Comments on: schoenberg is…not dead

By: Wolfgang

Wolfgang — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:55:01 +0000

Why do you think the symphony is dead?
It still has purpose and meaning!..The symphony!

By: Rich Hill

Rich Hill — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:24:24 +0000

Why not take a 12-tone row and make each note a key center for a ii-V7 or IV-V7 or just a temporary tonic? You get the freakiest sounding pseudo-jazz. Try it. I just did for a woodwind quintet I wrote and LOVED it. I also used the matrix in ways that would make Boulez throw a tantrum. It’s just a compositional device, not a holy relic. If it sounds good to you ears, use it. People can tell if you’re just pooping out notes.

By: Jeffrey Quick

Jeffrey Quick — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:55:11 +0000

Of course 12 tone is dead. So is the symphony. So is the isorhythmic motet.
So make like Dr. Frankenstein already…

By: Hucbald

Hucbald — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:40:19 +0000

“… I was turned off by the rigidity of tonality.”

Rigid is as rigid does: Tonality can be plenty plastic if you view every modulatory possibility as an opportunity to express a modal character. Why not modulate to a mixolydian, lydian, phrygian, or dorian mode, for example, versus the tired old ionian/aolean systems? Or, why not mix them all together?

I do stuff like that all the time. Have for decades.

OK. I’ll go back to lurking and shaking my head now.

By: Christopher Greco

Christopher Greco — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 01:00:54 +0000

Kyle and David,
Regarding Messiaen’s Mode de valeurs.. (1949)-
It’s referenced as the first work of “integral serialism,” and that the octave, register, duration, dynamics, and mode of attack are predetermined for every note. But, alas, the pitches are not ordered in the traditionally 12-note pattern–as Kyle points out.
The mention of Seeger’s dissonant counterpoint is always a pleasure to hear, even if it’s a passing reference. It seems that few are aware of that american development (Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford –both students of Charles Seeger).

By: Steve Layton

Steve Layton — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:44:06 +0000

Oh boo, Fernand. Schoenberg didn’t side-track or block anything. Especially the development of music; seems to me that there has been plenty of development in the last 100 years, from a huge spectrum of composers that happily includes Schoenberg. Or maybe it was Monteverdi, or even Leonin, that *really* got us all side-tracked from the “true” development of music? What were we thinking, ever leaving the modes, or even going polyphonic??!?

By: Fernand Raynaud

Fernand Raynaud — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:55:04 +0000

It seems we should reserve a special place of dishonor for Schoenberg in recognition of his having single-handedly side-tracked, if not blocked, the development of music for a hundred years. Unfortunately he is not quite out of the way, though it IS coming, and only after his legacy is swept aside along with other insanities of the 20th century, will harmony return between composers and the public. So there.

By: zeno

zeno — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:48:18 +0000

Thanks, David.

However, I never said “no one was more intuitive than [Schoenberg] was …”.

By: david toub

david toub — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:08:46 +0000

Kyle, I hear you. I never said Mode de valeurs was 12-tone (well, I did once many moons ago and subsequently stood corrected, although I have seen some references to Mode as a 12-tone work, in all fairness). I couldn’t remember how many tones would go by before Ruggles would repeat, but thought it was 12. No, every mention of Ruggles does not and should not refer to his antisemitism, but the last time I brought up my praises of Ruggles’ music, I got hammered for seemingly ignoring this aspect of his life. So I figured I’d mention it as a proactive strike of sorts.

Zeno, as much as i love Schoenberg’s music, I don’t know that I’d say no one was more intuitive than he was, although if you restrict the search to academics, then perhaps you’re correct.

By: Kyle Gann

Kyle Gann — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:08:18 +0000

David, hello? Can you hear me? Livre d’orgue is Messiaen’s 12-tone experiment, not Modes de valeurs. Ruggles would refrain from repeating a pitch until seven or eight or nine others (depending on the piece) had gone by, not 11 – it was one of the rules he inherited from Charles Seeger’s definition of dissonant counterpoint. And while I agree that every reference to Anne Coulter should include the words “harpy racist, anti-Muslim, anti-semitic freak,” does every reference to Ruggles, from now to eternity, have to include a reference to his antisemitism?