The Ellington Century

[amateur51]

What has the lead singer of Herman's Hermits got to do with anything?

That took me a while to work out fhg

[Ian Thumwood]

A couple of random thoughts. Why all the difficulties with Black Brown and Beige? It seems to me a totally integrated work, full of interest, around a common theme. Miles better than most of the new works that are presented at the Proms, Hear and Now.

Second Viennese School? Their value seems to be firstly that they broke up the monolith of 19th Century Classical music, and secondly the subsequent influence they had both on European and US serious composers. But the number of "great" works produced may be not as many as other 20th century composers.

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Agree about "Black, brown and biege" and the comment about late 20th Century Classical literature which has established itself in performance is fascinating too. A huge percentage of "new" works much remain unperformed after their debuts and only a fraction of the balance of the balance get a regular performance or (like MacMillan's "Veni, Veni , Emmanuel" ) seem to get embraced by the Classical audience. The popular compositions like "Gorecki's Synphony No3 or Taverner's "Protecting Veil" can't hold a candle to Ellington at his most inspired. I would suggest that Ellington's music will long remain a touchstone in jazz well beyond the influence of the likes of Second Viennese School and especially the likes of Stockhausen whose stock (forgive the pun) as a credible composer must be falling by the year. Whilst Classical music did seem to get a bit too simplistic in the 1980's (a bit like the nouvelle cuisine!) , I think there has been a number of composers like MacMillan and Sally Beamish who have got Classical music back in track .

I would also suggest to Oddball that the likes of Debussy, Bax, Scriabin , etc were also starting to break down the harmonic language prior to Schoenberg ultimately throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's odd, I can dig jazz musicians playing in this style but the "poriginal" Classical composers do nothing for me. Thinking of some of my favourite compositions from the 20th Century (Messaiens' Turnangulila ,. Bartok's "concerto for Orchestra, " Janacek's "Symphonia,"etc) , this is music which builds on from 19th Century music and seems all the better for it. For all the theories behind his music, Messaien's compositions always felt "human." Too much attention seems to be given to "Germanic" composers who were obsessed by theories and mathematics but , again, Classical music was far broader in the 20th Century with the likes of Villa-Lobos or Lacuana choosing an alternative path which was influenced by the folk music of their respective countries. Classical music in the 20th Century became bvery, very diverse and I feel that the importance of "atonal" composers has probably been over-played. There were plenty of composers like Copeland, Barber, Adams, Riech, Orff, Poulenc, Lili Boulenger, who pursued another path which is no less valid. This all harks back to my view that 20th Century music is marked by it's variety more than anything else.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ian, with the greatest of respect, your opinions of the "Second Viennese School and especially the likes of Stockhausen" (what "likes", for chrissakes?!) is, in my opinion, utter total and fetid bol

[amateur51]

Ian, with the greatest of respect, your opinions of the "Second Viennese School and especially the likes of Stockhausen" (what "likes", for chrissakes?!) is, in my opinion, utter total and fetid bol

[Serial_Apologist]

Now now, don't be unkind. Jesus died for our sins only yesterday...

[Tenor Freak]

Ian, with the greatest of respect, your opinions of the "Second Viennese School and especially the likes of Stockhausen" (what "likes", for chrissakes?!) is, in my opinion, utter total and fetid bol

How so? With the greatest of respect, obviously.

[Quarky]

I would also suggest to Oddball that the likes of Debussy, Bax, Scriabin , etc were also starting to break down the harmonic language prior to Schoenberg ultimately throwing the baby out with the bath water. ....... I feel that the importance of "atonal" composers has probably been over-played. .

Serialism is clearly a highly technical musical language, of that there can be no doubt, and Schoenberg is the most difficult Composer I have ever listened to - even more so than later serialists such as Boulez, Stockhausen. I gather from the Jazz experts that serialism does not seem a rewarding field for Jazz music, and they would rather keep to something harmonic, Coleman's harmolodics, or just go completely free. But as far as classical music is concerned, serialism is an integral part of the scene for composers, and (not being a composer myself) I would guess that most current composers, even if they don't use it, are well acquainted with serialism.

However I agree with your comment that music ought to feel "human" . But it's early days yet, serialism has only been around for 100 years - what about Sally Beamish? Some comments made recently by S-A:

"I seem at last to have found someone for whom I have been waiting now more than 2 decades: a new modernist composer whose music acknowledges her great modernist predecessors - she has referred to Tippett and Berio. She strikes me as one of the few composers to have emerged since the mid-70s who fully embraces the expressive oportunities atonality opened up, this now informing her more tonally-orientated pieces (such as those heard today) with the expanded musical universe therein revealed, rather after the manner of the great late Nicholas Maw.

It is interesting that Ms Beamish has taken to jazz - the one form (apart from free improvisation) in which I feel the language of music to be still evolving - and if there is anything that appears anomalous in her story, I am surprised that the genre had earlier escaped her notice, and that she had found it necessary to study under Branford Marsalis, when Scotland, where she has chosen to live, offers so much in terms of an indigenous jazz scene, having absorbed folk idioms without resort to the American approach and vernacular."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How so? With the greatest of respect, obviously.

Well, I adore the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Gerhard, Lutyens, Babbitt, Dallapiccola, Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez, Berio, Xenakis and many later composers who also made Music in a non-Tonal language. I find it exciting, life-affirming, joyous, daring, moving and it makes me as glad to be alive as any other kind of Music, Tonal or Modal. So when someone describes it as "obsessed by theories and mathematics" and expresses the opinion that "Stockhausen's stock as a credible composer must be falling by the year" ("must be"? wishful thinking, medetects) and (elsewhere) as "academic", I take umbrage. (I'd be interested to know, also, which works by BAX "broke down" which "harmonic language before Schoenberg").

Look, if anyone said that "the trouble with the likes of Ellington and his like is that it's all so rhythmically monotonous; all in four-four with accents on the second and fourth beat all the way through" (and I have heard such comments. Don't worry; they weren't allowed access to sharp implements) then you'd know that it would be pointless to watch such a person's lips because that wouldn't be the orifice from which they were speaking. I find Ian's comments about the Music I love equally unsympathetic and poorly considered: which is a pity and this is why I said "with the greatest of respect" because I meant it: I have great respect and admiration for his comments about Ellington and share his opinion of Gorecki and Tavener (I'd also far rather hear A Love Supreme than anything by Copland - whose Music I greatly enjoy, especially the late Serial masterpieces! - and anything by Anthony Braxton rather than John Adams - whose Music I find uninteresting.)

Hope that clarifies my position?

Best Wishes.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, I adore the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Gerhard, Lutyens, Babbitt, Dallapiccola, Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez, Berio, Xenakis and many later composers who also made Music in a non-Tonal language. I find it exciting, life-affirming, joyous, daring, moving and it makes me as glad to be alive as any other kind of Music, Tonal or Modal. So when someone describes it as "obsessed by theories and mathematics" and expresses the opinion that "Stockhausen's stock as a credible composer must be falling by the year" ("must be"? wishful thinking, medetects) and (elsewhere) as "academic", I take umbrage. (I'd be interested to know, also, which works by BAX "broke down" which "harmonic language before Schoenberg").

Look, if anyone said that "the trouble with the likes of Ellington and his like is that it's all so rhythmically monotonous; all in four-four with accents on the second and fourth beat all the way through" (and I have heard such comments. Don't worry; they weren't allowed access to sharp implements) then you'd know that it would be pointless to watch such a person's lips because that wouldn't be the orifice from which they were speaking. I find Ian's comments about the Music I love equally unsympathetic and poorly considered: which is a pity and this is why I said "with the greatest of respect" because I meant it: I have great respect and admiration for his comments about Ellington and share his opinion of Gorecki and Tavener (I'd also far rather hear A Love Supreme than anything by Copland - whose Music I greatly enjoy, especially the late Serial masterpieces! - and anything by Anthony Braxton rather than John Adams - whose Music I find uninteresting.)

Hope that clarifies my position?

Best Wishes.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er 11 12

[Ian Thumwood]

Fernehough

The point about Ellington performing largely in 4/4 is a good one but there are exceptions and like many of his contemporaries he did explore 3/4. However, by and large jazz produced by Ellington's generation were notable for making the initialt change from 2/4. curiously, some of Ellington's later works explore other time signatures albeit with none of the variety of totday's jazz. That said. I would argue that his music was still evolving at the time of his passing. From a rhythmic point of view, i think the use of poly-rhythms in Ellington's work is fascinasting and setting aside the reservations about using common time, jazz has probably explored the use of percussion more thoroughly in it's history than any other style of music. As far as rhythm (and not just time signatures) jazz is way a head of the field.

My point was that serialism is only one way to skin a cat and if you are to make the kind of claims made by Schiff regarding what are the salient developments in music, it is necessary to look beyond what was only a fraction of the kind of developments that took place in classical music let alone all type of music. In this respect, I think it has been accorded too much importance and maybe less relevent as the music has become more cerebral and lost any popular following.

It is perhaps a reflection of this messageboard that there is no counter argument from the "popular corner" as I suppose fans of such diverse artists as The Beatles, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, MichaelJ ackson, Stevie Wonder or Madonna might have an equally good call to have musically represented a social persepctive of at least a proportion of the last century. I think Schiff (whon is actually a composer himself) has opened up a can of worms but it is a can which you can have a great deal of fun arguing about the difference merits and perspectives of the whole gamut of musical styles from the last century.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is a can which you can have a great deal of fun arguing about the difference merits and perspectives of the whole gamut of musical styles from the last century.

yep

[Serial_Apologist]

Serialism is clearly a highly technical musical language, of that there can be no doubt, and Schoenberg is the most difficult Composer I have ever listened to - even more so than later serialists such as Boulez, Stockhausen. I gather from the Jazz experts that serialism does not seem a rewarding field for Jazz music, and they would rather keep to something harmonic, Coleman's harmolodics, or just go completely free. But as far as classical music is concerned, serialism is an integral part of the scene for composers, and (not being a composer myself) I would guess that most current composers, even if they don't use it, are well acquainted with serialism.

However I agree with your comment that music ought to feel "human" . But it's early days yet, serialism has only been around for 100 years - what about Sally Beamish?

Thanks very much, Oddball. It's not every day that, ahem.. etc etc.

While serialism has often been dissed as a "unnatural" (i.e. unspontaneous) method of composition, it's worth noting that Schoenberg had arrived at it through advances in his own music that had actually begun before the abandonment of tonality. Alexander Goehr explained it far better and more succintly that I am able to, in his chapter on Schoenberg in "European Music in the Twentieth Century" (Ed H Hartog, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Rev. 1961, "Development towards the Twelve-Note System"). Unfiortunately I now find the passages I'd wanted to reproduce far too long to include in a posting such as this, since Goehr takes a while to situate Schoenberg's achievements, and to explain clearly how in retrospect they can be seen as leading naturally from the practices he adapted from Bach and late Beethoven (especially) to the 12-tone method. What comes out of it however is that the method was but a short step in terms of the way of the composer's foreshortening of melodic expression - a spontaneous process - together with his foundational resort to contrapuntal over harmonic (chords-based) methods of construction.

It has, of course, been argued that, given the spontaneous way in which Schoenberg had arrived at the 12-tone method, it was a method specific to him alone. However, it has been said by some who have closely scrutinized the music, that Webern's scores leading up to 1923, (the year in which Schoenberg first deployed a 12-tone row and treated it serially), had been moving in the same direction. Indeed, examinations of the scores of other composers operating within the orbits of atonal music up to this time, including Bartok, are said to show similar tendencies. It takes some time to acclimatise oneself, even to atonal music, but once one comes to feel at home in the idiom(s) the issue of whether or not melodies and harmonies are integrated in the serial manner becomes secondary to the listening process, imv; and in fact all three composers of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) went out of their way to clarify the integrating aspect of 12-tone composition by resorting to formal structures beloved of composers of the Baroque and Classical periods. Boulez was later to decry this move as inconsistent and not naturally co-terminous with atonal music; indeed, the whole idea that followed in the 1950s of applying serial procedures to musical parameters beyond pitch relations remains controversial to this day, albeit that it produced a handful of remarkable works that expanded the range of expression and sounds available to the modern composer... but that is another story.

PS - I do "hear" quite a lot of Schoenberg in Ms Beamish's music - don't know if she uses serial procedures, however.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The point about Ellington performing largely in 4/4 is a good one but there are exceptions and like many of his contemporaries he did explore 3/4. However, by and large jazz produced by Ellington's generation were notable for making the initialt change from 2/4. curiously, some of Ellington's later works explore other time signatures albeit with none of the variety of totday's jazz. That said. I would argue that his music was still evolving at the time of his passing. From a rhythmic point of view, i think the use of poly-rhythms in Ellington's work is fascinasting and setting aside the reservations about using common time, jazz has probably explored the use of percussion more thoroughly in it's history than any other style of music. As far as rhythm (and not just time signatures) jazz is way a head of the field.

The quote about Ellington is one I've heard expressed in different ways by people who don't "get" Jazz: I disagree that such a view is an accurate assessment of the best Jazz Musicians (I don't think it's even true of an earlier figure like Beiderbecke whose solos float out of the "background", teasing the pulse and sense of metre - and once we get to Beebop ... !).

My point was that serialism is only one way to skin a cat

Absolutely: Birtwistle, Ligeti, Cage, Xenakis and Sciarrino are among the cats who'd drink to that!

and if you are to make the kind of claims made by Schiff regarding what are the salient developments in music, it is necessary to look beyond what was only a fraction of the kind of developments that took place in classical music let alone all type of music.

Again, no argument from me about this ...

In this respect, I think it has been accorded too much importance and maybe less relevent as the music has become more cerebral and lost any popular following.

... but plenty here! I don't think Serialism can be overestimated in its importance*, nor do I find that the Music has "become more cerebral" (than what? Bach? The Grosse Fuge? Parsifal?) Musicians have to use their brains to make great Music, whether it's Richard Barrett working with the Elision Ensemble or with Paul Obermayer, or with Evan Parker, or Ferneyhough working in a studio, or Miles deciding which is going to be the exact moment to play in order to make the greatest effect. As for "any popular following", how do you define "popular"? I like it, and so do a number of contributors to these Boards - Huddersfield manages to secure thousands to the various events each year, as do other venues throughout Europe, the States and Australasia. KAIROS, NEOS, Stradivarius, NMC, col legno and other smaller CD labels manage to keep their commercial heads above water solely selling this Music - not bad for Music that's "lost any popular following"! Not as "popular" as Mr Cowell's annual exploitations, but if that's the criterion then even Beethoven might as well throw in the towel on a year-by-year "Disc-count".

It is perhaps a reflection of this messageboard that there is no counter argument from the "popular corner" as I suppose fans of such diverse artists as The Beatles, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder or Madonna might have an equally good call to have musically represented a social persepctive of at least a proportion of the last century. I think Schiff (whon is actually a composer himself) has opened up a can of worms but it is a can which you can have a great deal of fun arguing about the difference merits and perspectives of the whole gamut of musical styles from the last century.

Yes; and I hope that it is in this spirit of fun in standing up for the Musics I adore that you accept all my comments on this Thread.


EDIT: * = I meant to add here "What can be argued is that other valid and vital Musical languages have been neglected and undervalued by writers, and Schiff's book is a way of addressing this neglect."

[Ian Thumwood]

No problem - enjoying the debate!

I think that Schiff's premise is hugely contentious but also extremely entertaining and well worth debating. Ellington is one of my favourite composers and i love the fact that someone is prepared to stick their neck out and make such bold claims. (Incidentally, you can read extracts of the book on amazon but as I have ordered this, I will return to thris thread again once I have read it. The sample pages seem to demonstrate an understanding oif all sorts of music too.) the book seems very thought provoking and it looks like a good read - a bit bit different from the stuff I am reading abour the French Foreign Legion at the moment!)