I love that this begins with the Second Chamber Symphony. Both Schoenberg's First and Second Chamber Symphonies are criminally neglected masterpieces of the 20th Century.
That's not humming, that's adding another melodic line,is he doing it intentionally or is it just something that comes out like when Bud Powell and Keith Jarrett make noises with their mouth as they play?
@@Tbop3 I think he was trying to make the point that television has been dumbed down so much that a similar "highbrow" programme would be unthinkable today.
"When I went over from a Physics major to music composition, it left me with a much stronger background in math and acoustics than most musicians. Thus I was unlucky enough to grasp that Schoenberg's systematized serial methods are based upon a lie -- that all intervals of the 12 note scale can be treated democratically in a row. But these intervals aren't the same acoustically, having developed from tetrachordal tonal and diatonic scales of at least as far back as Pythagoreus. Easley Blackwood has observed for a proper serialism one need employ a scale that is "intervalically neutral", such as the scales of 11 or 13 equal steps.
In this instance the Serialists were conservative, and never stepped past the 12 tone scale. Their reluctance (or ignorance) led composers to choose germinating tone rows that had minimal adjacency of tonal intervals: no rich 3rds and 6ths, few dominant-tonic implicating 4th and 5ths, which pretty much left what's heard as the watermark of so much of this music: 7ths, 9ths, and tritones. Only logical. (I've made a computerized count: most 12-tone music uses the latter three intervals 55% of the time, while all other musics seldom top 8% -- a significant difference!) Like a diet of all spices and little protein, fat or carbohydrate, it quickly loses its appeal. " - Wendy Carlos
What a priceless video! I don't quite understand what they're talking about, but Glenn's enthusiasm was enough for me to fall in love with Schoenberg and new-Vien school, so I enjoy this kind of music very much. I feel Schoenberg and Bach are the sides of one coin and I listen to them both 😁. Thank you, Glenn.
Glenn Gould is so damned intelligent he essentially speaks in whole paragraphs as though he was reading from a script. He was so much more than just a piano virtuoso. And of course he had to die far too early.
Yes, it sounds similar in a way yet isn‘t quite since (functionally, which could be attacked as not the right approach to both itself and the tristan chord) it derives most of its tension from the minor second between g sharp and a, which is the result of juxtaposing a d minor and a diminished chord - tristan seems more inherently dynamic due to its tendency towards a diminished chord whereas the Schönberg remains somewhat static (or not analysable in such terms); so it seems that they are really apples and oranges after all.
It almost feels, when I listen to this type of music, like Wagner opened Pandora's box, and then subsequent generations were driven to push the boundaries even further. That said, I still enjoy the Wagner far more.
@@dmwalker24Music ended with Wagner. God has died with him. Art has reached its apex which it will never again reach. Its all downhill after him. He was a god.
This is such a joy to listen to. Love the quote about C Major - which of course doesn’t excuse the tons of garbage that passes for music these days. Thank you for posting this.
What makes this is nice exchange is that Burton's tastes are those of a cultivated but not mandarin-elitist music-lover, and he makes it necessary for a mandarin like GG to explain his taste for Schoenberg. So GG can't stay in his elitist bubble. Burton was a little older than GG, and is still with us.
There's something else wrong. Why is UA-cam interrupting these historical videos with so many advertisements? Doesn't anyone else find that there are far too many ads on UA-cam?
@@santih5043 You obviously don't realize that the public is getting these videos free of charge and the advertizers are paying for them on your behalf. If you want to view them ad-free simply pay a nominal monthly fee.
@@newaccounter Schönberg admired composers as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Wagner, R.Strauss and Mahler, but Brahms left by far the biggest mark. When I listen to Schönberg, I hear far more Brahms than any of the others. As a matter of fact, when listening to Brahms I frequently find myself thinking: "This sounds just like Schönberg." Schönberg may have adopted many of Wagner's technical aspects, but aesthetically he was a Brahmsian through and through.
I can't think of any instance where Schoenberg was "cheerful" in a way that wasn't wry or sardonic. I suppose you can say the same for Stravinsky, or Shostakovich for that matter. 1915-1945 was generally not a cheerful time.
Burton brings up good points, and Gould defends expertly. But it may be better to get to Schoenberg through cartoon music instead of playing excerpts on piano. Bugs Bunny, Jetsons, etc. once you accept these, Schoenberg is not so bizarre. It’s all sound, right?
Not massively interesting, to my mind. Burton should have put directly "To what extent was Schonberg working under the influence of Hegelian historicism?". I believe Schonberg was (to disastrous effect, as always with historicism). Extreme chromaticism was only one one resource available to a composer ca. 1900, and was almost always used to convey states of extreme tension, unstability, neuroticism, etc. Never joy. To take this as implying that one had to abandon tonality altogether and make this mode the sole basis for music was as limiting as it would have been to allow only Palestrina-style polyphony. This limitation can be seen in the small number of atonal waltzes, in the disproving of the atonalist's absurd contention that their music would come to be quite accepted in 50 years time, and in the general abandonment of the method by 21st century composers
Schoenberg himself did say there were plenty of good works to be had in C Major. He wasn't insistent on one type of composition, but he did falsely believe what he was doing was some inevitable end result of musical evolution.
@@null3707 Very cogently argued and well put. Nevertheless, I still think that Schoenberg believed, for historicist reasons, that 12-note serialism was "inevitable" and the only viable continuation of Western music, whatever he may have said about "much music still to be written in C major". His world remains essentially that of his paintings, which express the rather tormented state of mind and exacerbated sensibilities of German Expressionism, to which I am allergic (e,g, Georg Trakl, Egon Schiele). I find myself more and more in agreement with Fereric Mompou who said "German music is false; French music is true" (probably speaking of the 19th-early 20th centuries)
Haven't personally experienced this for Schoenberg but I've heard someone online say that to get Schoenberg they first had to listen to a specific order of composers Of course someone could "get" a persons music without needing to listen to anyone else's music, or maybe even after listening to all other music you still ultimately don't get schoenbergs But In my experience to start enjoying a certain genre or style of music that I don't like or are not accustomed to I have to be able to "figure out" or start listening to/focusing on a certain aspect of it. I don't think you really need/have to get someone's music, you can listen to whatever music you want, but I don't think music necessarily needs a "great melody" to be enjoyable.
Some creators want to escape from this collective unconscious ditch - by seeing their art as what deeply can be - a projection of their inner self. And this thing is partly alienated even from the "I", but the more you look at it - the more "I" can understand itself. You hardly can understand yourself if you constantly look everyone else. That part is very unshareable however - because it contains no lies - and it is a stream of confession beyond the possible correction of the creator. And the real true is that if you already want to express something on that level - this rarely is something about how happy; satisfied; good you feel. Happy feelings are collective feelings by definitions, shared feelings - so when you are writing something "happy" - this rarely mean you are really expressing only yourself. But the other type of work - the inner - doesn't mean it is selfish! On the contrary - it is empathic and humanistic, even a lot more than every pop-music can ever be. Every human decay, get older, lost love, lost hope, lost dreams - this thing we keep with the persona. Even worst when we observe how the society degrades and do horrible thing to themselves and to the Planet - but we are all "riding on". So deeply one can go - the themes start to degradate, the melody; the harmony - is seen as a service - kind of a furniture left from someone else. So After you have burn everything - what is left is this highly incompatible thing for every other person that have not go to this path by themselves before listening that inner work. In a way this is retribution as well. To show that part from yourself that most of the people are trying to conceal. As Cesar A. Cruz put it: _Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable._ There is also many other paths of course but I am starting to be on my own - TLTR path :,)
@AbyssSSB - Listening art just for the aesthetic part that can bring / learning about the historical aspect of aesthetic . Fine intellectual exercise that we must all attempt, but will start to blind the senses if you dont find a way out of it.
one of the greatest films in the history of music.
I love that this begins with the Second Chamber Symphony. Both Schoenberg's First and Second Chamber Symphonies are criminally neglected masterpieces of the 20th Century.
class personified. The best of the best
12:45 excellent humming and singing, as only Glenn does!
"that post-Wagnerian sense of intensity."
"Indeed."
Yesssss! Simply the joyeus essence of being! 😁 No one can sing like this.
That's not humming, that's adding another melodic line,is he doing it intentionally or is it just something that comes out like when Bud Powell and Keith Jarrett make noises with their mouth as they play?
Thank you for posting this great dialogue💝
Glenn Gould ❤
GG appears to have memorized not only all Schoenberg's piano music but all the music he ever wrote.
Glenn Gould had memorized volumes of music of many composers.
A soldier once approached Schoenberg and asked "hey aren't you Schoenberg, the composer?". He replied "well, someone has to be!"
back when you had a whole television show dedicated to Schoenberg .....
@@Tbop3 I think he was trying to make the point that television has been dumbed down so much that a similar "highbrow" programme would be unthinkable today.
Glenn's best singing ever!
"When I went over from a Physics major to music composition, it left me with a much stronger background in math and acoustics than most musicians. Thus I was unlucky enough to grasp that Schoenberg's systematized serial methods are based upon a lie -- that all intervals of the 12 note scale can be treated democratically in a row. But these intervals aren't the same acoustically, having developed from tetrachordal tonal and diatonic scales of at least as far back as Pythagoreus. Easley Blackwood has observed for a proper serialism one need employ a scale that is "intervalically neutral", such as the scales of 11 or 13 equal steps.
In this instance the Serialists were conservative, and never stepped past the 12 tone scale. Their reluctance (or ignorance) led composers to choose germinating tone rows that had minimal adjacency of tonal intervals: no rich 3rds and 6ths, few dominant-tonic implicating 4th and 5ths, which pretty much left what's heard as the watermark of so much of this music: 7ths, 9ths, and tritones. Only logical. (I've made a computerized count: most 12-tone music uses the latter three intervals 55% of the time, while all other musics seldom top 8% -- a significant difference!) Like a diet of all spices and little protein, fat or carbohydrate, it quickly loses its appeal. " - Wendy Carlos
Bad word salad
Nothing but garbage came from Schoenberg. In a much briefer statement.
WHAT AN EXCELLENT FILM!!!
Humphrey Burton and Glenn Gould both are the greatest musicians of all time
Brilliantississississisaissimo!
Humphrey Burton is one of the greatest musicians of all time? Is he even a musician at all?
@@johnrandolph6121with a little help of his friend Glenn Gould 😁
3:45 = Schoenberg 8 Lieder op. 6 no. 1, 5:10 = op. 6 no. 4.
What a priceless video! I don't quite understand what they're talking about, but Glenn's enthusiasm was enough for me to fall in love with Schoenberg and new-Vien school, so I enjoy this kind of music very much. I feel Schoenberg and Bach are the sides of one coin and I listen to them both 😁. Thank you, Glenn.
Thank you
glenn GOLD
You know that is the name he was born with? "Gould" came later. Google it.
Glenn Gould is so damned intelligent he essentially speaks in whole paragraphs as though he was reading from a script. He was so much more than just a piano virtuoso. And of course he had to die far too early.
He scripted most of his interviews! I think this one is scripted. It was a way of really getting to heart of the matter
Gould and Bernstein gave us a matured musicological field of study.
@@Hist_da_Musica H. Burton said these were not scripted although the topics were discussed beforehand.
Like someone else said, he literally WAS reading from a script. Don't be so naive.
@@robertcalley6496 well I then think the script was memorized like the thousands of pieces he did. I find him endlessly amazing.
11:53 anyone else hearing this as an echo of the tristan chord, maybe?
Yes, it sounds similar in a way yet isn‘t quite since (functionally, which could be attacked as not the right approach to both itself and the tristan chord) it derives most of its tension from the minor second between g sharp and a, which is the result of juxtaposing a d minor and a diminished chord - tristan seems more inherently dynamic due to its tendency towards a diminished chord whereas the Schönberg remains somewhat static (or not analysable in such terms); so it seems that they are really apples and oranges after all.
It almost feels, when I listen to this type of music, like Wagner opened Pandora's box, and then subsequent generations were driven to push the boundaries even further. That said, I still enjoy the Wagner far more.
@@dmwalker24Music ended with Wagner. God has died with him. Art has reached its apex which it will never again reach. Its all downhill after him. He was a god.
This is such a joy to listen to. Love the quote about C Major - which of course doesn’t excuse the tons of garbage that passes for music these days. Thank you for posting this.
Jrkfenzfdaudyouureoiyrsuoijeteijzvrtlryisutscfhrmidisurorgtsvololrmgvtoppoderalrdjoitfolutlelidusurllisuiduuftoujtesahrtvvrcvrfrkjermlnurfsdtoiut
What makes this is nice exchange is that Burton's tastes are those of a cultivated but not mandarin-elitist music-lover, and he makes it necessary for a mandarin like GG to explain his taste for Schoenberg. So GG can't stay in his elitist bubble. Burton was a little older than GG, and is still with us.
There's something wrong. What are smart cultured people doing on TV?
They hadn't yet realized the profitability of dumbing shit down.
There's something else wrong. Why is UA-cam interrupting these historical videos with so many advertisements? Doesn't anyone else find that there are far too many ads on UA-cam?
@@santih5043 If you are not paying, you are the product.
@@santih5043 You obviously don't realize that the public is getting these videos free of charge and the advertizers are paying for them on your behalf. If you want to view them ad-free simply pay a nominal monthly fee.
1:10 What?
Humphrey asked again for like 50 times through out their whole interview.
I can picture Wittgenstein and Schoenberg meeting in a Vienna cafe telling each other how they ended philosophy and music between the two of them.
But instead both their masters did, Nietzsche and Wagner.
@@ToxicTurtleIsMad Schönberg's master was Brahms, not Wagner.
@@mrtchaikovskyReally? I thought it was sort of half-and-half
@@newaccounter Schönberg admired composers as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Wagner, R.Strauss and Mahler, but Brahms left by far the biggest mark. When I listen to Schönberg, I hear far more Brahms than any of the others. As a matter of fact, when listening to Brahms I frequently find myself thinking: "This sounds just like Schönberg." Schönberg may have adopted many of Wagner's technical aspects, but aesthetically he was a Brahmsian through and through.
Not a fan of atonal music, but Schoenberg’s tonal period is very beautiful. For example the Gurrelieder.
Part 2?
Maybe I'll embrace this music someday - sorta like I've failed college now I'm sitting in a polluted cafe again dum di dum barangbam bam bam durn bam
Is it ever cheerful? Don't lie, Glenn . . .
not2tees Schoenberg wrote some incredibly joyous music.
Simply he was GENIUS!
I can't think of any instance where Schoenberg was "cheerful" in a way that wasn't wry or sardonic. I suppose you can say the same for Stravinsky, or Shostakovich for that matter. 1915-1945 was generally not a cheerful time.
@@DeflatingAtheismgurre lieders prepude
At 1:32 : I don't even need a violin.
Burton brings up good points, and Gould defends expertly. But it may be better to get to Schoenberg through cartoon music instead of playing excerpts on piano. Bugs Bunny, Jetsons, etc. once you accept these, Schoenberg is not so bizarre. It’s all sound, right?
3:40 a women touched in intimate parts
Gould wants to talk about want he wants to talk about giving Burton no chance to speak
Technically Burton is interviewing Gould, so that's kind of how interviews go.
Schiteberg
Not massively interesting, to my mind. Burton should have put directly "To what extent was Schonberg working under the influence of Hegelian historicism?". I believe Schonberg was (to disastrous effect, as always with historicism). Extreme chromaticism was only one one resource available to a composer ca. 1900, and was almost always used to convey states of extreme tension, unstability, neuroticism, etc. Never joy. To take this as implying that one had to abandon tonality altogether and make this mode the sole basis for music was as limiting as it would have been to allow only Palestrina-style polyphony. This limitation can be seen in the small number of atonal waltzes, in the disproving of the atonalist's absurd contention that their music would come to be quite accepted in 50 years time, and in the general abandonment of the method by 21st century composers
Schoenberg himself did say there were plenty of good works to be had in C Major. He wasn't insistent on one type of composition, but he did falsely believe what he was doing was some inevitable end result of musical evolution.
@@zol479 Indeed.
@@null3707 I didn't say he was a radical.I said he was a Hegelian historicist.
@@null3707 Very cogently argued and well put. Nevertheless, I still think that Schoenberg believed, for historicist reasons, that 12-note serialism was "inevitable" and the only viable continuation of Western music, whatever he may have said about "much music still to be written in C major". His world remains essentially that of his paintings, which express the rather tormented state of mind and exacerbated sensibilities of German Expressionism, to which I am allergic (e,g, Georg Trakl, Egon Schiele). I find myself more and more in agreement with Fereric Mompou who said "German music is false; French music is true" (probably speaking of the 19th-early 20th centuries)
Ok but can you shut up?
i can't get schoenburg or atonal music in general. As mozart said: all good music but have a good melody!!!!
Could you help me understand this? What is a melody? And how can i figure out whether a melody is good?
Haven't personally experienced this for Schoenberg but I've heard someone online say that to get Schoenberg they first had to listen to a specific order of composers
Of course someone could "get" a persons music without needing to listen to anyone else's music, or maybe even after listening to all other music you still ultimately don't get schoenbergs
But In my experience to start enjoying a certain genre or style of music that I don't like or are not accustomed to I have to be able to "figure out" or start listening to/focusing on a certain aspect of it.
I don't think you really need/have to get someone's music, you can listen to whatever music you want, but I don't think music necessarily needs a "great melody" to be enjoyable.
Some creators want to escape from this collective unconscious ditch - by seeing their art as what deeply can be - a projection of their inner self. And this thing is partly alienated even from the "I", but the more you look at it - the more "I" can understand itself. You hardly can understand yourself if you constantly look everyone else. That part is very unshareable however - because it contains no lies - and it is a stream of confession beyond the possible correction of the creator. And the real true is that if you already want to express something on that level - this rarely is something about how happy; satisfied; good you feel. Happy feelings are collective feelings by definitions, shared feelings - so when you are writing something "happy" - this rarely mean you are really expressing only yourself. But the other type of work - the inner - doesn't mean it is selfish! On the contrary - it is empathic and humanistic, even a lot more than every pop-music can ever be. Every human decay, get older, lost love, lost hope, lost dreams - this thing we keep with the persona. Even worst when we observe how the society degrades and do horrible thing to themselves and to the Planet - but we are all "riding on". So deeply one can go - the themes start to degradate, the melody; the harmony - is seen as a service - kind of a furniture left from someone else. So After you have burn everything - what is left is this highly incompatible thing for every other person that have not go to this path by themselves before listening that inner work. In a way this is retribution as well. To show that part from yourself that most of the people are trying to conceal.
As Cesar A. Cruz put it: _Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable._
There is also many other paths of course but I am starting to be on my own - TLTR path :,)
@AbyssSSB - Listening art just for the aesthetic part that can bring / learning about the historical aspect of aesthetic .
Fine intellectual exercise that we must all attempt, but will start to blind the senses if you dont find a way out of it.
Lyubomir Ikon
Not a Schoenberg fan..
Schoenberg should have stuck to painting, ditto Captain Beefheart. That they didn’t gives us something to talk about.