What is Modern Music?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is (are) Les Noces ever staged as a ballet these days? If it is I'd love to see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXR81dLjjE

... with the original choreography, too!

[ahinton]

Yes I would agree that subliminal vestiges of directional harmonic movement are to be found in Erwartung, but we have a problem if we disagree on a definition of atonality; the thing that for me makes their presence qualitatively different from where, for example, the chord of superimposed fourths right at the start of the First Chamber Symphony resolives through part-movement into a major triad, is that a first-time listener in 1906, while he or she might be outraged by the intial chord, anticipates its resolution; and this anticipation is gratified, albeit grudgingly for the listener who can't accept the sound of simultaneously piled-up fourths and probably reaches for his theory book to tell him it's non-compliant with eternal theory, whereas where we have similar chord complexes in Erwartung the thwarting of their expected resolution, in combination with the combined complexity of all surrounding events that the consciousness of the newcomer has no antecedents with which to guide his or her listening, is in an altered state. That altered state, representing extreme psychological tension, anxiety and disorientation, is the Expressionistic equivalent of, yes, something that had been anticipated elsewhere - in the similar but emotion-depleted harmonies of Satie's "Sonneries de la Rose-Croix" as long previously as 1892, and more familiarly in the whole-tone-dominated harmonic context of a Debussy piece such as "Cloches a travers les feuilles" of 1905. But, whether we're talking about the mollifying effects of harmonic irresolution as representing a mind lost to present and future in a prolonged instant of beauty, or frozen in petrification in the face of some unknown horror, we have the emancipation of states of consciousness to degrees unforseen in Western music. One could include the rhythmic stasis, in the first instance brought about by de-emphasis and non-accentuation, in the second by accumulation to a point of indiscernability, and add the break-up effect of forward momentum that caused such disturbance to first-night recipients of "The Rite".

All fascinating and thought-provoking ideas, S_A (as we've become fortunate to come to expect of you here!). All that I would add in respect of your Schönberg First Chamber Symphony reference is that chords built up in fourths are chords founded on familiar intervals from triadic common chords and the only thing "new" about them is the absence of thirds so, once again, I regard them as an expansion of tonality, not an undermining thereof.

On the contrary, I think most observers of right or left would concur that the acceleration of advances in techniques, language, and areas of feeling expressed within Western music are inextricably linked with the advances in science and mind discoveries made possible by capitalism's expansion of the means and speed of production.

Well, that much is true, of course, although this is a more indirect influence than I had read your remark as being intended to convey; all that I might take issue with here is whether you believe that all such advances are down to capitalism if capitalism is to be seen by some as a bad thing (which, when practised corruptly, it is, except that it is not always practised corruptly, even today!).

An important side-issue here is the individualisation of the creative artist that parallelled the rise of copyright and the commodification of music.

Richard Strauss (whom you mentioned in another context earlier) was a moving spirit behind the formation of GEMA, the German equivalent of PRS; that said, I don't see intellectual property rights as representing nothing more than the commodification of music (which is admittedly all too rampantly present in other areas of musical practice); composers have to live and the cannot all depend solely upon commissions - and, after all, sales of their scores and recordings are another source of income for the composer and might therefore be seen as tarred with the same capitalist commodificatory brush as the entitlement to royalty income from performances, broadcasts and recordings.

Strauss had the foresight to prepare his bed for what he either thought or hoped would be a stop put to all this progressiveness, with its disturbing questioning of the passed down wisdoms that speak of privilege and hierarchy preordained in the unchanging course of events, so he was ahead of the pack and by making his peace changed back to old means and didn't have to compromise.

I really do think that this is a most unfair assessment of how and why Strauss's manner developed as it did over the years. As I suggested, there seems to be no evidence that he wilfully made himself any less "progressive" because of a perceived need to kowtow to his German political masters, especially given that the decision (if ever there was a conscious one) not to pursue further the paths opened up in Salome and Elektra was made - or at least came about - even before WWI.

I chose Kabalevsky because he symbolised a generation of composers post WW2 who, coming later in our story, obediently fell in line with the privileged elite of the USSR.

Indeed; you could as well have cited Khrennikov if you could bear to utter his name!...

I see Busoni as one thread of Modernism underrepresented in most accounts.

Even today, he's still underrated, to be sure, but I see him as belonging to both and neither camps simultaneously.

These matters tend to resolve by virtue of failures in social and political advance being reflected by failures of nerve which understandably lead composers of once-radical aspirations for their art compromising. This in turn hands a legacy of weakened radicalism to future generations, which we see today as downgrading any progressivity into just a passing fashion of no importance, rather than signifying crucial conjunctures in which opportunities were unable to be followed up.

Were all of this to be true, it might point to a most dangerous, cynical and dispirinting rôle being played (or at least playable) - even if only surreptitiously in the background - by political masters in any given time or place in seeking to exert influence upon how music might be composed.

[Serial_Apologist]

All fascinating and thought-provoking ideas, S_A (as we've become fortunate to come to expect of you here!). All that I would add in respect of your Schönberg First Chamber Symphony reference is that chords built up in fourths are chords founded on familiar intervals from triadic common chords and the only thing "new" about them is the absence of thirds so, once again, I regard them as an expansion of tonality, not an undermining thereof.

Well, that much is true, of course, although this is a more indirect influence than I had read your remark as being intended to convey; all that I might take issue with here is whether you believe that all such advances are down to capitalism if capitalism is to be seen by some as a bad thing (which, when practised corruptly, it is, except that it is not always practised corruptly, even today!).

Oh, I wasn't placing a value judgement on capitalism per se in referencing how its influences were reflected in new thoughts and feeling and ways of expressing them.

After all, as the fondly-missed Scottycelt might well have put it, without capitalism, where would we all have been today?

Richard Strauss (whom you mentioned in another context earlier) was a moving spirit behind the formation of GEMA, the German equivalent of PRS; that said, I don't see intellectual property rights as representing nothing more than the commodification of music (which is admittedly all too rampantly present in other areas of musical practice); composers have to live and the cannot all depend solely upon commissions - and, after all, sales of their scores and recordings are another source of income for the composer and might therefore be seen as tarred with the same capitalist commodificatory brush as the entitlement to royalty income from performances, broadcasts and recordings.

Again, and for much the same reasons, I'm not criticising composers for claiming property rights on their compositions!

I really do think that this is a most unfair assessment of how and why Strauss's manner developed as it did over the years. As I suggested, there seems to be no evidence that he wilfully made himself any less "progressive" because of a perceived need to kowtow to his German political masters, especially given that the decision (if ever there was a conscious one) not to pursue further the paths opened up in Salome and Elektra was made - or at least came about - even before WWI.

Hmmm - the political masters weren't any different after from before WWI. If they had been (i.e. if the Munich commune had been joined elsewhere rather than being put down by the Freikorps, Strauss might have had a German equivalent of the Bolsheviks to deal with... aesthetically speaking.

Indeed; you could as well have cited Khrennikov if you could bear to utter his name!...

I sometimes wonder if we should perhaps be given a chance to hear some of the music of the latter-day Russian nationalists. I remember Eric Robinson, back in the 1960s, describing the slow movement of Kabalevsky's Violin Concerto as worthy of comparison with Tchaikovsky's.

Even today, he's still underrated, to be sure, but I see him as belonging to both and neither camps simultaneously.

The thing about the later Busoni works, Doctor Faustus etc, is that they are in a changed idiom from those written prior to the Sonatina Secunda - and this is not a pastiche idiom, as Stravinsky's was in his Piano Sonata and subsequent works, but the kind of distillation of earlier strains in his own music, and that of others he admired, which he advocated as the way forward: a new classicism as opposed to a neo one. This may not have been as radical a way forward as outlined in his writings, but it was as much a manifestation of modernism as the new classicisms that emerged just after WWI in a number of composers, including Weill, Eisler, Casella and Hindemith.

Were all of this to be true, it might point to a most dangerous, cynical and dispirinting rôle being played (or at least playable) - even if only surreptitiously in the background - by political masters in any given time or place in seeking to exert influence upon how music might be composed.

I think the taste-controllers are mostly the arts bodies bureaucrats, newspaper critics, radio and TV pundits and other government stooges who call the tunes, rather than their political masters exerting power over artists and composers directly.

[ahinton]

Oh, I wasn't placing a value judgement on capitalism per se in referencing how its influences were reflected in new thoughts and feeling and ways of expressing them.

After all, as the fondly-missed Scottycelt might well have put it, without capitalism, where would we all have been today?

Well, he would have had a point! (although an answer to such a question ougt to be provided, of course!). That said, I now understand better where you're coming from here.

Again, and for much the same reasons, I'm not criticising composers for claiming property rights on their compositions!

Well, that's a relief! My concern here was to express the thought that intellectual property rights and commodification of those things to which they apply are by no means inherently synonymous.

Hmmm - the political masters weren't any different after from before WWI. If they had been (i.e. if the Munich commune had been joined elsewhere rather than being put down by the Freikorps, Strauss might have had a German equivalent of the Bolsheviks to deal with... aesthetically speaking.

Yes, of course that is true (otherwise WWI might not even have been declared, let alone fought!) and I should have taken this fact on board in what I wrote on the subject but I still maintain that Strauss sis not amend his compositional approach because of such considerations.

I sometimes wonder if we should perhaps be given a chance to hear some of the music of the latter-day Russian nationalists. I remember Eric Robinson, back in the 1960s, describing the slow movement of Kabalevsky's Violin Concerto as worthy of comparison with Tchaikovsky's.

Interesting - and I confess to not nowing that particular work - but from what I've heard of Khrennikov and some of his even lesser Russian colleagues of whom some might possibly warrant (though not of course by choice) the description "Soviet lackey" that Sorabji used to append to Shostakovich until he knew better, I'm not sure that the newly gleaned knowledge and experience would be especially rewarding or even edifying.

The thing about the later Busoni works, Doctor Faustus etc, is that they are in a changed idiom from those written prior to the Sonatina Secunda - and this is not a pastiche idiom, as Stravinsky's was in his Piano Sonata and subsequent works, but the kind of distillation of earlier strains in his own music, and that of others he admired, which he advocated as the way forward: a new classicism as opposed to a neo one. This may not have been as radical a way forward as outlined in his writings, but it was as much a manifestation of modernism as the new classicisms that emerged just after WWI in a number of composers, including Weill, Eisler, Casella and Hindemith.

There's much in what you write here but I do not think that Busoni himself would have perceived such differences betweem various of his works as some might do today; there was much cross-fertilisation, after all, one interesting example of which is the way in which the opening of his late and powerful Toccata for piano derives unproblematically from material from his much earlier first opera Die Brautwahl.

I think the taste-controllers are mostly the arts bodies bureaucrats, newspaper critics, radio and TV pundits and other government stooges who call the tunes, rather than their political masters exerting power over artists and composers directly.

I think that you're broadly correct here in many instances and I would only add that those who call tunes are usually incapable of composing them!

[ardcarp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXR81dLjjE

... with the original choreography, too!

Thanks ferney. I'll indulge myself when I can find a few moments' peace! But I'd like to see it live sometime too.......

[oddoneout]

Thank you for replies to Les Noces query - I had rather suspected that plagiarism was the answer, but wanted to get the facts. A suitable candidate for 'If you liked that ....'(Orff to Stravinsky direction of course)?

[subcontrabass]

The instrumentation of Les Noces (four pianos and four percussionists)

There are six percussion parts (or at least there were in the performances in which I have been involved [either singing in the chorus or playing third percussion]).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There are six percussion parts (or at least there were in the performances in which I have been involved [either singing in the chorus or playing third percussion]).

- neither the miniature score nor the vocal score specify - indeed, the English Bach Festival Percussion Ensemble on the Bernstein recording consists of seven players. Certainly a minimum of six percussionists are required at places such as fig 94 in the score.

[subcontrabass]

- neither the miniature score nor the vocal score specify - indeed, the English Bach Festival Percussion Ensemble on the Bernstein recording consists of seven players. Certainly a minimum of six percussionists are required at places such as fig 94 in the score.

Those who sell the parts specify 6: http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/7872

[Pabmusic]

- neither the miniature score nor the vocal score specify - indeed, the English Bach Festival Percussion Ensemble on the Bernstein recording consists of seven players. Certainly a minimum of six percussionists are required at places such as fig 94 in the score.

Some orchestras (most amateur ones, but also the occasional pro) are incredibly lax about percussion. True, percussionists do have extra limbs and magical powers that can 'bring off' the most amazing feats, but it's usually by leaving out something on the basis that "no-one will notice" (usually true, too). A personal favourite of mine, commonly played in the amateur world, is Elgar's P & C 1 - there are so many Last Night concerts given. Elgar writes for timps + 5 percussion; sometimes it's timps + a drum kit. Thus it's difficult to feature the sleigh bells and glock.

[ardcarp]

incredibly lax about percussion

Too true, Pabs, except I'd substitute 'strapped for cash' in place of 'lax'.

[Pabmusic]

Too true, Pabs, except I'd substitute 'strapped for cash' in place of 'lax'.

Much more precise than I could ever be.

[Daniel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXR81dLjjE

Very engaging, thanks for posting.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Very engaging, thanks for posting.

[Daniel]

This is pretty easy - modern music is jangly, weird or unpleasant. Or like a souffle. Or like a drunken theremin. Unbridled anger up against exhausted tenderness in a boxing ring. Clumping shoes or trapped air. Keaning Wombles. Renaissance. Pointy, different length moans, stretching, Danish. A blessing. Sub atomic. True. Unsteatopygus. Idiotic. Nude but for sonic pendants. Bare ruin'd choirs that shake against the cold. Nice. Or not ... continued on P.307 etc

When I first heard Stockhausen, I realised with quite a jolt that it was completely new. It bore little relation to any other music I'd heard. That felt modern. Modern music seems persuasively of its own 'now', in my rather imprecise and poncily expressed opinion.