Hi Guy,

yes, I completely agree with Ligeti. I bet you know Volumina (for organ). I once wanted to cross this piece with a song by Harry Belafonte... then I heard your Pop-version and gave up.... [:D]


Bill, about dissonance and horror:
Today I had another opportunity to hear choral works by Perotin. There are so stunning and amazingly beautiful dissonances in there, it´s breathtaking. And no association with horror at all. Furthermore these guys in ars antiqua really had swing, too.
I really find it a pity that with Palestrina everything became very consonant and "beautiful". It took several hundred years to appreciate a dissonance again. I don´t want to go back.

The vibraphon piece indeed deviates from equal or well-tempered tuning simply because the resulting sounds were much too boring.
Composers throughout history were looking for dissonances, NOT consonances, because these are the sounds which are exciting. Today I find a tritone not exciting at all, or a minor ninth. Today we need stronger sounds, probably also connected with noise to get the spice into the music.
Anyway, thanks of course to referring to my piece! [[;)]]

Bests,
- Mathis

I wasn't saying that dissonance really equals horror of course not. I meant that ironically: Mr. Avant Garde Penderecki seemed to be making that equation himself! I find that odd, since I always thought the credo of the avant garde was "Oh, no, all that dissonance isn't ugly! It's just BEAUTIFUL! You only thnk it's ugly because you're stupid and primitive unlike us." Isn't that basically what they believe?

Anyway I agree on Ligetti - one of the few really great hog-wild modernists. Though his microtonal things are the most interesting things I've heard. It's true that he can do anything - somewhat like Picasso in sound.

I realized fairly recently that I seem to like microtonal music, and noise music of various kinds, much more than chromatic dissonant music of whatever persuasion. Perhaps this is because the chromatic music always involves a CONTRADICTION of tonailty - a conflict that is implied whether the composer wants to or not. Whereas microtonal music, or synthesized musical noises for example, do something completel different, something truly beyond tonality rather than a mere contradiction of it. This is not an intellectual statement, but something that I've actually felt emotionally as a direct reaction to such music. For example the "Lontano" of Ligetti. It creates something utterly different than serialism, because it is as if the orchestra is not playing music at all - dissonant or othewise - but instead creating a new pure sound never heard before.

William, do you know any of Scelsi's music?
I'd be interested to know what you think of it, especially e.g. "Anahit" or some of the orchestra pieces.

best,
John

Guy,

Check out Lutoslawski's 3rd Symphony. That's pretty great!

Ligeti I've never gotten into... definitely NOT his fault. It's just me. I'll check out Clocks and Clouds, though.

Scelsi's done some cool stuff, but for that sort of language I really dig Grisey -- I saw a performance of Vortex Temporum here in Vancouver that was one of the most amazing performances -- in all media -- I've ever seen.

I'm a big fan of Rihm, as well. His language is also very personal, and flirts with all sorts of traditions, but never in an obnoxious way.

Glad to see such friendly conversation!

J.

jbm, Lutoslawski would roll over in his grave if he heard himself called Penderecki's disciple!! He was rather older, aproximately a generation older, and definitely 'old school' despite his avant garde music.

But a wonderful composer, to be sure, and this notion of tonality-in-modernity is pretty interesting vis-a-vis his works.

@DG said:

Regarding the major 3rd check out the example I gave. Talk to any string quartet player about intonation and you won't get any sleep for days... [:)]
DG

The second part, true -- but your major third example doesn't seem right to me. The pure major third gives as the strongest unheard note the note two octaves below the lower note -- the root of the presumed harmonic series. Where does your tritone come from??

The tritone comes from NOT tuning the 3rd purely, but usinf equal temperament.

Had to try it out -- there is indeed a dissonant resultant, not from a major third, but from a TRIAD -- probably from the major third/fifth conflct of overtones.

BUT!!! compare the sine waves with an equal tempered third: it is much, much, much worse.

Listen to http://mysite.verizon.net/guglielmo/sine_torment.mp3

the first, sine waves at 250, 500, 750, 1000 (C) , 1250 (E), 1500 (G)

the second, sine waves at 250, 500, 750, 1000 (C) , 1260.2 (E'), 1500 (G)

!!!

([edit] John A -- I believe DG was saying the PURE major third causes the dissonance. S/He used the word 'tuned', anyway.

Interesting - starting to look like a page from Helmholtz's "Sensations of Tone" here.

I haven't heard Scelsi. BTW I would be interested in opinions on who are the best composers known for microtonal work. To me, Ligetti's stuff in this area is absolutely fascinating.

I´m not sure how much microtonal work Ligeti actually has done. Lontano and stuff is chromatic if I´m not wrong. I´m not sure it he actually ever has done microtonal work.

The German Frank Zender has done a lot of microtonal work, exploring differential tones. Recently I was very fascinated by pieces by the Austrian Georg Haas: 1. string quartett and "Einklang freier Wesen". I really liked that.

@gugliel said:

the first, sine waves at 250, 500, 750, 1000 (C) , 1250 (E), 1500 (G)

the second, sine waves at 250, 500, 750, 1000 (C) , 1260.2 (E'), 1500 (G)

I don't hear the first ones as dissonances at all - it sounds like maybe there's an overloaded signal level, but there's no beating of "out-of-tune" intervals like there is in the second example.

You can work this stuff out mathematically - sum and (especially) difference tones.

gugliel,

sorry about that... you're right, and I actually was a little concerned about the association of Lutoslawski with Penderecki when I wrote that.

I guess I was going with the general conversation, and thinking of the fact that _some_ of the techniques Lutoslaski used in the later pieces had a sound somewhat similar to certain moments in Penderecki, at least to somone not familiar with the former's work. Anyway, point well taken!

I actually came to Penderecki through Lutoslawski, as well, which has probably always effected my comparison of the two. Also, I heard Lutoslawski's later works before hearing the earlier ones. I never seem to "discover" anyone or anything in chronologic order!

J.

Mathis,

Huh? No way is that chromatic. It is played by orchestra but not chromatically in the performance I have. Also, Lux Aeterna and Atmospheres are the most famous microtonal music ever composed.

William,

Chromatic refers to the lack of modal harmony. The free use of non-tonality whilst staying true to the basic tones and semitones of ALL music (eastern music is also based on this despite what so many people tend to perport).

Evan Evans

Actually what Mathis was probably trying to say, is better translated as Chromaticism. it doesn't mean even that a minor second melodic interval even be present in the score. it simply means the free use of non-tonality and without roots in modal harmony.

Evan Evans

Bill, I only have the Lontano score at home and just had a look again and I really don´t find any accidentals other than naturals, flats and sharps.

I agree with Evan about the chromatism of eastern music. I don´t hear microtonality in there. It´s different tuning and maybe different tunings to choose from, but the thinking is still in halfsteps. When talking about microtonility, I think of quartertones and smaller, or specified deviations to generate differential or sum tones.

Lux Aeterna, Atmospheres -- both chromatic, not microtonal, unless my memory deceives me. I've looked at both scores, but don't own them or have access to them presently. Penderecki specifies quartertones, specifically, in various works including the famous St Luke Passion. I sang that (in the chorus) last year, and there is nothing other than chromaticism in the choral parts, but the strings have a few quartertones. Not sure about the solo vocal parts.

Chromatic does not refer to "lack of modal harmony" - plenty of chromatic music is modal also.

All right Mathis and Gugliel you can both slug me because I was in error about calling these microtonal. I looked up Ligetti's statement and he described his work on these pieces - Lontano, Apparitions and Lux Aeterna - as "micropolyphonic" not microtonal, though the sound is utterly different from chromatic atonalism. On Lux Aeterna he said "I broke with my preceding style of chromatic tone clusters (as in Atmospheres or Requiem). It is a 16-voice micropolyphonic piece with diatonic voice leading of complex canons."

The sound of this actually performed is so far from the clear distinctions of chromaticism in for example Berg or Webern that it something basically different and has clearly audible warping of the 12 written tones, but it is something that happens in the mind of the listener. It would be interesting to compare this to a similarly scored but definitively microtonal piece. I know this will enrage some people but exactly the same thing happens in the 4th movement of the Tchaikovsky 6th: there is a line in the strings which does not exist anywhere on the page, but only in the mind of the listener.

Likewise on Atmospheres - it is scored chromatically but you don't hear it because of the extreme emphasis on color, as well as the creation of perceived overtones and shifts in harmony due to these colors. It is an almost supernatural piece of music.

No problem, William -- the sounds are unique for sure, and don't know if they would be richer with microtones. Currently, I'm most interested in microtones in connection with 'purer' sounds, tuning and playing with overtones, rather than in pushing past clusters like Ligeti toward pink noise.

Wow, I did not realize Atmospheres was not microtonal. What an accomplishment then.

Evan Evans