It's interesting we're talking about the "Rite Of Spring". I can't think of another piece of music which could ever sound as shockingly, suddenly "new" as that one. Original, new, modern (but atavistic and barbaric too). Stravinsky "samples" so much of it from elsewhere - Lithuanian folk songs, Skryabin, Rimsky Korsakov - but it STILL feels original, modern, new. I don't even hear a historical period in it so much - Stockhausen's "Gruppen", by comparison, sounds far more of its era (though to be fair, I've never heard it in a concert performance).

Here's a thought, one which could unite VSL's hardcore avant-gardists with its film score composers. I think originality must be a product of context. Once you've decided to do a ballet about barbaric pagan rituals & human sacrifice you're forced to come up with noises & rhythms you'd never think of if you're just sat at the piano trying to write a symphony or a string quartet. Once you've decided to write a piece of music to comemorate the horrors of the Hiroshima bomb (as in Penderecki's Threnody) you know you can't just write schmaltzy romantic melodies in E-flat Major - you're going to have to go to the limit to find sounds appropriate to that context. One of my favourite American composers is George Crumb, & his sonic originality always has an extreme context to inspire it; his Black Angels is inspired by the horrors of the Vietnam war, for instance.

(It's always like this. Monteverdi, when Artusi criticizes him for breaking the rules of the Palestrina style, says look, I need stronger music because I need to depict stronger emotions. Wagner pushes the harmonic system further for the sake of the drama.)

Laters

Guy

@"Guy SigsworthOnce you've decided to write a piece of music to comemorate the horrors of the Hiroshima bomb (as in Penderecki's Threnody)[/quote said:

[quote="Guy SigsworthOnce you've decided to write a piece of music to comemorate the horrors of the Hiroshima bomb (as in Penderecki's Threnody)

HA! That has to be one of the the biggest con-jobs in music. It's original title was 8' 37" (named for its duration, don't you know)
After several people commented on the extreme emotional impact it had on them, Penderecki changed it's name to "Threnody". After more performances and more "emotional impact"-type comments Penderecki changed the title once again to "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima"

How can a title like that not make a difference to the way you hear that piece?

I like the piece, and some other works of P, but I think he's an asshole.

best,
John

ROFL. That's f***ng hilarious about Pendorecki. What an arse!

Evan Evans

P.S. Although, come to think of it, I might do the same myself someday given the same conditions! [;)]

D****it you're right, I've put the cart before the horse -the Hiroshima title came later - which does rather mess up my theory!javascript:emoticon('[:O]ops:')

Guy

If this is true it shows the obvious equation: DISSONANCE = HORROR

I find this amusing, since the atonalists ever since Schoenberg have wanted everyone to believe that "a minor second is as beautiful as a major third" - Schoenberg. And yet Mr. Penderecki - the God of the avant garde - creates a cacophony, then gets a big reaction of horror from people, and so he decides to capitalize on it. And yet this contradicts the entire concept of dissonance is beautiful. Funny.

@William said:

If this is true it shows the obvious equation: DISSONANCE = HORROR

I find this amusing, since the atonalists ever since Schoenberg have wanted everyone to believe that "a minor second is as beautiful as a major third" - Schoenberg. And yet Mr. Penderecki - the God of the avant garde - creates a cacophony, then gets a big reaction of horror from people, and so he decides to capitalize on it. And yet this contradicts the entire concept of dissonance is beautiful. Funny.

Not to split hairs, but Shoenberg wrote Pantonal music, not Atonal. I know that you said since S, but I must say that some of his serial music is beautiful, as is the music of Berg. Others in the same "school" I could do without quite comfortably.
I must also piont out that a major 3rd (when played in tune) is a horrible interval, due to the fact that the loudest resultant tone is an augmented 4th below the lower note. This is something that Brahms found out too late to save the end of Sonatensatz... [:(]

DG

@William said:

If this is true it shows the obvious equation: DISSONANCE = HORROR

For most people this is true. Students very often use words like "creepy" when asked to comment on music with unresolved dissonances.
I think for the average listener (who, lets face it, is usually rather uneducated musically) a large part of this reaction is due to music's use in film. Your average Joe listener needs to see an image when he hears music.

Schoenberg's comments re beauty I take with a pinch of salt. There is almost no point talking about an interval as an aesthetic entity. How does the thing get used in context? There are achingly beautiful minor seconds in tonal music, and achingly dull ones in non-tonal music...
I always supposed that Schoenberg was on his didactic rant about emancipation of the dissonance, trying to force everyone to think like him.

best,
John

@JohnA said:

There are achingly beautiful minor seconds in tonal music, and achingly dull ones in non-tonal music...

er, lest it be thought I'm FOR tonal and AGAINST non-tonal, I should qualify the above statement and say I don't think all minor seconds behave this way in music...

best,
John

Must defend Penderecki. He is a kind, tolerant, intelligent, artistic human.

There might be a little pompousness, like Verdi maybe; there is certainly a shrewdness when dealing with public perceptions, like nearly any successful artist; the story is true-ish, that the piece came before the title. But the combination of piece and title is what has become important in his work, and his combination of characteristics have made him what he is.

Pantonal vs. atonal is a useless distinction. Pantonality is obviously a class of atonality since all tones simultaneously negate tonality. Schoenberg is however mainly known as a serialist.

A major third a horrible interval? It depends on the scale - tempered or natural or whatever tuning you wish to use.

I agree with John A about how these things are just too subjective to establish as principles. Also about how context is everything. That is what irritated me with Schoenberg's original statement, because he seemed to be removing context. Though perhaps that was not his intention. I also like some of Schoenberg and can easily see why he just had to do something different - after Gurrelieder.

I hope I'm not becoming a conservative reactionary(!), but I basically agree with William. Atonality/pantonality tends to be emotionally monochrome. It’s great for portraying paranoia, neurosis & the dark side, but not so good with other emotions. Schoenberg’s atonal Holocaust document "A Survivor From Warsaw" rightly shocks & horrifies me, but his atonal opera-buffo comedy "Von Heute auf Morgen" doesn’t make me smile at all. Of course the "vulgar" atonality found in film music corroborates this - it's used for tension, disaster, horror, but not for, say, romantic bedroom scenes. Could atonality be used to depict ecstatic happiness, an atonal "Gloria In Excelsis Deo"? If it can, I haven't heard the piece that does this - yet.
Classical tonality is a multi-dimensional universe of 168 (24 times 7) notes. In this universe "A" as the 3rd of F major is completely different from "A" as the key note of A major, & any good musician knows how to play with these multiple meanings. Schoenberg flattens it down to a single 12-note mode, a single chromatic raag, in a single emotional plane. All that multi-dimensional play (or ‘modulation’) is lost. There is a kind of play between serial transpositions, retrogrades & inversions & so on, but it doesn't begin to equal what's been discarded. Imagine a great Indian musician, say Hariprasad Chaurasia, living his entire life performing in a single raag, with a single emotional association, a single time of day. That’s what serialism feels like to me.
I'm not saying serial music is rubbish, because there are masterpieces of that single atonal raag: Pierrot Lunaire, the String Trio, Webern Opus 5 etc.


Laters

Guy

@Guy Sigsworth said:

I hope I'm not becoming a conservative reactionary(!), but I basically agree with William. Atonality/pantonality tends to be emotionally monochrome.

Snort!!!! Of course it is! Bloody rubbish!

Laters

@William said:

Pantonal vs. atonal is a useless distinction. Pantonality is obviously a class of atonality since all tones simultaneously negate tonality. Schoenberg is however mainly known as a serialist.

A major third a horrible interval? It depends on the scale - tempered or natural or whatever tuning you wish to use.

I agree with John A about how these things are just too subjective to establish as principles. Also about how context is everything. That is what irritated me with Schoenberg's original statement, because he seemed to be removing context. Though perhaps that was not his intention. I also like some of Schoenberg and can easily see why he just had to do something different - after Gurrelieder.

Pantonality and atonality are different in that with pantonality a tonal centre is all important. The fact that Schoenberg is known as a serialist has nothing to do with this distinction.

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

Yes of course DG but my point is the tonal center is NEGATED.

I think this post of Guy is a profound statement - I have felt this but never thought it consciously. So much is lost with the complete discarding of tonality. The most advanced tonality - what? Scriabin? Late Mahler, Early Schoenberg (before he realized he'd never be able to compete with Mahler and said to hiimself "You know, I better do something different") - these come close to losing all tonal reference, but barely hold onto it with the effect of including subliminally all of those elements that Guy is talking about as potential referents.

@DG said:

Talk to any string quartet player about intonation and you won't get any sleep for days... [:)]

DG

Doesn't 12-note music presuppose equal temperament?

@DG said:

Talk to any string quartet player about intonation and you won't get any sleep for days... [:)]

DG

Doesn't 12-note music presuppose equal temperament?

Theoretically, but to a string player trained within Western tonality I don't believe that it is possible.

DG

I just stumbled over a statement by good ol´ Schoenberg: "Keine Kunst ist in ihrer Entwicklung so sehr gehemmt durch ihre Lehrer wie die Musik."

No art is held back in its development so much by its teachers like music...


(edit: I forgot the development in the translation. But I think it was clear anyway.)

I agree completely with that Mathis.

No, 12 note tuning does not presume equal temperament at all. There are many systems of 12 note tuning that are not equal temperament - for example Vallotti, etc. - and some of them are actually more "beautiful" (if I may use such an emotional word) in specific intervals, yet lead to tuning clashes especially in an orchestral context. Equal is somewhat like a smoothed out compromise that is generally o.k. though not as "spicy" sounding as others.

William -
I didn't mean "12-note" in the sense of "playable on a twelve-note-per-octave keyboard". In that sense, like you, I like Valotti, Young, Werkmeister III, Meantone, Pythagoras - the more the merrier! I meant "12-note" in the sense of dodecaphonic, serial. The theory of giving all 12 semitones equal exposure through note rows, to suppress the feeling of a tonal centre - that logically implies equal temperament. In a serial piece there's no reason ever to write, say, F flat or B sharp. G sharp and A flat are, in serial music, absolutely identical - unlike in tonal music. Maybe some serial music with strong residual tonality - say Berg's violin concerto - would be an exception. But the extreme anti-tonal rows in, say, late Webern, these definitely require equal temperament.

Laters

Guy

Guy,

Very interesting distinction. However think of those 12 tone rows with the distortions of different tunings - delicious! Oh Mathis, where are you? Whatever made me think of you when the subject of "distortions" came up? Could it be your willful timestretched distortion of the vibraphone?