Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The common fear of Schoenberg

I don't understand it, and quite frankly don't appreciate it!

My piano teacher said that she would not consider teaching me Op. 11. (At least I broke her Messiaenic Ice )

After telling my composition teacher that I am falling deeply in love with Schoenberg, he stated that it is simply impossible for Schoenberg to touch a person emotionally!

I BEG THE DIFFER! Sure, his music is structurally great. Sure, it was innovative. Sure he had marvelous ideas. But once I became familiar with his works (especially his Piano Concerto and Op. 11), He touched me much like Chopin, Bach, and Beethoven always have.

A year ago, I didn't give this music a change. I popped the cd in, then popped it out because it didn't have Rachmaninovian chords. (Back in the day )

But this music is truly touching. It brings such a sense of cold bitterness like a winter walk in a snowy forest alone. But sometimes quite the opposite. Quick, curious, and sensuous Spring happiness!

Why does the general public dislike him?

Is it intimidating... intellectually

Do they not give it a chance, much like myself a little bit ago?

Or am I just crazy for enjoying it.


... John Cage had a Zen quote which went something like. "If you do not like something for 2 minutes, try it for 4. If you still dislike it, try it for 8. Then 16, then 32 and so on. Eventually you will find that it is very interesting".

I know that I have never fallen in love with any atonal schoenberg. The only piece of his that I can actually listen to and be moved by is Valkartenachte. The rest of his stuff just requires too much work to try to enjoy.

"I am the slave of an internal power stronger than my education."

"I am but the loudspeaker of an idea. The idea is an electric current -- in the air. It may come from Jupiter -- from the cosmos -- that is not proven!"

"It is my historic duty to write what my destiny orders me to write."


As David W. Barber commentates, "Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

:p

No offense to anyone here, but it seems that a good majority of the posters in this forum have a common fear of any composer who is not Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, or Rachmaninov.

Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann pretty much expresses why the Schoenberg tone row system is treated so unsympathetically.
Sure, it's the protagonist's musical "invention" which pushes beyond traditional music into the experimental world, but it's also quite inhuman in that it is impersonal and detached.
I don't know how to compose using the tone row system, nor am I all too familiar with what its methodology fully encapsulates, in essense, what its "precepts" are, but the fact that there are rules for "creating music" systematically is the problem in itself.

There is an intentional reason for why Mann had the protagonist, Adrian Leverkuhn--the Faustus of the novel--"develop" the tone row system (which he admitted as being Schoenberg's), and I believe that it is because of the said impersonal nature of it. Leverkuhn, Faustus, is supposed to abandon/lose his ability to love, to feel true sympathy/compassion for others--and he was already a fairly distant personality to begin with. The tone row system of Schoenberg is supposed to be in line with this: it is an intellectual development, but not a spiritual or emotional one.

There is a reason why music developed beyond the counterpoint rules for every single possible species in Bach and the Baroque movement. Modulation, chromaticism, atonality, dissonance, and, now in modern music taken ad nauseam into the creation of utter randomness of sound, were all explored afterward as a means of expressing emotions in ways that defied rules. Schoenberg's system, I believe, is the complete reverse of this.

Just my two cents based on literature as opposed to music theory.
Most other members will know the musical side more than I.

In response to KJC:

My favorite composer is Mahler. Followed by Barber, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Scriabin, and Copland...in that order.

I take a stand a against Schoenberg and his dodecaphonic sychophants. Yes. I’m against them. I’m taking a political stand. Gonna shoot my mouth off. I expect to get a response.

Schoenberg and his entourage are the only group of classical composers who did harm to the classical music tradition. They represent the height and the horror of musical elitism.

An instructive comparison can be made betwee Vladimar Lenin and Arnold Schoenberg. Lenin thought he could leap frog history, forgo the normal cultural, economic and political development of civilization, and create an elitist utopia of the future. And look what he and his followers did. They damn near destroyed the civilization of eastern Europe. It’s a ghost of what it was and it could have been.

So it is with Schoenberg and his dodecaphonts. They thought they could leap frog musical history, forgo normal tonal and cultural development, and create an elitist tonal system of the future. And look at the result: they turned huge componants of our potential audience against classical music, thereby opening the doors to various popular musics which do not stem from our tradition. And this damn near broke the thread of our tradition--the historical thread that connects us with Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Palestrina, Monteverde and beyond into the middle ages. Our tradition is a ghost of what it was.

And what did classical music get? Lulu, Wozzeck, the Berg violin concerto? Some say they’re masterpieces. Maybe—then again, maybe not. In any event, we didn’t get very much.

Tomasino

I read this anecdote on the net


Artur Schnabel: "You may find this hard to believe, but Igor Stravinsky has actually published in the papers the statement, 'Music, to be great, must be completely cold and unemotional'! And last Sunday, I was having breakfast with Arnold Schoenberg, and I said to him, 'Can you imagine that Stravinsky actually made the statement that music, to be great, must be cold and unemotional?' At this, Schoenberg got furious and said, 'I said that first!'"


????

You're not very observant.

Another one here:


While visiting the pianist Artur Schnabel one day, Arnold Schoenberg challenged his host to play his new compostion. After playing for some time, Schnabel stopped and explained that he could not decipher a certain note. After peering at his own handwriting for a moment Schoenberg was forced to admit that not even he himself could tell; it was either an A or a B flat. He finally produced a small notebook from his battered briefcase and flipped through it to find the page containing his famous twelve-tone system (atonality). After studying it for some time he finally decided: "It must be B flat."

Well then, I will look forward to your proving me wrong. Do it with numbers. Let's see how good you are with inferential statistics. Bring it on.

how about Hindemith? i like his stuff a lot. and Ives. and Brahms. and Schubert. Schumann. Ligeti (prefer him to Schoenberg). and Sciabin. and Ginastera (sp?). i could go on. your previous remark, KJC, is not offensive, just incorrect.

Study the two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research


Only one applies.

Um, no.

So far, you've resorted to feeble putdowns and the posting of links. What an intellectual powerhouse you are! You are a fraud, just as I suspected.

"Schoenberg and his dodecaphonic sychophants"

Wow, that's a good one. It's amazing how useful a thesaurus can be...

Moving on...

If there is one sort of music criticism I am highly allergic to, it is the kind that uses political analogies to try to denigrate an entire musical tradition.

ART AND POLITICS DON'T WORK THE SAME WAY!!!!!

In fact, I couldn't think of a worse analogy to describe what Schoenberg and his followers did to this history of music than one that compares it with the Bolshevik revolution. You honestly think Schoenberg is responsible for contemporary musical elitism and the general disinterest in classical music? What a bunch of crock!

In fact, if you look at history, Schoenberg was merely doing what he saw as 'inevitable' in the evolution of harmony. Wagner was the one who essentially destroyed tonality as we knew it before him, NOT Schoenberg. Schoenberg saw himself as carrying on the Austro-German tradition that included Mozart and Beethoven and Brahms, which is why he, Webern, and Berg make up what we call the "Second Viennese School." The fact that his music didn't gain the same level of popularity as his predecessors' music, says NOTHING about the quality of his music, and has NOTHING to do with some sort of musical "apocalypse" as you seem to be describing it. The decline of classical music's popularity is based on numerous societal, economic, and cultural factors and not MUSICAL factors. There are plenty of people who have embraced the direction classical music took in the early 19th century, and enjoy the music of Schoenberg and Webern and the like.

The least you could do would be to embrace the complexity of his music without resorting to calling it names like 'elitist.' Just because somebody writes something that's slightly cryptic doesn't mean it's arrogant and condescending, and can't be LIKED. heck, look at BACH! We're talking about MUSIC for chrissake! MUSIC IS A BUNCH OF SOUNDS, FREQUENCIES! It can't murder anybody, and it doesn't carry any sort of social or political baggage! It's ****ing ART!

Just because you've been so brainwashed by our the western classical music tradition of glorifying the canon of a small group of fat, white composers of "tonal music" who lived between the years of 1700 and 1900 doesn't mean that music that actually challenges you to hear something differnent is somehow inherently evil, breaking the "thread" of our cherished tradition. Bullshit! We created the thread! We define the tradition by the music we produce! The thread can't be "BROKEN!"

Quit deifying composers of tonality like they're the only ones who can somehow "speak to our inner emotions." Thinking like THAT is what does harm to music. Supporting an inflexible and mystical classical canon is what makes the average person today so intimidated by classical music! YOU'RE THE MUSICAL ELITIST, and people who think like YOU are responsible for the classical music's decline, NOT Schoenberg!

Music is about exploring the limits of what we as humans can do with sounds and silences. It's about keeping an open mind and an open ear, not being afraid of something new. It's about ambiguity, and how composers choose to deal with it. Music reflects society, in a way. It can be beautiful and ugly, vigorous and calm, passionate and cold. The perception of music differs from person to person. When one feels nostalgia, another might feel bitterness; one euphoria, another melancholy. In many way, music can be best compared to our complicated world, filled with ambiguities and unsolved mysteries of its own.

Please reconsider why you may feel so opposed to music you don't like. Examine how hypocritical your views on Schoenberg, and don't resort to applying offensive political parallels to art. If you're going to be "against" something, be "against" something like a useless war, or incompetent political policies and pointless legislation.

But please, PLEASE, leave art alone.

not sure that wikipedia.org is an authority-correct me if i'm wrong but can't anyone edit these links? :rolleyes:

I've heard his piano concerto - it is structured brilliantly, I still don't really appreciate the 12-tone row compositional technique, but I do listen to it on occasion.

"No offense to anyone here, but it seems that a good majority of the posters in this forum have a common fear of any composer who is not Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, or Rachmaninov."

I think that is an unfair statement to make - most people just don't like atonal music, it isn't a fear as you said. Besides it is natural to go for composers who wrote in a wholly diatonic and tonal manner, especially as (no offense intended by the way!) there are a lot of posters here who won't have listened to a lot of different music as they have only been listening to classical music for a relatively short period of time. I know that I have only recently in the last year or so started to listen to music that breaks tonal idioms (and appreciated it)

I must say that that's pretty much the exact same impression I've gotten from these forums. It seems almost as if many people didn't actually like music, that they only liked playing (some of) it. I've been repeatedly baffled by the ignorance and/or indifference, occasionally even caricaturing near antagonism, towards Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner, Sibelius, even Mozart, especially his non-piano music, etc....

Atonal music doesn't interest me much (and, just FEI, whether or not it interests KJC, can't be deduced from what I quoted above, nor from the context). I can appreciate it, often on an emotional level, depending on the performance, on a mood level, at least, as well as on the intellectual level to some modest extent at least (if I want meaningful intellectual experiences, I read books, or watch films), but never on a philosophical level. And there has to be a reasonable underlying philosophy to something if I'm to dedicate my spare time to it.

The more I've thought about it, the clearer it has become that atonal music is unnatural (i.e. 12-tone music, the kind of music where the composer has gone out of his way to avoid any meaningful sense of tonality anywhere). The overtone system is natural, is in the nature, and human beings, as biological organisms, are drawn to it naturally (I'm not suggesting any logical or causal connections here, I'm just describing reality). The same goes for traditional tonality (and Wagner was very much part of the tradition; Shönberg, however, went completely against it after his early period). There have been books written about the subject, by people who share my view on it, and who could write well enough, too. So read those folks, if you're interested. I'm sure somebody can tell the titles I'm talking about (those I would tell if I knew about them ("What?!" I hear somebody asking in his mind... OK: I mean that I know about a few late intellectuals, who apparently knew their business, and I'm sure (rhetorically speaking) that they've written those (hypothetical) books I'm talking about)).

And there's enough good tonal music for me to be more than satisfied for my whole life, I'm fairly confident. Even if I'm the kind of person who wants and feels a need to keep widening my horizons and aesthetic perception. Especially aesthetic perception, as I will always prefer to keep ugly things out of my sight, no matter if people prefer to incorrectly label them 'beautiful'.

I love your post! Reminds me of R. A. Lafferty's literary work, which, by the way, is relevant to this discussion, in a broader, philosophical sense (like his novels Fourth Mansions, and The Devil is Dead).

An introduction to him and his work can be found here:

http://greatsfandf.com/AUTHORS/RALafferty.php

I don't understand why unnatural, atonal, random, inhuman (non of which claims I agree) music can't be beautiful.

Seems like it really comes down to taste.

It is beautiful to me.

What about birdsong? Sure it is natural, but it is atonal, inhuman, and seems random until you study it and learn it,,, just as in Schoenberg, Webern, etc.

I'd imagine some people are familiar with Britten's War Requiem - an extremely dissonant (but not necessarily atonal, I wouldn't say) piece that is about as beautiful as can be. It just takes conditioning IMO.

Here is a related post I wrote last March in a thread about Corliagno and audience decline:

" I disagree with Corliagno, and do not blame romanticism, or the self replacing God, as even a part of the decline in audience for classical music.

Romanticism was on a roll until it hit the serialists, or the "dodecaphonics," as they themselves like to call themselves, (this is such a pretentious two-dollar word, that it ought always be used when referring to them, just to set the tone).

The dodecaphonics in their elitism and super-rationalism, (a super-rationalism not replacing God, but replacing the dynamics of human culture), perceived a problem. The problem was that chromaticism had so eaten away at diatonicism, that there were no further musical possibilities.

Something had to be done. Something had to be invented to replace the diatonic scale if music was to progress. And so serialism was invented by this group of cultural elitists, the dodecaphonics.

In short, they invented a solution for which there was no problem. And then they compounded their error by insisting that serial music be heard by audiences which had no taste for it.

This was such an onslaught into the normal development of culture, that audiences started to stay away, to develop attitudes about "new" music.It was such an onslaught, that it very nearly severed the thread of musical/cultural development.

It was like Lenin feeling he had the solution for the worlds problems, and then attempting to leap frog future centuries of change in order to achieve an earthly nirvana."

Tomasino

I don't get it, that post just repeats the same nonsense as your other post! I can't think of enough ways to say that you're just WRONG and HYPOCRITICAL! Stop talking about the "normal development of culture." It doesn't exist! We as humans define the way our culture evolves through our action and creation. Nothing about it is inherently normal, or otherwise strange or "problematic." It is what it is, and it's too bad you have such a distaste for the direction our musical culture took in the early 19th century that you're comparing it to the communist movement in Russia. Stop comparing the two! The Second Viennese School was not a collection of "musical elitests" set out to "leapfrog" the "normal" evolution of music. That's such an ignorant and misinformed argument, that it pains me to even try to think about it rationally.

Why the heck am I saying all of this again? Read my other post, it says everything there is to be said. I'm waiting for a reply that isn't redundant...

just because people don't like atonal music doesn't make them ignorant or wrong, and it certainly doesn't make you better, KJC, L'echange and Antonius. :rolleyes:

Whoa! First of all, what is it about 12-tone music that ignores the overtone series? It uses all the pitches that we have (loosely) extracted from it. If what you mean to say is that 12-tone music doesn't utilize triadic harmony which has roots in the overtone series, then fine, that's true (on a very superficial level), but don't all of a sudden equate TONALITY with MEANING. No no no no no, BAD. The two are not equivalent by any means, and you'd be hard pressed to find a logical argument for why only tonal music can contain some sort of metaphysical "meaning."

Okay stop. Let's not confuse what is NATURAL with what is RIGHT. Problems always arise when you equate an argument of ethics with one of nature. Not everything we perceive to be "natural" is necessarily in our best interest to follow, and often is the opposite. For example, there is a lot of evidence that RAPE is consistent with our natural, "biological" instincts as creatures focused on reproduction. Does that make it right? Uh, no.

Also, if I logically extend your "natural" argument here, I would conclude that any man-made product goes against nature, and is therefore wrong and lacks "meaning." In conclusion, all music is bad because man created it and that goes against what nature intended! Uh-oh! We better burn all of those original mannuscripts, because from now until the end of time we can only experience music in its most pure and natural state, without any human interference (I'm pretty sure John Cage has already done this). Imagine our musical discussions: " Wow, those birds really create a meaningful musical structure in their beautiful first opus".......obviously I'm being facetious, but you get the idea.

Now that I've destroyed your "natural" argument, let me back track to say that "tonality" isn't all that natural to begin with. First of all, the 12 tones we use to tune a piano are NOT all found in the overtone series. Close, but not quite. We had to slightly adjust some of the tones in order to create a cyclic pattern of 12 tones that allows us to change key. (DAMN YOU J.S. BACH, YOU UNNATURAL MUSICAL DEVIANT!) So the tuning system that all of our cherished Chopin Nocturnes were written with isn't completely natural either. When you play a major third on the piano, it's not a major third in the overtone series. Oh and guess what, if we only played music from what we could extract from the natural overtone series, then all minor-key pieces would be obsolete. The minor triad isn't found naturally, it's inherently "unstable," and believe me, they knew this back during the baroque. You could even argue maybe that what makes minor keys sound "darker" or "more mysterious" is its unstable nature, but I don't really want to go there.

This paragraph contains no actual substance. Let me just say that there are plenty of books about what I've been saying too, and in fact, they provide the basis for most music history courses in conservatories today.


That's fine, nobody is forcing you to listen to Schoenberg. It's been 100 years and he still isn't in our concert halls, so I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about. But please don't talk about "beauty" like it's a compositional device that some composers chose to use and others didn't. I equate "beauty" with what is "aesthetically pleasing," and I think most people do without knowing it. There is plenty of music written before 1900 that is weird, or obscure, or even UGLY, that we all look at as "beautiful" in one way or another. You think the beginning of the last movement of Beethoven's 9th is beautiful the same way the second theme in Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet is? Of course not. Beauty is something human's have created and it is possible to see it in all places. Why confine beauty to just a little bit of music written over 100 years ago?

By the way, the existence of different tuning systems that were adapted as necessary compromises in keyboard music is besides the point, mainly because the tuning systems were (and are) just that: necessary compromises.

Schoenbuerg just sounds ugly. Absurdly ugly. 12-tone music is nothing different from a mathematical exercise-and a bad one at that.

Wrong.

EDIT:

Clarification: I know for a fact that 12-tone music is more than that. It doesn't, after all, define anything than the interval from one note to the next. Even Schoenberg sometimes ignored his own rules if it suited the music. It is no more a mathematical exercise than tonal music is.

if 12-tone music isn't mathematical AT ALL, why, in theory class, did we have the need to subtract from 12 to work with it????

it IS mathematical.

Well, yeah, sure, if you try to find the same kind of "meaning" in an atonal work that you might find in a Mozart sonata. But why on earth would you do that? Of course if you listen to an atonal work with a desire to hear tonality, you'll be displeased. But who said our desires can't be changed, who says are tastes are rigid and inflexible? And who the heck said the tonal way was the right way? All you're doing is describing an aspect of atonal music, in that it doesn't try to achieve musical meaning the same way tonal music does. We already knew this!

Just because it may be our "innate response" (and I would argue that much of it is in fact conditioned) too "seek out" tonal music, doesn't mean that we are only capable of seeing music from a tonal perspective. Frankly I don't find the idea pleasing that I might be constrained to approach all music from the same limited tonal perspective. I like the idea that as a free thinking human being, I am constantly overcoming certain innate limitations I may have in order to experience infinitely more beauty--beauty I would not be able to see if bound to some predetermined criteria for experiencing music, however natural it may be.

Also, this statement:

...is not logical. You're saying that in order to composer "truly" atonal music, "tonal tendencies" need to be deliberately avoided BECAUSE human being "naturally" seek to hear tonal tendencies. Think about that for a second, then revise.

Whoa, whoa, WHOA. Are you implying that conservatories intentionally don't use texts that denigrate atonal music for the same politically correct reasons that RACIST LITERATURE isn't promoted for a widespread public audience? Logically speaking here, assuming you're anti-atonality (as you yourself profess), doesn't that also make you a racist?

And please, inform me of all of this repected literature which decries atonal music for all of these great reasons, I would love to read it.

WOW! That's all atonal music is left to work with? That's still provides an incredible wealth of means to arouse emotion in a listener! You're also forgetting all of the expressive possibilities atonal music has to offer, like UNRESOLVED DISSONANCE. Believe it or not, it can be ver "spine-chilling."


This is what you put in parenthases: "(I'm not suggesting any logical or causal connections here, I'm just describing reality.)" Then you use this perceived "reality" about the nature of tonal music in order to make an argument against atonal music. Hmm, I would call that a "natural argument," care to differ?

Yet another poorly constructed argument. You're saying that what makes atonality "UNNATURAL" is twofold: 1) that it stems from the deliberate avoidance of tonality and 2) that this deliberate avoidance is necessary in the composition of atonal music.

Neither of those two "arguments" supports your claim that atonal music is unnatural. Your argument doesn't speak on what actually makes something "natural" or "unnatural." All you're saying is that in order to compose atonal music, we must deliberately avoid composing tonal music. This is very true.

..just inferior, right?

Oh, so now the casual listener's musical perspectives are most valuable. In that case, I better sell all of my CDs in exchange for the album "Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music." I've heard that it contains the best collection of the least "crippling" classical music over any other competitor. It even beats out "The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe."

Your analogy doesn't work: atonal composers aren't composing atonal music (painting an inside-out horse), then insisting on telling their audience it's tonal music (a horse). That's how your analogy comes across.

What I think you mean is to compare general beauty to the outter beauty of a horse, in which case you would be saying that atonal composers paint a picture of the inside of a horse in an attempt to show the horse's outter beauty, while tonal composers just give you the beautiful horse from an outside perspective. Well again, my answer would be that atonal composers aren't interested in the same beauty as tonal composers. Maybe there IS something beautiful about the inside of a horse. (Has anyone seen the Bodysworld exhibit?)

Hehe, OUCH. See, now you have directly insulted atonal composers (and those who appreciate their music, for that matter) by saying that they "lack creativity." You're acting like atonal composers had to resort to atonal music because they just didn't have the talent or creativity to compose good tonal music. That's just mean, and also ignorant. Listen to Verklärte Nacht and tell me that statement again.


Jeez, more of the same bad analogy. Now I think you're comparing tonal music with a horse (although it's not clear). Atonal composers are not composing atonal music (painting the inside of a horse) and calling it tonal music (a horse). Here's the analogy I think you're trying for, although it turns slightly in my favor:

Composing atonal music is like painting the picture of the inside of a horse in order to expose beauty in a place where it's not often found. Composing tonal music is like painting the outside of a horse to show a new perspective on beauty that we already know exists.

Haha now it seems like you're comparing the composition of tonal music to the typical Hollywood practice of casting "good-looking" actors in their movies (even though they might not be the best actors available). That's funny, I never thought of tonal music in such a superficial way.

Any comments?

Weeeee! More fun!

Necessary compromises, sure, but also "unnatural" by your definition.

That's fine, dnephi, you're entitled to your opinion, and you think Schoenberg is ugly. But isn't it ugly in the most beautiful ways??

Also, to address the whole "it's nothing more than a bad math problem" argument (which is so prevalent for some reason):

First of all, not all of Schoenberg's music is "12-tone," in fact most of it is not.

Sure, there are mathematical aspects that occur in the creation of Schoenberg's music. Why is that a bad thing? I know another composer who was a great numerologist and used plenty of mathematical principles in the creation of his music: J.S. Bach. Wow, he must really suck, too.

Look, the fact that mathematics exists in Schoenberg's music by itself doesn't devalue it. Besides, you're just wrong in saying that it's only a math problem, because I've never heard of a math problem that could be played on the piano. What you're trying to get at, I assume, is that Schoenberg uses plenty of inaudible devices in the construction of his music. First I must say that it is possible to appreciate certain inaudible aspects of music that can be found in the score, heck, we do it all the time with classical tonal music. Think about all the times in Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms when somebody pointed out a pattern, or motivic consistency in one of their works that you hadn't heard before. Those patterns and constructions don't lose value just because you didn't hear it the first time. So if looked at that way, Schoenberg's music (and Berg and Webern) is filled with so many mathematical consistencies that the more you learn about them, the more you may discover latent beauties upon each listening. In this way, 12-tone music can be quite rewarding upon more exposure to it.

Have you ever heard of a sonnet? It's a 14-line poem what contains many other 'mathematical' devices in its construction, namely 'iambic pentameter.'

So hey, I guess Shakespeare and Petrarch were just closet mathematicians who lacked creativity and didn't have the capabilities to compose expressive poetry.


Bleh! It's amazing what kinds of absurd, ignorant, and inane streams of nonsense pervade contemporary musical thinking. (LWpianistin, this is not directed just at you.)

I think it is possible for that to be beautiful, as well.
I just feel that Schoenberg's system is a way to create systematic pieces which, despite their impeccable organization, can paradoxically be random and only in that way can lead to beauty.

A composer in any time period may choose to disregard a musical "rule" simply because, while sitting at the keyboard, the composer thinks, "Hmm, that sounds a lot better, even if it doesn't resolve as it musically should."
I'm not saying that atonality can't be beautiful; in fact, atonality and dissonance were pushed so far because they were the original deviations made to satisfy human perceptive aesthetics.

Schoenberg's system, however, is shaped predominately by rules, regardless of whether those rules involve utmost consonance or utter dissonance. Nothing is done simply because it would "sound more beautiful." Everything is done because "it should be that way."
Hmm, should that be a C or a C#? Well, forget playing it to see which gives the tone that I want; forget humming along to see what just "feels right" to the discriminating ear; let's go back and consult the hand-book: ah, it should be a C.

That is my opinion, not that certain characteristics of music cannot be beautiful.

The only thing atonal music abandons is a tonal center. Hence the name. Let us not forget that Schoenberg chooses the set of pitches and composes the row.


I feel that much of Schoenberg's music feels distant to people ( the ones I know personally ) because:

A. Atonality is foreign and strange to them. If all I am accustomed to is Beethoven, of course this music will sound strange and ugly. So will oriental opera, or the AKA Pygmies.

B. Much of Schoenberg's work lacks a lot of repetition, therefore making it harder to become close to. When you hear Schubert, he repeats a lot of things making it easier to become familiar with. But he uses a deeper grained form of repetition - He uses a key and a scale which you were already very familiar with. In Schoenberg, you have to, first of all, become familiar with his row, and secondly become familiar with the ENTIRE 3'31" (or whatever time length) as apposed to a 10 second motif of schubert, and the things he does with it.

In Schoenberg, you have to learn each row.
Where in Beethoven, we assume you already know the scale, making things much more familiar. It is the difference between your front lawn and the other side of the earth.


Two years ago, I would have never said something like this. And certainly wouldn't have been on this side of the argument,,, keep that in mind.


BTW, remember your manners! It is just a little debate .

Brashness and hostility, in my opinion, are never justified no matter what side of the argument you stand.

Shakespeare and Petrarch were great in that they had a system to follow and still managed to express what they wanted through rules. However, I do not consider the analogy accurate: given the relatively lax rules of the sonnet, it is not impossible to come up with a great number of ways to express oneself within the iambic pentameter, nor within the 14 lines. In fact, Shakespeare is a terrible example for your case, as he bent the rules constantly to create what he thought evoked more powerful emotions, despite the rules that his work fell under. The occasional distortion of grammar and the occasional stretch in pronounciation helped him fit the same ideas into forms that fit the sonnet/blank verse constraint. (Poetic license.)
It is not uncommon for an iambic pentameter line in Shakespeare to actually contain 11 syllables as opposed to ten--sometimes even 9, 12, or 13.
It is even part of the utilization of blank verse to bend the rules of the iambic pentameter line. It occurs all throughout the canon of English Literature, from Marlowe to Milton.
I do not see that as being quite in line with "hmm, what note do I have to insert here to have this fit my rules?"

Here is another post I submitted some time ago, this time dealing most directly with expreessionism, which in turn deals directly with dodecaphony.

"Art critics make an assumption, I believe, that all the arts of a period--painting, music, photography, literature, and so on--are moving in a parallel formation: the idea that when impressionism was developing in painting, it was also taking place in literature and the other arts. This is often true, but I wonder if this assumption isn't self-fullfilling, particularly in the case of expressionism occuring in music.

Music, it seems to me, is inherantly expressionistic: as it is the most abstract of the arts, it delves most easily into the subconscious emotional core. Those arts that are highly iconographic, such as photography and painting, may have had a need to destroy their objective reality in order to get at the underlying emotional core.

I'm suggesting that the power of art criticism, the power of elitism, may have pushed music into the expressionistic movement when there was no need.

Serial music is a fine example of what I'm suggesting. The art critics and music intellectuals felt that excessive chromaticism had destroyed diatonic music, and that there were no more possibilities along those lines. They invented serialism out of whole cloth in order to make the link into a musical future. This fell neatly into the ideas of expressionism then rampant.

But was serialism ever necessary to delve into the emotional subconscious?

Music, it seems to me, being the most abstract of all the arts, being the least iconographic, was very well poised to deal with the subconscious, and had little need of serialism."

Tomasino

L'echange: the pendulum swings both ways in my argument.

I have already said that I feel it is possible for there to be beauty in all that was mentioned.
Thus, in finding a particular piece of Schoenberg's beautiful, I am actually complimenting him as a composer for being able to compose something beautiful despite having to adhere to rigid rules.

There are many sides of an argument, and many sides within those sides.

Schoenberg didn't always adhere to his rules. Take, for example, the introduction of the Variations for Orchestra op. 31 where he starts out with two forms of the row, but uses only one note each, then two, then three, and so on. Sometimes he would rearrange the notes of the row, or only use half of it. Basically, the only thing that was predetermined was the interval from one note to the next, and he bent even that according to his needs.

The serialists, on the other hand...

So far, you've resorted to feeble putdowns and the posting of links. What an intellectual powerhouse you are! You are a fraud, just as I suspected. [/b]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">EDITED because you're not worth arguing with. Byebye.


And last, I don't like 12 tone music.

I don't mean to be brash or hostile, just strongly opinionated. I respect all of the opinions on this board. The truth is I have not always defended 12-tone music so passionately (who has?), but now that I've studied and thought about music for so long, it matters deeply to me that this music be at least appreciated. Believe me, I'm not blasting Webern's Symphonie from my speakers, I'm a sucker for Rachmaninoff and Brahms just like the next guy. But I've found it so rewarding (and extremely logical) to welcome so many other types of music into my life.

Having said that, this debate doesn't end here. I'll will return in full force tonight when I have more time and resources.

To be continued...

(Isn't this stuff fun, guys?)

A useful way to look at the issue is this. Tonality developed over hundreds of years from the works of thousands of composers. 12-tone music was invented by one man who held misguided notions about music 'progressing.' When you look at it this way, it only makes sense that tonal music is superior.

Truly no rational observer can debate the legacy of 12-tone music. It has been an unmitigated failure. After 100 years you can't still argue that society will accept it at some point in the future. People will never hum 12-tone tunes, and it's popularity will never pass beyond a small minority of classical listeners(who are a small set of the population anyway.)

I'd also like to add, that one thing really gets on my nerves about avant-garde fans. They defend pretty much everything. Between 12-tone music, total serialism, musique concrete, the mathematical workings of Xenaxis and the other schools, you would expect mostly failure as these are all radical departures from tradition, yet pretty much no one praises Schoenberg while condeming Boulez for example.

I don't post very often, and I have a feeling that nobody in this debate is going to be swayed by any argument, however rational.
However, I do have a problem with 12 tone composition being portrayed as a kind of paint by numbers method in which the composers simply plug in the notes at random. This is a gross over-simplification of the compositional process in general. Composition is all about choices, and for each piece of music there is an overall system which governs the types of choices the composer makes about every aspect of the composition. And whether this system is tonality, atonlity, dodecaphony, or whatever, the composer's own free will and artistic vision is what ultimately shapes the music.
However, when we take theory classes in music school, we are taught to see music as a set of rules which must not be broken. Artistic vision is discouraged, and it is therefore unsurprising that our assignments, while technically correct, come out sounding unremarkable and uninspired
But there are few among us (hopefully) who would compare our undergraduate theory exercises to the works of J.S. Bach. So don't think that filling in tone-row matrices or putting 12 random notes in a row is equivalent in any way to the music of Schoenberg, Webern etc.
I happen to like a lot of atonal and serial music, but at the same time, there's stuff that I just don't get (Babbitt...). And there's some tonal music that I think is garbage (everything I've heard by Bottesini). But I'm not going to disregard something just because it happens to be outside some socially constructed canon or tradition.
Anyway, those are some of my poorly organised thoughts. And please listen to some Webern... it's beautiful.

HERR GNOME writes: “Truly no rational observer can debate the legacy of 12-tone music. It has been an unmitigated failure. After 100 years you can't still argue that society will accept it at some point in the future. People will never hum 12-tone tunes, and it's popularity will never pass beyond a small minority of classical listeners(who are a small set of the population anyway.)”

Well said, and I’ve been arguing that one reason “. . . it's popularity will never pass beyond a small minority of classical listeners . . . “ is because of the abnormal introduction of dodecaphonic music into the cultural mainstream by a small cadre of elitists . . . sort of like Lenin and the bolsheviks trying to change the world before it had ripened.

Tomasino

Oh my, what a long thread, and long posts too. Oh well, I don't really care much for the dodecaphonists. People don't connect with their music. Neither do I. It doesn't say anything- just- I'm confused. I don't think it's even worth the reviving. You know, I like Heifetz when he said that there are two reasons why he plays contemporary music. One was to convince the composer not to compose more and the second was to remind hmself how much he appreciated Beethoven.
There's some contemporary pieces I like, but nothing twelve- tone, that's for sure.

I hope you understand that comparing Schoenberg, a Jewish composer who as almost killed by the Nazis, to Lenin, a butcher responsible for over 100 million deaths, is ridiculous beyond words.

They both mutilated beautiful things.

Now, about it being 'natural,' we find through classical and quantum mechanics "wave theory" that interposition is a fact of waves... But 12-tone ignores that and beauties therein

Beauty.... in the eye of the beholder, no?

What is wonderful is that there are so many forms and styles of music, art, what have you, from strict structure to no structure, from traditional harmony to disharmony, from tonal to atonal, from thematic and representational to abstract.

Why limit beauty?

-merlin

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

MUAH!!!!

You're right. Tonal music has more of a LEGACY and a TRADITION while serialism has less of a tradition and you could even say, in a commercial way, that is is a "failure." But to call Schoenberg "misguided" is just asinine. He was a brilliant thinker and writer who was more familiar with traditional classical music than you or me could ever dream of being. He saw himself as a continuation of the well-established tradition, and in many ways it makes sense, if you look at the direction harmony was taking with Wagner. Think what you want about Schoenberg's music, but don't insult the man's intelligence.

Also, this statement:

"When you look at it this way, it only makes sense that tonal music is superior."

doesn't say anything meaningful. Even if you believe in a very simplistic, prejudiced way that tonal music is somehow "superior" than atonal music because of its established success and tradition (by the same logic I could "prove" that white people are superior to black people...now I'm sure you don't believe that, do you?), that doesn't in any way devalue atonal music.

Please, your argument is so convential, realize the flaws it contains. You're saying that because tonal classical musis is more "popular" than atonal music, it is somehow "better," with the implication being that we should pay no attention to atonal music. You can see where I'm going with this, right? CLASSICAL MUSIC is extremely unpopular today. Only a small portion of my generation gives a **** about classical music, and most of them are in music schools or conservatories. Most of the population that appreciates classical music and attends concerts regularly was born before 1950 and has acquired a large amount of wealth, and most of THEM only associate with this music because they are socially obligated to as elderly upper-class citizens. So I guess classical music is just an inferior musical tradition nowadays...

Oh, and your last paragraph is just wrong. One of the reasons why you might be noticing that "avant-garde" fans tend to defend "everything" is because they might actually keep an open mind when it comes to music and art. But it is certainly not the case that everybody who likes Schoenberg also likes Boulez or Webern. Believe or not, they also can have preferences and favorites, while at the very least appreciating music that might not be their favorite.

Sure, maybe art-critics and "musical elitists" (from a different musical elitist camp than yourself) might make the assumption that artistic traditions move parallel to one-another: Whatever. That's irrelevant.

You're making and even LARGER assumption in thinking that music somehow easily delves into our "subconcious emotional core." Then you try to support this belief by saying something contradictory, that music is the most abstract of the arts. Obviously we accept the latter as being true, but I don't see how the former follows from the latter by any stretch of logic. How does music gain the most emotionally affective capacity by being the most ABSTRACT? Usually the most abstract things in this world are the the most emotionally distant, until we apply them to realities, from which we can extract certain kinds of emotions. What you're trying to say is this: Music, by being the most abstract, has the largest capacity to be manipulated in a way that can touch the largest range of emotions: from very cold and "unemotional" to very passionate and "emotional," depending on how we choose to apply it to ourselves.

Then somehow, from this already poorly constucted logical base, you choose to extend it even further to say that there was somehow "now need for serialism." That's just INSANE. From my argument about music's ability to reach our emotions, it seems like music has the WIDEST RANGE of possible ways to touch us emotionally, and by THAT logic, serialism can be seen as ENTIRELY APPROPRIATE.

Absolutely. Tomasino's comparison Schoenberg and Lenin is incredibly offensive on so many levels.

blaude wrote: "Usually the most abstract things in this world are the the most emotionally distant, until we apply them to realities, from which we can extract certain kinds of emotions."

Perhaps I am not understanding the last part of your statement, but as an abstract expressionist painter, I can tell you that my work often arouses very deep emotions in others.

Not that they all like the work!!!! But they definitely have very strong responses and feelings.

And on a personal note, five of my paintings are hanging amidst the Steinways in an upscale piano store. So there must be some relation to music...

-merlin

I question Schoenberg's musical choices, but to question his intelligence shows a lack of familiarity with Schoenberg the person. In reading his book on harmony, I thought to myself that he could easily have been an author. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence, especially in his understanding of people.

Oh believe me, I'm all for abstract painting and art. What I was pointing out was a flaw in Tomasino's argument. All I am saying it is much easier for people to emotionally disconnect themselves from music because of its abstract nature. At the same time, it is also possiblefor people to be incredibly moved emotionally by abstract music if they apply some sort of realistic construction to elucidate the music and give it meaning.

The same certainly applies to visual art. Of course someone can be deeply moved by an abstract painting, depending on how they're looking at it.

Why the need to "apply some sort of realistic construction to elucidate the music and give it meaning?"

Why can't the music, painting, whatever, evoke deep emotions and feelings on its own, without the need to put it into some sort of construct?

One of the problems people have with abstract art, for example, is that it does not relate to anything within their constructs or experience of reality. There is no subject matter, so the work needs to be apprehended directly.

In other words, open the heart and mind and see what happens. Much more often than not, there will be some sort of response.

-merlin

What he ^ said. I couldn't agree with you more.

Antonius, I think okat's response answers a lot of your criticism, and explains how composing serial music requires more ingenuity and creativity than you give it credit for. The rest of my response to your arguments are in what I've already written. I think a lot of the confusion that has been created here has been my failure to understand exactly what you're saying in some of your arguments, so please excuse me if I interpreted them inaccurately.

Now we're getting into a separate debate which is very new to the world of aesthetics, and isn't relevant to the debate on this thread. We certainly agree that "abstract" art certainly is worthy of being appreciated, and capable of moving people emotionally.

Our opinions seem to diverge on the subject of what it is, exactly, that MOVES us.

I believe that art certainly moves us, but not completely DIRECTLY.

Meaning, it is not as simple as this:

There is art.
We are moved by art.

Or even this, in its simplest form:

There is art.
We perceive art.
We are moved by art.

I believe that the process of "perception" is so much more complicated than we generally think. I believe it relies on certain factors that come from the real, physical world, which I believe is separate from the abstract, conceptual world. Music almost is entirely abstract, and we have created constructs to say that certain kinds of music (tonal) are more "abstract" than other kinds (atonal), the latter which we sometimes label as "abstract music." The same is true of other arts, however theoretically relying on fewer abstractions and more real, physical media, is still predominantly abstract.

I believe that something completely abstract or conceptual can't enter us DIRECTLY. Certain things must exist in us first, whether innate or conditioned, which allow us to perceive art the way we do.

Therefore, when you say: "One of the problems people have with abstract art, for example, is that it does not relate to anything within their constructs or experience of reality. There is no subject matter, so the work needs to be apprehended directly." I say this: "Abstract" art CAN relate to a person's constructs or experience of reality, if they allow it, and that is why many people are able to be emotionally moved by such art. I believe that you, in experiencing and enjoying "abstract" art, are in fact doing so because you possess the realistic context of doing so. Some people can't comprehend Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto, because they don't have a context by which they can comprehend it: it's "abstract" to them.

"In other words, open the heart and mind and see what happens. Much more often than not, there will be some sort of response."

I agree, but in opening our heart and minds, we are building a real-life construction in order to comprehend something abstract.

I know my ideals are a little radical, but I see a lot of truth in them.

First of all, blaude, thanks for the interesting and engaging response.

If by real-life constructs you are referring to things such as sound, color, shape, sense of movement, then I would tend to agree with your thesis.

Art does not occur, nor is created, within a vacuum, so yes, there are indeed some connections with perceived reality.

As to exactly how these connections operate in terms of enjoyment and appreciation, or aversion and dislike, quien sabe?

-merlin

BRENDAN quotes me as follows, in a response I was making to HERR GNOME:


"Well said, and I’ve been arguing that one reason “. . . it's (serial music's) popularity will never pass beyond a small minority of classical listeners . . . “ is because of the abnormal introduction of dodecaphonic music into the cultural mainstream by a small cadre of elitists . . . sort of like Lenin and the bolsheviks trying to change the world before it had ripened."


BRENDAN responds, and I quote him:


"I hope you understand that comparing Schoenberg, a Jewish composer who as almost killed by the Nazis, to Lenin, a butcher responsible for over 100 million deaths, is ridiculous beyond words."


My response to BRENDAN:


In the scale of things, you're correct. There is no similarity in scale between the devastation caused by the Soviets and that caused by the dodecaphones. No comparison is perfect, and that is certainly an imperfection.

Nevertheless, I believe my comparison makes an interesting and valid point. Let me quote my initial post at some length so you can see the intent of the comparison I made, just in case you missed it.


“Schoenberg and his entourage are the only group of classical composers who did harm to the classical music tradition. They represent the height and the horror of musical elitism.

An instructive comparison can be made betwee Vladimar Lenin and Arnold Schoenberg. Lenin thought he could leap frog history, forgo the normal cultural, economic and political development of civilization, and create an elitist utopia of the future. And look what he and his followers did. They nearly destroyed the civilization of eastern Europe. It’s a ghost of what it was and it could have been.

So it is with Schoenberg and his dodecaphonts. They thought they could leap frog musical history, forgo normal tonal and cultural development, and create an elitist tonal system of the future. And look at the result: they turned huge componants of our potential audience against classical music, thereby opening the doors to various popular musics which do not stem from our tradition. And this nearly broke the thread of our tradition--the historical thread that connects us with Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Palestrina, Monteverde and beyond into the middle ages. Our tradition is a ghost of what it was.”


The scale of the devastation perpetrated by the Soviet Union, and the fact that Schoenberg was a Jew who was threatened by the Nazis, do not relate to the intent of the comparison I made. It seems obvious to me--maybe I'm mistaken--that breaking “the thread of our tradition,” as I put it, is not in a league with the crimes of the Soviets. So I'm not sure why you brought this up. They don't seem to address the point I intended to make.

That point being that intellectuals of an elitist and utopianist bent may sometimes be very wrong in their predictions of where society, culture, art, economics and politics are going. And if they have an opportunity to impose their predictions, great damage may result. I offered the example of the bolsheviks not to offend, but because I thought everyone would agree on what Lenin and his cadres did: they imposed their utopian predictions on a society, and devastation was the result. Does anyone disagree with that? I think not.

The parrallel with the dodecaphones, although imperfect in scale, seems well drawn in other respects, whether or not one agrees, or is offended.

Tomasino

Perhaps it was time for change. In art, the surrealists, dadaists, abstract expressionists, minimalists, etc. strongly broke with what you call "the thread of tradition," which they saw as the tyranny of the past.

Your points are interesting, but I cannot agree with your conclusions.

You also give extraordinary power to one man, group, and approach.

As for "a ghost of what it was," I invite you to look around at the world.

-merlin

Let us ignore the fact that your analogy might be offensive for certain people, as it is obvious you didn't intend anything of the sort, and as it is irrelevant to the comparison.

"The parrallel with the dodecaphones, although imperfect in scale, seems well drawn in other respects, whether or not one agrees, or is offended."

It might seem well drawn to you, but I have spent the last 20,000 words of these thread essentially explaining how it is poorly drawn. The fact remains that your analogy, while perhaps containing a few interesting observations, misses the larger point. Art and politics don't work the same way. I've written enough about this topic on this thread now that it seems pointless to continue. Read what I have already written and see how it weakens your argument, as I have yet to hear a satisfactory response...

I've stayed out of this thread so far, out of consideration for my blood pressure, but I have to disagree here. It may have been true in the 'good old days' when private or church patronage was the source of most artists' income, but in a age when almost any activity claimed to be 'art' only survives by government subsidy, art criticism is politics.

Best wishes,
Matthew

M. Collett wrote: "in a age when almost any activity claimed to be 'art' only survives by government subsidy, art criticism is politics."

Maybe in New Zealand....

Definitely NOT in my experience. There are some so-called grants for art in the US, but who would want to take money from a government who then tells you what you can and cannot do.

There are 2500 artists in the relatively small city that I live near. I wonder how many of their works have been subsided by the government?

Nearly none.

-merlin

We're talking about two different things. My statement was a little too simplistic and over-generalized, so I can see how it can be taken this way. I believe whole-heartedly that politics exist within art, and art may depend on politics, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the essence of art: our perceptions and tastes in art don't function in the same way our perceptions and tastes in politics work.

Our primary concern in politics is to create and sustain a functioning society that is consistent with some number of universal principles to which we must ascribe. ART, on the other hand, is free of those goals. We're not out to create functioning ART, it already functions by itself. Art gives people complete freedom to create and interpret how they like. As interpreters we are allowed complete freedom to perceive and understand art. Therefore, in THIS way, art and politics don't work the same way.

blaude wrote: "Our primary concern in politics is to create and sustain a functioning society that is consistent with some number of universal principles to which we must ascribe."

Don't take this personally, but.... you cannot possibly be serious!

Maybe in Texas.... oh, DeLay has been indicted and forced to resign, and Kenny-boy is on his way to prison.

But I fully agree with: "Art gives people complete freedom to create and interpret how they like. As interpreters we are allowed complete freedom to perceive and understand art."

-merlin

Haha okay, I see your point. I guess by politics, I was referring to the political systems we employ to create a functioning society. Those kinds of politics were relevant in our discussion, because Tomasino brought up Lenin and his political theories. OBVIOUSLY there is a huge amount of "politics" in the news that concerns all of us and has nothing to do with keeping a functioning society. (Although I'm sure our society is better off with DeLay and the Enron guys behind bars...)

Here is an interesting quote, hopefully apropos of what we have been discussing. Even though it was written in 1939, the horror obviously is echoing loudly in these times.

"The outer world, the world of contemporary events, always has an influence on the painter -- that goes without saying. If the interplay of lines and colors does not expose the inner drama of the creator, then it is nothing more than bourgeois entertainment.

The forms expressed by an individual who is part of society must reveal the movement of a soul trying to escape the reality of the present, which is particularly ignoble today, in order to approach new realities, to offer other men the possibility of rising above the present. In order to discover a livable world -- how much rottenness must be swept away!

If we do not attempt to discover the religious essence, the magic sense of things, we will do no more than add new sources of degradation to those already offered to the people today, which are beyond number.

The horrible tragedy that we are experiencing might produce a few isolated geniuses and give them an increased vigor. If the powers of backwardness known as fascism continue to spread, however, if they push us any farther into the dead end of cruelty and incomprehension, that will be the end of all human dignity."

-Joan Miró, "Statement," 1939

A radio program I've referenced here: (Mathematics in Music) talks briefly about the 12-tone row. The 'expert' said something like: 'The mathematics defines the order that the notes appear, but the composer then uses their creativity to create the music.'

Which is probably quite irrelevant to this discussion at this stage, but I thought you might like to know.

It apears to me this discussion has been backed up in some ways by knowledge i do not own, i´m new to formal music study,
so i´ll share my opinion as a non tempered music composer and listener.

I enjoy Schoenberg, and i enjoy even more subversive composers like Boulez and Cage.
But i also enjoy Bach, Mozart and all the others that followed.

For this reason i can see valid points in both sides of the argument, yet i feel a distinction needs to be made in order to better undearsteand the mentioned downfall of the classic tradition.

Now personaly i don´t think there was one and agree with blaude that cultural evolution is constant and "is what it is", yet i recognize that the dodecaphonic period was one that drew the a lot of public away from classic music
( and yes other factors interfered, lots of them, but schoenberg was among those )
and that was beacuse of it´s obvious associative detached and abstract aspiration.

So i guess the key word here is public, oposite to musician.

I´m not aware of the statistics (if there are any) but i would very roughly
estimate the 95% of the world´s population are just listeners when it comes
to music, and for those, it is far easier to carry arround in their heads a tonal piece.
And the music that we carry in our heads is the music thatchanges considerably ones personality, this music evokes imagetic flashbacks,
memories we forgot we had and a lot of times helps us endure painfull moments.

I should add that´s proabably true for most musicians too, but generaly all
the rational mechanisems kick in when exposed to new music, and for a lot us
they alow to undergo more meticulous auditions of pieces that are much harder to absorve, like say..uh..schoenberg.
And by doing so we can also add this kind of music to our emotional repertoire,
an there for making it has human an associative as the one by say..uh...Mozart.

I am not one of absolute opinions, all these points vary in degree,
and with the risk of sounding like a pussy that does not want to take sides,
i say yes, atonal music is more distant and intelectual at first impact ( for the
general public especialy) , and it did bended the somewhat straight line that began in the baroque, but to say it is unnatural
( not even sure if such concept exists ) and to compare it to political regimes
and blaming it for the collapse of tonal music, that is really over doing it.
And here is why, If you don´t like atonal music, you just don´t listen to it, no one will
repress or kill you for that!
And more, the classic tonal system is know stronger than ever, just turn on your radio
and ear it.
Yes, i bealive that is our classic heritage, everything from pop to jazz and son on,
there was no downfall, there was change, like eventualy there always is.
Weather one likes it or not.

Concluding, in spite of, as composer favouring tonal music ( again to a degree ) because
i have the desire to make music that can evoke feelings in an individual years after
it was listend to, i´ll say it again, Love Schoenberg and love strange music, i love
not knowing if i want to cry or laugh, i love not knowing and feeling emotions without
being ble to antcipate them, i love not knowing period.

Atonal music is a path, and there a lot of paths, in fact i say one for each individual
consciousness in the world. So people, embrace everything and...uh..why dont we all...uh..
i dont know..get along?

I've been reading through this discussion repeatedly during the last few days and I'm still not sure whether I understand any of these arguments against Schoenberg.

First of all, it might be important to know that as a teacher Schoenberg was extremely reluctant when it came to propagating his system of composition. He insisted that his students would have complete mastery over all the classical forms before he would even consider teaching them dodecaphony. I hope this serves to further weaken the offensive analogy with forms of political/vanguardist despotism and mass murder.

Second, I don't see how Schoenberg's music is in any way a "break" with the Western classical tradition. The very thing which distinguishes the Second Viennese School from most other experiments with pantonality, or as people here call it "atonality", is that besides embodying an alternative organization of tone material their music is entirely rooted and moulded into the classical forms Schoenberg insisted on so vehemently. One can clearly hear how Berg and Schoenberg were great admirers of Brahms in many of their pieces, and in fact they have often been criticized by later serialists in the 50's for exactly this point of not having broken with tradition.

Unlike Webern's music (which I admire too), Schoenberg's often has melodic material which has a very lyrical feel to it and can be easily hummed along. Good examples of this are to be found in the Variations for Orchestra, op.31 or the Serenade, op. 24.

Finally, I don't see the point of denying or even "debunking" people's experiences of aesthetic infatuation by means of shrewd theoretical arguments. This is sort of like trying to convince a person who has been cured from a life-threatening disease through homeopathy or some other form of alternative medicine that he or she was never ill to begin with, because science has "proven" that homeopathy doesn't work.

To return to the comparison with the USSR, I think it is the very opponents of Schoenberg here who are akin more to this particular form of political despotism with its stylistic duty of Soviet realism. For why would anyone want to limit the spectrum of artistic expression, ever? Surely the music of the Second Viennese School can't have destroyed much, for the whole twentieth century has been filled with composers working in tonal, neo-classicist and late romantic styles. It's just that alternatives to this historical deadweight have been invented.

You don't have to like it, really. Although I am sure if some people here would've spent as much time actually listening to Schoenberg's music, instead of discussing and denouncing it for philosophical reasons, they might be surprised they would eventually, slowly but surely, discover some strange, mesmerizing form of beauty in it.

kallisti,

An extremely well-expressed post. Thanks for your insights.

- Michael B.

FWIW, since Schoenberg's use of atonality is reckoned to have emerged in 1908, I did some research on that particular year, since I think this new form of music was in response to particular forces and qualities of consciousness seeking emergence at that time.

It is particularly interesting to note the musicians and others born in that year who were in some way revolutionaries in their own right. Here is a list of some of them:

Elliott Carter, Oliver Messiaen, Stephane Grapelli, Lionel Hampton, Herbert von Karajan, Leroy Anderson.

Others include Simone de Beauvoir, Edward Teller, Michael Redgrave, David Lean, Abraham Maslow, Edward R. Murrow, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Milton Berle, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lyndon Johnson, Alistair Cooke, Simon Wiesenthal.

So in many ways Schoenberg was an agent of the impulse to break on through to new ways of creative expression.

And for those who may have an interest in planetary configurations and their symbolic effects, Uranus -- signifying change, upheaval, and the need to break with tradition and the status quo -- and Neptune -- strongly associated with music and the arts, and a more-inclusive and universal vision -- were in opposition during all of 1908. This celestial phenomenon occurs but once every 172 years or so.

-merlin

I like the path this thread has taken...

As a composer I it's my observation that this thread while long has not really addressed the act of creating music from the composer's point of view. In music listeners are often not interested in what the composer has to say, just how to play it. To me that's unfortunate because the composer's intent can inform the performance.

A little background. I learned composition when the dodecaphonists still had some sway (early 70s). Those buggers had an attitude perhaps born of the lack of popularity of their work. Milton Babbit is reported to have not cared what the audience thought. To some degree he's right the composer has to create music that appeals to him/her. Most composers however like to hear their music performed and so are willing to acquiesce somewhat to popular taste. The dynamic involved is that if a composer writes music that sounds like Beethoven he'll be criticised as pastiche. Every composer has had to build upon what the previous generation did.

What seems to happen is that complexity build to a point where something has to give. This is what happened during Bach's life, music was too complex and tastes changed giving rise to classicism, much lighter, simpler music. Classicism evolved by complexity into Romanticism. There were historical and social influences on this process. Beethoven was the first composer that was able to earn a living without being an employee of royalty. To clarify I understand LVB was paid by royals, but that was to convince him to stay in Vienna, he was not an employee of any royal, hence the famous quote about royals being an "accident of birth, but there's only 1 Beethoven."

So as history turned the corner on the 19th century once again music had become complex. Harmony had been stretched chromatically as had rhythm. Structures had become ever larger and symphonies were longer, orchestras bigger. So again things changed with the rise of impressionism and the music of Debussy and Ravel. In the USA there was Charles Ives shocking audiences with his music and then came Stravinsky and Le Sacre. During this time of upheaval you have Schoenberg in Vienna thinking rationally about what music is and where it should be going.

Instead of a single replacement for Romanticism we had a plethora of musical trends enabled by technology. Information and people moved faster than in 1750. Thus jazz, ragtime and blues were born because composerswere seeking to create a legacy by being different. Some brouht folk elements into the concert hall (Bartok). But the world economy had grown out of royal patronage and with the rise of a strong middle class there was much disposable income by people who weren't as intellectual about their music. Yes, they enjoyed Bach and Beethoven, but they also enjoyed Scott Joplin and later silent movies (with organ accompaniment). My point is that all of this has followed a predictable pattern of overreaching complexity dissembling into simpler forms.

Will we see another rise of complexity or will the anti-intellectualism of the middle class hold that down? I don't have that answer, so far popular music has pretty much taken over. We've seen brief rises in complexity in that area, but trends change so fast now it's hard to tell where we are.

So what does all this have to do with dodecaphony. Here's my experience writing 12 tone music. It's very difficult to write music that completely lacks a tonal center. The human mind is wired to seek order in chaos. Purely atonal music to me sounds like chaos or noise. It may have harmonic structure but I can't hear it, I have never been able to perceive rows within serial music. Perhaps some can, but I have a pretty good ear and it's never happened for me. For me composing music means using a set of tools. I have found modern harmonies useful at times and traditional harmonies useful at others. For me musical structure is most effective when the degree of tonality varies because this becomes a tool for adding dramatic effect.

I do believe that modern ears have been stretched by jazz harmonic voicings, movie and TV music and modern rock. What sounded like noise a few decades ago seems more natural now. To my ears triadic harmony seems bland and I know that is true for many others. So to those who've argued that conditioning plays a major part in what sounds beautiful or ugly I wholeheartedly agree. BUT, I don't know that conditioning will ever allow the human ear to find order in chaos and much avante garde modern music sounds like a horde of rats attacking a pile of musical instruments. Composers must seek to create works that express what's in their heart and mind. To some degree I agree with Milton Babbit, the audience should play very little role in the creative process, but try as some have to redfine music as ordered noise humans will buy music for what it expresses. The new music economy implies that some money be involved, there's no getting around it. Somebody has to pay the performers and rent the hall.

OK, I'm running out of gas so I'm going to quit at this juncture. If you've read this far I appreciate your attention. Hope it was useful. Now can we all just get along or are you going to keep arguing over small stuff?

Interesting post. For me, however, one of the most important lessons of life is finding order within chaos. In fact, this is something I greatly enjoy.

Therefore much of my improvising is so-called free jazz, creating soundscapes that use the entire range of sounds and feelings that my piano is capable of expressing.

The notes, rhythm and tempo can evoke thoughts, feelings and sensations, much the same as colors, texture, strokes and shapes in a painting. This is certainly true in my art, which is a mirroring of my internal landscape as well as a reflection of what is happening externally.

My paintings, because they are abstract, are essentially energy made visible. They are an exploration of the interplay between form and formlessness, emergence and dissolution, using color, texture, and the strokes of the palette knife upon the canvas.

I like music that does the same.

Perhaps I am simply wired differently....

-merlin

I agree, twelve tone music and most atonal music will never sound like the love theme from Romeo and Juliet, but I doubt that was the composer's intention. I don't think it is always necessary to try to condition yourself to hear a Schoenberg 'tune' like a Chopin nocturne. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to find order in chaos, but rather embracing chaos for what it is, and see the beauties that are already there. If this perspective is taken, it is possible to be immensely satisfied and pleased by modern art.