Modernism - the correct way to approach it

[Richard Barrett]

He wasn't forced to do anything.

Presumably you weren't "forced" to be a reactionary fuddy-duddy either.

As for "the musical dead-end of serialism", I suggest that you know far too little about the subject to dismiss it in such categorical terms. To name one example: the parametric organisation of music which the post-1945 avant-garde composers developed (from the example of Webern rather than Schoenberg of course) formed the basis in the 1960s of the construction of modular synthesizers whose architecture is still in turn the basis, one way and another, of most of the music that's made with electronic means, which includes most pop music of course: you may not like it but it's hardly a dead end in music history. Secondly, the new musical possibilities opened by serial thinking led directly to the idea that any combination of sounds could be conceived as potentially musical, which in turn led to many other ongoing developments in musical thinking such as free improvisation. In other words, Schoenberg's serial thinking may in itself not have been preserved intact in the work of succeeding generations (though the same could be said for any other innovation in music history) but that doesn't make it a dead end; rather a point of departure for very many diverse and fruitful directions music has subsequently taken.

[Serial_Apologist]

Schoenberg's serial thinking may in itself not have been preserved intact in the work of succeeding generations

And yet, those sounds - in "Erwartung", in "Die Gluchliche Hand", in the Webern Ops 5 and 6, composed in 1909 for god's sake - seemed when I first heard them at the proms under Boulez, and still in some ways seem so prophetic of sound-complexes and new realms of expressivity rediscovered by later electrophonic composers!

[ahinton]

How was he forced to become a radical, and by whom? He wasn't forced to do anything. He chose to set off down the musical dead-end of serialism.

You'd have to have asked Schönberg himself that question but, even if you could have done so, you would presumably not have bothered since your second sentence suggests that you believe that you already know the answer (so iknow better than Schönberg himself). Your third ignores the facts that Schönberg did not in any case publish any 12-note serial works until well after his Funf Orchesterstück and that he did not only write such music from that point onwards (I referred you, for example, to his second chamber symphony which is in E flat minor and postdates his first serial works).

And you're right, I'm not a composer. But not doing something doesn't mean one can't have an opinion about it. If it did, there wouldn't be much for anybody to talk about, would there?

And you're right, you're entitled to have and express an opinion on the subject, just as I am to take you to task for the paucity of facts and understanding that appears on this occasion to inform it; do bear in mind, for example, that the composer whom you accuse of going down a "musical dead-end" went on to write a large chapter entitled Brahms the Progressive in a later book and to retort to someone who described him as an auto-didact with the words "I am a pupil of Mozart!" - and that, when claiming for his new method of composing with 12 tones that it would "ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years" he might just have had his tongue pointing somewhere near one of his cheeks, although this did not appear to discourage Ronald Stevenson years later from commenting on it in a Books & Bookmen review of Malcolm MacDonald's book on the composer that this was "an odd idea for an Austrain Jew to have"...

[Richard Barrett]

still in some ways seem so prophetic of sound-complexes and new realms of expressivity rediscovered by later electrophonic composers!

Quite so, which supports what I was saying - Schoenberg's methods gave rise to an expansion of musical horizons which is still continuing, even though the methods themselves might not play a central role in most of these "new realms". And here it's worth remembering that "serialism" is indeed a method, not a style.

[ahinton]

Quite so, which supports what I was saying - Schoenberg's methods gave rise to an expansion of musical horizons which is still continuing, even though the methods themselves might not play a central role in most of these "new realms". And here it's worth remembering that "serialism" is indeed a method, not a style.

Of course - as Schönberg himself was at pains to try to point out, not least when expressing the wish to be remembered as a 12-note composer, not a 12-note composer...

[Serial_Apologist]

when claiming for his new method of composing with 12 tones that it would "ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years" he might just have had his tongue pointing somewhere near one of his cheeks, although this did not appear to discourage Ronald Stevenson years later from commenting on it in a Books & Bookmen review of Malcolm MacDonald's book on the composer that this was "an odd idea for an Austrain Jew to have"...

I didn't know Stevenson had said that!!!

Seriously, however, there has long existed a deep relationship between Jewish culture and German philosophy, which was expounded in some equivalence of depth in a programme or series broadcast on Radio 3 a few years ago, during which Mention was made of Mahler and a number of poets and philosophers - (I'm very ignorant on German history, but remember thinking, why no mention of Schoenberg, Eisler and Weill?)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And yet, those sounds - in "Erwartung", in "Die Gluchliche Hand", in the Webern Ops 5 and 6, composed in 1909 for god's sake - seemed when I first heard them at the proms under Boulez, and still in some ways seem so prophetic of sound-complexes and new realms of expressivity rediscovered by later electrophonic composers!

And not just those Boulez-approved masterworks - there are sounds wond'rous strange and marvellous in the very Serial String Trio and Violin & Piano Phantasy, the latter of which sounds so much like the source of works such as PMD's magnificent Hymnos.

[Richard Barrett]

But what about the article in the OP? Its main point seems to be that in 1914 "[w]e have ... reached a stage in which the Press, instead of acting as a brake on enthusiasm for modernity, has become its chief accelerator." The writer seems to suppose that critics have a lot more power over the minds of creative people than they actually do; but on the other hand, he would presumably be happy to have witnessed the kind of anti-modernist ranting one sees not only in the 21st century press but also on this forum, using the same words it has used for over a century. So, supposedly, the "correct way to approach" modern music is the same as it was a hundred years ago, in a world which was different in almost every way. How can this possibly be?

[MrGongGong]

How was he forced to become a radical, and by whom? He wasn't forced to do anything. He chose to set off down the musical dead-end of serialism.

What utter nonsense
but never mind keep repeating it anyway if it makes you happy

[ahinton]

He chose to set off down the musical dead-end of serialism.

So "serialism" was an already established path at the time (whatever time that may have been) and Schönberg "chose" to set off down it, yes? Leaving aside your assertion about "dead ends", since you seem to have such authority in these matters, do you happen to know how far down that path he got, having "set off" in that direction (whatever direction that may have been)? Has it not also occurred to you that other composers - Hauer, Scriabin et al - were independently thinking about the organisation of tones in ways not entirely dissimilar to those that occurred to Schönberg? Has it not occurred to you how very different is the music of the many composers who at one time or another took this or that from Schönberg's serial procedures and techniques? - it's anything but a commonality, after all.

[Richard Barrett]

While I'm still up, here's some serial music some of you might enjoy: Segmente 1-7 for piano (1982) by Gottfried Michael Koenig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOQIedNT_Us