The Sound and the Fury: a Century of Music.

[Boilk]

I don't understand your choice/use of the word "guilt".

Well, not 'guilt' in the context of having committed a sin ... a mature, established composer is of course still free to board whatever new musical bandwagon s/he chooses. In IS's case it still sounds like Stravinsky.

But the whole point, as far as I'm concerned, is that "Good Music" is its own "justification"

I've not suggested otherwise.

Just as many other composers in all these periods whose work remained untouched by the prevailing trends: Xenakis, Ligeti, Carter, Birtwistle, Lutoslawski, Cage and Feldman to name just a few composers who never used serialism in their mature works of the '50s & '60s, for instance. This, again is nothing new.

I would say the vast majority remained untouched, but we all know that academic music history is in a way a distortion of history, because it puts its microscope on the vanguard whilst ignoring the prevailing conservatism of the majority of composers. Probably true for all the arts.

I'm not disagreeing with your idea that there are "fellow-travellers" of an Artistic movement, just with your singling out Serialism as somehow particularly pernicious in this respect.

My 'singling out Serialism' was simply citing one of the more recognisable techniques/vogues (I could have used pre-War Neo-classicism). And singling it out is not, for me, the same as implying it is pernicious.

[jayne lee wilson]

As am51 said, Benjamin and MTT were excellent TV personalities. I'm a great fan of John Adams' music, but I'll have to try to forget his shallow comments on Schoenberg next time I listen! Eric Whitacre... well what do you expect. Julian Lloyd Webber not much better. The lack of historical context re. Wagnerian chromaticism>"free atonality">serialism was a BIG lack.

But I'm here mainly to commend the recent Audite 4-cd set of Schoenberg/Webern/Berg, RIAS recordings from 1949-65 with interpreters from the composers' immediate circle, from master tapes & never on CD before (Audite 21.412). They play it like they know and love it. The project came about thanks to Stuckenschmidt, who was Editor of New music at RIAS at the time. The booklet has lengthy and fascinating essays about all this.

Not cheap, but a great investment. It includes a wonderfully warm, Viennese account of the 1st Chamber Symphony (RIAS players, 19'55, much rubato... that's more like it!)

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/search.php?searchString=2nd+viennese+school+audite

[teamsaint]

Some really brilliant posts on this thread.

I was trying to find an idiots guide , in a timeline form or similar, to help me put various pieces of Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky etc in context.
Not really found what I want, but this

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/v/vienna.aspx

Might keep us amateurs out of mischief for a while. Looks a cracking read.

[amateur51]

As am51 said, Benjamin and MTT were excellent TV personalities. I'm a great fan of John Adams' music, but I'll have to try to forget his shallow comments on Schoenberg next time I listen! Eric Whitacre... well what do you expect. Julian Lloyd Webber not much better. The lack of historical context re. Wagnerian chromaticism>"free atonality">serialism was a BIG lack.

But I'm here mainly to commend the recent Audite 4-cd set of Schoenberg/Webern/Berg, RIAS recordings from 1949-65 with interpreters from the composers' immediate circle, from master tapes & never on CD before (Audite 21.412). They play it like they know and love it. The project came about thanks to Stuckenschmidt, who was Editor of New music at RIAS at the time. The booklet has lengthy and fascinating essays about all this.

Not cheap, but a great investment. It includes a wonderfully warm, Viennese account of the 1st Chamber Symphony (RIAS players, 19'55, much rubato... that's more like it!)

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/sea...+school+audite

Many thanks for this review, jlw It's a set I've read about with great interest and your review has just piqued it

It's on the list

[amateur51]

Some really brilliant posts on this thread.

I was trying to find an idiots guide , in a timeline form or similar, to help me put various pieces of Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky etc in context.
Not really found what I want, but this

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/v/vienna.aspx

Might keep us amateurs out of mischief for a while. Looks a cracking read.

A fascinating and possibly exhausting site teams

For example, from 1905 ...

"When Klemperer seeks advice from Fried on how to get Mahler's attention, Fried tells him to focus on Mahler's own creative work -- so Klemperer writes a 2-hand piano arrangement of Mahler's 2nd Symphony (never published and now lost)"

The mind boggles

[teamsaint]

A fascinating and possibly exhausting site teams

For example, from 1905 ...

"When Klemperer seeks advice from Fried on how to get Mahler's attention, Fried tells him to focus on Mahler's own creative work -- so Klemperer writes a 2-hand piano arrangement of Mahler's 2nd Symphony (never published and now lost)"

The mind boggles

I was looking for something a bit more "O" level, but I guess i shall have to push my boundaries !
That site is going to take care of a lot of lunch breaks !!

[Serial_Apologist]

I was looking for something a bit more "O" level, but I guess i shall have to push my boundaries !
That site is going to take care of a lot of lunch breaks !!

Thanks, too, from me, TS, for that fantastic link, which has taught me heaps more about relationships, musical and personal, within and beyond the Schoenberg circle, and put me right on some of the chronology.

In answer to your question two of your postings earlier, my advice would be to listen to as much of the music composed around the same time by the composers mentioned. I think you will find it a very, um, enlightening experience!

(I have yet to hear any of Haba's music)

[teamsaint]

Thanks, too, from me, TS, for that fantastic link, which has taught me heaps more about relationships, musical and personal, within and beyond the Schoenberg circle, and put me right on some of the chronology.

In answer to your question two of your postings earlier, my advice would be to listen to as much of the music composed around the same time by the composers mentioned. I think you will find it a very, um, enlightening experience!

(I have yet to hear any of Haba's music)

Thanks for your post, S-A, and the advice.Hours in the day.....sleep is just going to have to go !!
Trouble is on this board, after each day there is more that I need to know than I started with.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for your post, S-A, and the advice.Hours in the day.....sleep is just going to have to go !!
Trouble is on this board, after each day there is more that I need to know than I started with.

Well, at least the earth is not flat!

[MrGongGong]

Some really brilliant posts on this thread.

I was trying to find an idiots guide , in a timeline form or similar, to help me put various pieces of Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky etc in context.
Not really found what I want, but this

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/v/vienna.aspx

Might keep us amateurs out of mischief for a while. Looks a cracking read.

Great stuff and lots to get into thanks

[MrGongGong]

Some great things in this evenings episode
but why did they ask JLW to say anything about Darmstadt ?

apart from that a really well constructed sequence and well worth another viewing IMV

[Mary Chambers]

Where is Britten in this programme? Today they leapt straight from dismissive remarks about the so-called pastoral English composers (RVW etc) to the Manchester school of Birtwistle etc. Seems very odd, especially as Alex Ross devotes a whole chapter to Britten (mixed up a bit with Shostakovich) in The Rest is Noise. Of course he wasn't avant garde, but then neither was Shostakovich or Copland and they were both mentioned, though Shosta mostly for political reasons and Copland presumably because of the American bias of the programme. Very odd.

[MrGongGong]

I was half expecting a Britten thing with the shots of the Suffolk coast
BUT
I thought this was a good thread that followed things from mainland Europe to the UK well ........
I guess those who think music has nothing to do with politics would have found it a bit odd

[Boilk]

Where is Britten in this programme?

At the end of episode 2 they showed that the "Minimalists" are coming, so there will be no Britten (or Tippett) especially we've had Max and Birty.

In fact next week's programme could not be more predictable, it's the dumbed-down, darling pentaptych of: Glass, Reich, Adams, Part and Taverner. Dumbed down, that is, in the bigger musical scheme of things.

How predictable and lazy these programme-makers are. I hope future generations don't look back to our era and regard these five as the classical music icons of our age.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er well ifound tonight's offering highly informative and encouraged me to go off and find more music by Ligeti .....

the programme is bringing out the contextual issues well without giving very much time to them [i'm sure major tomes have been and will be written] ...

hearing the Adorno remark again about how can poetry be possible after that .... i felt, after that, how can there be anything but poetry?

Stockhausen issuing control remarks reminded me of the documentary about the commune movements of the sixties and how they all fell apart because of control issues and conflicts ... and long conversations with flatmates back in the day who were film students and socialists and had difficulties reconciling notions of auteur, collaboration etc etc ...

i am sure many points can be picked over in these programmes but i am truly grateful for their intelligence and stimulation ... [e.g. look at this thread]