Xenakis Piano Concerto "Synaphai"

[counterpoint]

I don't - although I cannot predict what may happen here, of course; I accept it, too, but would nevertheless appreciate it better were he to flesh it out by answering the perfectly reasonable points and questions put to him during the course of his contributions to this thread rather than merely run away with his ball to play another game elsewhere...

Best,

Alistair

I am not Derek, but I found the arguments of Derek very interesting and rational. In contrary to all these "Avantgarde music is holy - you must never question it's value - otherwise you will be outlawed".

In no other branch of music the aggression against critics is that overwhelming and that rude.

I don't think that Derek has to defend his arguments - they are totally clear and comprehensible. The arguments of the "Avantgardists" - if there are any (arguments), I doubt this - are at least very weak.

[ahinton]

I am not Derek, but I found the arguments of Derek very interesting and rational. In contrary to all these "Avantgarde music is holy - you must never question it's value - otherwise you will be outlawed".

In no other branch of music the aggression against critics is that overwhelming and that rude.

I don't think that Derek has to defend his arguments - they are totally clear and comprehensible. The arguments of the "Avantgardists" - if there are any (arguments), I doubt this - are at least very weak.

If you re-read my post, you will find that I have not asked Derek to "defend his arguments" (although I would not object to his doing so); what I have instead done is invite him to answer the points and questions put to him during the course of his contributions to this thread - an invitation which he has yet to take up.

I am not aware that anything that I have addressed to Derek in this thread is actually rude; if, however, he takes a different view, he is welcome to say so and to identify what he believes I have said which is rude to him and, if indeed it is so, I will apologise to him.

Best,

Alistair

[counterpoint]

I am not aware that anything that I have addressed to Derek in this thread is actually rude;

Of course my statements (especially the one about being rude) were not addressed personally to you, Alistair, but to the group of people who seem to fight a war against Derek (and against me too). Your postings are always very careful about any possible personal sensitivities, so "rude" does not fit to you in which conceivable circumstance whatsoever. 

[ahinton]

Of course my statements (especially the one about being rude) were not addressed personally to you, Alistair, but to the group of people who seem to fight a war against Derek (and against me too). Your postings are always very careful about any possible personal sensitivities, so "rude" does not fit to you in which conceivable circumstance whatsoever. 

Thank you; I'm glad that this is understood. I'm not interested in fighting wars with anyone over anything. I still await Derek's responses, however.

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

I've read all the other posts, and I'm not really sure which ones you want me to answer. I'd rather not answer them, regardless of their content, because I'm embarrassed for having entered into another one of these silly conversations. I've gotten into a few in the past, before I started liking atonal music at all. It is almost as though I need to express strong dislike for something before I appreciate its value (though I'm really not certain I'll ever like ORCHESTRAL atonal music, for the same reasons I dislike exceedingly overbearing Romantic orchestral music).

Thank you counterpoint for the defense. I did not apologize for all of my arguments, my apology was mainly for the childish remark that one CANNOT like Xenakis for genuine reasons. Though I still personally find it difficult to believe anyone could like it, the bottom line is it really doesn't matter.  I could have conducted this entire conversation with purely rational remarks, rather than combining rational remarks with angry sounding emotional ones (which I did).

Here, since I've taken a more reasonable position on why I am in this thread, I'll answer your points. Which points would you like me to answer?

Sincerely,
-Derek Andrews.

[ahinton]

since I've taken a more reasonable position on why I am in this thread, I'll answer your points. Which points would you like me to answer?

OK, so here goes.

You wrote
why else would someone tell themselves that they like this music, other than to feel vastly superior to all the "normal" people out there...?

I replied
There are those who do that, I guess, but most people who tell you that they enjoy listening to something or are excited, moved or whatever by it do so simply because they are.

Can you offer proof that
(a) people who say they like Xenakis do so purely in order to feel superior and
(b) that those who don't are "normal"?

You wrote
I'm a composer myself, after a fashion.

I replied
Yet you seem to go on to suggest that fads and fashions in music are not a good thing and they're followed by certain kinds of composer whose music you don't much care for.

So - what do you really mean here?

You wrote

I have found, in my own experience, that writing music like Xenakis is remarkably easy compared to writing a simple, beautiful, evocative melody in major key (or any key, or in a combination of keys...).

I replied

OK, so you've had the good sense and courage to spend time trying to find yourself rather than just taking anything for granted, which in itself is admirable, but whilst what you say about tonal melody writing is undoubtedly true (but then it's partly so because so much of it's been done already and the more that's done the harder it then gets to do something that's not been done before), how do you conclude...that "writing music like Xenakis is remarkably easy"? Have you done it - and as well as Xenakis himself did it? I rather doubt it, otherwise you'd realise that it, too, is difficult and challenging.

Your answer is...?

You wrote

if one came up with a complicated enough system of rules or other unnecessary method for composing Xenakis style music, one could make it hard for oneself and declare that it is a craft as deserving of merit as intuitively writing a beautiful melody. But, creating that unnecessary method, then, is artificial.

I replied

But have you not given thought to doing the same where tonal melody writing is concerned? Have you, for example, examined the drafts for some of Chopin's works, for example, which show that, for all their apparent spontaneity, many pages of sketches, drafts, amendments et al were gone through before the finished article was produced?

Well, have you? If not, why not? and if so, what are your conclusions?

I wrote

melody, for all its undeniable importance, does not have to be tonal and is not the be-all and end-all in composition whether or not one writes tonally. Consider how the sweeping melodic lines that characterise the first three piano concerts, the second symphony and many of the songs of Rakhmaninov give way in his later works to a much more generalised mature Rakhmaninovian manner - which is not to say that he turned his back on melody but that his priorities changed - you need only to examine some of the Études-Tableaux to note the beginnings of this change of emphasis and those all-too-few works written while in exile demonstrate its fruition, yet are these works inferior? Not a bit of it.

What do you have to say about that?

I wrote

Neither Xenakis nor Carter followed the dominant diktats of Darmstadt in the postwar years; Carter spent many years finding his way and, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his methods got so complex that a 20 minute piece might involve several years' work and thousands of pages of draft - but this was how he achieved the fluency he wanted (he doesn't work like that any more and he's now producing far more music than he used to do, even now - he'll be 99 on Tuesday). In his early days, Carter wrote tonal music, too - look at the first symphony, Holiday Overture and piano sonata. Then tell us that writing music like Carter has done is "easy"!

What are your comments on this?

More later...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Derek...



You wrote

I am suspicious of those who say they truly enjoy Xenakis...music like this has been artificially created by those who for whatever reason, have abandoned musical simplicity in favor of intellectualism and feeling superior to others.

I replied

Are you really telling us that there is no intellectual thrust behind the great works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms? And are you suggesting that The Art of Fugue, the C# minor Quartet, the Fourth Ballade and the C major piano trio embrace "simplicity"? - for if you do, you intellectual capacity must be far greater than mine!

Well - what of this intellectual thrust? Is it inherent in those works or is it applied artificially? and, if you believe the former but consider Xenakis's intellectuality to come under the latter category, can you identify, demonstrate and prove the difference?

In response to your remarks about the alleged "naturalness" of the 7-note (i.e. diatonic) scale, I wrote

If one is going to talk about "naturalness" in terms of intonation, one would be better off citing the harmonic series of which, of course, none of the upper partials coincide precisely with the equal temperament system to which we have been accustomed over the past 300 years or so in which the octave is divided into 12 equal intervals. Whilst it was obviously necessary to "bend" some of these in order to force them into a harmonic language built upon some of them, this is just what Skryabin did in his later works, his so-called "mystic chord" being a six-note formulation from them.

On the same topic, I also wrote

Of course nothing has ever really been "ingrained" in that way at any time other than artificially at the hands of people who are indeed unadventurous and accordingly complacent and who wish somehow to preserve certain aspects of musical methodology and language in aspic without apparently either realising or caring that this is not what Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms et al ever did.

What is your take on all of this now?

"Indutrial" wrote

"Red River Valley"...was composed by some yokel 100s of years ago and a lot of people liked it, so it's popular now.

Now...Xenakis is doing the same thing as that anonymous yokel did except he's doing it in terms of the time period he lives in, i.e. he's putting notes together according to whatever his own instincts are and with the tools at his disposal. AND he remembered to write his name on the first page! Just because the music doesn't make you want to make you run to grab your harmonica or use it as a cell-phone ring doesn't make it any less valid.

I replied

The yokel of yesteryear would not have given much, if any, thought to the place of his invention in any kind of tradition to be passed on from generation to generation, still less preserved by being written down with the opportunity that comes with such written recording to identify the originator on the script; he/she would instead have been concerned primarily with the immediacy of his/her expression. It is also worth remembering that the tools at the disposal of such composers as Liszt, Bartók, Kodály and Ligeti included folk music but their use of it - or rather response to it, since the results were often suggestive rather than literal - was part of a process of expanding the expressive capacity of music and relating the past to the present and future (although there have also been plenty of other ways of doing that, of course).

What do you have to say about this?

"Indutrial" wrote

To lambast a composer for using intellectual methodology to compose is a ludicrous platform to stand on. Since the glory days of anonymous folk tunes, Dionysian chants...the human world has made considerable progress in delineating the realm of the individual. To knock someone for making music in that context no matter what the result is anachronistic and backwards. A person exists inside of their own head. Any social existence that is perceived (norms, ideals, standards, anxiety-driven morals) don't hold a candle to whatever that individual's standards dictate. Xenakis did what Xenakis wanted to do. If you want to clip his wings and demean his legacy by making it some immaterial matter of right-and-wrong or black-and-white, is anything really being accomplished?

I replied

It can work both ways, too, though. In the UK, towards the end of the 1960s there developed a régime at BBC under the aegis of Sir William Glock that did a very necessary thing in fervently promoting many of the latest developments in music in the remainder of Europe in a dyed-in-the-wool Britain largely ignorant of much of it, yet the downside of this was that certain English composers got sidelined for some time, with the result that certain ways of expression were being almost overturned and replaced by quite different ones instead of being added to; that was, in one sense, a kind of "clipping of wings", too. Things have moved on a lot since then.

What are your comments on this?

I wrote

Perhaps of all composers, Xenakis appears to have responded more to his own demands and questionings than to anything in his musical past (Webern, Boulez, Stockhausen and Nono, for example, reflected their roots and heritages far more clearly from time to time) but, if that was what made Xenakis what he was, then that was as it should have been.

Do you disagree? If so, why? and how should it have been instead?

Returning to the issue of intellectualism, I wrote

I defy you to prove that over-indulgence in any kind of intellectualism is the sole or even principal reason behind most people's dislike of Xenakis's music. Most untrained listeners would not be made aware of any intellectualism in his music merely by listening to it.
Can you prove it? And would you?...

I continued

You write of intellectualism "going on for its own sake", which appears to suggest that you believe that Xenakis worked in such a way as to produce pieces to which the only conceivable and intended response was an intellectual one; I can assure you that any such notion would have been more repulsive to Xenakis than his music is repulsive to you. Who, in any case, is to determine - and how and by what standards - that any intellectual thrust behind a piece of music is or is not "going on for its own sake"? - i.e. that in Die Kunst der Fuge it's acceptably inherent whereas in Synaphai it is not; you clearly draw this distinction, yet you omit to tell us by what means you arrive at such a conclusion.

Do you believe - and, if so, why? - that Xenakis wrote in such a way for such a reason and what do you have to say about the assessment and valuation of intellectualism in composition?

I added

This problem leads us to another issue on which you lightly touch but which you then conveniently avoid - and that is the motivations of the composer. You have written of composers deliberately making music outrageously dissonant as though they do so just to be different or draw attention to that difference; should one assume from that and other similar comments you make that the integrity that I ascribe to Xenakis is something that you would wholeheartedly deny? If so, I would ask again on what specific grounds you would do so.

I'm still asking...

I wrote

one does not think immediately or primarily about intellectual disciplines when listening to Bach, Xenakis or Chopin, but just look at what went on in those composers' workshops! Chopin's remarkably early maturity didn't preclude him from making an in-depth study of counterpoint and older music towards the end of his life; Schubert did the same thing, actually - and the music of both composers broadened and deepened as a consequence. I neither know nor care to whom you refer with your vague term "these modern guys", but your stuff about overthrowing rules and making things hideous for the sake of so doing simply does not stand up. Even Xenakis, whose work perhaps has the least obvious connections with the past of any composer in history, did not seek the overthrow of Brahms or the breaking of past "rules" so much as the making of rules that would help him write in the way that he wanted to write. Would you have composers all writing tonal, melodic music along mainly 19th century lines under a belief that deliberately to go against such an aim is to "overthrow rules" and create" hideous din"? In other words, are you genuinely seeking the expressive stagnation of Western music? No one writes "reams of justification" about Xenakis either, although much has indeed been written about the compositional processes and working methods of both Xenakis and Chopin, which is not necessarily the same thing at all.

Plenty to answer there, I'd have thought; what is the rôle of intellectuality in the creative process, who are "these modern guys", what are the real attitudes to rules, their adherence and their overthrow and what of this justification of which you write?

You wrote

I used to dislike all modern, atonal, dissonant music. I've warmed up to some of it (and write it, often). I enjoy Charles Ives, Keith Jarrett, Stravinsky

I replied

Most of the music of those three is tonal! Atonality is usually relative. So is dissonance. All depends to a large extent upon the experiences of the listener and the extent of his/her familiarity with what they are listening to at any given time. I can remember listening to a Mozart piano concerto for the first time when I was about 15 and reacting in a way broadly similar to the "funny modern music" reaction that we've all observed in people; this was because I was wholly unfamiliar with that kind of writing and it sounded strange to me after a diet of music in which the oldest had been the ninth symphony of Mahler...

What do you say about this?

You wrote

But every time I listen I just think: there's nothing for the brain to grab onto here, at all. Maybe that is my failing, I don't know.

I replied

I am pleased that at least you DO listen, that you do occasionally think and that you are also prepared to consider the possibility that your reactions may in part be due to a failure of your brain to engage. No one is expecting you necessarily to want to listen to the music of Xenakis - it's certainly not for everyone, but then nor is that of Mozart! All I would ask is that, when you do listen to Xenakis's music, you approach it with no prior prejudices and simply ask yourself afterwards (a) what effect does this music have on me? and (b) what motivated the composer to express his thoughts in this particular way?

So what is your stance on this now?

You wrote

I do in fact find that making sounds which strike me as similar to Xenakis, Schoenberg, and others, is remarkably easy compared to writing a really good melody using a 7 tone scale (or perhaps a really good melody using something more dissonant, like polytonality, or pantonality, or whatever else---though I never think about these terms actively when I am writing).

I replied

The very fact of your citing Xenakis and Schönberg in juxtaposition reveals the sheer paucity of your thoughts on the music of the past century or so. These two composers were just SO different from one another!... Did not Schönberg demonstrate amply his ability both to write long, sweeping tonal melodies and to take Lisztian thematic/motivic transformational processes and Brahmsian form developments to a hitherto unprecedented degree? Do you suppose that Schönberg would have been able, let alone motivated, to develop his system of composing using twelve tones (etc.) had he not first been steeped in the traditions of Western tonal music? And what do you make of his composing his Chamber Symphony No. 2 in E flat minor AFTER establishing that system?

I can see three question marks there...

I continued

If you think that writing "like" Xenakis or Schönberg is comparatively "easy" (not that there'd be any reason to do so other than as some kind of exercise), why was it so hard even for Xenakis and Schönberg?! And why do you bang on so incessantly and insistently about "melody" when it is but one of the constituent parts of music (albeit one of vital and immense importance)? Likewise, what's with this obsession with major and minor scales? - these established themselves over many decades from a time when they were but two of a entire series of modes, so should one assume your trenchant adherence to the notion of the superiority of major and minor modes as indicative that you frown upon medieval and Renaissance music just as much as some "modern" music just because they do not prioritise these modes?

There's three more there.

I then wrote

One of your problems here is evidently that of what you deem to be acceptable and unacceptable musical language; another, which is closely connected to it, appears to be that of what does and does not constitute acceptable musical expression. Here are some questions arising from this.

Has it not occurred to you that the new linguistic departures over the past 100 years or so have never overthrown, or sought to overthrow, those that have gone before?

Can you cite any composer in the past 100 years who has genuinely and deliberately sought to compose music specifically to replace, rather than enhance, our library of available music?

Have you thought about the rise of equal temperament around 300 years ago which, whilst arguably not quite as different from what had gone before as Schönberg's "system" was from Brahms, say, actually did come eventually to "replace" what had gone before, in that it became the standard for Western music for many years thereafter?

On the subject of intellectualism, have you ever made an in-depth study of 16th century counterpoint? - if so, you will surely be all too well aware of the immense intellectual disciplines involved in such writing and would accordingly accept that these are in some sense analogous to the disciplines in Schönberg's serial procedures.

As to dissonance, what of the grinding dissonance towards the close of Chopin's Scherzo No. 1 in B minor? - a chord containing E#s, F#s and Gs that, not content with pounding it out fortissimo, the composer then repeats eight times just to hammer it home.

And what of the passages in Tristan und Isolde and, before that, many instances in Chopin from his early piano trio onwards, that threaten not to undermine tonality altogether but certainly to destabilise it?

Are these and other things not all part of an ever-expanding expressive language?

There's a whole series of questions there!

Over to you...

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

Instead of answering you point for point, I'm going to begin with some revelations I've had recently concerning avante-garde music and those who support it/enjoy it. Hopefully this will address most of your points. I'll look through them and see if I can fill in any gaps after.

I've heard supporters of avante-garde music make numerous arguments for its existence. In addition to making these arguments, they also have a basic premise about the purpose of music. Here they are, as I've been able to perceive them:

1) argument: The music of today will eventually be accepted by the audiences of tomorrow.
 backup: Beethoven was initially disliked, Wagner initially disliked, Stravinsky initially disliked, all of whom are enjoyed by thousands today.

2) premise for purpose of music: Music does not have to be uplifting and beautiful. It can express entirely different ideas/emotions from the usual goal oriented/uplifting/beautiful scheme of past eras.

I see these two ideas as being entirely at odds with one another. Avante-gardists believe that audiences will eventually accept music such as Xenakis/Schoenberg, yet Schoenberg and especially Xenakis are very far from being a household name, but nearly everyone has at least heard Fur Elise playing in the "relaxing music" section of Wal Mart and know who wrote it. And most people, at some point in their lives, do like Beethoven. Schoenberg has had an awful long time to be accepted by audiences, and they still wait around uncomfortably for the Beethoven finale in a classical concert.

The point is, the vast, vast majority of people want to be uplifted, moved by music. They don't want to be assaulted, horrified, or nauseated. Now, I accept that if someone applies the avante-garde premise to music, you can listen to and perhaps even enjoy Xenakis. But by doing so you're going to divorce yourself from the rest of humanity, and audiences of tomorrow certainly will not eventually enjoy Xenakis.  They like rap, R&B, rock, and classical music of the distant past. Modern avante-garde music has shut out the general public by creating this conflicting set of ideals/arguments.

And, maybe the avante-gardists don't care. They are happy with accepting their own premise that music doesn't have to be uplifting or beautiful, and happy in the knowledge that audiences will in fact not accept this music, ever. If that is the case, why are critics of the avante-garde met with such harsh opposition?

****end of revelations****

As for Xenakis style music being easy to write, allow me to clarify in a more humble manner. I am not a composer of the notating sort. I improvise all my compositions, some of which come out sounding startlingly "composed." Not that that means "composed" sounds are necessarily better than "improvised" sounds.  Sometimes, I improvise in an extremely loud, frenetic, atonal manner.   TO ME, this sounds exactly like Xenakis' solo piano writing, or Schoenberg. I can barely tell the difference between the styles, or my own recording of such music.

I've always felt that sound is the only thing that matters when listening to music. My premises for music include:

1) The sound is all that matters.
2) Music is supposed to make me, and whoever feels like listening, feel good, or satisfied, etc.

Applying any external theories, whether traditional or modern, I consider artificial. I never needed to understand fugue form to enjoy them. I never needed to know part writing rules to use the sounds they create.

Therefore, since I don't apply theories, I only compare sound. When I listen to my own improvisation of frenetic, atonal improvisation, and then listen to a solo Xenakis piece, I hear essentially the same sounds, with the same sort of musical meaning/feeling to it. That's why I said it is easy. I probably should have clarified piano writing, since I know nothing about orchestration (yet) to make that statement.

Writing a really good melody on the other hand, is very challenging. I reject the notion (which you stated) that because thousands of tonal melodies have been written in the past, this makes my job harder. In my opinion it was as challenging for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff as it is for me (not meaning to imply that I can MEET the challenge as easily as they did...!).  It is incredibly easy to come up with melodies that have never been written before: in fact it is almost impossible, when I compose, NOT to come up with a melody that has never been written before. There are an infinitude of possibilities. But amongst that infinitude of possibilities are melodies that are REALLY GOOD. Ones that are incredibly satisfying. Every motif, every turn of phrase and change of harmony and rhythm seem to work together for a common end. Learning how to create melodies like this is incredibly challenging.  But to make sounds which, TO ME, sound like Schoenberg and Xenakis, is very easy.  But because I don't notate these sounds, people who believe in such music won't be able to tell, aurally, that I didn't apply serialism or stochastic-mathematical musical theories as appropriately (whatever that means...) as Schoenberg and Xenakis did.  Since they cannot tell, aurally, that I am not doing precisely what those men did, I would conclude that the theories don't matter, and that enjoyment of the music is artificial and stems from a premise entirely at odds with myself and the vast majority of music-loving humanity.

I would add though, audiences certainly would appreciate the value of such music as soundtracks to horror movies---but audiences, when listening to music and JUST MUSIC, want to be uplifted and moved. Hopefully I've driven that point home well enough...

I'll answer more of your points as I get time to do so, or if you could cut down your posts and put them up one at a time that would be nice also...

[iumonito]

I was wondering what was going on in here, such lengthy posts on such myriad of topics!

Without having read everything here, just wanted to chime in: beauty is an acquired taste.  Bernstein would have been burned alive for writing such a now-mainstream favorite as the innocuous "Maria" of West Side Story.  Likewise, it is easy to write music in the style of Mozart, or Bach, but true masterworks remain because generations find something worthwhile in them.  Dereck, you may be able to put together a few sounds that sound to you like Xenakis, just like you could write a composition exercise in the style of a Classical sonata.  The difference between your sound and Xenakis likely would be no different than the difference between your exercise and Mozart's KV 576.

And by the way, Schoenberg's music is very much assimilated in most music circles these days.  My son, who is 4, is a big fan of Pierrot Lunaire, and stuff like the Op. 19 piano pieces is starting to appear in programs no less frequently than, say Brahms Op. 119.

[cygnusdei]

I'd like to muddy the water some more

Derek brought up a point that had crossed my mind for some time. If we skipped a generation - say 50 years - would this discourse have the same dynamics? Will appreciation for "Synaphai" have increased, stayed the same, or disappeared completely?

Although the music itself is safely preserved for posterity, thanks to digital recording technology, whither the appreciation for the music? I'd venture that individuals who passionately defended "Synaphai" would want musicians of the next generation to have more appreciation for "Synaphai".

I think this is an important dimension to the arguments so far: some people do have an agenda; one that seeks to influence the opinion of the musical public to advance the appreciation for "Synaphai". Whereas a person with no agenda would care less what other people think about "Synaphai" - as long as one is content with one's own opinion.

So -- where do you fall? Do you have an agenda?

PS: 'Agenda' should not be construed as having any positive or negative connotation.

[indutrial]

I think this is an important dimension to the arguments so far: some people do have an agenda; one that seeks to influence the opinion of the musical public to advance the appreciation for "Synaphai". Whereas a person with no agenda would care less what other people think about "Synaphai" - as long as one is content with one's own opinion.

So -- where do you fall? Do you have an agenda?

PS: 'Agenda' should not be construed as having any positive or negative connotation.

I think it's the best common interest to take a positive view towards promoting the scrutiny of musical and artistic works that are intellectually challenging. This doesn't mean that simpler or more popular works don't deserve the same posterity. The way I see it, the more music that is granted such posterity, the better. People will always be able to decide not to look into something, but if it benefits the few interested people (and maybe creates a few new interested individuals) than it's a good thing.

Without agendas, music by people like Sorabji, Finnissy, Scelsi, and other "difficult" composers would never have a chance.

What annoys me is how some people think it's their call to decide that some music is not deserving of posterity, which to me a ludicrous sentiment, underscored by the fact that most of the people who piss and moan about this or that intellectual composer haven't contributed a god-damned thing to the academic music world, not even to support their own short-sighted viewpoints. Most of them just seem like squeaky floorboards.

[counterpoint]

most of the people who piss and moan about this or that intellectual composer haven't contributed a god-damned thing to the academic music world,

Now that's an interesting term: "the academic music world"

If the interest in a musical work is limited to "the academic music world" - that's really a strange thing.

[Derek]

I was wondering what was going on in here, such lengthy posts on such myriad of topics!

Without having read everything here, just wanted to chime in: beauty is an acquired taste.  Bernstein would have been burned alive for writing such a now-mainstream favorite as the innocuous "Maria" of West Side Story.  Likewise, it is easy to write music in the style of Mozart, or Bach, but true masterworks remain because generations find something worthwhile in them.  Dereck, you may be able to put together a few sounds that sound to you like Xenakis, just like you could write a composition exercise in the style of a Classical sonata.  The difference between your sound and Xenakis likely would be no different than the difference between your exercise and Mozart's KV 576.

And by the way, Schoenberg's music is very much assimilated in most music circles these days.  My son, who is 4, is a big fan of Pierrot Lunaire, and stuff like the Op. 19 piano pieces is starting to appear in programs no less frequently than, say Brahms Op. 119.

I'd be willing to bet that if governments all over the world pulled public support from classical music, you'd see Schoenberg vanish from concerts in a pretty big hurry. The only things left over would be the good stuff.  That isn't to say some people can't enjoy Schoenberg, I like the piece you mentioned that your son likes. It's not all that great though (just my opinion, from my personal taste)

I'm not sure what you mean about the "difference being the same" between an attempt at imitating Xenakis and an attempt at imitating mozart.  It seems to me that writing frenetic, loud, fast, atonal music is very easy, and sounds very similar. It all sounds like a "pash" of harmony. But with classical and all other tonal (or even much of the 20th century) sounds, you can produce a huge array of fascinating sounds which can work together with melody to make something really beautiful. There's real craftsmanship in composing such music.  Like I said before, if someone like Schoenberg or Xenakis purposely makes his task harder by inventing some sort of artificial theory, this doesn't turn what they do into a craft like writing good melodies is.  It might be hard, heck it might even be interesting if you choose to define music differently for yourself. But most people are just going to continue to be horrified, or in the case of the initiated such as myself, bored, by things like Schoenberg and Xenakis. In fact,  I'm personally ALSO bored by Mozart. Much of his music, anyway. But for different reasons... at least Mozart is pleasant for heaven's sake.

[emill]

Hhmmnn... If Alistair were a lawyer, he will be a fearsome adversary!!
His facility for details, the language and incisive insights to the argument
will really make me think a thousand times!! (pls. refer to posts 255 & 256)
I prefer him a friend and ally !! lolz!!  does that make me a coward?? hehhehe

[ctrastevere]

Derek, have you heard Schoenberg's Gurrelieder? If you are under the impression that Schoenberg wasn't capable of writing the so-called "good stuff," I think you'd be pleasantly surprised after listening to this piece.

As far as this Xenakis piece is concerned, I personally wasn't a big fan of it when I first listened to it (and I listen to a good deal of avant garde music). However, listening to it again recently, I felt that I enjoyed it a lot more. I do think that parts sound a bit too monotonous to justify it's length, however there are other parts (such as the previously mentioned cadenza) that are just thrilling!

My view on music listening is that one shouldn't fall into a rut. I'll give anything a chance... and if I don't like it after listening a few times, then I simply won't waste my time subjecting myself to it for no reason. However, often I'll come back to something later with more musical knowledge and experience on my side and wonder how I possibly couldn't have liked it originally. But maybe that's just me...

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to listen to Metallica... or perhaps Coltrane?... er... nah, Alkan sounds good.

[viking]

OMG Gurrelieder is amazing. 

[Derek]

Derek, have you heard Schoenberg's Gurrelieder? If you are under the impression that Schoenberg wasn't capable of writing the so-called "good stuff," I think you'd be pleasantly surprised after listening to this piece.

As far as this Xenakis piece is concerned, I personally wasn't a big fan of it when I first listened to it (and I listen to a good deal of avant garde music). However, listening to it again recently, I felt that I enjoyed it a lot more. I do think that parts sound a bit too monotonous to justify it's length, however there are other parts (such as the previously mentioned cadenza) that are just thrilling!

My view on music listening is that one shouldn't fall into a rut. I'll give anything a chance... and if I don't like it after listening a few times, then I simply won't waste my time subjecting myself to it for no reason. However, often I'll come back to something later with more musical knowledge and experience on my side and wonder how I possibly couldn't have liked it originally. But maybe that's just me...

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to listen to Metallica... or perhaps Coltrane?... er... nah, Alkan sounds good.

I've heard some things by Schoenberg which I've enjoyed somewhat, yes, but not that particular piece. It's not like I hate these guys' music. I heard some solo piano music by Xenakis on youtube which I kinda liked. This isn't me bashing atonal music, more it is me expressing my firm belief that the craftsmanship of tonal music (potentially informed by more adventurous harmonies such as what Scriabin, Ravel, Gershwin and others have used), is something the vast majority of humanity can relate to. In saying that, I am not saying one should be a conformist and not write for oneself. Perhaps you do genuinely like Xenakis, that's fine. But don't expect that "audiences of tomorrow will accept the music of the day" but at the same time redefine music to be something other than what all of humanity wants to hear. I'm not saying you or even anyone on this thread believes all those things...but it seems to be what much of the avante-garde community believes, and I think it is artificial.  Why can't we just write MUSIC again for heaven's sake. If you want something like Synaphai...let's make a horror movie together and THEN let's use that piece. But for a concert piece? I really don't understand it.

Yes, I think I shall listen to some Opeth, then perhaps Qntal...and maybe top off the evening with Leos Janacek.

[indutrial]

Now that's an interesting term: "the academic music world"

If the interest in a musical work is limited to "the academic music world" - that's really a strange thing.

The way some of you folks discuss music, I'd say that that realm must indeed be a strange and alien thing. The sad part is, I'm sure most of are music majors of some sort, or at least self-proclaimed musicians.

Besides, where did I say anything about limitations. I was just underscoring my sentiment that the anti-intellectual types roaming on this board seem to not bother approaching things intellectually before they cry foul and start nurturing their paranoid hogwash.

[ahinton]

I've heard supporters of avante-garde music make numerous arguments for its existence. In addition to making these arguments, they also have a basic premise about the purpose of music. Here they are, as I've been able to perceive them:

1) argument: The music of today will eventually be accepted by the audiences of tomorrow.
 backup: Beethoven was initially disliked, Wagner initially disliked, Stravinsky initially disliked, all of whom are enjoyed by thousands today.

It's rather over-simplistic, is that, but it is surely not entirely without truth, is it? Quite abit of "catching up" was done by quite a few people during the course of quite a few composers' growing acceptance.

2) premise for purpose of music: Music does not have to be uplifting and beautiful. It can express entirely different ideas/emotions from the usual goal oriented/uplifting/beautiful scheme of past eras.

Our life experiences are now far more varied than once they were and life itself has become infinitely more complex, so is it any wonder that music parallels this in the sense of an ever-widening expressive power?

I see these two ideas as being entirely at odds with one another. Avante-gardists believe that audiences will eventually accept music such as Xenakis/Schoenberg, yet Schoenberg and especially Xenakis are very far from being a household name, but nearly everyone has at least heard Fur Elise playing in the "relaxing music" section of Wal Mart and know who wrote it. And most people, at some point in their lives, do like Beethoven. Schoenberg has had an awful long time to be accepted by audiences, and they still wait around uncomfortably for the Beethoven finale in a classical concert.

Xenakis and Schönberg again! - composers as different from one another as Telemann and Varèse! I suspect that many who've heard what is hardly one of Beethoven's masterpieces in Wal-Mart have never even heard of Beethoven, actually - and it's hardly a mark of greatness that he's been pressed into service in tht section of that place, now is it?! Schönberg has encountered more resistance over the years than many composers whose music is perhaps harder to assimilate, but then how long did it take for Beethoven's last five quartets to be accepted?

The point is, the vast, vast majority of people want to be uplifted, moved by music. They don't want to be assaulted, horrified, or nauseated. Now, I accept that if someone applies the avante-garde premise to music, you can listen to and perhaps even enjoy Xenakis. But by doing so you're going to divorce yourself from the rest of humanity, and audiences of tomorrow certainly will not eventually enjoy Xenakis.  They like rap, R&B, rock, and classical music of the distant past. Modern avante-garde music has shut out the general public by creating this conflicting set of ideals/arguments.

Western classical music is very much a minority interest, unpalatable a thought as that is for us in a piano forum. Many people aren't all that bothered about what they might or might not expect music to do for them; it's very sad, but true. To suggest that engaging with the music of Xenakis presumes divorcing oneself from humanity is a gross insult to Xenakis, who was himself a human and had some pretty unpleasant life experiences during the 1940s. What do you mean by "audiences of tomorrow"? Xenakis's music has been around from almost 60 years ago and he's still being played today; how long before "tomorrow" comes, then? Rather than obsessing over "avant-garde" composers and their following, you might do well to consider that what puts some people off is the sheer confusion factor; far more music is available to listen to today than has ever been the case before and some people just don't know where to begin; the very fact that so many stylistic persuasions are not only available but running concurrently today only serves to add to this confusion for certaion people. Have you ever thought about that?

And, maybe the avante-gardists don't care. They are happy with accepting their own premise that music doesn't have to be uplifting or beautiful, and happy in the knowledge that audiences will in fact not accept this music, ever. If that is the case, why are critics of the avante-garde met with such harsh opposition?

There are such folk, but they are very much in the minority, in my experience; I've encountered few people who listen to challenging contemporary music that do not also listen to Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, etc., so your idea of a kind of exclusive "avant-garde"club just doesn't ring true.

As for Xenakis style music being easy to write, allow me to clarify in a more humble manner. I am not a composer of the notating sort. I improvise all my compositions, some of which come out sounding startlingly "composed." Not that that means "composed" sounds are necessarily better than "improvised" sounds.  Sometimes, I improvise in an extremely loud, frenetic, atonal manner.   TO ME, this sounds exactly like Xenakis' solo piano writing, or Schoenberg. I can barely tell the difference between the styles, or my own recording of such music.

Well, that tells us a lot! Nothing wrong with improvised music, of course, but if that's all you do then the particular importance of your words "TO ME" is all too easily understood. Have you ever tried to improvise a fugue in the manner of Bach or a quartet movement in the manner of Brahms? If improvising all your music has not even taught you to recognise immense differences between Xenakis and Schönberg when you listen to their carefully composed music, then it would appear to have achived little for your aural sensibilities.

I've always felt that sound is the only thing that matters when listening to music. My premises for music include:

1) The sound is all that matters.
2) Music is supposed to make me, and whoever feels like listening, feel good, or satisfied, etc.

Applying any external theories, whether traditional or modern, I consider artificial. I never needed to understand fugue form to enjoy them. I never needed to know part writing rules to use the sounds they create.

Therefore, since I don't apply theories, I only compare sound. When I listen to my own improvisation of frenetic, atonal improvisation, and then listen to a solo Xenakis piece, I hear essentially the same sounds, with the same sort of musical meaning/feeling to it. That's why I said it is easy. I probably should have clarified piano writing, since I know nothing about orchestration (yet) to make that statement.

The above is indicative of sheer laziness of thought and gross over-simplification; that is your real premise, it seems to me. Music would be nothing without sounds, of course, but what we all understand music to be is an organisation of those sounds, whether the organising has been done by Palestrina, Schumann or Boulez. I presume that, whereas you might enjoy a Bach fugue, you might not enjoy a Sorabji one. You say that your experience is also limited to improvising piano music. Your position is now much clearer than it was.

Writing a really good melody on the other hand, is very challenging.

Writing anything good is challenging!

I reject the notion (which you stated) that because thousands of tonal melodies have been written in the past, this makes my job harder. In my opinion it was as challenging for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff as it is for me (not meaning to imply that I can MEET the challenge as easily as they did...!).  It is incredibly easy to come up with melodies that have never been written before: in fact it is almost impossible, when I compose, NOT to come up with a melody that has never been written before. There are an infinitude of possibilities. But amongst that infinitude of possibilities are melodies that are REALLY GOOD. Ones that are incredibly satisfying. Every motif, every turn of phrase and change of harmony and rhythm seem to work together for a common end. Learning how to create melodies like this is incredibly challenging.

In the same paragraph you've said that this is "incredibly easy" and "incredibly challenging", as well as refuting the logical fact that the more tonal melodies that have been written, the less remains of that "infinitude of possibilities". Hmmm...

But to make sounds which, TO ME, sound like Schoenberg and Xenakis, is very easy.  But because I don't notate these sounds, people who believe in such music won't be able to tell, aurally, that I didn't apply serialism or stochastic-mathematical musical theories as appropriately (whatever that means...) as Schoenberg and Xenakis did.  Since they cannot tell, aurally, that I am not doing precisely what those men did, I would conclude that the theories don't matter, and that enjoyment of the music is artificial and stems from a premise entirely at odds with myself and the vast majority of music-loving humanity.

You seem very hung up on the irrational idea of citing those two composers in close juxtaposition but, since you have done so yet again here, let me remind you that far from all of Schönberg's music is serially based and far from all of Xenakis's is stochastically impelled. Your suggestion that you are part of that "vast majority" and implication that those who admire either or both of those two composers are not is both tasteless and arrogant.

I would add though, audiences certainly would appreciate the value of such music as soundtracks to horror movies---but audiences, when listening to music and JUST MUSIC, want to be uplifted and moved. Hopefully I've driven that point home well enough...

You've driven it to death and beyond, actually...

I'll answer more of your points as I get time to do so, or if you could cut down your posts and put them up one at a time that would be nice also...

All the points and questions outlined in my two posts above (for the length of which I apologise to others) are derived from earlier posts, so I do not propose to repeat what I've already repeated once. Go find and go figure!

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

I'm not sure what you mean about the "difference being the same" between an attempt at imitating Xenakis and an attempt at imitating mozart.  It seems to me that writing frenetic, loud, fast, atonal music is very easy, and sounds very similar. It all sounds like a "pash" of harmony. But with classical and all other tonal (or even much of the 20th century) sounds, you can produce a huge array of fascinating sounds which can work together with melody to make something really beautiful. There's real craftsmanship in composing such music.

Sorry bro, but this is more of the same hackneyed baloney from before. How are theoretical practices used by Beethoven or Mozart any more or less "artificial" than those employed by Schoenberg and Xenakis. Both stem from that human behavior known as artifice and neither carries a spot worth of transcendental weight that lets it outshine the other. As nice as tonal music can be, carrying water for tonality is about as fruitless and retroactive as saying that modern prose writers should revert to penning verses in iambic pentameter because Shakespeare's poetry is somehow more "beautiful" than the threateningly modern styles of Faulkner and Joyce.

The craftsmanship involved with great classical and romantic works is no more real or unreal than the craftsmanship that Xenakis or Schoenberg employed when they created their works. The simple fact that you don't like (and moreso, seem unwilling to allow yourself to like) modern works is not an idea that is worth projecting into overarching declarations about the state of the music world and the definition of true art (another thing that just can't exist).

Your being an improvising pianist makes this whole fiasco of a thread make a lot more sense. The way you talk reminds me forcibly of the stick-in-the-mud jazz Nazis that have basically turned the Manhattan jazz scene into an endlessly self-gratifying rehash of the hard bop and cool jazz genres that had been old 30 years ago. I'm reminded of someone like Keith Jarrett, who, despite being a undoubtedly excellent pianist, can't seem to get out of his musical safety zones and covers way too many boring old standards. Don't get me wrong. Jarrett still impresses me, but I like the unhinged adventurism that he exhibited in the 70s-80s rather than the countless versions of Autumn Leaves that have been sprouting out of his discography in the past few years.

Attitudes like this has forced so many brilliant musicians into underground scenes (like Brooklyn's improv scene) the same way that lots of excellent composers have been forced into insular academic environments as a means to pursue their craft without being bothered by the ruinous and tedious attitudes of the entertainment world. I wonder what, as an improvising pianist, you would make of some of the more edgy improvisors out there like Alexander Schippenbach, Keith Tippett, Marilyn Crispell, or Sten Sandell, who incorporate lots of influences from modern figures like Xenakis, Feldman, and Ligeti into their improvisational frameworks.

[indutrial]

First Xenakis is on the hotplate, and now Schoenberg. By next week will we be arguing about the pros and cons of Debussy using all of those risky 9th chords.

[ahinton]

I'd be willing to bet that if governments all over the world pulled public support from classical music, you'd see Schoenberg vanish from concerts in a pretty big hurry.

Governments are by no means the only sponsors of public performances of Western classical music, but if they did all do that you'd find a lot less of it altogether - in other words, the "vanishing" not just of Schönberg but of most other composers as well. How would orchestras survive, for example? Almost no classical concerts can survive on box office receipts, as you surely know. So there would be immense casualties right across the world of classical music if significant financial support for it was suddenly withdrawn.

I'm not sure what you mean about the "difference being the same" between an attempt at imitating Xenakis and an attempt at imitating mozart.  It seems to me that writing frenetic, loud, fast, atonal music is very easy, and sounds very similar. It all sounds like a "pash" of harmony. But with classical and all other tonal (or even much of the 20th century) sounds, you can produce a huge array of fascinating sounds which can work together with melody to make something really beautiful. There's real craftsmanship in composing such music.

I'm not, of course, suggesting that there has been no music written that is of limited value, but the creation of any music worthy of posterity will have involved fine craftsmanship, whatever its style and manner. You're simply on your soapbox again, repeating your overly simplistic and unconsidered stuff about atonal music like a mantra (go listen to Mantra by the recently departed Stockhausen if you must have one of those!).

Like I said before, if someone like Schoenberg or Xenakis purposely makes his task harder by inventing some sort of artificial theory, this doesn't turn what they do into a craft like writing good melodies is.

So what do you say about the disciplines of sonata form, fugal writing or 16th century counterpoint in this context?

It might be hard, heck it might even be interesting if you choose to define music differently for yourself. But most people are just going to continue to be horrified, or in the case of the initiated such as myself, bored, by things like Schoenberg and Xenakis.

Derek and the normal world is right and those funny people who enjoy the work of those two composers are wrong. Simple, really! And as to "the initiated such as myself" - well, words fail me!...

In fact,  I'm personally ALSO bored by Mozart. Much of his music, anyway. But for different reasons... at least Mozart is pleasant for heaven's sake.

I suspect that Mozart might have been at least equally bored by you; heavens, you're more repetitive at times than Schubert on a bad day!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

The way some of you folks discuss music, I'd say that that realm must indeed be a strange and alien thing. The sad part is, I'm sure most of are music majors of some sort, or at least self-proclaimed musicians.

Besides, where did I say anything about limitations. I was just underscoring my sentiment that the anti-intellectual types roaming on this board seem to not bother approaching things intellectually before they cry foul and start nurturing their paranoid hogwash.

"Nurturing" it in the privacy of one's own room is one thing, if that's what some people choose to do; banging on about it incessantly and with persistent arrogance on a public forum is quite another.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

First Xenakis is on the hotplate, and now Schoenberg. By next week will we be arguing about the pros and cons of Debussy using all of those risky 9th chords.

Well, I won't personally, but I can see where you're leading here! And then there's all that funny "mystic chord" stuff of Skryabin and the effect it had on Roslavets, Obuhov and others. Not to mention the earlier tonal destabilisations of Wagner and of Chopin before him to which I referred before (but which Derek has perhaps unsurprisingly ignored). And what of the angularity and protestations that inform the Grosse Fuge by that nice composer of beautiful classical music that we know as Beethoven and listen to semi-subliminally in Wal-Mart?! Then there's all that chromaticism in which Bach sometimes indulges! And as for that Gesualdo, well...(!!!)

At least we all now know where Derek is coming from and something of what his levels of experience and expertise in music are; if nothing else, this has surely helped most of us here better to grasp why he says the things that he does and why he repeats them almost as if by rote in a manner not unakin to a fundamentalist preacher. I am far less irritated than I am saddened by it all, to the extent that, in addressing what he writes, one has to come face to face with the mindset of someone who has decided deliberately and determinedly to reject vast swathes of human musical expression on the wholly unfounded basis that it is supposedly at odds with humanity. Such pompous and arrogant complacency is not only especially dispiriting in a musician but is truly at odds with humanity.

It is not my place to offer advice to Derek but, were I to do so, I would simply counsel him to stand back from his entrenched positions and allow himself time and space to think about how and why musical styles and manners have developed and subtly metamorphosed over the centuries as they have done and how human experiences of all kinds have done the same; pragmatism adminstered in suitable doses can often treat and sometimes cure fundamentalism...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

First Xenakis is on the hotplate, and now Schoenberg.

Wait until he uses it to roast me for what I've written!...

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

"Nurturing" it in the privacy of one's own room is one thing, if that's what some people choose to do; banging on about it incessantly and with persistent arrogance on a public forum is quite another.

At best it tells me that music appreciation classes are not being well-attended. I consider it somewhat immature when musicians go around asserting their personal tastes as if that really means anything at all in a public forum filled with mostly anonymous readers from all different backgrounds. Personally, I prefer internet resources that aim to inform and enrich, maybe elucidate something about a phenomenon I didn't understand beforehand. Here, however, a post about Xenakis' Synaphai (which is a very mysterious and unusual work that could definitely create all sorts of discussion) falls prey to nothing but sweltering opinions and half-baked prejudiced garbage that are about as useful and enlightening as knowing what ice cream flavor some random child you've never met before prefers.

One thing I never enjoyed during college (I attended in the early 2000s) was the lack of humility students seemed to radiate. Here we would be, studying some great work or listening to some widely recognized great piece, and everyone would be lined up to state whether or not they liked it. Such self-importance these days. I feel like whenever kids encounter some artistic phenomenon, they're clamoring to give it the thumbs-up or thumbs-down, as if their stamp of approval or denial is that god-damned important. If people could get their own bloated egos out of their own way, maybe then we can have a discussion that pertains to more than one person. F**king "Me generation" b.s. 

[cygnusdei]

I feel like whenever kids encounter some artistic phenomenon, they're clamoring to give it the thumbs-up or thumbs-down, as if their stamp of approval or denial is that god-damned important.

"Kids" ? It's interesting what you can glean from the little things ...

Music appreciation is ultimately a give and take between artistic freedom and public reception. We can continue debating the merit of compositional devices and styles, but if we neglect to pay attention to the popularity factor, we're missing half of the picture. Let's be honest, Xenaxis will not be regarded as a major composer for decades to come. Why? Regardless of what you think is his valuable contribution, reception from the musical public is certainly lagging, way, way behind.

So taking a popularity poll on a work by some composer du jour may seem pointless, but it underscores the bigger reality. One may not be able to eloquently analyze the merits/deficiencies of "Synaphai", but the BOTTOM LINE is whether one likes it or not. Fast forward 50 years, that may decide whether some "kid" who grew up to be a musicologist put "Synaphai" as an example in his/her survey of 21st century western music, or obliviate Xenaxis altogether.

That certainly has happened with Busoni in Grout's A history of western music.

[ahinton]

Taking a wider and more general view on posterity and the fate of individual composers' works, there reamin areas not yet covered here, I believe.

To begin with, it's only really in the past two centuries or so that a sense of music's history has begun to develop as a consequence of performing the music of the past in any case; the question of posterity and the fate of particular music is therefore a comparatively recent phenomenon. If we take as a loose and arbitrarily chosen starting point the days of Haydn's maturity, it is clear that some subsequent composers' work has taken a lot longer than others to "catch on". Take Liszt, for instance; despite his immense fame, his reputation long rested on a handful of his many works and this remained the case until decades after his death. Rakhmaninov is a similar case in point, in that, for all his "household name" status, it's only really since his centenary that we've come to know almost all of his work rather than just a fraction of it. The case of Liszt's near-contemporary Alkan is even more pointed; widely respected as he was in his own country and time, his music barely began to enter the public consciousness at all until around 50 years ago. Godowsky is another case in point. So, in varying degrees, are Mahler, Busoni and Sorabji. These and other similar instances illustrate the kind of problems that can occur when performing traditions in certain composers' work begin to grow mainly after the composers' deaths.

These examples demonstrate that one needs to be wary of making predictions about what music will or won't be heard in 50 years' time; who, for instance, would have guessed in the years between the two world wars that Mahler's music would come to be so widely performed from the 1950s onwards? Who, even 30 years ago, would have predicted that all four of Busoni's operas would be staged within a period of a few years?

Another factor is the fashion element; some composers' music gains favour and then falls out of favour and then gains favour again. Elgar's music, even in his own country, has had good times and bad times notwithstanding his already established reputation during his lifetime as one of the foremost English composers since Purcell.

"Even in his own country"; there's another issue - the geographical factor. Some composers' music "travels" better and/or more widely than that of others - try Vaughan Williams in France or Germany or Sibelius in Span and Portugal, for example.

In the light of this and in view of the far wider and easier availability of music in recorded form, the business of making pronouncements about what music will or won't be listened to in 50 or 100 years' time is self-evidently fraught with dangers and, as such, is more or less pointless. This being the case, Derek's rash remarks on the future prospects for his bizarre pair of bêtes noirs "Schönberg and Xenakis"(!) are clearly revealed for what they are - mere arbitrary and unfounded guesswork based upon nothing more substantial than his own personal opinion of those composers' music.

Best,

Alistair

[counterpoint]

Fast forward 50 years, that may decide whether some "kid" who grew up to be a musicologist put "Synaphai" as an example in his/her survey of 21st century western music, or obliviate Xenaxis altogether.

We don't need to wait 50 years. Avantgarde music is a phenomenon of the 3rd quarter of the 20th century (about 1950-1975). I remember these times very well    That's history now, and people who compose that way in our days are as conservative as Richard Strauss or Rachmaninov were when they wrote late romantic music in 1930.

[cygnusdei]

We don't need to wait 50 years. Avantgarde music is a phenomenon of the 3rd quarter of the 20th century (about 1950-1975). I remember these times very well    That's history now, and people who compose that way in our days are as conservative as Richard Strauss or Rachmaninov were when they wrote late romantic music in 1930.

I was careful enough to limit my comment to Xenaxis vis-a-vis "Synaphai".

[counterpoint]

I was careful enough to limit my comment to Xenaxis vis-a-vis "Synaphai".

It's a composition from 1969 

[mephisto]

I don't think Xenakis' music ever will be enjoyed by concertgoers in the same way as Beethoven is today. But I belive many other modern/contempoary composer will. Just to mention some:
Penderecki, Rautavaara, Lutoslawski, Part, Messiaen (already is), Corigliano and some others.

Derek, what about the fact that Scriabin's late music is difficult to listen to for many poeple? Should his fans be considered elitist who just pretend that they like his music? I am sure many people will say: OMG how can anyone like this type of music? No harmony, no melodie, no rythm! Those who say they like Scriabin's music are just pretending! 

[pianowolfi]

I listened to "Synaphai" yesterday and I liked it.

[ahinton]

I don't think Xenakis' music ever will be enjoyed by concertgoers in the same way as Beethoven is today.

That's almost certainly true, yet to dismiss its future as Derek does is not only insulting but unrealistic.

what about the fact that Scriabin's late music is difficult to listen to for many poeple? Should his fans be considered elitist who just pretend that they like his music? I am sure many people will say: OMG how can anyone like this type of music? No harmony, no melodie, no rythm! Those who say they like Scriabin's music are just pretending! 

You took the words out of my mouth! (although actually I've already written too many of them here!); the difference would appear to be that Derek himself happens to find himself able to accept Skryabin's music, even those later works, despite the fact that some of them seem to be moving towards a kind of serialism, whereas "Xenakis and Schönberg" are composers at whom he has decided he can and will hurl insults and other dismissive salvos because, for the most part, he doesn't like their work and has convinced himself that the intellectual thrust behind it work is artifically imposed (although he doesn't of course, tell us why and how this is so, nor does he distinguish between inherent and artificially-imposed intellectuality by providing specific details for the purpose of distinguishng one from the other beyond reasonable doubt).

Best,

Alistair

[cygnusdei]

Perhaps an important discriminant is whether a composer can actually perform his works. I'm not sure if that's a fair imposition, but I bet the level of respect, even from detractors, would go up a notch.

[mephisto]

Perhaps an important discriminant is whether a composer can actually perform his works. I'm not sure if that's a fair imposition, but I bet the level of respect, even from detractors, would go up a notch.

So Schubert isn't so high up on your list?

[counterpoint]

what about the fact that Scriabin's late music is difficult to listen to for many poeple? Should his fans be considered elitist who just pretend that they like his music? I am sure many people will say: OMG how can anyone like this type of music? No harmony, no melodie, no rythm! Those who say they like Scriabin's music are just pretending! 

Yes, I believe, many people are pretending when it goes to Schönberg, late Scriabin and even late Beethoven. They want to look educated, progressive, intellectual. But it's just a façade.

[mephisto]

Yes, I believe, many people are pretending when it goes to Schönberg, late Scriabin and even late Beethoven. They want to look educated, progressive, intellectual. But it's just a façade.

I am going to answer this is you fashion:

 

[Derek]

Ahinton, I have an excellent question which I think will teach me more than continuing our repetitive (as you pointed out) discussion.

What is the difference between "badly composed" atonal music and "well composed" atonal music?

If you could find for me a recording of "good" atonal music and "bad" atonal music, I think that will teach me a lot.

[counterpoint]

If you could find for me a recording of "good" atonal music and "bad" atonal music, I think that will teach me a lot.

   cool

There cannot exist a thing like bad atonal music. Atonal music is good per definition 

[mephisto]

  cool

There cannot exist a thing like bad atonal music. Atonal music is good per definition 

There is plenty atonal music I strongly dislike.

[ahinton]

Ahinton, I have an excellent question which I think will teach me more than continuing our repetitive (as you pointed out) discussion.

What is the difference between "badly composed" atonal music and "well composed" atonal music?

If you could find for me a recording of "good" atonal music and "bad" atonal music, I think that will teach me a lot.

I rather doubt that it would, because you seem largely to have developed a predisposition against most atonal music and I have in any case no idea how you would recognise such value judgements given that you seem either unwilling or unable (or both) to explain how you distinguish between artificially imposed intellectuality and that which is inherent in the music itself. That said, the difference is in effect no different to that between badly composed and well composed tonal music, although your apparent unwillingness and/or inability to recognise this fact illustrates that anything you try to learn about such matters will be hampered by that predisposition against most atonal music.

Another problem that would stand in your way here is, as I also implied before, your inability/unwillingness to accept that the terms tonality and atonality are more relative than finite.

Best,

Alistair

[counterpoint]

There is plenty atonal music I strongly dislike.

Some examples please...

[mephisto]

Some examples please...

Boulez' piano sonata No. 2, many of Stockhausen's Klavierstuckes, Messiaen's (one of my favourite composers) Mode de valeurs et d'intensités, Xenakis' Herma and many others.

[Derek]

I rather doubt that it would, because you seem largely to have developed a predisposition against most atonal music and I have in any case no idea how you would recognise such value judgements given that you seem either unwilling or unable (or both) to explain how you distinguish between artificially imposed intellectuality and that which is inherent in the music itself. That said, the difference is in effect no different to that between badly composed and well composed tonal music, although your apparent unwillingness and/or inability to recognise this fact illustrates that anything you try to learn about such matters will be hampered by that predisposition against most atonal music.

Another problem that would stand in your way here is, as I also implied before, your inability/unwillingness to accept that the terms tonality and atonality are more relative than finite.

Best,

Alistair

On the contrary: regardless of my own predispositions, it would at least give me some evidence that you have some sort of genuine reaction to music of this genre. Such as: "Ah, I found such and such by whoever rather boring, but this Xenakis piece is really great."  I might not like either piece, but perhaps if you were to show me two examples I could see the differences, and imagine how, perhaps, you could like one more than the other. As has been established, I am not a musical academic or a "proper" composer. Thus, I won't be able to learn anything about this genre of music unless someone within it can speak to me in a down to earth manner. "Well, here's some pieces I like, here's some pieces I do like, and why. They moved be thus because...it made me imagine....blah blah blah" You get the idea.  Think of me as the audience of tomorrow. We are waiting with open ears...

you said: "That said, the difference is in effect no different to that between badly composed and well composed tonal music"

I reject this idea. I reject the idea that musical subjectivism can be taken so far as to no longer be able to determine what is boring, and what is good. I could find thousands of pairs of pieces of similar genres of older styles which are boring, and which are good. We may disagree about the DEGREE to which they are good, and bad, but I don't think that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and others would have attained the notoriety they did without creating something that is universally beautiful. Your ideas seem to suggest that all value judgements in music are relative.  My position is that yes of course they are, but it is in conjunction with a universal element. It is not quite an objective element since music theory has so far failed to explain what makes music good.


you said:

"In the same paragraph you've said that this is "incredibly easy" and "incredibly challenging", as well as refuting the logical fact that the more tonal melodies that have been written, the less remains of that "infinitude of possibilities". Hmmm..."

You are taking "incredibly easy" and "incredibly challenging" out of context from that paragraph. I said it was incredibly easy to come up with thousands of tonal melodies never heard before. But to come up with one that is VERY GOOD is incredibly challenging. Where is the contradiction in that?

On the same token, it is easy for me to come up with thousands of pieces that sound to me like Schoenberg, or sound to me like Xenakis, but what would make one of those thousands of pieces VERY GOOD? I'm not really sure what.  Usually when I record something that sounds really good (to me, and hopefully a few visitors on myspace) but sounds modern, there is a lot of conjunct motion in it to provide contrast to the disjunct motion. I think that is the main thing I don't quite get about Schoenberg and Xenakis: the disjunct motion.  I find it unintelligible, much like a painting by Pollock.


Also, I don't think there really is less of the infinitude. There will never be less. I am not sure how to back this up but to say that the number of ideas I am able to come up with personally seems to be growing exponentially with time and I see no evidence that is ever going to stop. I can't back that up though since it is from intuition...

Pianowolfi, my friend. I'm quite alright with you liking this piece. But personally, I find your numerous poignant piano improvisations superior to this piece musically, expressively, and in terms of how much I enjoy it. I have a cd with your music on it, burned from iTunes. Boy, I sure hope you like your own music better than Xenakis...

[cygnusdei]

Would it be correct to make a distinction between atonal (i.e. without tonal center) and nontonal (i.e. pitch-independent) ?

[ctrastevere]

Yes, I think I shall listen to some Opeth, then perhaps Qntal...and maybe top off the evening with Leos Janacek.

I love Opeth. Somewhat (or rather, completely) off-topic, but what is your favorite album by them?

[counterpoint]

Quote from: counterpoint on Today at 14:39:03

Some examples please...

Boulez' piano sonata No. 2, many of Stockhausen's Klavierstuckes, Messiaen's (one of my favourite composers) Mode de valeurs et d'intensités, Xenakis' Herma and many others.

Okay, I didn't expect that. Now some examples of atonal pieces you like and perhaps a few words what it is that you like better than the previous ones?

Personally I like some free atonal piano pieces from Schönberg, but I do not like his late-romantic works and his 12-tone pieces much. Eisler's 12-tone pieces are great.
From "newer" atonal compositions I like Lutoslawski and Berio. These are all pieces, that do not need much explanation, they are almost selfexplaining.

[mephisto]

Quote from: counterpoint on Today at 14:39:03

And you point is?

[indutrial]

Perhaps an important discriminant is whether a composer can actually perform his works. I'm not sure if that's a fair imposition, but I bet the level of respect, even from detractors, would go up a notch.

Uh, no...Bartok managed to not be a virtuoso violinist, violist, and cellist simultaneously yet somehow wrote 6 of the most respected string quartet pieces in the entire repertoire. I could list a million other similar examples to show that that idea is nonsense.