Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[Ian]

The idea (yes THAT word again !) that music doesn't have to follow a simple "tension > release" mechanism is tricky for some folk.

Apart from its self-aggrandizing and patronizing nature, this sort of comment detracts from a much more likely, but non-confrontational, truth - that folk might simply prefer music that does follow a tension - release mechanism.

[Nick Armstrong]

The idea (yes THAT word again !) that music doesn't have to follow a simple "tension > release" mechanism is tricky for some folk.

Face it, 2Gongs - it's just different, not better or worse. See my #375 above.

[Julien Sorel]

tension - release mechanism.

http://mashable.com/2012/08/31/best-cat-video/

[Serial_Apologist]

Apart from its self-aggrandizing and patronizing nature, this sort of comment detracts from a much more likely, but non-confrontational, truth - that folk might simply prefer music that does follow a tension - release mechanism.

Music doesn't need to be tonally-based to follow "a tension-release mechanism", ahem.

This may be where I part company with some of my friends on this thread, sadly.

At the time of the young Pierre Boulez's outburst against Schoenberg for not having followed through on the implications of the atonal revolution he had unleashed, there were outlined many criticisms, including AS's adherence in the serial works to outmoded forms and gestures dependent on tonality such as the cadence, but also by implication any sense of connectivity linking sequences or superimpositions of tones derived from series, and thereby decontextualised by virtue of the organisational net placing them.

One listen to all Schoenberg's, and dare one say Webern's serial output, reveals both composers' indebtedness to principles of melodic and rhythmic tension build and release, I would argue. Indeed, subsequent writers were often led to remark on one important aspect of the greater accessibility accorded the music of Webern being attributable to better performance; earlier presentations of his music having been marred by a misunderstanding of connectivity between what had previously been perceived as isolated tones, deployed where more than one instrument was scored for across the timbral spectrum by Webern's use of Klangfarbenmelodie. One writer, buried somewhere in my memory, went as far as opining that this was a misunderstanding by the "Boulez faction" of the deep embedment of Webern's melodic thinking in earlier composers such as Mahler, one born of poor performances, that had misled the Darmstadters who had extended serial organisation beyond pitch into venerating Webern as their true forbear, when they didn't actually have one to lay claim to.

I argued earlier that Schoenberg's arrival at the 12-tone method sprang spontaneously from practices he retrospectively realised had been taking place in the music of his free atonal period; I don't for one moment believe Schoenberg took the 12 tones of the chromatic "octave" out of a bag, every time he wanted to compose a new work, and threw them on the table to arrive at a random distribution that would then predetermine as correct Boulez's interpretation of serialism's meaning - had he done so he would have been closer to John Cage - but that on the contrary, the rows he chose were impregnated with the same melodic sources that had powered his and his colleagues' predecessors. There one finds the gradations of dissonance AS wrote of in 1911; it's all very traditional and euphony-based!

Afterthought: the above is not intended as an indictment of integral serialism or post-serialst music in general: it is more by way of saying that, with accustomisation, I believe it is as easy (or difficult) to come to terms with the music of Schoenberg and Webern - and other composers who have adhered by and large to their introduction of 12-tone-based musical structure - as with that of, say, Bartok. I would even go as far as including Elliot Carter. All these composers' musics can be listened to narratively. Those of the Darmstadt School (to re-create another unfortunate myth) who extended serialism in ways unintended by Schoenberg, I believe, explain the difficulty many people have in applying habitual, narrative-based approaches to listening to their works. While I - for one - hugely appreciate their work - seeing the languages of "Gruppen" and "Kontakte" as plusses - there is for me, personally, too much "narrative" to be inferred, Rorschach-like, into these two pieces (in particular) for me to be able to divorce my responses to them from old listening habits. There are works from the "pointillist" canon (no pun) to which I can so listen, but I receive the music in much the same way I would a free improvisation - and I'm not so sure the two aesthetics are that far apart, procedurally excepting...

[ahinton]

Music doesn't need to be tonally-based to follow "a tension-release mechanism"

Of course it doesn't, but the very fact that tonally based music is far more widely recognised as doing so is just one reason why I am inclined to question the notion of "tonally-based" as some kind of absolute rather than tonality and atonality being matters of degree. I've never forgotten my aural training master at RCM, brilliant as he was at this, upbraiding me for hearing two consecutive four-part chords in one of Webern's cantatas (the second, if my memory serves me correctly) as tonal because they comprise the notes D-G-B-E and D flat-G flat-C-F (from bottom to top); I could not help but argue that Webern didn't specify how his listeners should listen to his music in terms of tonality or otherwise or indeed anything else! Seriously, though, some ears incline to pick out tonal reference in certain passages that others might not do. In sum, then, the "tension-release mechanism" seems to me to be predicated at least in part upon the composer's manipulation of harmony whether tonal, atonal or somewhere in between.

I would even go as far as including Elliot Carter.

Please do; a wonderful composer! But two "t"s, please - no milk or sugar!...

Broadly speaking, I accept and agree all your other points here and appreciate your expressing them in detail.

[Ian]

I was saying that the BBC presents a series on - broadly - the history of modern - broadly - classical music and starts from the premise that - broadly - the origins of modern - broadly - classical music are catastrophic. That something went wrong, but fortunately there have been and are composers who put or are putting it right.

But the series you refer to wasn’t about “modern - broadly - classical music”. It was about two particular strands of 20 classical music. And because the proponents of those strands are typically unsympathetic to each other it’s no wonder that there was a certain amount of argy bargy and ‘positioning‘. And that’s what I found interesting about the program - the politics of it all.

Of course the reality is that the vast majority of composers (and probably the ones most people listen to) are neither modernist nor minimalist. So no one actually has to be rescued. But the series was useful in reminding me that not everyone, particularly trend mongers, see it that way.

[amateur51]

Wise words, imho, anotherbob If feel the same.

However among many things, this Forum has brought home to me forcibly that people must listen to music for very different reasons. Some listeners seem to relish the puzzle, the structure, the mathematical or physical construction of music, so that the primary reaction is an analytical one, rather than being concerned with purely what it sounds like or how it make one feel. This is the only way I can account for an enthusiasm for the harder-core serial or other 'modern' music, or for that matter for the more difficult 'HIPP' temperaments (cf Hervé Niquet's Handel at the Proms).

And perfectly legitimate that kind of appreciation is too. It's just not mine (nor, by the sounds of it, yours )

I have no musical talent, no training beyond very basic piano-playing (tho I do whistle quite beautfully :winkeye) but music is, with reading, cinema and art galleries, a great source of joy in my life.

From my own experience I'd just report that listening to some of this music that you refer to it is possible to 'get' what you didn't previously 'get', through repetition, perhaps in different performances, or in juxtaposition with other music that you know/understand/appreciate better or let's say more easily, presumably through the process that MrGG describes as the 'something to hang onto factor'

So I guess I'm saying, never say never and don't give up! You could be missing out on some wonderful stuff

[Julien Sorel]

But the series was useful in reminding me that not everyone, particularly trend mongers, see it that way.

You mean it introduced a brief flicker of doubt into your previously unshakeable certainty that you are right about everything?

Caliban: Some listeners seem to relish the puzzle, the structure, the mathematical or physical construction of music, so that the primary reaction is an analytical one, rather than being concerned with purely what it sounds like or how it make one feel. This is the only way I can account for an enthusiasm for the harder-core serial or other 'modern' music, or for that matter for the more difficult 'HIPP' temperaments (cf Hervé Niquet's Handel at the Proms). The fact that it's the only way you can account for something doesn't mean it's the only explanation: it just means it's the only explanation you feel comfortable with.

[Serial_Apologist]

But the series was useful in reminding me that not everyone, particularly trend mongers, see it that way.

I am left wondering who these "trend mongers" could possibly be. Certainly not me, becuse I still listen to and love the Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bridge, Brian and Bartok I listened to and loved when serialism was said to be the trend. I guess I'm what could be described as a bit of a Payne.

[teamsaint]

Re AnotherBob's question about having modern music explained..... surely at times other people's insights, knowledge, thoughts can lead us to better understanding of things?
I am a hopeless case on visual art, but old Simon "No show" Schama certainly eplained a few things to me in "The Power of Art" that I would have taken a lot longer to get, if I ever would have,on my own.
The programme on Rothko, cheesy though it was in part, was one of the revelatory moments of my life.

[Ian]

I am left wondering who these "trend mongers" could possibly be.

To a certain extent the same as the various vested-interests referred to previously by many in this thread.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

..... surely at times other people's insights, knowledge, thoughts can lead us to better understanding of things?

This is one of the greatest attractions of this Forum, for me: the insights, knowledge and enthusiasm of others for Music that I didn't know (and even for that which I thought I didn't like) has led me so frequently to new assessments and enjoyment that I wouldn't've dreamt of previously. I've often toyed with a "neglected Serialist" Thread on the lines of BeefO's "neglected Brits", and Ian's comments here motivated me to actually get it started.

I don't wish to talk down to anotherBob or Thropple - nor to "convert" them; I simply want to share my love of this Music with anyone who might be interested, and to provide examples of the Music for anyone who wished to judge for themselves the quality of hostile and inaccurate comment by Mr Goodall in his very personal series.

[amateur51]

Re AnotherBob's question about having modern music explained..... surely at times other people's insights, knowledge, thoughts can lead us to better understanding of things?
I am a hopeless case on visual art, but old Simon "No show" Schama certainly eplained a few things to me in "The Power of Art" that I would have taken a lot longer to get, if I ever would have,on my own.
The programme on Rothko, cheesy though it was in part, was one of the revelatory moments of my life.

Shake hands up to the elbow, teams

[MrGongGong]

Apart from its self-aggrandizing and patronizing nature, this sort of comment detracts from a much more likely, but non-confrontational, truth - that folk might simply prefer music that does follow a tension - release mechanism.

It's hardly patronising to suggest that music can be wider than what most people listen to.
Hope you enjoy Andre on Sky
some folk do
I've just come from a concert in Leicester which was full and everything was 2 channel acousmatic music played through 48 speakers

[anotherbob]

Re AnotherBob's question about having modern music explained..... surely at times other people's insights, knowledge, thoughts can lead us to better understanding of things?

My point was that understanding would not lead to a better liking, and for me that is the only test of music. Many crimes against humanity have been subject to explanation, but they remain crimes