I know there are plenty of aspiring composers who write in many styles but none of them will ever be performed and some of these composers might be the 2nd coming of Beethoven. Their rightful place in the concert hall is ousted by some unknown talentless hack failing to impersonate Sorabji.
What Schoenberg did to music was an absolute travesty and the perhaps the greatest crime against art ever committed in the history of the world.
What Schoenberg did to music was an absolute travesty
perhaps the greatest crime against art ever committed in the history of the world
Due to his influence, it is now impossible for composers to be taken seriously unless they elect to write music which sounds like dog sh*t.
An entire art form, one going back hundreds of years, literally destroyed by one man and his lackeys Berg and Webern.
Of course, I am not arguing that atonal music should not exist. Rather, it should have never become influential. It never should have reached the point where academics feel compelled to pretend to like it for the sake of staying relevant, and where music with wider appeal is stifled. It should have stayed in its rightful place as an experimental fringe element in the world of classical music, as with electroacoustic tape music and so forth.
Agreed and thanks to him, we have an endless list of talentless composers who fill up their intestines with notes and fart on a sheet of blank manuscript paper and there you have another atonal masterpiece.
I don't think anyone really likes it, but it looks cool to sing the virtues of some absurd 7 hour pile of trash that sounds like a terrorist attack at a piano dealers.
Especially for large scale... operas....their rightful place in the concert hall is ousted by some unknown talentless hack failing to impersonate Sorabji.
Schönberg did nothing to music
Thal,you make get a kick spreading your reductionist reactionary adolescent twaddle, and your Quixotic quest may comfort those afraid to come out of their own backyard, but i think it better to keep such pridefully myopic perspectives to your own little closet, lest you be seen as simply a gargoyle at the gate.. Really. How irresponsible!
BobI wonder how many people write or have written music on a par with "the masters" but for whatever reason were never discovered. There are libraries full of manuscripts that do not bear a familiar name are virtually never performed. If Mendelssohn had not performed St. Mathew's Passion, Bach himself may have been forgotten... The law of averages would suggest there are many others out there just waiting to be rediscovered. It takes a lot of luck and timing as well as great music...IMO
dc, it is true that with the discovery of the chest of manuscripts found concurrent with Mendelssohn's performance, and the write up in Schumann's mag, did much to bring Bach's music to the public.. (as it was before mostly performed in churches, or for one's private study at home) there were many teachers/composers who had copies of manuscripts - including Mozart and Beethoven who were singing Bach's praises.. and according to C Rosen, was well known to musicians before Mendelssohn's premiere.
There is, however, a fundamental problem which applies to music, and art, though interestingly, not so much to literature. If a creator is to be unique, recycling the forms of the past doesn't cut it.
be rueful if you fancied yourself a composer because even a mediocre composer of a hundred years ago will most likely be better than the best you can come up with.
Especially for large scale compositions like symphonies, concertos, and operas.
I know there are plenty of aspiring composers who write in many styles but none of them will ever be performed and some of these composers might be the 2nd coming of Beethoven.
Their rightful place in the concert hall is ousted by some unknown talentless hack failing to impersonate Sorabji.
.....The bonds of tonality had been loosening over many years in many different ways. Consider some of the more chromatically oriented works of Gesualdo. Remember that Mozart and Liszt each wrote 12-note themes (although neither treated them serially). Note how Wagner undermined the notion of a tonal centre and pursued (in Tristan und Isolde especially) an ever greater sense of tonal / modulatory flux that influenced many composers, not least Schönberg. Look at how Chopin (and occasionally Alkan) stretched the bounds of tonality, as did Liszt in later life. Then consider the work of certain other composers active during the first quarter of the 20th century, such as Varèse, Vermeulen and others including Ornstein whose 1915 sonata for violin and piano explores more dissonance than Schönberg ever did - and this was almost a decade before Schönberg began to write 12-note serial music (which nevertheless is shot through with tonal references) - and in any case Schönberg was not the only composer to explore serial writing - just look at Scriabin, Hauer, Roslavets and others.All that said, tonality is probably more alive and well today than it's ever been, not least because so many composers have enhanced its possibilities.Best,Alistair
The bonds of tonality had been loosening over many years in many different ways. Consider some of the more chromatically oriented works of Gesualdo. Remember that Mozart and Liszt each wrote 12-note themes (although neither treated them serially). Note how Wagner undermined the notion of a tonal centre and pursued (in Tristan und Isolde especially) an ever greater sense of tonal / modulatory flux that influenced many composers, not least Schönberg. Look at how Chopin (and occasionally Alkan) stretched the bounds of tonality, as did Liszt in later life. Then consider the work of certain other composers active during the first quarter of the 20th century, such as Varèse, Vermeulen and others including Ornstein whose 1915 sonata for violin and piano explores more dissonance than Schönberg ever did - and this was almost a decade before Schönberg began to write 12-note serial music (which nevertheless is shot through with tonal references) - and in any case Schönberg was not the only composer to explore serial writing - just look at Scriabin, Hauer, Roslavets and others.All that said, tonality is probably more alive and well today than it's ever been, not least because so many composers have enhanced its possibilities.Best,Alistair
I think you're correct about humanity suffering from inflation. The world of music seems to bear the brunt of the suffering.
Agreed and thanks to him, we have an endless list of talentless composers who fill up their intestines with notes and fart on a sheet of blank manuscript paper and there you have another atonal masterpiece.I don't think anyone really likes it, but it looks cool to sing the virtues of some absurd 7 hour pile of trash that sounds like a terrorist attack at a piano dealers.Thal
I thoroughly agree about the degradation and marginalisation of culture. America is much to blame with its corporate consumerism: ironic really as America has also been the source of many fine cultural and creative minds.
Hi Thal, I admire your facility for the English language and honestly I could not have put it more clearly and vividly as you did! Perhaps the below video will illustrate what you described. I read somewhere that this is just part of a much longer work. Becomes more frenetic at 5:20 and upwards.
It is dogcrap like that that proves my point. There is no talent here.
there are no words to describe this... geez.
Topic: Is tonal composition dead? 