after a few works.  Structures Ia is considered Boulez's main work that attempts to completely serialize the process of composition.  It was not long after that he considered that path to lead nowhere since it undermines, if not completely destroys, the composer's control.  He then began to try what he called "open form" in which some chance operations were included, giving the performer options among four or five ways to proceed through the work.  However, each of the sections was organized from a series; but more and more Boulez's operation on the series were designed to obscure it to the point where almost any choice he made could be explained by the series. 

The thing is, a composer can use serialism and its ideas without succumbing to the philosophy that all parameters need be controlled by a series.  Pitch and duration were the main ones that lent themselves to a serial application, but when attack and timbre were attempted to be controlled, the process became automatic and less than convincing in most cases.  Composers since the '50s have continued to use serial ideas, but more freely, and the results are more rewarding, IMO.

[7/4]

depends on the music. 

[San Antone]

Chances are, I voted already in an earlier "incarnation," so my Quite often, I like the music vote may be a double-dip.

My vote, too.  My feeling is it does not matter much what process a composer employs, in the final analysis, the music either resonates with me or not.  But, more often than not, I respond positively to a work which was written using some form of serialism or "composition with twelve notes".

[Karl Henning]

My vote, too.  My feeling is it does not matter much what process a composer employs, in the final analysis, the music either resonates with me or not.  But, more often than not, I respond positively to a work which was written using some form of serialism or "composition with twelve notes".

Likewise.

[Karl Henning]

depends on the music. 

As, indeed, with any style.

[7/4]

As, indeed, with any style.

Just being realistic. If it sounds good, then it is good.

[San Antone]

Just being realistic. If it sounds good, then it is good.

However, people of good will may not agree on what sounds good ... just sayin' ...

[Karl Henning]

Very true.

[Cato]

I have often thought that one of the best composers in the "12-tone" or "serial" or Schoenbergian approach was Nikos Skalkottas.

[7/4]

However, people of good will may not agree on what sounds good ... just sayin' ...

Works for me.