GMG Classical Music Forum

I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..

Henk

Henk, Pierre Boulez famously claimed that 'modernism' in classical music began with Debussy's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune'. Perhaps the music of the older of these two Frenchman might give you an interesting perspective on the meeting of old and new. ;)

Quote from: Henk on March 16, 2008, 05:15:18 AM
I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..
Henk

I'm neither a musician nor musicologist but it seems to me that a fairly clear distinction can be made between tonal music and atonal on the other hand.  Arnold Scheonberg pretty much invented atonal music, (12 tone or serial if you like), and his early followers were Anton Webern and Alban Berg.  Stravinsky wrote some atonal, and Bartok, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Hindemith for example dabbled a bit, but their music that I'm most familiar isn't really atonal.  The likes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich (a favorite of mine), Satie, Ives, Britten, and Tippett never really wrote atonal music even though they are certainly "Modern".

But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Boulez, and Birtwistle (whose Earth Dances I really like), I want to add Elliot Carter (I'm a big fan), Iannis Xenakis, Krysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, and Henryk Gorecki (who has mainly gone back to tonality).

Consider trying the music of Steve Reich:

Music for 18 Musicians
New York Counterpoint
Clapping Music

Personally, the spirit of European art was annhilited between the world wars, and there's very little past 1945 which i would call "great", mostly, coming from composers who were born when things were still holding on, if barely.

Other then that, contemporary art is an absolute catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. European civilization is as good as dead, and with American prestige and influence waning the entire west is on a culture death struggle for which i see no resolution.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on March 16, 2008, 05:49:39 PM
Personally, the spirit of European art was annhilited between the world wars, and there's very little past 1945 which i would call "great", mostly, coming from composers who were born when things were still holding on, if barely.

Other then that, contemporary art is an absolute catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. European civilization is as good as dead, and with American prestige and influence waning the entire west is on a culture death struggle for which i see no resolution.

:o

Golly, that's a rather extreme view. I'd contend that the total loss of faith the world experienced ca 1918 and the subsequent economic, social and political unrest allowed a radical re-thinking of exactly what the questions were that art could ask, resulting in works of amazing mental/emotional virtuosity that could never have been possible before the war.
On the other hand, I would also contend that the rise of subjectivism after the first world war is also responsible for a certain belief that it's invalid to criticise bad art if it's 'ideologically' valid, which in more recent years has turned into the vile belief that it's invalid to criticise 'creative expression' full-stop.

Quote from: HenkBartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them.

I don't think that either of these composers is over-rated, but I do think that their reputations rest on works which do not deserve said reputation. I loathe B's Concerto for Orchestra, but check out the String Quartets. Similarly with Messiaen, have you tried Vingt Regard? St. François d'Assise?

Quote from: Robert Dahm on March 16, 2008, 06:19:37 PM
On the other hand, I would also contend that the rise of subjectivism after the first world war is also responsible for a certain belief that it's invalid to criticise bad art if it's 'ideologically' valid, which in more recent years has turned into the vile belief that it's invalid to criticise 'creative expression' full-stop.

Excellent point, well put. :)

Quote from: Mark on March 16, 2008, 05:50:20 AM
Henk, Pierre Boulez famously claimed that 'modernism' in classical music began with Debussy's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune'. Perhaps the music of the older of these two Frenchman might give you an interesting perspective on the meeting of old and new. ;)

I'll try that work. This is an interesting link, which arguments that Satie was the first Modernist: http://solomonsmusic.net/Satie.htm.

Henk

Quote from: Henk on March 17, 2008, 01:39:18 AM
I'll try that work. This is an interesting link, which arguments that Satie was the first Modernist: http://solomonsmusic.net/Satie.htm.

Henk

Interesting link. :)

Certainly, Satie does have a unique sound which clearly doesn't belong to the late Romantic period. But there is, perhaps, a tendency to dismiss the composer as not being 'serious' - his eccentricity can't have helped him any in this respect. Why Boulez should've chosen the Debussy work over anything by Satie as the birth of Modernism in music is anyone's guess. ???

Quote from: Feanor on March 16, 2008, 04:31:41 PM
I'm neither a musician nor musicologist but it seems to me that a fairly clear distinction can be made between tonal music and atonal on the other hand.  Arnold Scheonberg pretty much invented atonal music, (12 tone or serial if you like), and his early followers were Anton Webern and Alban Berg.  Stravinsky wrote some atonal, and Bartok, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Hindemith for example dabbled a bit, but their music that I'm most familiar isn't really atonal.  The likes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich (a favorite of mine), Satie, Ives, Britten, and Tippett never really wrote atonal music even though they are certainly "Modern".

But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Boulez, and Birtwistle (whose Earth Dances I really like), I want to add Elliot Carter (I'm a big fan), Iannis Xenakis, Krysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, and Henryk Gorecki (who has mainly gone back to tonality).

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

Quote from: hornteacher on March 16, 2008, 04:41:40 PM
Consider trying the music of Steve Reich:

Music for 18 Musicians
New York Counterpoint
Clapping Music

I know the first too pieces, I have this cd: (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61WTxB-9YFL._AA280_.jpg)
I like to play it when I'm packing stuff to leave home for a while :).

Henk

You may also want to investigate the music of Nikos Skalkottas, one of Schoenberg's most gifted students. In his serialist works he developed a personal method, using more than one tone-rows per work (he also wrote tonal and atonal music).

Re: Satie (much though I do enjoy his music) . . . .

No one composer is "the first modernist."  In ways similar to the improbable idea of a single "world's greatest composer," such a statement arbitrarily selects perhaps one of a great many 'modernist' elements in music as somehow supposedly "defining," and (surprise, surprise) the composer whose work that one element favors becomes "the first modernist."

Quote from: Henk on March 16, 2008, 05:15:18 AM
I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..

Henk

Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FS8PWB9EL._AA240_.jpg)
The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

How about Iannis Xenakis? This disc has a great take on Jonchaies, one of his most ferocious pieces:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21NY8G50J0L._AA130_.jpg)
http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12 (http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12)

Quote from: gomro on March 17, 2008, 02:50:46 PM
Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FS8PWB9EL._AA240_.jpg)
The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

A huge "yes, yes, yes" to this one.  I only discovered Gerhard's music in the last year or so, and wow, such gorgeous stuff.  I also like the Chandos CD with the Fourth Symphony:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416F9CA2Z8L._AA240_.jpg)

--Bruce

Quote from: bhodges on March 17, 2008, 03:01:59 PM
A huge "yes, yes, yes" to this one.  I only discovered Gerhard's music in the last year or so, and wow, such gorgeous stuff.  I also like the Chandos CD with the Fourth Symphony:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416F9CA2Z8L._AA240_.jpg)

--Bruce

Just seeing that image made me put on the Fourth Symphony. There's a fine work! Very much in the universe of Varese and Schoenberg, but completely Gerhard's own.

Quote from: gomro on March 17, 2008, 02:50:46 PM
Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FS8PWB9EL._AA240_.jpg)
The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

How about Iannis Xenakis? This disc has a great take on Jonchaies, one of his most ferocious pieces:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21NY8G50J0L._AA130_.jpg)
http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12 (http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12)

Never heard of Gerhard, thanks for that suggestion. I will try. I have this cd of Xenakis, which is playing now:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514KobYdfSL._SS500_.jpg)

Henk

Quote from: Feanor on March 16, 2008, 04:31:41 PM
But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti

I don't think Ligeti counts as atonal, or at least he's not 12-tone. I think.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on March 18, 2008, 07:35:25 AM
I don't think Ligeti counts as atonal, or at least he's not 12-tone. I think.

I'm techical ignoramous but I believe that atonal is a much broader category than 12-tone (which is a subset of it).  On that basis I would say that Ligeti's work is primarily atonal, and more consistently so than that of, say, Penderecki and Lutoslawski whom I also mentioned.

Ligeti - the Ligeti of the Second SQ and works of that sort of time - is certainly atonal. The later Ligeti, of the Etudes, the Horn Trio, the Piano Concerto etc. - often has enough modality about him to make the classification vary from piece to piece.

I'll make a recommendation in completely the opposite direction for a different perspective on music you might like. I would recommend the music of the Ars subtilior of the 14th and early 15th century. This is music of unprecedented rhythmic complexity that was arguably not matched until the 20th century (the use of isorhythms was a very, very early form of serialism). Check out the Ensemble Organum recording of selections from the Codex Chantilly.

Quote from: canninator on March 20, 2008, 03:41:43 AM
I'll make a recommendation in completely the opposite direction for a different perspective on music you might like. I would recommend the music of the Ars subtilior of the 14th and early 15th century. This is music of unprecedented rhythmic complexity that was arguably not matched until the 20th century (the use of isorhythms was a very, very early form of serialism). Check out the Ensemble Organum recording of selections from the Codex Chantilly.

Interesting, I'll try.

Others I'm investigating:

some dutch composers:
Louis Andriessen
Edward Top (listen at his site: http://www.edwardtop.com/audio.htm, really interesting)
Jan van Vlijmen
Kees van Baren

Stockhausen
Sessions
Russian avantgardists like Mossolov
Kurtag
Nunes
Scelsi
Maderna
Grisey

Quote from: Wanderer on March 17, 2008, 04:08:25 AM
You may also want to investigate the music of Nikos Skalkottas, one of Schoenberg's most gifted students. In his serialist works he developed a personal method, using more than one tone-rows per work (he also wrote tonal and atonal music).

I''m listening to samples right now. Sounds good.

Some others (don't know if they are do atonal music):

Almeida Prado
Valentin Silvestrov
Sofia Gubaidulina
Francois-Bernard Mâche
Bent Sorensen
Magnus Lindberg
Jukka Tiensuu
Sciarrino
Saariaho
Kancheli
Hosokawa
Takemitsu
Nordheim

Here is a good overview in additition to the serialism wikipedia page I posted earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_classical_music

It also contains some useful links (including this radio station:
http://www.contemporary-classical.com/).

Quote from: Feanor on March 16, 2008, 04:31:41 PM
I'm neither a musician nor musicologist but it seems to me that a fairly clear distinction can be made between tonal music and atonal on the other hand.  Arnold Scheonberg pretty much invented atonal music,

Liszt invented it.

There's a big difference between atonality (music with no tonal centre , which have been around since the middle ages - Fumeux fume par fumee by Solage eg - and probably before that), and serial music built on Schoenbergian tonerows (which necessarily implies atonality).

Karl Henning certainly has some interesting music.

I also like Mr. Gorecki.

Quote from: erato on March 24, 2008, 06:49:17 AM
There's a big difference between atonality (music with no tonal centre , which have been around since the middle ages - Fumeux fume par fumee by Solage eg - and probably before that), and serial music built on Schoenbergian tonerows (which necessarily implies atonality).

Depends on how you define 'atonality' and, more importantly, how you define 'tonality'.

One definition of 'tonality' is based around the system of harmony utilising major and minor modes, triads, modulations, etc. In other words, diatonic functional harmony. If you wish to go with this definition, than anything written before about 1600 is non-tonal, and a fair bit written after 1600 is too. Particularly if you want to go back as far as the 14th Century, music was not really thought about in terms of 'harmonic' verticalities. Vertical combinations of voices were considered in purely contrapuntal terms - it was not until hundreds of years later that practice aggregated into what me might think of as harmonic progressions. This leads, in the 14th Century particularly, to some really weird music (with even weirder notation).

The other definition I'm aware of for 'tonality' is as a generic noun used to denote pitch behaviours. For instance, Pelog and Slendro as used in Balinese and Javanese Gamelan could be described as 'tonalities'.

I would hesitate, though, to define Fumeux fume par fumée (or any other Ars Subtilior music, for that matter) as 'atonal', because while the 'harmonic' (and I use the term loosely...) framework is constantly shifting, it still observes a very strong sense of cadence (in the same way as Machaut, Landini and - slightly later - Dufay did), leaving the listener in no doubt as to where you are. As pointed out above, though, there's an argument that says that this music is all 'non-tonal'.

Good post Robert, I am aware of the difficulties of defining atonal musica - since nobody bothered to define atonality here I went with the more "provocative" (in view of this discussion) view of atonality, that is in view of the use of church modes. I don't, however, always find the use of cadence in this music so pronounced that one unhesitantly can define it as tonal, it is perhaps more non-tonal than atonal as you mention but we are getting clos to splitting hairs here .

Fair enough. And the relationship of the music of Solage to the 'Guidonian'-type model of modality makes musica ficta in this repertoire a frequently problematic proposition, too, which further undermines the sense of 'harmonic' stability.

What I wouldn't give to spend just a day in the papal court at Avignon in ~1390 just listening to how they actually performed this music.

a few more:

dutilleux
dusapin
martinu
knussen
chin
sallinen
nancarrow
murail

I've made a document of it :).

Quote from: Henk on March 16, 2008, 05:15:18 AM
Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..

Do yourself a favor and get a copy of Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise.  This book will make these composers come alive for you.

Quote from: Catison on March 27, 2008, 04:56:06 AM
Do yourself a favor and get a copy of Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise.  This book will make these composers come alive for you.

I already read about that book. Seems a really interesting book. I just ordered it :P.

Quote from: Henk on March 27, 2008, 05:09:18 AM
I already read about that book. Seems a really interesting book. I just ordered it :P.

Good for you.  If you give that a read, you'll know more about modern composers than 90% of the people here.

Quote from: Catison on March 27, 2008, 05:23:07 AM
Good for you.  If you give that a read, you'll know more about modern composers than 90% of the people here.

Haha >:D

Quote from: Catison on March 27, 2008, 04:56:06 AM
Do yourself a favor and get a copy of Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise.  This book will make these composers come alive for you.

I should get that. Thanks for the reminder.

Henk, since you're listening to Kagel, you might be interested in these two recordings (http://www.ubu.com/sound/kagel.html) on UbuWeb, available free for online listening: Acustica and Der Schall.

There's also a collection of short Kagel films, here (http://www.ubu.com/film/kagel.html), which I haven't watched yet but look fascinating.  (This site is quite extraordinary.)

--Bruce

Quote from: bhodges on March 27, 2008, 06:43:13 AM
Henk, since you're listening to Kagel, you might be interested in these two recordings (http://www.ubu.com/sound/kagel.html) on UbuWeb, available free for online listening: Acustica and Der Schall.

There's also a collection of short Kagel films, here (http://www.ubu.com/film/kagel.html), which I haven't watched yet but look fascinating.  (This site is quite extraordinary.)

--Bruce

Bruce, thanks for letting me know. I'm indeed very charmed by Kagel's music, actually today I bought another album of his (piano works). What do you think of Kagel? I haven't listened to the old style work of Kagel much, so I'm very curious for those recordings and also for those movies. Interesting site indeed.

Henk

Henk, at this point you have probably heard more Kagel than I have!  My interest in him dates back to the early 1970s, when I first heard Der Schall in its LP incarnation, on Deutsche Grammophon's Avant Garde Series.  (Some of the series made it to CD...others did not, which is why I was so delighted to find Der Schall on UbuWeb, and just to be fair, I'm not sure I could listen to it all that often.  ;D)  But in any case, it was one of the first "modern" pieces I heard and I found it fascinating.

You may have found this nicely-designed site (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/bh25/kagel.htm) that has a huge list of Kagel's works.  I realize I've heard probably a fraction of them.  (He is not performed often in the United States--or at least, in New York.)  I'm hoping through UbuWeb and gradual accumulation of recordings to hear more of his work. 

--Bruce

Bruce, I also was fascinated by Kagel's art. But the last time I listened to Stucke der Windrose I felt a bit weird about it. Nietzsche said Wagner made music subordinate to theatre. This influenced the way I feel about Kagel's music. I think Kagel does the same as Wagner. It's fascinating until you realize this.

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 15, 2008, 10:35:20 AM

Schoenberg invented the twelve-tone system, which assumes atonality but isn't the same thing as atonality.

I stand corrected, Sarkosian.  Not being musically trained I'm unfamiliar with the technical definition of atonality.  I'll find opportunity to listen to the Liszt, et al., that you recommend.

Nevertheless to my naive ear Schoenberg/Alban/Berg present a certain discontinuity from everything that preceded them.

Quote from: quintett op.57 on March 24, 2008, 04:12:58 AM
Liszt invented it.

If you're talking about the Faust Symphony's theme, I'd call it an extraordinary anticipation of serialism; not serialism itself, since it doesn't develop in the serial manner.

As for "pre-tonal" music, it is definitely not atonal since, with only a few exceptions like Carlo Gesualdo's Moro lasso (you'd like that one, Henk :D), it has a strong tonal center.  The proper term is modal.  Most traditional Asian and Asian-influenced music is also modal.

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 15, 2008, 10:35:20 AM
Liszt late compositions - as another poster has noted - points to the same direction.  But is probably has not had the influence of Wagner, as that music was (and still is) seldom played.  Worst, Liszt's students, who were embarassed by the Master's late music & appear to have considered it the expression of senility, failed to include it in their editions of Liszt's "complete" works.

It's always been less famous to the larger audience than Wagner's operas, but for me it's obvious that it has not prevented later composers from hearing it. So much music sounds like Liszt's after him.
I can't believe the (numerous) guys influenced by his tone poems (Strauss, Rachmaninov, Schönberg...) forgot to have a look at his late piano works.
It's very hard to believe Debussy and Ravel had not listened to his late piano music.
[/quote]

Quote from: quintett op.57 on April 15, 2008, 01:06:44 PM
I can't believe the (numerous) guys influenced by his tone poems (Strauss, Rachmaninov, Schönberg...) forgot to have a look at his late piano works.
It's very hard to believe Debussy and Ravel had not listened to his late piano music.

I find it very easy to believe they didn't. If the music wasn't published, how were they to know about it?

In fact you're right, Liszt's impressionism is not that late  ;D

Quote from: jochanaan on April 15, 2008, 12:04:56 PM
If you're talking about the Faust Symphony's theme, I'd call it an extraordinary anticipation of serialism; not serialism itself, since it doesn't develop in the serial manner.

Though I'm listening to the Faust-Symphony right now, I was talking about the "Bagatelle sans tonalité", which is not a serial work either.

Nothing by Liszt is serial. (As jochanaan makes plain.)

...though there is that famous '12-note' idea opening the Faust Symphony. Which is important more for the influence it exerted and for its iconic value than for any intrinsic serial foreshadowings which, of course, aren't there.

The Bagatelle sans tonalite, btw, isn't really atonal either. It just floats there, pinned in a tonally ambiguous space by symmetrical harmonies such as augmented triads and other whole tone chords, diminished sevenths, chromatic scales and so on.....

Quote from: Haffner on March 24, 2008, 06:51:08 AM
Karl Henning certainly has some interesting music.

I also like Mr. Gorecki.

At least my Gorecki alliance has one member. 8)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 15, 2008, 02:03:43 PM
The Bagatelle sans tonalite, btw, isn't really atonal either.

But then, neither is the Wagner. ;D

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. (I also seem to remember a quotation from Schumann's Waldszenen there, but can't find it. However, this is not the copy I originally read, and I just noticed all page numbers are missing from the index - so perhaps it is somehow faulty. ??? I distinctly remember that Schumann from my teacher's copy - in fact, it was one of the reasons why I became interested in that piece. Ah, whatever. Need to get back to work now.)

Quote from: Maciek on April 21, 2008, 04:36:08 AM
But then, neither is the Wagner. ;D

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. (I also seem to remember a quotation from Schumann's Waldszenen there, but can't find it. However, this is not the copy I originally read, and I just noticed all page numbers are missing from the index - so perhaps it is somehow faulty. ??? I distinctly remember that Schumann from my teacher's copy - in fact, it was one of the reasons why I became interested in that piece. Ah, whatever. Need to get back to work now.)

The E minor prelude - perhaps. But there are some Mazurkas which are much more extreme. And that sketch of an E flat minor prelude (I think that's they key - I have the music at home) which is really ultra-modern.  :o :o Or would have been, at any rate (if he'd had the guts to go through with it  >:D >:D >:D ) (only joking)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 15, 2008, 02:03:43 PM
The Bagatelle sans tonalite, btw, isn't really atonal either.

Which key is it?

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 21, 2008, 10:33:56 AM
The E minor prelude - perhaps. But there are some Mazurkas which are much more extreme. And that sketch of an E flat minor prelude (I think that's they key - I have the music at home) which is really ultra-modern.  :o :o Or would have been, at any rate (if he'd had the guts to go through with it  >:D >:D >:D ) (only joking)

I guess he (Zielinski) chose the E minor prelude because the extreme chromatics (both extremely simple, and extremely not-really-tonal at the same time) somehow connect it to Wagner. Obviously, we both favour the Mazurkas as the best thing Chopin gave to the world, nothing to discuss there 8) (and many of them are more modal than tonal, I think - because of the use of folk scales? but then my knowledge of harmony is really rather sketchy...) But I guess there are some other "tonally-transgressive" pieces of his as well: like the slow movement of the B minor sonata where the functionality seems to be almost entirely subordinated to colour. Which is the case in many Chopin pieces, and which of course is still a far cry from atonal writing. ;D

(BTW, I have no idea what prelude you're talking about - nor which mazurka was it that Lutosławski mentioned.)

@ quintett, re the Liszt.

The point is that it floats around many keys without choosing a central one, not that it has none at all. It isn't at all hard to find a variety of strongly suggested tonal centres in the piece, but they rarely last beyond a bar or two, and the use of whole tone and chormatic elements makes movement in between them rather fluid. The title means, I suppose, 'Bagatelle without a [single] tonal centre' (and is thus comparable with a title such as Bagatelle in C major), but, as there is an understandable wish to seek out atonal music as far back as possible, it is often read as meaning 'Atonal Bagatelle'. The two aren't the same.

Quote from: Maciek on April 21, 2008, 02:21:27 PM
(BTW, I have no idea what prelude you're talking about - nor which mazurka was it that Lutosławski mentioned.)

Hey, could it be I can actually tell you something about Polish music you were unaware of!!

Check this out (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026577.html) - with downloadable mp3. Edit - darn it - that mp3 link is not working any more, and though I used to have it saved on my PC, I can't find it now....

Anyway, the attachments give you all the detail, plus various reconstructions. It's an astonishing sounding piece, you'll have to trust me!

Second little bit - the main realisation is in this one.

Last bit

WOW! Thanks a lot! 8) I was a bit apprehensive after posting that - saying anything at all about harmony was really going out of my depth... ;D

Not sure what exactly was wrong with your link but after removing everything after "html" I got this, and it works:

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026577.html (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026577.html)

Thanks again! 8) 8) 8)

Quote from: Maciek on April 21, 2008, 02:46:59 PM
WOW! Thanks a lot! 8) I was a bit apprehensive after posting that - saying anything at all about harmony was really going out of my depth... ;D

Not sure what exactly was wrong with your link but after removing everything after "html" I got this, and it works:

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026577.html (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026577.html)

Thanks again! 8) 8) 8)

Missing ']', that's all! But the really annoying thing is the missing mp3. I'm really  >:( >:( >:( >:( about that

Would this be the same thing?

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

(I found the link on the guy's site (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~kallberg/). He actually wrote a book entitled Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex History, and Musical Genre LOL)

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

Well, that's what it says on the guy's own site! 0:) The Harvard UP site (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/KALCHO.html) has a simpler title, with a comma between "sex" and "history". Not that it makes it any less funny. :P ;D ;D ;D ;D

You are a wonderful human being  ;D  :-*

Odd piece, isn't it?

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.  8)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 21, 2008, 03:03:04 PM
Odd piece, isn't it?

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

(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

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 (http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1102/1102gaz7.html)

And another (http://www.riprense.com/kallbergchopin.htm)

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 22, 2008, 12:32:46 AM
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! >:D) 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? >:D

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:)).

Quote from: Henk on March 17, 2008, 02:05:19 AM
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
::)

Quote from: Teresa on April 23, 2008, 02:14:48 AM
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.

Quote from: Teresa on April 23, 2008, 02:14:48 AM

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.

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

Quote from: Henk on March 16, 2008, 05:15:18 AM
Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio.

Quote from: Henk on April 24, 2008, 03:55:36 AM
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 (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,42.0.html). You'll find quite a few modern music downloads there.

Quote from: Maciek on April 24, 2008, 11:10:33 AM
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 (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,42.0.html). 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.

Quote from: Henk on April 25, 2008, 12:06:47 AM
. 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.

Quote from: AndyD. on April 25, 2008, 01:31:11 PM



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.

Quote from: Henk on April 26, 2008, 08:10:08 AM
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. ;D

Quote from: Harry on April 26, 2008, 08:17:28 AM
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. ;D

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

Quote from: Maciek on April 21, 2008, 04:36:08 AM
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! ;D

Quote from: jochanaan on April 26, 2008, 06:55:54 PM
...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.

Quote from: Henk on April 26, 2008, 08:10:08 AM
I'm really not interested, Andy. Sorry, man.

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

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 26, 2008, 10:21:29 AM
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.

Quote from: jochanaan on April 26, 2008, 07:01:14 PM
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.

Well written, J. But you could possibly see Schoenberg, etc. as automatically having tonal implications simply by dint of their atonality.

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 27, 2008, 10:10:42 PM
A scholar's will to moralize an anti-moral author has little bearing on Nietzsche's polemic against Wagner.


Cliche pop psychology sure is easier than in-depth analyses of Nietzche's anti-wagner writing.



The fact that Wagner and Nietzsche were once on good terms does not tell us much as to the reasons for their subsequent estrangement.

I have, long ago.  If you have too, how about telling us the relevance of idealistic philosophy to an author - Nietzsche - who hated idealism, and to a composer - Wagner -  who read Shopenhauer far more extensively than Hegel?

Surely there are more productive things one can do with one's limited time on this planet, than to allude for all eternity to Hegel's logic.

All you did was ask questions that my original post answered.  And I seriously doubt you really read the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, just by the fact that you couldn't see how applicable that thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis is. The Idea occurs whether you want to admit it or not, and existed way before Hegel came up with it. Hegel was just as guilty as Nietzsche for coming up with a lot of ideas the Greeks already thought of, then claiming them as your own. Your defensiveness in reaction to this post will tell us more about how sure you are in your reading.

As to Wagner, I must quote Tocannini's reference to R. Strauss: "as a composer, I take off my hat to him. As a man, I put it back on".

You mention pop philosophy, but your overly Romantic embracing of Nietzsche is the most cliched interpretation that exists. I've been there. i read alot of Nietzsche when I was unhappy, and his own (self-directed) Affirmations in the face of misery really helped my life.

And then I got older and happier. No one is saying the same is going to happen to you, that was just me. As Nietzsche wrote in Thus...: "this is my way, what is yours?"

Nietzsche wrote about will to power, and taking inner truths as the "only" because he was a sickly, horribly unhappy (read the Kaufmann and Hollingdale biographies), and nearly blind man with practically no friends. He wrote negative things about women because he couldn't keep one, and probably suspected one had basically murdered him.

Look, I should be kinder...Nietzsche's latter-day philosophy in particular could'nt have existed without their having already been a Wagner, or Speculative Idealism. The fact that he raged against those items specifically only exposes how much he was influenced by them. Remember the old Shakespeare quote "the lady doth protest too much?". Jung called it projection.

I honestly didn't mean to rile you up. But if you plan on seriously discussing the less Romantic aspects of Nietzsche's writings, pack a lunch.

Just think, all that money (supposedly) and intelligence and you're still a dick!  :D

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 07:41:20 AM
Your incapacity to grasp the books you mention does not mean others are as diffecient in understanding as you are...
(I see it is a habit of the lesser members of this  site to compensate for the ignorance displayed in their posts, with accusations of ignorance against educated people  ::) )


If you had any credible theory as to how Hegelian logic is applicable to Nietzsche's polemic against Wagner, you would have said so;  Nor have you demonstrated your contention that a synthesis was obtained from the confrontation of Wagner's romanticism and of Nietzsche's classicism.  You need to get your act together, buddy, if you want to be taken seriously by serious people.


There you go again, trying to draw attention away from your impotance to demonstrate any of the points you have made, with generalisations that are superficial as well as irrelevent to the debate between Nietzsche and Wagner.

keep your hopes down, buddy.  There is nothing defensive or uncertain about any of my postings.  Merely bringing evidence to point out Newman's claim of an equivalence of Wagner and Nietzsche is an incompetent one.


You need to learn to read people's postings before you react to them.  Do you so much as know the meaning(s) of the word romantic?  And there is no way you can figure out who I embrace or not, from the mere fact that I have pointed out Wagner and Nietzsche were opposites.


Who cares.  This thread is not about you.  Nor does your claim Nietszche is a means to resolve emotional hangups make you a credible authority on that author.


I have, dimwit.  Nor are you going to impress knowledgeable people by making authority of Kaufmann's irresponsible and mendacious effort at transforming Nietzsche into the opposite of what Nietzsche was.


You can't write a coherent sentence but you pretend to know why Nietzsche did not like women?  What a joke.  Nor does your denigration of that great man has any relevance to the fact that he was misogynous, while Wagner believed in the salvation of Man through women.

Learn how to read is one thing you should do; an another thing you need to do is learn how not to draw attention away from your incompetence to argue a coherent line, with smear on educated people.


Even when you project your ignorance unto others?  ;D

Once again, if you had read my post before making your latest display of insult-packed ignorance you would know I have contrasted Nietzsche's... classicism to Wagner's romanticism

My lunches get packed for me, foolish boy.

How could I have been so stupid. Thanks so much for setting me straight about these points. I feel like a complete idiot. Please accept my apology, really.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I read the heading of this subject as Modern composers. I know Nietzsche composed, but not enough to be classified as a composer. As to Wagner, has he ever been classified as modern?

If any of you want to discuss the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche, either start a separate thread, or better yet, go to a forum dealing with such a subject.

You want a modern composer? How about Peter Eötvös? His Le Balcon is fascinating, but then it is an opera and should be in the Opera and Vocal section. See you there!

uffeviking

Quote from: uffeviking on April 28, 2008, 08:37:58 AM
You want a modern composer?

I'll check my availability  8)

Quote from: AndyD. on April 28, 2008, 08:07:21 AM


How could I have been so stupid. Thanks so much for setting me straight about these points. I feel like a complete idiot. Please accept my apology, really.

Good to hear this, Andy :)

I had you in mind, but I could not find your work available at amazon or any other CD producers. Would love to see your Three Things That Begin with 'C' published!  ;)


This post is in reply to Karl Hennings's.

Quote from: uffeviking on April 28, 2008, 08:37:58 AM
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I read the heading of this subject as Modern composers. I know Nietzsche composed, but not enough to be classified as a composer. As to Wagner, has he ever been classified as modern?

If any of you want to discuss the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche, either start a separate thread, or better yet, go to a forum dealing with such a subject.

You want a modern composer? How about Peter Eötvös? His Le Balcon is fascinating, but then it is an opera and should be in the Opera and Vocal section. See you there!

uffeviking

Thanks for that recommendation. The problem with listening to opera is that I think I have to follow the story, but perhaps concentrating only on the music is already enough?

Quote from: Henk on April 28, 2008, 09:09:01 AM
perhaps concentrating only on the music is already enough?

Not always! A familiarity with the action and meaning is preferred but not always available, or even practical in everyday life. You can listen to the opera once you have seen it and know what it's all about and your boss and/or wife won't mind, but running a DVD on your office PC or dominating your wife's soap operas? Bad idea!  ::)

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 09:29:55 AM
It would not seem inappropriate to discuss definitions of modernity in any thread devoted to the modern.
A pretty widespread opinion out there is that the breakdown of tonality begins with the opening bars of Tristan.  And if that opinion is sound then musical modernity derives from Wagner.

In that case I'll propose that musical modernism are about a lot of other stuff than the breakdown of tonality. Its also about attitude.

Quote from: AndyD. on April 27, 2008, 07:45:57 AM



Well written, J. But you could possibly see Schoenberg, etc. as automatically having tonal implications simply by dint of their atonality.

I suppose you could--but it seems about as likely as to relieve one's hunger by fasting. :o

If there are tonal implications in Schoenberg and the others, they were deliberately allowed.  Berg, in particular, showed a kind of "tonal nostalgia;" he was the most Romantic of the three.  Webern, on the other hand, seems to have no "tonal nostalgia" at all once he embraced atonality and serialism.  In some ways, he was the most radical of the whole school.

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 07:41:20 AM
Your incapacity to grasp the books you mention does not mean others are as diffecient in understanding as you are...
(I see it is a habit of the lesser members of this  site to compensate for the ignorance displayed in their posts, with accusations of ignorance against educated people  ::) )


If you had any credible theory as to how Hegelian logic is applicable to Nietzsche's polemic against Wagner, you would have said so;  Nor have you demonstrated your contention that a synthesis was obtained from the confrontation of Wagner's romanticism and of Nietzsche's classicism.  You need to get your act together, buddy, if you want to be taken seriously by serious people.


There you go again, trying to draw attention away from your impotance to demonstrate any of the points you have made, with generalisations that are superficial as well as irrelevent to the debate between Nietzsche and Wagner.

keep your hopes down, buddy.  There is nothing defensive or uncertain about any of my postings.  Merely bringing evidence to point out Newman's claim of an equivalence of Wagner and Nietzsche is an incompetent one.


You need to learn to read people's postings before you react to them.  Do you so much as know the meaning(s) of the word romantic?  And there is no way you can figure out who I embrace or not, from the mere fact that I have pointed out Wagner and Nietzsche were opposites.


Who cares.  This thread is not about you.  Nor does your claim Nietszche is a means to resolve emotional hangups make you a credible authority on that author.


I have, dimwit.  Nor are you going to impress knowledgeable people by making authority of Kaufmann's irresponsible and mendacious effort at transforming Nietzsche into the opposite of what Nietzsche was.


You can't write a coherent sentence but you pretend to know why Nietzsche did not like women?  What a joke.  Nor does your denigration of that great man has any relevance to the fact that he was misogynous, while Wagner believed in the salvation of Man through women.

Learn how to read is one thing you should do; an another thing you need to do is learn how not to draw attention away from your incompetence to argue a coherent line, with smear on educated people.


Even when you project your ignorance unto others?  ;D

Once again, if you had read my post before making your latest display of insult-packed ignorance you would know I have contrasted Nietzsche's... classicism to Wagner's romanticism

My lunches get packed for me, foolish boy.

Remind me to never talk to you.

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 09:29:55 AM
A pretty widespread opinion out there is that the breakdown of tonality begins with the opening bars of Tristan.  And if that opinion is sound then musical modernity derives from Wagner.

It did, once on a time.  "Modern" is a time-dependent variable.

It is many, many decades since Wagner was "modern."

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 09:29:55 AM
It would not seem inappropriate to discuss definitions of modernity in any thread devoted to the modern.
A pretty widespread opinion out there is that the breakdown of tonality begins with the opening bars of Tristan.  And if that opinion is sound then musical modernity derives from Wagner.

See my previous reply #79 (on page 4, as the thread comes up for me) for an alternate viewpoint. 8)

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 07:41:20 AM
Your incapacity to grasp the books you mention does not mean others are as diffecient in understanding as you are...
(I see it is a habit of the lesser members of this  site to compensate for the ignorance displayed in their posts, with accusations of ignorance against educated people  ::) )
...

Gads!  :o  Now there's a big wad of hauteur, eh?

There members here who know more about this, that, the other, or many topics.  Also, some might be more rational, charming, and/or richer.  But I would never be so crass as to refer to "lesser" or "greater" members.

Of those who consider themselves the "greater" members, I would ask that you do one or more of the following:

• Stifle your arrogance
• Go somewhere else
• Sodomize yourself with a splintery broom handle.

Quote from: Feanor on April 29, 2008, 09:02:45 AM

• Sodomize yourself with a splintery broom handle.

LOL

Since I've been so designated by an authority, let me announce now my pride in being one of GMG's lesser members!

Woo-HOOO! Get down n' funky! Bust a dilly on dat supa-funk-TASM! Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Quote from: Sarkosian on April 28, 2008, 07:41:20 AM
Your incapacity to grasp the books you mention does not mean others are as diffecient in understanding as you are...
(I see it is a habit of the lesser members of this  site to compensate for the ignorance displayed in their posts, with accusations of ignorance against educated people  ::) )


If you had any credible theory as to how Hegelian logic is applicable to Nietzsche's polemic against Wagner, you would have said so;  Nor have you demonstrated your contention that a synthesis was obtained from the confrontation of Wagner's romanticism and of Nietzsche's classicism.  You need to get your act together, buddy, if you want to be taken seriously by serious people.


There you go again, trying to draw attention away from your impotance to demonstrate any of the points you have made, with generalisations that are superficial as well as irrelevent to the debate between Nietzsche and Wagner.

keep your hopes down, buddy.  There is nothing defensive or uncertain about any of my postings.  Merely bringing evidence to point out Newman's claim of an equivalence of Wagner and Nietzsche is an incompetent one.


You need to learn to read people's postings before you react to them.  Do you so much as know the meaning(s) of the word romantic?  And there is no way you can figure out who I embrace or not, from the mere fact that I have pointed out Wagner and Nietzsche were opposites.


Who cares.  This thread is not about you.  Nor does your claim Nietszche is a means to resolve emotional hangups make you a credible authority on that author.


I have, dimwit.  Nor are you going to impress knowledgeable people by making authority of Kaufmann's irresponsible and mendacious effort at transforming Nietzsche into the opposite of what Nietzsche was.


You can't write a coherent sentence but you pretend to know why Nietzsche did not like women?  What a joke.  Nor does your denigration of that great man has any relevance to the fact that he was misogynous, while Wagner believed in the salvation of Man through women.

Learn how to read is one thing you should do; an another thing you need to do is learn how not to draw attention away from your incompetence to argue a coherent line, with smear on educated people.


Even when you project your ignorance unto others?  ;D

Once again, if you had read my post before making your latest display of insult-packed ignorance you would know I have contrasted Nietzsche's... classicism to Wagner's romanticism

My lunches get packed for me, foolish boy.

5  Over/Under?:  Number of GMGers who exercised their "Report to Moderator" function on this one.   $:)

 have to say Sarkosian confirms all my suspicions about Nietzsche only having value to insecure adolescents.  When is the last time you saw a pretentious buffoon quoting David Hume?

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 29, 2008, 10:42:52 AM
have to say Sarkosian confirms all my suspicions about Nietzsche only having value to insecure adolescents.  When is the last time you saw a pretentious buffoon quoting David Hume?

laughing

Hey, I've been there, b. ;)


I had no idea anyone reported that post to the moderator. I just let it go; the guy just seemed to want to be "right", so I let him have his victory. I'll bet most of you would have done the same thing. I feel left out, maybe I was one of the few whom didn't report the post (laughing harder(. In any case, I'm flattered and honoured at the support you folks have given me. I'm actually a little bit misty-eyed.

One so far! The other four are still rolling on the floor laughing their posteriors off!

My post refers to the number of Moderators having received and read the 'report to moderator', not GMG posters!  ;)

Lis, It seems someone else has just pressed the report button. I do think the replies have been straight forward in outlining what people did not think appropriate about 'that post'. Anything I would add at this stage would be redundant.

Mike

Quote from: uffeviking on April 29, 2008, 10:49:34 AM
One so far! The other four are still rolling on the floor laughing their posteriors off!

My post refers to the number of Moderators having received and read the 'report to moderator', not GMG posters!  ;)

Hey, let me in on the joke please, Lis  :)!


Also, since I seem to be in the dark as a general rule, could someone please list (or make a topic of) whom exactly are the "lesser members" on GMG. Preferably one of the "Better members". I just want to to know whom I'm allowed to schmooze with, since I don't want to end up getting kicked around by the big mean "Betters". Boo-Hoo!


_{^{laughing like a sick, tripping hyena}}

Andy: It's this post:

"Gads!    Now there's a big wad of hauteur, eh?

There members here who know more about this, that, the other, or many topics.  Also, some might be more rational, charming, and/or richer.  But I would never be so crass as to refer to "lesser" or "greater" members.

Of those who consider themselves the "greater" members, I would ask that you do one or more of the following:

Stifle your arrogance
Go somewhere else
Sodomize yourself with a splintery broom handle.

Quote from: uffeviking on April 29, 2008, 11:37:35 AM
Andy: It's this post:

"Gads!    Now there's a big wad of hauteur, eh?

There members here who know more about this, that, the other, or many topics.  Also, some might be more rational, charming, and/or richer.  But I would never be so crass as to refer to "lesser" or "greater" members.

Of those who consider themselves the "greater" members, I would ask that you do one or more of the following:

Stifle your arrogance
Go somewhere else
Sodomize yourself with a splintery broom handle.

I'm dying here. Someone please sell me a "Greater Member" steroid packet! Or at least some "Better Member Horny Goat Weed"
Woo-HOOOO!

It's not the size of the member, it's [insert...no....enter....er.... write missing words here]

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 29, 2008, 12:09:51 PM
It's not the size of the member, it's [insert...no....enter....er.... write missing words here]

_{^{dying again}}

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 29, 2008, 12:09:51 PM
It's not the size of the member, it's [insert...no....enter....er.... write missing words here]

What a penetrating comment!

Well, I do try to rise to the ocassion


but


Enough! Too many innuendos from me for one day.....

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 29, 2008, 02:27:41 PM
Well, I do try to rise to the ocassion


but


Enough! Too many innuendos from me for one day.....

(smiling) Modern composers...

Thanks, guys, for the--um--sizeable laughs! ;D ;D [bite tongue, jochanaan!]

Quote from: uffeviking on April 29, 2008, 11:37:35 AM
There

There are

QuoteSodomize yourself with a splintery broom handle.

Who reported this to the Civil Rights organisations?
Homophobic insult is liable.

Welcome to GMG, Appalled.   :)

Quote from: Appalled on April 29, 2008, 06:37:21 PM

Homophobic insult is liable.

"Liable" to what?

Best...thread...ever...

Quote from: Topaz on April 30, 2008, 11:08:50 AM
"Liable" to what?

do you really wanna know?.......

:-X :-X :-X :-X

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 21, 2008, 02:24:04 PM
@ quintett, re the Liszt.

The point is that it floats around many keys without choosing a central one, not that it has none at all. It isn't at all hard to find a variety of strongly suggested tonal centres in the piece, but they rarely last beyond a bar or two, and the use of whole tone and chormatic elements makes movement in between them rather fluid. The title means, I suppose, 'Bagatelle without a [single] tonal centre' (and is thus comparable with a title such as Bagatelle in C major), but, as there is an understandable wish to seek out atonal music as far back as possible, it is often read as meaning 'Atonal Bagatelle'. The two aren't the same.

I don't completely agree.
I regard this piece as partly atonal. Most of it is like you've said. But there are moment of true atonality.

Give me bar numbers - I don't see any such atonal passages.  ???  Coincidentally, I recently read a description of the piece which described it in exactly the terms I did - as always being tonal from moment to moment, but with that tonality shifting every bar. I'll have to try to remember where I read it - somewhere reputable, anyway!

I am sure all your reading is reputable, Luke  $:)

;D

Sometimes I read Sean's threads.....  >:D

<frantically emends notion of Luke's reading . . . .>

Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 06, 2008, 04:54:41 AM
Sometimes I read Sean's threads.....  >:D

I live for Saul.

Liszt's Bagatelle ohne Tonart is discussed in an article by Robert Morgan (Journal of Music Theory, Spring 1976) called "Dissonant Prolongation". The word "prolongation" is meant in the Schenkerian sense of the word. He gives several interesting examples of music which prolong dissonant sonorities rather than the triad. The examples in 19th century music all prolong a diminished 7th chord. The prelude to Act III of Parsifal is a particularly fascinating example, since at every step there is an alternate tonal reading of the music which Wagner deliberately frustrates, finding ingenious ways of building the prelude out of a diminished 7th chord.

Liszt's Bagatelle also prolongs a diminished 7th chord, but without the parallel tonal implications. Actually the piece resembles minimalism in that it is all about the process of transposing a chord by altering each note by a half step one at a time. One intermediate version of the chord has a dominant 7th flavor to it, but the effect is always transitory, more apparent than real.

Morgan concludes "Liszt strikingly anticipates twentieth-century compositional tendencies in his renunciation of all functional tonal relationships, explicit or otherwise. Nonetheless it is notable that Liszt still adheres to chords drawn from the standard vocabulary of functional tonal music".

Toothsome, thank you, Mark.

Regarding the Liszt, I would agree with Mark and Luke. The piece is always based on the vocabulary of tonality, but it is "without tonality" in the sense that there are no attempts to use the standard building block chords of tonic, dominant, and subdominant. Writing in the late 19th century, Liszt's conception of "atonality" is very different from what would emerge as Schoenberg's in the early 20th century.

Somewhat less technical than the extract Mark quoted, here's the paragraph I was referring to above, from Derek Watson's book on Liszt:

The Bagatelle, it can be argued, does stay within the confines of functional tonality. But the curious, ambivalent, rootless and suspended quality Liszt aims for is effectively conjured up by his use of the diminished fifth, the diminished seventh chord, augmented triads and the 'cancelling-out' effect of, for example, the F an F sharp in [music example].

Which, though it seems to focus slightly differently to Mark's quotation, actually says more or less the same thing. The point being in both, as I said earlier - the piece is without a tonality, as it is constantly floating, but its harmonic vocabulary is essentially tonal. As Sforzando says, this is not atonality as we understand the word through Schoenberg etc.

Erm... is what Liszt does the same as what I remember Schoenberg referring to as 'vagrant tonality'?

Quote from: Jezetha on May 06, 2008, 07:21:36 AM
Erm... is what Liszt does the same as what I remember Schoenberg referring to as 'vagrant tonality'?

If so, it should be arrested.

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on May 06, 2008, 08:17:41 AM
If so, it should be arrested.

cracking up

Quote from: Jezetha on May 06, 2008, 07:21:36 AM
Erm... is what Liszt does the same as what I remember Schoenberg referring to as 'vagrant tonality'?

Sort of, but not exactly - if my understanding is correct, that is, which isn't likely as it's a long time since I've thought about this. Vagrant tonality, if it is the same thing as what my professors referred to as roving tonality, is indeed tonality which doesn't settle anywhere for long, but it has, implicitly, I think, a forward purpose that is lacking in the Liszt, because though keys aren't necessarily established for long, they are not always only hinted at as in the Liszt. The Liszt is extraordinary because it is quite specifically and deliberately an experiment in the continuous avoidance of a key centre, with any sense of resolution at any time, however momentary - we're only close to key by inference, and no key is ever formally established even for a second. In roving tonality, the music may well settle relatively securely into a key even if it leaves it soon after.

That's my intuitive* understanding of things - someone better informed will be able to be more precise. The problem with this sort of thing, though, is that difinitions are hard to make.


* I almost wrote 'untuitive' - a type which would have also been an apt neologism in this case.... ;)

Thanks for the differentiation, Luke. So - in 'vagrant' or 'roving' tonality there are points where the music temporarily 'settles down', so to speak, and there is still a telos, both of which the Liszt eschews.

Here's a list of modern composers I like (in particular order):
1. Petrassi
2. Bartok
3. Messiaen
4. Ligeti
5. Glass
6. Debussy
7. Satie
8. Reich
9. Schoenberg
9. Takemitsu
9. Varese
10. Babbit
11. Scelsi
12. Lutosławski
13. Carter
14. Gorecki
15. Barber
16. Rzewski
17. Janacek
18. Ives
19. Birtwistle
20. Boulez

There's a lot to discover: Stravinsky; Xenakis; Gerhard; Vivier; Martinu; Medtner; Maderna; Wuorinen; Yun; Chin; Berg; Webern; Berio; Dutilleux; Reynolds; Ganolfi, Mennin; Flagello and others.

A list of modern composers I dislike:
1. Rihm
2. Stockhausen
2. Hindemith
4. Goebbels
5. Henze
6. Eissler
7. Lachenmann
8. Kagel
9. Nono

I have a special interest in dutch modern classical music, but I'm dissapointed in those I've listened to (Andriessen, de Raaf, Top and others).

Let me just stop with making such lists. It makes me think dat I have an objective overview, which I of course not have.

Quote from: Henk on May 14, 2008, 12:13:23 PM
Let me just stop with making such lists. It makes me think dat I have an objective overview, which I of course not have.

If you meet anyone who does, let us know.  I haven't... ;D

Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 06, 2008, 06:08:45 AM
As Sforzando says, this is not atonality as we understand the word through Schoenberg etc.

Atonality should not be understood this way.
This is not a synonymous of serialism.

I never said it was. You misunderstand what I mean by Schoenbergian - 'serialism' has nothing to do with it. What I meant (and Sforzando meant, I think) was that atonality generally means 'in no key' (or, to be precise, with key centres changing so quickly and implied in such complex ways that they are effectively not present). This is true of Schoenbergian atonality, whether serial or not, but it is emphatically not true of the Liszt piece - it is atonal only in that it has no single key. But at almost any point it can clearly be heard and seen to be in one key or other.

An easy way to understand atonality or tonality is to just play the chromatic scale- start from any note, for example, the lowest E. Then play the chromatics at equal volume and rhythm up. Stop at any note and compare. None of the notes have complete resolution. But the closest note to sounding resolved is E, because it was the first played (and the lowest). So it's a factor of certain notes being held out, their registers, rhythms, 3rds and 5ths, etc. blah blah blah

Quote from: Teresa on April 23, 2008, 02:14:48 AM
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'm rereading this thread at the moment. Your post makes some things more clear to me. I also tend to like music with a tonal basis but with (much) dissonance, but also some pieces with (some) tonal character. I haven't figured it out completely. I will check those schools you mention, sounds interesting.

Henk

Quote from: jochanaan on April 15, 2008, 12:04:56 PM
Carlo Gesualdo's Moro lasso (you'd like that one, Henk :D)

Will check it out.

Quote from: Two-Tone on November 03, 2008, 10:01:56 PM
Lock it up, lock it up, lock it up!  And throw the... key away!!

Rev it up, rev it up, my little buttercup!