SYMPATHY FOR THE SERIALISTS (http://classicstoday.com/features/043007-serialists.asp)
What do you think?
At least it's shorter than that other article about vibrato.
Quote from: Bunny on May 17, 2007, 10:11:01 AM
At least it's shorter than that other article about vibrato.
Did anyone actually read that one?
Quote from: Bach Man on May 17, 2007, 10:14:29 AM
Did anyone actually read that one?
Who has the time? It must be hundreds of pages long! And the first page reads like a tabloid news article, to boot.
I'm not sure he was completely coherent in the serialism editorial, I know he wasn't coherent on the first page of vibrato. Talk about vanity publications!
Quote from: Bunny on May 17, 2007, 12:30:23 PM
I'm not sure he was completely coherent in the serialism editorial
Read, and find out.
i don't know what to think
I have a DG Henze symphony cycle. Is Henze considered serial ?
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on May 17, 2007, 01:11:50 PM
I have a DG Henze symphony cycle. Is Henze considered serial ?
Henze wrote a few serial works, but soon abandoned the technique.
I don't remember for sure, but I don't think any of the symphonies are serial.
Actually, it seems quite coherent to me. And the general idea is quite interesting (melody vs tonality) though somehow it doesn't convince me (a definition of melody would have helped). The last sentence may be a platitude but definitely one worth keeping in mind... The point that irritates me is the first paragraph where he's apparently trying to oppose tonal music to serialism, as if there were no other possible variations of atonality. But my overall impression is quite positive (well, it's an essay not a scientific paper). What are your thoughts, Karl?
Maciek
Quote from: MrOsa on May 17, 2007, 03:30:27 PM
Actually, it seems quite coherent to me. And the general idea is quite interesting (melody vs tonality) though somehow it doesn't convince me (a definition of melody would have helped). The last sentence may be a platitude but definitely one worth keeping in mind... The point that irritates me is the first paragraph where he's apparently trying to oppose tonal music to serialism, as if there were no other possible variations of atonality. But my overall impression is quite positive (well, it's an essay not a scientific paper). What are your thoughts, Karl?
Similarly,
Maciek, that the essay is largely "no better than it ought to be." Notwithstanding that Hurwitz is out of his depth here (and while I agree that a definition for melody would help clarify the discussion, there's no denying that it was tactically shrewd of Hurwitz to avoid the attempt), there are observations he makes which surprise me, partly by their aptness, partly because Hurwitz writes from something of a round-table, 'listener-in-the-street', populist angle. The open secret that the adjective "tonal" is frequently used as code for "the familiar" is nothing new; Hurwitz's variant here, I found an interesting twist. "An ongoing search for new types of melody" is an interesting view of the nineteenth century in music, though I don't know if it really reflects the composers and listeners of the time any better.
In all events, a fellow like Hurwitz reaching the conclusion (inevitable, I should think) that not all the tonal music which has emerged through the twentieth century (and no two composers share exactly the same mixture of interior motivation, but one motivation has been, reaction) is uniformly good (let alone great), and seeming to move from there to artistic sympathy with . . . and here I think, too, that he clouds the matter by fixing on serialism as an arbitrary "in this corner."
Interesting as a music-journalism artifact; not a bad read; but yes, a bit blurry 8)
Hurwitz seems to think that there was no possibility of a "German nationalist school" and that - if I understand the implication correctly - no worthwhile German folk music to draw inspiration from. (Schumann's "Rhenish" symphony apparently used everything!)
Hurwitz:
QuoteBy the end of the 19th century, German music had, melodically speaking, effectively written itself out.
QuoteOnly in Germany did the aesthetics of nationalism result in a doctrine of musical purity that made it virtually impossible for native composers to absorb new influences, and renew their stock of musical materials.
(My emphasis)
So with "German" folk music not providing inspiration, and disallowed by nationalism to look for folkish models, German composers need a new method of finding melodies?
There was no such place politically as "Germany" anyway until 1871: provincialism reigns to this day. A Bavarian is a Bavarian first! The Rhinelanders are somewhat similar, and don't mention the East Frisians! :o
Schubert, Bruckner, Mahler, and others do have a folk-music coloring in their works: they were Austrians of course, as was Schoenberg, but saw themselves as part of Germanic culture (vid. Schoenberg's (in)famous comment that the 12-tone method would make "German music" dominant for 100 years!).
I am not persuaded that Schoenberg undergoes a crisis of "melody" in the
Second String Quartet : his desire for new expression ("I feel the air of another planet") demands a break with tonality, which therefore means that melodies will be different.
I'm sure I did not mention the East Frisians . . . .
Excellent correctives, thank you, Cato!
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2007, 05:46:03 AM
Hurwitz seems to think that there was no possibility of a "German nationalist school" and that - if I understand the implication correctly - no worthwhile German folk music to draw inspiration from. (Schumann's "Rhenish" symphony apparently used everything!)
Hurwitz:
(My emphasis)
So with "German" folk music not providing inspiration, and disallowed by nationalism to look for folkish models, German composers need a new method of finding melodies?
There was no such place politically as "Germany" anyway until 1871: provincialism reigns to this day. A Bavarian is a Bavarian first! The Rhinelanders are somewhat similar, and don't mention the East Frisians! :o
Schubert, Bruckner, Mahler, and others do have a folk-music coloring in their works: they were Austrians of course, as was Schoenberg, but saw themselves as part of Germanic culture (vid. Schoenberg's (in)famous comment that the 12-tone method would make "German music" dominant for 100 years!).
I am not persuaded that Schoenberg undergoes a crisis of "melody" in the Second String Quartet : his desire for new expression ("I feel the air of another planet") demands a break with tonality, which therefore means that melodies will be different.
It's those arguments that I found least convincing and most incoherent. I'd also have liked to have seen a citation for the "fact" that there were no German folk tunes to provide inspiration. Certainly Bach also had no trouble finding folk tunes to put into his music, and I doubt they disappeared in the ensuing centuries.
those East Frisians..... never mess with them. They'll stuff you into a tuba if they get mad. :-\
I was about to say that I agreed with Hurwitz, when I realized that I didn't. I recall going to a concert to hear the Shostakovich 5th with my friend, I loved it! He didn't! Why? Certainly not the melodies, that symphony has some killer ones. Neoromanticism is not cut and dried romanticism. In terms of rhythm, harmony and tonal shading neoromanticism lives in a different world than the one that romanticism inhabits. Even works that appear to be conventional like the DSCH 5 are not. It might be a subtle thing, but people can latch on to it despite that.
Gorecki's string quartets are also not lacking in melodic material, but someone overhearing them told me that it sounded like dropping a drawer of silverware on the floor, only not as musical.
I've been progressing up by layers of modernism, so now let's go now to Berg, which Hurwitz mentions himself. There was a thread on the older version of this board where a few posters passionately called his VC unlistenable crap. It is very melodic, they were not reacting to the melodies, they were reacting to other aspects of the music.
I think that Hurwitz does a disservice to listeners by saying that they merely confuse melodic invention with more subtle aspects of modern music. That's not the case. It's a very popular misconception that the Joe off the street lacks the ability to do anything but hear a melody. It's a fabrication of prejudice and not the truth.
Notice that I'm not talking about atonality, my point is that the common listener is sensitive to all of the important aspects of the music, and not just melody. :)
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 06:03:16 AM
I'd also have liked to have seen a citation for the "fact" that there were no German folk tunes to provide inspiration.
Strawman; that's not what was said.
Quote from: DavidW on May 18, 2007, 06:13:06 AM
Gorecki's string quartets are also not lacking in melodic material, but someone overhearing them told me that it sounded like dropping a drawer of silverware on the floor, only not as musical.
now that's just wrong...... you shoulda beat up whoever said that, his string quartets are my favorites
Quote from: DavidW on May 18, 2007, 06:13:06 AM
I think that Hurwitz does a disservice to listeners by saying that they merely confuse melodic invention with more subtle aspects of modern music. That's not the case. It's a very popular misconception that the Joe off the street lacks the ability to do anything but hear a melody. It's a fabrication of prejudice and not the truth.
Excellent,
David.
Quote from: DavidW on May 18, 2007, 06:13:06 AM
I was about to say that I agreed with Hurwitz, when I realized that I didn't. I recall going to a concert to hear the Shostakovich 5th with my friend, I loved it! He didn't! Why? Certainly not the melodies, that symphony has some killer ones. Neoromanticism is not cut and dried romanticism. In terms of rhythm, harmony and tonal shading neoromanticism lives in a different world than the one that romanticism inhabits. Even works that appear to be conventional like the DSCH 5 are not. It might be a subtle thing, but people can latch on to it despite that.
Gorecki's string quartets are also not lacking in melodic material, but someone overhearing them told me that it sounded like dropping a drawer of silverware on the floor, only not as musical.
I've been progressing up by layers of modernism, so now let's go now to Berg, which Hurwitz mentions himself. There was a thread on the older version of this board where a few posters passionately called his VC unlistenable crap. It is very melodic, they were not reacting to the melodies, they were reacting to other aspects of the music.
I think that Hurwitz does a disservice to listeners by saying that they merely confuse melodic invention with more subtle aspects of modern music. That's not the case. It's a very popular misconception that the Joe off the street lacks the ability to do anything but hear a melody. It's a fabrication of prejudice and not the truth.
Notice that I'm not talking about atonality, my point is that the common listener is sensitive to all of the important aspects of the music, and not just melody. :)
The Berg violin concerto is not unlistenable crap, but it does require a "new" set of ears, a shift in musical sensibilties, and some hard work to appreciate it.
The first time I heard it, I was completely bored out of my skull. It sounded more like a practice exercise than something played in recital. However, repeated exposure eventually let the music establish itself in my mind in such a way that suddenly, as if by magic, it all sounded right. I'm not sure exactly what process was at work, but the seeming gibberish finally translated itself into a form which I could absorb. This entailed a lot of hard work, and to this day I will admit that if given a choice, I prefer more accessible music. There is some difficulty in just accepting series of sounds unrelated to melody (narrative), but it is possible to appreciate it if the sounds are ravishingly beautiful.
My problems arise when the sounds I'm expected to appreciate are ugly and discordant. I'd rather not listen to music composed of sounds similar to a fingernail on a blackboard, gears being stripped, or a car crash. That such sounds can be organized in such a way (usually with the help of algorithms) so as to form a sensible pattern doesn't make them music. It just makes them organized noises. Who would ever call a well organized junkyard art? And please, don't talk to me about paintings that incorporate cow dung; collages of nuts and bolts; or sculptures of compressed scrap metal. Those works are usually successful because they evoke visual images that are less abstract. A fitting comparison to that would someone hitting random objects to form a coherent melody. The mere act of organization cannot not make art. My kitchen drawer has all of my knives, forks, and spoons organized by my particular set of rules, but the drawer isn't a sculpture. Why should we call an organized junkyard of sounds music? Serialism and its rules of composition allow anyone to take any sounds, organize them, and call it music. For me, that's where it all falls apart.
Quote from: karlhenning on May 18, 2007, 06:15:02 AM
Strawman; that's not what was said.
Troll. that's what he implied.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 07:52:39 AM
The mere act of organization cannot not make art.
... Serialism and its rules of composition allow anyone to take any sounds, organize them, and call it music. For me, that's where it all falls apart.
Which is why nobody makes CD's of the examples of exercises from e.g. Counterpoint and Harmony textbooks.
They are organized according to the traditional rules, but they are not art.
For art, you need the mind of an artist: this is why Schoenberg and some of his followers have persisted, and why Music Professor X of Upper Podunk University and his serialist scribblings, which maybe made their way into a journal somewhere, have died away unnoticed and unmourned.
You do indeed need "different ears" for certain composers: some of my students would choose the quarter-tone piano experiments of
Charles Ives over atonal Schoenberg, and some vice versa. Others would choose neither, if given Mahler or Wagner or Pat Benatar as a third option. 8) And then a few found everything quite acceptable.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 07:52:39 AM
Serialism and its rules of composition allow anyone to take any sounds, organize them, and call it music. For me, that's where it all falls apart.
But one can say the same for the "rules" of fugue writing. Why does serialism get the bad rap, when I can mechanically write a sonata, fugue, theme & variation or any other common practice form?
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2007, 08:16:56 AM
But one can say the same for the "rules" of fugue writing. Why does serialism get the bad rap, when I can mechanically write a sonata, fugue, theme & variation or any other common practice form?
What makes you think that there have never been bad fugues written? Bad music is more common than great music. The problem is not with serialism so much as the serialists.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 08:19:39 AM
What makes you think that there have never been bad fugues written? Bad music is more common than great music. The problem is not with serialism so much as the serialists.
That is my point. You said the serialism "falls apart" because its rules allow anyone to organize sounds and call it music but as you admit this is true of fugue writing as well, so your earlier point is inconsistent with what you just said.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 08:19:39 AM
What makes you think that there have never been bad fugues written? Bad music is more common than great music. The problem is not with serialism so much as the serialists.
Right, as I mentioned earlier, but the problem lies always with a danger in the 12-tone method itself: let's face it! The "rules" are simple, and take
less talent to follow than the traditional style.
But I think "serialism" - precisely because of its simplicity - demands in fact
more talent from the composer for the creation of something going beyond the method itself.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 07:52:39 AM
Serialism and its rules of composition allow anyone to take any sounds, organize them, and call it music.
It is rare to encounter such absolute humbug.
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2007, 08:35:27 AM
Right, as I mentioned earlier, but the problem lies always with a danger in the 12-tone method itself: let's face it! The "rules" are simple, and take less talent to follow than the traditional style.
But I think "serialism" - precisely because of its simplicity - demands in fact more talent from the composer for the creation of something going beyond the method itself.
Talent, creative spark, esthetic sensiblity -- whatever you need to compose great serialist music, it still does't guarantee a result that will appeal to many now or in the future. Despite enjoying some works, it's not going to be my first choice for listening.
Quotethey make no effort to understand or are perhaps incapable of understanding, I don't know. I don't know, I really don't know the answer to this. I could say all kinds of pretentious things about it, which I really don't want to say because the music is there. If they think the Schoenberg Fourth Quartet and the Violin Concerto—I just won't go beyond Schoenberg, because there's so much other music—or the Stravinsky Movements for Piano and Orchestra, all these pieces are to be damned, good, I'm glad to be among the damned. I can't say that without proof and I don't like to say things without something that approximates demonstration. They don't recognize the music. They don't recognize the beginning of the Schoenberg Orchestral Variations. Look, after all in my generation, no one was to the twelve-tone manner born. I mean, we suddenly encountered it, we were interested in learning the music, learning what was going on in the music, or we didn't. You know, so many different people came to it for so many different reasons. When Aaron Copland, I don't know how many people are even aware that now, ended up writing so-called serial—I'm saying so-called because the term is so misunderstood—but when he wrote serial music, I'll never forget, Aaron, and I'll call him Aaron, because I did call him Aaron, Aaron once said, you know, "twelve-tone music is this mathematical thing, no, it's not for me," and he said that. He said that publicly. And then, about ten years later, he began writing music, in fact to such an extent, I'll say in all lack of modesty, that he wanted me to write an article about his Piano Fantasy, which I did, but the magazine that asked for it went out of existence, the IMA magazine from England, which you probably never saw. But Aaron then said, "Oh my God, I discovered that by playing with these twelve-tone [whatever he called them, rows, probably], I found chords that I had never imagined before." Some people criticize, "What a superficial view of twelve-tone, he found chords he had never found before..." but I thought that was fine. For him, to satisfy the kind of interest that he would have. After all, he went to the Boulangerie, where you learn to slice and package and label chords, and here were chords that were not sliced and packaged and labeled in the Boulangerie! For him that was important; it wasn't important for some of us. So it has fulfilled all of these different needs for people as unlike as Copland and Sessions and Stravinsky. And that people could presume to be off-handed about anything that had this attraction for people of that caliber...don't ask.
So sayeth Milton
http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1562 (http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1562)
Beaut',
Steve!
Two of my favorite bits:
Quote from: Milton B.But Aaron then said, "Oh my God, I discovered that by playing with these twelve-tone [whatever he called them, rows, probably], I found chords that I had never imagined before." Some people criticize, "What a superficial view of twelve-tone, he found chords he had never found before..." but I thought that was fine.
Quote from: Milton B.So it has fulfilled all of these different needs for people as unlike as Copland and Sessions and Stravinsky. And that people could presume to be off-handed about anything that had this attraction for people of that caliber...don't ask.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 07:52:39 AM
My problems arise when the sounds I'm expected to appreciate are ugly and discordant.
What about beatiful and discordant? I haven't listened to Penderecki for awhile.... 0:)
I remember that first quote, Karl, the one with Copland. I actually like Copland's serial music but not any of the rest of his stuff.
Quote from: greg on May 18, 2007, 10:35:12 AM
What about beatiful and discordant? I haven't listened to Penderecki for awhile.... 0:)
I remember that first quote, Karl, the one with Copland. I actually like Copland's serial music but not any of the rest of his stuff.
beautiful and discordant are no problem. :D
When I listen to serial music, if the individual parts don't sound beautiful, then I can't get any further. That means that the Berg violin concerto has to be played extremely well for me. Someone who just gets the notes right isn't going to reach me. When you get down to it, when I listen to music it is an almost purely sensual experience. If my senses are not ravished, it's a deal breaker.
Quote from: Bunny on May 18, 2007, 11:00:10 AM
beautiful and discordant are no problem. :D
When I listen to serial music, if the individual parts don't sound beautiful, then I can't get any further. That means that the Berg violin concerto has to be played extremely well for me. Someone who just gets the notes right isn't going to reach me. When you get down to it, when I listen to music it is an almost purely sensual experience. If my senses are not ravished, it's a deal breaker.
(My emphasis)
That's true for anything, which is why I was disappointed with e.g. Alfred Brendel's rendition on Philips of
Beethoven's last
Piano Sonata #32.
QuoteWhen I listen to serial music, if the individual parts don't sound beautiful, then I can't get any further.
Which works specifically are you referring to?
Quote from: greg on May 18, 2007, 10:35:12 AM
I remember that first quote, Karl, the one with Copland. I actually like Copland's serial music but not any of the rest of his stuff.
Greg, I think it's a blast that
Copland wanted
Babbitt to write an article about his
Piano Fantasy . . . have you heard the piece yet?
Quote from: karlhenning on May 18, 2007, 12:16:42 PM
Greg, I think it's a blast that Copland wanted Babbitt to write an article about his Piano Fantasy . . . have you heard the piece yet?
nope :'(
i've heard the Orchestral Variations and something else for piano, i think it was it was the Piano Variations- it was a long time ago. Good stuff, though.
have you listened to this CD? (it includes Piano Variations, too)
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/510ZVN48F9L._AA240_.jpg)
looks like a real treat! :D
Yes, the Pasternack is an excellent disc!
Quote from: karlhenning on May 18, 2007, 12:29:02 PM
Yes, the Pasternack is an excellent disc!
ah, too bad my library doesn't have it.
but they do have this one:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/31A21Z5SFVL._AA216_.jpg)
with the Piano concerto, Orchestral Variations, 2nd Symphony, and Symphonic Ode.
i just found out the Orchestral Variations were based on the Piano Variations, lol.