It’s funny for me to think of the person on the street preferring Mozart to Schoenberg. I am something of a latecomer to classical music, having spent most of my youth (and still today) listening to jazz and world music and punk rock. One of the first classical composers I really got into was Stravinsky, because he appealed to those jazz/world/punk sensibilities. It actually took me much longer to appreciate Mozart because I initially found him unbearably dull until I really started studying classical form. When you think about the styles of music that are popular today, the average music fan on the street has more tolerance of dissonance and chaotic timbres than you might think.
I can see the your point. However for me the problem with Schönberg is not the dissonance, but a lack of connection between the notes (this is of course subjective). i agree, that mozart can sometimes sound a bit dull and i prefer classical music from the early 20th century. But i cant get myself to enjoy 12 tone music.
@@jasperjunghans6529 I agree, and maybe Stravinsky was a bad example. For all his intensity, he is still often quite tuneful. Frankly, I still struggle with Schoenberg’s 12 tone work, although I adore Gurrelieder and Pelleas und Melisandre. My point was more that it is silly to assume a random modern will appreciate Mozart when you consider how much dissonance there is in styles like rock and hip hop.
I'm not quite the same as you in that regard, but I can confidently speak that it's wrong to assume that any random person will recognise the genius of Mozart, and that's because I know a counterexample: MYSELF. I don't recognise the genius of Mozart, not because I deny it, but because I *don't know* what makes him a "genius". I mean, I love most of his music and it will always be a delight to watch his music performed, but... why it's "genius"? I have no goddamn clue. I think Björk is a genius, but that's just what *I* think. If you don't see her genius, well, it's alright. So, no, not everyone will immediately recognise the genius of Mozart.
It's not atonality per se what ruined a great part of the 20th century repertoire. The emancipation of atonality was unavoidable and necessary. It was the worshiping of atonality, of the dissonance in general which made any composer who thought and created in some sort of gravitational tonal system an outlier at best. Worse yet, in our insane cult of absolute originality, whenever a new musical structure appeared, it became the trademark of the one who invented it and thus "go wild" became the order of the day. For heaven's sake, Mozart's first symphonies are barely distinguishable from those of Haydn (I'm talking about the average, knowledgeable listener, not in depth score analysis and paternity tests), yet we expect brand new, beginner composers to find their own original voices immediately. This is insane! We don't need to go back to tonality, at least not in the sense in which the term is generally understood: the tonal-functional loose framework which in spite of it's constant changes defined music for three centuries. We need to go back however to a way to create expectations. This is the composer's main game: we create an expectation in the listener and then we have choices, many choices, from total fulfillment to radical surprises of many different kinds. An enormous part of the output of the 20th century however consists of pieces in which unpredictable is followed by unpredictable and so on ad nauseam. But if every subsequent note, chord, rhythm is a surprise, then nothing is a surprise, because surprise can only happen when there is an expectation. That sort of music robs the human brain of it's capacity to receive sounds in an almost grammar-like framework. It's a flow of sounds in which the only organizing principle which could and should distinguish it from noise is the composer's whim, and that's not nearly enough!
I think total serialism - where not just pitch but duration, dynamics, timbre, spatialisation etc are all evenly distributed via the series - was a dead end. I don’t criticise those composers who went there and did it. But most of them realised it actually flattened everything, and sought ways to move beyond its strictures. It intrigues me how some composers find a direction, maybe write some amazing music that way, but then decide they can’t go any further, so change course. Meanwhile other composers find some apparently self-limiting approach, but keep discovering new things to do with it. Penderecki wrote some amazing Sonorist masterpieces such as the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima in the 1950s and 60s. But by the end of the 60s, he came to feel that he was simply stringing a series of startling sound effect together, and he wanted to write music with more of a conventional feeling of form than that, so reintroduced conventional gestures, tonality, text-setting etc. On the other hand, Arvo Pärt has stayed loyal to his tintinnabulation technique, which he first used back in 1976. He gives no impression of wanting to move beyond it.
"An enormous part of the output of the 20th century however consists of pieces in which unpredictable is followed by unpredictable and so on ad nauseam. But if every subsequent note, chord, rhythm is a surprise, then nothing is a surprise, because surprise can only happen when there is an expectation." I fail to see why that is an invalid artistic choice or aesthetic experience. I mean, I can think of quite a couple situations where my own expectations were detrimental to my enjoyment or understanding of a piece, because it pulled mw away from what the work was actually saying. Also, aren't expectations just an attempt to impose our own whims upon the work of art, and to create an _a priori_ filter for what would make the music good? You could argue, no, because subversion of expectations and surprises can be good... but that still falls on the same trap, because whether something is a subversion or a surprise is STILL based on your expectations, and whether those surprises are "good" or "bad" are determined, in part, by what those expectations mean to you. There are expectations that you "allow" to be broken, and others that you don't. And how does that work when you're admiring a work you're already familiar with? If you're listening to a song you know by heart, it's satisfying, well, EVERY SINGLE expectation you have. There are no surprises anymore. Is that good? Or do you still cling on to the fact that, at some point in the past, the song broke your expectations in a positive way? So, in that case, you're not enjoying the song, but the meaning you imposed on it based on your affective memory. As for me as an artist, how can I even be sure that I am "creating expectations" on the audience? How can I even control that? How do I get around, say, a listener's decision, whether conscious or unconscious, to *NOT* have any expectations? Myself, the older I get, the more I try to get rid of any expectations, so the piece speaks to me on its own terms, not mine. It's not easy, and I don't think it's possible in 100% of cases, but I try. So, is the artist supposed to get around that? Are they supposed to trick me into having an expectation? How does that even work??
@@FernieCanto You make a valid point when it comes to pieces that we listen to many times. But the thing is, if we eliminate every ounce of rhetorical structure and means by writing subsequent sounds which don't integrate in a structure which leads us somewhere (or appears to do so), we leave the brain without any means to interpret it. My experience is that most of atonal music doesn't give the listener the chance to go any deeper than the simple "it's atonal". All those techniques that they came up with are fascinating and interesting indeed, but on one hand, being interesting is not the primary role of music (or any art indeed), on the other hand, those techniques can be enjoyed exclusively by professionals and only visually by looking into the score. Audition doesn't reveal them in 99% of the cases. Thus the result is an endemic professional, intellectual pleasure, a music which gave up on the very idea of having a broader audience.
I strongly agree. Thank you for saying that! I might add that this lack of musical language in which expectations can be set up and played upon by the composer has allowed a lot of poorer composers to receive more attention and get more mileage out of their careers than their talent alone would have made possible and this is a problem for everyone in the end, the listeners and the composers.
@ercsey-ravaszferenc6747 I think all I can say is that my experiences with atonal music are diametrically and aggressively opposite to yours. Maybe because I understand that "atonal" is a characteristic of ONLY ONE parameter of music: harmony. But, you know, there are others. There's rhythm, form, timbre, dynamics, instrumentation. Boiling ALL music down to harmony alone is grotesquely reductive and myopic, and, well, it could only lead to a conclusion as shallow and vacuous as that the only reaction you could have to, say, Cassandra's Dream Song by Ferneyhough is "It's atonal". I know this is going to be rude, but, if you think this music leaves your brain no means to interpret it, that says more about your brain than about the music. Edit: I know this reply was aggressive, but, to be frank, I really hate the fact that you ignored THE WHOLE ARGUMENT I MADE and jumped into something entirely different. I find that profoundly insulting.
I find Adorno both great and petty, wonderful and infuriating. His hostility to Stravinsky feels ridiculous. Even Schoenberg - who was not a fan of Stravinsky - felt Adorno’s attacks went way too far. It feels to me that Adorno couldn’t deal with a great composer whose approach was so radically at odds with the ideals of the Austro-German musical tradition. Adorno came to the early Darmstadt summer schools to lecture. Apparently the young Stockhausen took a dislike to Adorno, because he felt the old man was trying to prescribe the musical direction the young composers should take. In one lecture, Stockhausen got up and told Adorno he was “trying to find a chicken in an abstract painting.”
When I prepared for an article about Stravinsky a few years ago, I found Adorno's text from "Philosophie der Neuen Musik" the most interesting, despite his negative angle. I think he was one of the greatest music critics of the 20. century. And I would even go further and say that his very distict esthetic positions are essential for his significance. That classical music has become so irrelevant today is mainly because liberal culture is at odds with the culture of classical music. If everything is "ok", nothing can be exceptional.
There's a "debate" (it's a civil conversation) between Stockhausen and Adorno about this from some old german radio programme here on youtube. No subtitles though iirc.
As Italian composer Luciano Berio has put it, Adorno had failed to consider a compromise, a 'third way' to be developed in western music: for instance, the works of Béla Bartók. (For further reading I recommend Two Interviews with Rossana Dalmonte and Bálint András Varga, New York - London, Boyars 1985). Adorno's ideas about Schoenberg's musical «sacrifice» as a virtuous means of creation as opposed to the petty, market-oriented Stravinsky didn't consider a variety of elements. Such as the importance of the Russian popular folklore, or the musical 'bluff' as a way of expressing freedom. It is no chance that Berio was heavily influenced by both the Second Viennese School and Stravinsky, choosing the 'third way' himself ;)
Really enjoyed your thoughts on these very interesting questions. I’m a bit of a minimalist, so nothing more to add, except that I love your Piano Piece No. 2.
"The emancipation of the dissonance" rolls around in my head at all times. It is why I have come to view all the chromatic tones we have in WEMS as one giant chord and any one note at anytime is can be a leading tone. The "sciencing of the arts" has been an issue that all art has wrestled with, and the Vulcanization (Star Trek) leads to "emancipation of emotion" from the arts.
If I understand correctly I think a question similar to the one about Beethoven is addressed in Borges' famous (it's got its own Wikipedia page) short story _Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote_ In the story a modern author, Pierre Menard, immerses himself in the time of Cervantes with the aim of being able to write (not re-write) _Don Quixote_ word for word, and the claim is that, despite being identical word for word with the original, Menard's version is better because of, for instance, the imagination required to span the centuries since the original was written. I've probably butchered that in several ways but look it up. It's a great story, and only eight pages long :-)
The most interesting comment: Borges' story (and his work) deals so much with modes of reading (i.e. a "sacred" text is not sacred because of the writing but rather because it is read with reverence and awe). So, to take your analogy further, our current modes of listening may not be (I generalize);very conducive to any kind of classical music as compared say, with earlier eras in Western history. Technology has made everything available like never before, but this can also dull or dampen artistic sensibility (through saturation). To really appreciate Schonberg, Berg...or Borges or Emerson or Cervantes requires a lot of time and attention which seem just the things our devices, with their multiplicity of attractions, are not made for: if you had only 10 books instead of 10,000 in your device, chances are your mind would be less restless. Same holds for the great classical masterpieces: who is going to spend an hour or two with Bruckner or Mahler. This whole tradition is the result of much free time aimed at heart: not only the creators, but the enjoyers as well.
One aspect I really enjoy about your dialogues is your unedited responses to the questions. I could see you ponder the questions in real time, trying to wrap your head around them, and then very thoughtfully reply to them with your specific reasoning………without a slew of “likes” interspersed throughout! (Gosh, those “likes” drive me crazy.) Your delivery reminds me very much of “What’s My Line`s” John Charles Daly.
"How many of the composers who have won the pulitzer prize do we remember today?" I went to a performance today of a Jacob Druckman work and was simultaneously shocked by the quality of the work and saddened by the fact that virtually no one outside of this one institution (Rice University) performs his music anymore.
Kendrick Lamar seems to be doing well since winning the Pulitzer...it's strange to me that they haven't given the Pulitzer to any other popular musicians since then.
Let’s not forget that the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to a lot of composers for music that, frankly, was second-rate. An awful lot of music has been written since, say, 1910 by extraordinarily talented people, but most of it is a waste of time. A tiny portion of it is pretty damn good, but a tiny portion of even that will be remembered/played/heard 25 or so years from now. Great composers don’t need doctorates, great music doesn’t need prizes; nevertheless, there is a disconnect between the music and the listener; much of this music is an acquired taste - it’s not for everyone. Let’s accept that and move on. Atonality isn’t the problem; it’s what’s actually being said - the manner in which the notes are being presented - too much music has been, is being written by people who have nothing to say.
@@eai554 A big problem with the Pulitzer is that winners tend to get a single recording by a mediocre American pickup orchestra, often with little rehearsal time. This doesn’t exactly inspire wide enthusiasm about the work so that it gets performed again. I’d love to see some European new-music ensembles revisit and record some American Pulitzer winners like Reynolds’ "Whispers Out of Time".
8:15 I think we are all ideological, and should accept it in order to mitigate it. I feel that the Western focus on individual self-expression leads people to deny their hidden ideologies. I suspect that musicians from less individualistic cultures (e.g. Indians) may have an easier time admitting their ideologies. For example, Carnatic musicians believe that the twelve notes are a gift from the divine, so they use all of them. They believe that rhythm is omnipresent, and not inherently metrical, thus lending the music a certain pacing. Their relationship to the past is distinct from the Western classical view. Each tradition carries with it a constellation of ideas (i.e. ideology) that is like the proverbial water that the fish swims in.
Yes, thank you @alexyuwen ! This "rejection of ideology per se." was the only thing I disagreed with in the video. Nothing is free of ideology. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is a piece of propaganda for the Medici family and the Vatican. You can talk about humanism and "the eye is led" and whatnot, but the point of the work was to celebrate the power elites. That is still the case, the elites have changed. Many of Mozart's most celebrated works are (most correctly) propaganda for Viennese aristocrats. Arguably Bach was great(est) because his ideology was driven by technology (organ maintenance and excellence) as much by the tastes of the ruling class. I strongly recommend attending to Michael Levin (a biologist and systems thinker) who points out that "memory" (or in the cultural sense "posterity") does not commit the perfect message over time. Instead, it commits *the perfect instructions* for that memory to be *unpacked* in a way that is valuable. This is relevant for the topic of accurate (and continued) transcription of compositions, which is mentioned at the start of this video.
I notice in the questions, and also in your answers in this particular video, that the underlying issue of making music because one has something to say, a story to tell, does not seem to get much attention. The modern composer has a vast array of tools that he or she can use---the means that are used to achieve the goal of doing the best job one can of telling the story. If there is no real story there, the music will not be very compelling. If there is a real story there, the artist will tend to gravitate by instinct, as well as by education, to employment of those tools that will best tell the story. Somewhere out there in the vast world is at least one person who will listen to that story with appreciation. To that person, the composer, who may be forever unknown to the world at large, will have become a valued friend.
Hello Samuel Andreyev! Could you please do an analysis for the music of Thomas Adès? I really like his composition "Dawn Chacony for orchestra at any distance", but also many other compositions of his. Have a wonderful day!
I participated in a score competition this year, and since my interest sparked, I checked what the winners music was like in this and other composing competitions. Boy, everything sounds the same, like some kind of amalgamation somwhere between Lachenmenn and Ferneyhough. There are other people, who better described the "competition style". It feels like, the institutions are so cramped up in NEW music, that they only accept stuff that sounds like 1 or 2 generations' before now new music, but in combination. Not sure what's going on here. I imagine some kind of old people checking boxes on modernism signaling in the score. Not sure where I'm going with this... To complete this post: Yes I was rejected in the first phase in the competition. And as far as I'm intending right now I won't participated ever again in one.
The question about atonality is poorly framed. I think it was hinting really at the idea that classical music was ruined by atonality. In a more specific context the works of the 2nd Vienna school and the Darmstadt school of the following generation came to take up significant space in the world of classical music...particularly in the academy; but certainly not to the average person on the street. There was a certain amount of dogmatism that became associated with this school of composition and it did assert significant control. My musical friends abroad assert the avant garde still has a strong hold in Europe moreso than in America where a more eclectic range of styles is allowed to thrive, including neotonality.
Hi, i was wondering 🤔 How do you think a composer should dress ? forenstance i got a piano tie recently. What do you and you all think 🤔 thanks for reading and await your replies
I like the idea of a programme note for Pérotin. But written for the people of his day. Quite a challenge. 'Hey, you might not like it but I'm sure God loves it!'
The DEFINING feature of Western Classical music is "The Score". The stylistic developments have always been intrinsically linked to the ideas and forms that naturally develop from the architectural framework it creates. This also means that composers could meticulously "craft" pieces of music that didn't depend upon aural memory alone. Polyphonic planning, motivic development, complex harmonies - these all developed because of this. Rhythmic complexity was one of the things that took longest to develop. It's harder to notate! Plus Classical music is not driven by a percussion backbone like most folk music is. Classical music can be almost anything, it's limitless - but the "centre" of it is "The Score". It becomes more clear when we compare it with other musical traditions and the ways they have developed. Progressive Rock and Jazz for example both have a degree of complexity to them but the parameters which they develop most are the ones that can be communicated aurally - and don't require the architectural tapestry of the Classical Score. Rhythmic complexity, ornamental complexity - spontaneity and "jam-like" music - they are all metrics of complexity that can be developed without the Score - but the "Classical approach" is defined by the harmonic and contrapuntal tapestry and also the carefully "planned" form.
@@samuel_andreyev Yes Western Classical has a greater capacity to be architecturally advanced and also much more "exact". Leonard Bernstein talked about "alternative names" for Classical Music and I think "Exact" was one he mentioned... it makes sense because Prog Rock and Jazz often work with "loose outlines" that can be filled in with spontaneous ornamental details but Classical Music is much more exact and leaves less room for improvisation. Having said that - some Renaissance and Baroque era music sounds a bit bare without some degree of added improvisatory ornamentation so the "loose outline" concept actually crosses over with Western Classical music - up until a certain point where the architectural and polyphonic "exactitude" really demands much stricter following of every single note of a piece. Nothing is "left to chance" - apart from interpretation of course!
Very interesting questions and answers! Regarding Beethoven vs John Doe, good to establish how unrealistic the scenario really is. You cannot take Beethoven out of his historical context. But the question is still valid as a thought experiment. I think of the famous adagio by Giazotto that was initially attributed to Albinoni. What would the reception have been if not attributed to Albinoni? (Although, to my ears the music is clearly neo-Baroque and as such not convincing as a copy of the past.) If timeless music is music with qualities that transcends time, it doesn't mean that the historical context is irrelevant. In that sense I don't think there is any contradiction in some music being both timeless and outdated.
Beethoven’s string quartet #6 in Bb Major is- effectively- a long-form pastiche of an earlier era, but that earlier era was 20 years prior to its composition, not 200 years prior. Perhaps the thought experiment should be that some composer discovers a manuscript for an unknown, unpublished 19th Century symphony in an attic and slaps his own name on it, since no one seems to be able to write a Beethoven symphony except Beethoven.
@@DeflatingAtheism Agreed, that would be a more realistic version of roughly the same question. It isn't hard to imagine people being convinced it's a new work even though of course they should be skeptical.
Many thanks for addressing my question. I agree with your response, and I must admit that my hypothetical about Beethoven’s music was too fantastical to be answerable, and wasn’t a necessary example!
@@samuel_andreyev I kind of think you missed the question a bit. First, what might contemporary music be like without the influence of Beethoven? That's a big question, which is a large influence on the second. How would Beethoven stand out today, writing as he wrote? We would not know the name of Beethoven. Many film scores, even cartoons, make extensive use of orchestral music. Hildur Guðnadóttir wrote the score for _Joker_ and based on what I've heard of her earlier personal music, I would never have thought any of that would result in that soundtrack. Philip Glass drove a taxi for years. Beethoven wasn't an overnight success in his own time; he worked at it. Today he would be hustling just like every other composer, and he would be writing what he felt he needed to write.
An interesting counterpoint to Beethoven though is, if we are not the same to compose it... Then... Are we the same to listen to it? How could we? Wouldn't it be BETTER to recompose it? Why does the weight of music history really have to put itself on top of us? Tbh I disagree with the notion that we can't, just think that the people that could are mostly focused on doing other things... And I think that it could be equally genius, in theory, but no, no one would care... Beethoven is way more than it's music, specially for casual listeners, because they don't really understand the details and dynamics of the works, they don't know what composing really is... But to finalize, in my opinion, yes, we should learn music history and technique just the same... But music, no, it shouldn't put it's weight on us so much, I truly defend "new music at all costs"... I'd rather have music get worse but be more alive... The knowledge of Beethoven and others has to be there, of course, but we should avoid playing the same works over and over again, specially in this rich comtemporary world of audio recording. In my dream classical education world, at least 1 in 4 should be first time performances (I know it seems absolutely radical, but think about the pros and cons of it, and how other styles do achieve that somewhat)
11:43 ...kind of explains why I never learned to enjoy contemporary art, even though art teachers tried to hammer it into my brain through years of high school and college. I always feel like the message is sort of parallel or even superior to the art and you have to decode it because the art doesn't appeal to your senses as it's more of a riddle. Not all pieces though, but I feel confident in saying it's the absolute majority, 95%+ of all contemporary art exhibitions. I just like to be affected by art without having to 'think' my way through it.
Very stimulating Q&A, thanks for the video. I am very curious about your decision to mention Reimann and not Helmut Lachenmann. We probably agree on the fact that there's a great probability that the latter will be mentioned for decades, while the first is, even today, very little known (not to mention their respective impact on the contemporary music) . Could you elaborate a bit on the criteria behind that decision? Thanks!
I love Lachenmann’s music. But he is still alive and writing, whereas Rihm and Riemann are recently deceased. That is why I mentioned them, and not him.
In regard to the "timelessness" of any style, that simply means that the style appeals to listeners across history, not that it's independent of the time and culture in which it was produced.
I don’t think people typically talk of styles as being timeless, but rather pieces of music that are timeless despite being historically situated in style. Ironically, much like Harold Bloom’s assertion that Shakespeare’s characters are universal because of- not despite- their individuality, a piece of music can be so completely _of_ its time and place that it achieves its own timelessness.
If Beethoven hadn’t existed, someone today could not write in the style of Beethoven. The history of music would be different. It’s like a sci fi movie hypothetical. Beethoven was discovering new territory on the frontier of music in his time.
I would like to respond to the Schoenberg question. I think you gave a very model answer, but fail to respond to the legitimate gut feeling that many people who studied classical music, or music lover in general has. No matter how you look at it, compare to his peers like Hindemith, Debussy and even Stravinsky, it was a great departure from the sonic experience many have built up when studying Classical Music, which in reality, is still very hegemonic in Western Music education system. The later three may change the syntax of harmony, but the materials are still somewhat connected to tradition, in addition to the clear distinguishable rhythm, that the early second Viennese school vow to destroy. Also, even though there is popular music genres may not share the same rule and aesthetic of Western Classical Music, they mostly do share the common harmonic language of major-minor (sometimes modal) key system, and the rhythm is still mostly in tact which strengthen and reaffirms our connection to tonality. That's why, Schoenberg’s music is particularly foreign and disconnected to our daily experience of what it is perceived and assessed to be "music". You may say, not many people knows Schoenberg, but he is almost always a central figure when Music is taught in public school, which from my experience in Hong Kong, is mainly focused on Classical Music. Certainly, the periodisation framework used in teaching Western Classical Music history, and the way music from 20th century is presented imo, did a great disservice towards 20th music in general by labelling and stigmatising it as the degeneration and breakdown of the stream of tradition that was built from Gregorian Chant, all the way through the 19th century. I can understand that you may view this question very logically and rationally as a scholar or artist familiar with the tradition, but for many, whether casual music lover or music students who are not as historically informed, I do feel there is a grain of truth in this question, or at least some legitimacy towards the gut feeling the question is trying to express.
Even Hindemith's fans are apt to complain that the massive reputation he enjoyed during his lifetime and his technical innovations, have seen a massive decline in interest in recent decades, a few works aside. Schoenberg, on the other hand, remains controversial but still gets lots of passionate advocacy. The gulf between the two composers isn’t as wide as you’re suggesting.
Do you know what I find fascinating about that question about "saving art", and how any random person can (supposedly) recognise the genius of Mozart? Is that the person is using an "argumentum ad populum" to claim that one type of music is brilliant, but the same profile of people will use the exact same argument to DISCREDIT certain types of music! You see that all the time: the fact that a certain pop artist is very popular is taken as a sign that they're artistically irrelevant, while Jacob Collier is a genius because only the "select few" can recognise his brilliance. Those arguments are diametrically opposite, but they are both equally used to defend this idea that art needs to be "saved": everyone loves Mozart, and that proves he's genius, and everyone loves Lady Gaga, and that proves she sucks. Other than that, thank you giving a profound and honest answer to a question that, sadly, had that peculiar appeal to the ideas of "degenerate art", that came from those wacky Italians and Germans a century ago.
You said that the survival of Havergal Brian's work, which you don't like, was down to "luck". He just happens to have a society dedicated to him and amenable program directors and audiences. That, my friend, is not luck, but is something called popularity (in the relative terms that minor 20C composers may be said to enjoy popularity).
I prefer to say that rhythmic and dynamic pointillism "ruins" music more than atonality. When there's an underlying rhythm and dynamic for a certain period of time, sense of tension and release, regularity and irregularity can be attained in comparing to this underlying "gauge" even if the music is atonal. Pointillism throw these away altogether and what we hear (if we do not analyse the score) is just a huge cadenza. Pieces that sound totally rubato throughout that was created in a older day also sound very uninteresting. This is the reason I prefer Schoenberg to mature Webern
I agree, the abolition of an easily perceptible pulse or meter is a bigger barrier to public appreciation than the abolition of tonality, however defined (it should also be noted that ‘tonality’ folds rhythm into itself, as the function of a tonic is married to the function of a downbeat.) Schoenberg invoked the name of a Swedish mystic to claim that atonal music existed in a “Swedenborg space” where there is no absolute up or down, but many post-Darmstadt atonal composers have extended that to the rhythmic realm for music that may be expressive of a protracted mystic state, but will never capture- say- the villagers‘ dance. When I was looking at the score to the Tanzscene from Schoenberg’s Serenade, I was struck by how inventive and strongly rhythmically defined that clarinet solo is, which lends to its haunting quality- something that can never be captured by flurries and arabesques and constellations of notes.
Bottom line: there’s so much music available to hear and far too much music being written now - there simply aren’t enough performers/performance opportunities to play all of this music. Just not going to happen. Even in pre-20th century music, there’s so much music that isn’t performed very much. And, more to the point, there are classical music lovers who can’t stand to listen to, say, late Beethoven, late Schubert, Medieval music, and so on.
Compounding this problem, listeners now have a millennium’s worth of music at their fingertips, so there’s none of the demand for novelty that existed in Mozart’s day. Ironically, composers who lived a generation before Mozart are greater competition for contemporary composers than they were for Mozart!
The period of atonality was perfect for the time period. Music reflects the time period. Art is general is a reflection of what was considered “normal” at the time. Atonality came at time when the world really did feel like its was at wits end, and the “horrible” sounding music was able to emphasize and reflect the “horrible” and “primal” nature of humans, without any organization, constant chaos, and multiple ranges of emotions
Would a rhythmic object be analogous to word or phrase? Would the theme from "Mission Impossible" have started as a rhythmic idea independent of the "tune".
I stopped listening to classical music 20 years ago because of the excessively fast tempos and the performers' show-off attitudes. I just want to hear the music, not witness an athletic competition. I used to hate Mozart until I started listening to his music at half the modern tempo. Now I find it amazing!
I don't think the question at 34:37 should have been "how do you feel about being part of the Peterson Academy?", but, rather, "do you identify with the academy's mission statement and see yourself as part of the opposition to the 'onslaught of idiot ideological propaganda'"? I had no previous knowledge of Andreyev's involvement with this - somewhat surprised but also aware that everyone has a price.
He also participated to the "triggernometry" podcast, a ostensibly right wing podcast. All things considered I think there's little ambiguity. I am really disappointed tbh.
As far as writing is the style of Beethoven. You can emulate him but you must realize that Beethoven didn't have himself to emulate. His style was very original at that time. A good example of a modern composer emulating composers of the past would be John Williams (emulating Gustav Holst).
... the question about writing in Beethoven style was "if he had never existed...". So it's not about copying Beethoven, but about BEING Beethoven today. If Beethoven never had existed, then all of his followers wouldn't have existed either. So the musical landscape of today would be to some extent a different one, and Beethoven's music would be new music. Would he be recognized as bringing something new to the table, or would he be perceived as outdated? We can assume that even with that gap Beethoven would have left in the 19th century, by not existing, atonality would still have proceeded, and anyone composing in tonality today would be conscious about the possibility of atonality, microtonality etc.; so if they still decide for tonality, it is a different decision than it was 200 years ago. So the question is: would Beethoven today, being conscious of atonality, microtonality, etc. still compose the same music he actually composed 200 years ago? The answer is propably 'yes', because he couldn't do otherwise (and still be Beethoven) but if he did, he would do it for different reasons, and it would be perceived differently. I think that thought experiment exactly defines the purpose of performing Beethoven today: it should be performed as if it was contemporary music.
It's not really against Beethoven, but Beethoven's approach to form and composition permeates the study of classical music to an extent that is unhealthy, and unhelpful in understanding (and appreciating) other composers to the extent they deserve it. That doesn't mean that that kind of approach should be eliminated or shoved to the background, but we need new directions, and those can only be discovered if we are willing to break with tradition.
Leo Ornstein`s son, Severo, has been instrumental in keeping his father`s music alive. And he is no slouch himself as a pianist. You do need your advocates.
The question about what if Beethoven symphonies were written today by an unknown American, rather than by Beethoven, is interesting because it gets to the idea of quality. Is there some quality in those symphonies that transcends their origin and makes them "timeless"? I think there may be, but whether it would be generally recognized today if an unknown contemporary wrote it is a different question. I doubt that it would be recognized, or even paid attention to, except perhaps by a few, very independent-minded connoisseurs who recognize musical quality when it appears, even if it is anachronistic. Because of that, it might be better to pose the question as being about, say, the late sonatas and string quartets - the symphonies would never even get performed.
In short .. patronage; who pays for the work, what it was commissioned 'for', why the artist is considered adept at presenting it and the art apt sufficiently to enhance or encapsulate the purpose of the commission = where it is to be shown, how it is to be framed (yes, even in terms of music, with a hummable tune or stripped of it - for effect). Thus, a Latin Mass society wants to commission a new work to present - adequately and sublimely - the New Order of Mass, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (with some local vernacular), for a newly constructed basilica with typically (and recognisably) Catholic fabric, its Sacred Tradition, and and its ageless meaning (though within the strictures of the latest Vatican instruction). You go and have a look at the building (the framework) and its focus (the context) .. you do not find icons of Pachamama or Luce, the artwork is not in the Rupnik manner .. let alone that of red squiggles .. yet it is 'modern' (light, though colourful, minimalist, yet humanistic, resonant, but quiet; might you feel able to deliver .. something memorable, re-do-able, and with a capacity for some artistic licence in the performance (over the next hundred years) .. Here, should you consider it, you have to understand the shifting shades and lights of mood, for instance, it might be that the occasion is to commemorate the joy, sorrow and glory of Mary's Assumption or the grief, abandonment, and hope-against-hope of Good Friday's Stations of the Cross .. both offering scope for atonal shocks and tonal sentiments, the plainest plainchant and the merriest polyphony, with fugues or drum-solos, and, if appropriate, with nods to the Missa Luba and Missa de Angelis, to Palestrina, Allegri, Beethoven, Faure, Messiaen, Górecki .. but all set in the strictest of strict attention to the liturgical action - a Herculean task, I grant you, if not quite Mission Impossible territory, yet perhaps worthwhile (even in our swift-passing 'today') ....? ;o)
A short answer" Yes. Perhaps not "ruin" but certainly narrow its appeal to a tiny minority. We are pattern seekers, building stories and scenarios in all subjects. It's why tonal music is so powerful and has spread to cultures with other systems. A musical "surprise" - a leap, odd chord, key switch, etc - draws interest but an entire piece of unexpected, atonal randomness tires quickly. Perhaps Rachmaninoff and friends took tonality to its limits but as a pianist and symphony goer, I will say that atonal music has no more fans today than it did decades ago.
While I agree with the gist of not being able to pin down "Western classical music," I don't think it's *that* difficult to find the essence, especially in a Q&A that includes atonality "ruining" music. Western classical music is basically characterized by modal tonality produced by (roughly) 12-TET. There are clear key centers. This is opposed to non-Western music written in different scales like Indonesian gamelan, or Indian, or Chinese. To a lesser extent, at least in the "classical" tradition, compositions fell into a clear form, like sonata or fugue or passacaglia etc. The reason atonal compositions were so shocking was that it was such a clear break from the classical Western tradition.
Schoenberg still used ancient forms like sonata in his pieces, like Berg and webern. They always used 12 tet, and maybe yes they don't show clear modal or tonal center in their pieces, Wagner doesn't either in his late operas. By the way most people wouldn't say their are dramatic intellectual difference of music conception between wgner opera and r Strauss ones, but Strauss actually use tonal centers (at least in Elektra that i studied) to obtain an oepra that is in sonata form. Do people realise how much oppisitie it is to wagner's durchkomponiert ?
I think atonality is often confused with dissonance. I don't think atonality is very noticable, you can for instance start a piece in C major and end it in F sharp major, and not many people will perceive this as intolerable. I think the main issue listeners have is with dissonance. But I compare it a bit with a spice in a dish, some like a lot of pepper, other don't, reason unknown, and the same goes for our musical perception I think. And not only in classical music: why do some people enjoy heavy metal or dubstep and others only Simon and Garfunkel?
Polyphony might be the thing that holds Western classical music tradition together? What on Earth? So when Mozart, for instance, writes in a melody plus accompaniment type of texture he's not taking part in the Western classical tradition because he's not, at that moment, preoccupied with polyphony? Seems like a pretty absurd thing to think of, to me at least. Yes, polyphony was crucial to the start of the common practice era, and even to renaissance music, but since the classical period it has just been one possible texture among several others. So, polyphony's central importance has only been the case for less than a half of the Western classical music timeline.
maybe not atonality but imo total serialism gave birth to non-intuitive representations of atonality. When I listen to music I don’t try to find the relations between onset times of notes and the pitches. Or even multiplying PCs because it is analogous to FM Synthesis?? These concepts are not applicable to music in that way. They sort of worked in the pieces because composers repetitively applied the same rules in their pieces. Not because of some wrong interpretation of the science behind FM Synthesis. Thankfully spectralism brought a better understanding of time and pitch, but also integrated the ideas from atonality within itself
I don't think what you say around 15:00 is quite right. The questioner gave an extreme example: an early 21st c. average guy writing Beethoven. Less extreme examples affirm the force and relevance of the question. People really thought Kreisler was arranging Baroque masters.
Composer/non-performers are a later 19c innovation. Before then, composers also conducted or played in the church, or in salons, etc. Schumann and Mendelssohn played. Brahms played. Wagner and Berlioz were conductors, as was Mahler. Schoenberg, not so much. Berg, not at all.
There is nothing inherent in any art form that confers guaranteed immortality or universality (like religions): they survive as long as they continue to speak to any individual or (small or big) group. How much has been canonized and how much more (and loads of good stuff too) has merely fallen into oblivion? Atonality sprang from a culture whose assumptions, ars poetica and discipline most, even people versed in classical music, can only access over time (if it was for the few back then, then even fewer today). Listener response (like the commentator below who mentions writer JL Borges) is like reader response...and there have been and will always be niches: today technology through saturation and immediate availability of everything has changed our sensibility and things requiring protracted effort and singleminded concentration (say reading Proust or listening to Berg) are really far on the periphery of reading or musical tastes.
You completely missed the point with that question about atonality possibly having "ruined music". Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are not widely listened to precisely because their music is unpalatable to most people? How could they possibly be popular if, according to the person who asked this, they may have ruined music? Your reasoning makes no sense. And yet, their influence on the Western classical music tradition is completely disproportionate, their legacy still playing, to this day, a central role in the way composers write and in said tradition's self-conception.
"Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are not widely listened to precisely because their music is unpalatable to most people?" Why is it that people with opinions like yours tend to have such a patronising, insulting way of saying things? "Has it ever crossed his mind"? No, I'm sure he NEVER, EVER thought of that in his life! Like, a professional musician, who *lives* in the circles of professional music and interacts with artists, academics, promoters, etc., all the time, has NEVER, EVER heard of that hypothesis even once in his life!No: it was you, the supreme genius of mankind, who personally came down to this channel like Prometheus carrying the flame of the gods, to bring this gold nugget of a question for the first time. I mean, of course Alban Berg is utterly unpalatable to most people! His violin concerto has never, ever been performed, because no one likes it. "How could they possibly be popular if, according to the person who asked this, they may have ruined music?" Maybe because the person who asked that is a dumbass, who has completely misguided assumptions about Samuel Andreyev's beliefs and made a loaded question because they want validation, and not because of a bona fide desire to learn something?
@@FernieCanto I enjoy a good old intellectual skirmish, even if it is so démodé nowadays. Being assertive and slightly aggressive makes things more fun, in my estimation. Of course, I am willing to accept an equally antagonistic response by Samuel Andreyev, if he wishes to do so. Those are the rules of the game. Also, you do not know my opinions on this topic. In fact, I am a big fan of Berg and Webern, and I respect Schoenberg a lot. The issue is way bigger than my personal taste though, and Samuel Andreyev just decided to nonchalantly jump over it, which I personally found quite annoying. This is a serious topic; this musical tradition is dashing towards total irrelevance, and it is obvious to most people that the origin of such a trend is atonality in general and Schoenberg in particular. This is the single most important thing we should be discussing right now. Also, you called someone a dumbass; that is way worse than asking "has it ever crossed your mind?", for me at least.
@@bazingacurta2567 I don't know which musical tradition exactly you think is fading into irrelevance. Would that be classical music in general? Because, if that's the case, the atonality is the least of our problems. It's not like atonalism has removed Beethoven from everyone's radar. On the contrary: we're living in an era where you can listen to classical music and watch videos of concerts anywhere, anytime, in your cellphone. If classical music is becoming irrelevant, well, maybe it's because that's how history goes? Skiffle has faded into irrelevance, and it's not because of the rise of atonal skiffle. I give more credence to Samuel's opinion that the biggest hurdle for classical music is the pulverisation of styles and "musical languages". Everything has become a niche, so how is it even possible to have a "traditional" in such circumstances? Now, is that necessarily bad? I'm not sure, honestly. Also, yes, I called someone a dumbass, and I'll do it again: the person is a dumbass. Yes, it's a direct, gratuitous insult, but asking a loaded question and putting words on someone else's mouth is way more dishonest.
No. That makes utterly no sense. Atonalism is more like sex: it can make life more appealing and pleasant, but if you only ever had sex, well, SIGN ME UP!!
The analogy doesn't work. Atonlity isn't just a garnish that can add little flavour, but a whole expressive language in its own right. It's an entirely different (and complete) cuisine. And nobody will die by listening to atonal music.
I found several of these responses to be obtuse. Like the guy can't just name a song or two from his body of work that he particularly likes? He has to spend a minute explaining why he finds the premise problematic, before granting he finds some of his compositions "more musically convincing than others," but then doesn't even deign to name one of the "more musically convincing" ones? That is grating stuff.
Master, it would be interesting to try to see how a horde of young composers try to copy the epic of film music, where anything goes, and above all continue to believe themselves to be free creators, free?
Regarding "atonal" or not… Should we stop speaking of night and day because our experience of them becomes blurry twice everyday? Should we stop calling dachshund, pitbull, boxer… "dogs" because of how different their phenotype is, and stop considering they share a fundamental difference with wolves?
Night and day are natural phenomenons. Taxonomy is a science. Music is a social construct. So no to both questions, because the definitions of musical characteristics can change while earth’s rotation and the scientific method stay the same. And yes, the concept of tonality is subjective while the physical world and science is not.
One of the first video's on UA-cam with Andreyev was his interview with Peterson many years ago. They have a lot in common. Both are opponents of the woke agenda in higher education. Andreyev advocates for a curriculum based on merit instead of identity.
@@DmitriBron1973 I also oppose the woke agenda, but the idea of meritocracy is even more ridiculous than the idea of political identity. Only a child thinks "merit" means anything real whatsoever.
I wonder how many famous composers of the past would be aligned with the woke movement in music today. I fear that they would all be canceled on the spot ;-) Even Eisler and Weil (Israel).... Nevermind Boulez and Stockhausen... they were the most authoritarian patriarchs of the lot. Stockhausen even had his own harem ;-) So even the most left wing composers of the past would be considered toxic by today's standards.
@DeflatingAtheism True. I remember also that the home of Boulez was searched by the police after 9-11 for his 1970ies article in which he said that all opera houses should be blown up. I disagreed. They were just using hyperboles. But some commenters here seem ready to cancel Andreyev if he will not denounce Peterson for his refusal to be forced into newspeak.
No, it was not atonality that ruined music - DOGMATISM has brought music to the brink of ruin! Tonality and atonality are like concrete art and abstract art. Atonality has its right to exist, just like tonality, but atonal sectarianism does not.
I love jordan peterson, a guy who singlehandedly defeated antihumanistic ideologies like feminism, communism and postmoderism. One of the most relevant thinkers today.
I don't think Dr. Peterson understands feminism, for just one example, if he considers it antihumanistic. More to the point, one can't singlehandedly defeat an ideology, unless there are no longer believers in that ideology.
It’s funny for me to think of the person on the street preferring Mozart to Schoenberg. I am something of a latecomer to classical music, having spent most of my youth (and still today) listening to jazz and world music and punk rock. One of the first classical composers I really got into was Stravinsky, because he appealed to those jazz/world/punk sensibilities. It actually took me much longer to appreciate Mozart because I initially found him unbearably dull until I really started studying classical form. When you think about the styles of music that are popular today, the average music fan on the street has more tolerance of dissonance and chaotic timbres than you might think.
I have a very similar experiece as you.
And still have a difficult time appreciating Mozart.
Most of Mozart's music is childish and naive. Just the last works (the last piano concertos, symphonies, requiem) are the great ones for me.
I can see the your point. However for me the problem with Schönberg is not the dissonance, but a lack of connection between the notes (this is of course subjective). i agree, that mozart can sometimes sound a bit dull and i prefer classical music from the early 20th century. But i cant get myself to enjoy 12 tone music.
@@jasperjunghans6529 I agree, and maybe Stravinsky was a bad example. For all his intensity, he is still often quite tuneful. Frankly, I still struggle with Schoenberg’s 12 tone work, although I adore Gurrelieder and Pelleas und Melisandre. My point was more that it is silly to assume a random modern will appreciate Mozart when you consider how much dissonance there is in styles like rock and hip hop.
I'm not quite the same as you in that regard, but I can confidently speak that it's wrong to assume that any random person will recognise the genius of Mozart, and that's because I know a counterexample: MYSELF. I don't recognise the genius of Mozart, not because I deny it, but because I *don't know* what makes him a "genius". I mean, I love most of his music and it will always be a delight to watch his music performed, but... why it's "genius"? I have no goddamn clue. I think Björk is a genius, but that's just what *I* think. If you don't see her genius, well, it's alright.
So, no, not everyone will immediately recognise the genius of Mozart.
It's not atonality per se what ruined a great part of the 20th century repertoire. The emancipation of atonality was unavoidable and necessary.
It was the worshiping of atonality, of the dissonance in general which made any composer who thought and created in some sort of gravitational tonal system an outlier at best.
Worse yet, in our insane cult of absolute originality, whenever a new musical structure appeared, it became the trademark of the one who invented it and thus "go wild" became the order of the day. For heaven's sake, Mozart's first symphonies are barely distinguishable from those of Haydn (I'm talking about the average, knowledgeable listener, not in depth score analysis and paternity tests), yet we expect brand new, beginner composers to find their own original voices immediately. This is insane!
We don't need to go back to tonality, at least not in the sense in which the term is generally understood: the tonal-functional loose framework which in spite of it's constant changes defined music for three centuries.
We need to go back however to a way to create expectations.
This is the composer's main game: we create an expectation in the listener and then we have choices, many choices, from total fulfillment to radical surprises of many different kinds.
An enormous part of the output of the 20th century however consists of pieces in which unpredictable is followed by unpredictable and so on ad nauseam.
But if every subsequent note, chord, rhythm is a surprise, then nothing is a surprise, because surprise can only happen when there is an expectation.
That sort of music robs the human brain of it's capacity to receive sounds in an almost grammar-like framework.
It's a flow of sounds in which the only organizing principle which could and should distinguish it from noise is the composer's whim, and that's not nearly enough!
I think total serialism - where not just pitch but duration, dynamics, timbre, spatialisation etc are all evenly distributed via the series - was a dead end. I don’t criticise those composers who went there and did it. But most of them realised it actually flattened everything, and sought ways to move beyond its strictures.
It intrigues me how some composers find a direction, maybe write some amazing music that way, but then decide they can’t go any further, so change course. Meanwhile other composers find some apparently self-limiting approach, but keep discovering new things to do with it. Penderecki wrote some amazing Sonorist masterpieces such as the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima in the 1950s and 60s. But by the end of the 60s, he came to feel that he was simply stringing a series of startling sound effect together, and he wanted to write music with more of a conventional feeling of form than that, so reintroduced conventional gestures, tonality, text-setting etc. On the other hand, Arvo Pärt has stayed loyal to his tintinnabulation technique, which he first used back in 1976. He gives no impression of wanting to move beyond it.
"An enormous part of the output of the 20th century however consists of pieces in which unpredictable is followed by unpredictable and so on ad nauseam.
But if every subsequent note, chord, rhythm is a surprise, then nothing is a surprise, because surprise can only happen when there is an expectation."
I fail to see why that is an invalid artistic choice or aesthetic experience. I mean, I can think of quite a couple situations where my own expectations were detrimental to my enjoyment or understanding of a piece, because it pulled mw away from what the work was actually saying.
Also, aren't expectations just an attempt to impose our own whims upon the work of art, and to create an _a priori_ filter for what would make the music good? You could argue, no, because subversion of expectations and surprises can be good... but that still falls on the same trap, because whether something is a subversion or a surprise is STILL based on your expectations, and whether those surprises are "good" or "bad" are determined, in part, by what those expectations mean to you. There are expectations that you "allow" to be broken, and others that you don't.
And how does that work when you're admiring a work you're already familiar with? If you're listening to a song you know by heart, it's satisfying, well, EVERY SINGLE expectation you have. There are no surprises anymore. Is that good? Or do you still cling on to the fact that, at some point in the past, the song broke your expectations in a positive way? So, in that case, you're not enjoying the song, but the meaning you imposed on it based on your affective memory.
As for me as an artist, how can I even be sure that I am "creating expectations" on the audience? How can I even control that? How do I get around, say, a listener's decision, whether conscious or unconscious, to *NOT* have any expectations? Myself, the older I get, the more I try to get rid of any expectations, so the piece speaks to me on its own terms, not mine. It's not easy, and I don't think it's possible in 100% of cases, but I try. So, is the artist supposed to get around that? Are they supposed to trick me into having an expectation? How does that even work??
@@FernieCanto You make a valid point when it comes to pieces that we listen to many times. But the thing is, if we eliminate every ounce of rhetorical structure and means by writing subsequent sounds which don't integrate in a structure which leads us somewhere (or appears to do so), we leave the brain without any means to interpret it. My experience is that most of atonal music doesn't give the listener the chance to go any deeper than the simple "it's atonal". All those techniques that they came up with are fascinating and interesting indeed, but on one hand, being interesting is not the primary role of music (or any art indeed), on the other hand, those techniques can be enjoyed exclusively by professionals and only visually by looking into the score. Audition doesn't reveal them in 99% of the cases. Thus the result is an endemic professional, intellectual pleasure, a music which gave up on the very idea of having a broader audience.
I strongly agree. Thank you for saying that!
I might add that this lack of musical language in which expectations can be set up and played upon by the composer has allowed a lot of poorer composers to receive more attention and get more mileage out of their careers than their talent alone would have made possible and this is a problem for everyone in the end, the listeners and the composers.
@ercsey-ravaszferenc6747 I think all I can say is that my experiences with atonal music are diametrically and aggressively opposite to yours. Maybe because I understand that "atonal" is a characteristic of ONLY ONE parameter of music: harmony. But, you know, there are others. There's rhythm, form, timbre, dynamics, instrumentation. Boiling ALL music down to harmony alone is grotesquely reductive and myopic, and, well, it could only lead to a conclusion as shallow and vacuous as that the only reaction you could have to, say, Cassandra's Dream Song by Ferneyhough is "It's atonal".
I know this is going to be rude, but, if you think this music leaves your brain no means to interpret it, that says more about your brain than about the music.
Edit: I know this reply was aggressive, but, to be frank, I really hate the fact that you ignored THE WHOLE ARGUMENT I MADE and jumped into something entirely different. I find that profoundly insulting.
Thanks for taking the time to teach, I hope it doesn't distract too much from composition.
On the contrary, it’s very stimulating.
I had no idea you did a Triggernometry interview. This revelation has made my week.
It's good to have you back! I look forward to your next music analyses.
I find Adorno both great and petty, wonderful and infuriating. His hostility to Stravinsky feels ridiculous. Even Schoenberg - who was not a fan of Stravinsky - felt Adorno’s attacks went way too far. It feels to me that Adorno couldn’t deal with a great composer whose approach was so radically at odds with the ideals of the Austro-German musical tradition.
Adorno came to the early Darmstadt summer schools to lecture. Apparently the young Stockhausen took a dislike to Adorno, because he felt the old man was trying to prescribe the musical direction the young composers should take. In one lecture, Stockhausen got up and told Adorno he was “trying to find a chicken in an abstract painting.”
🎯
Bravo, Stockhausen!
When I prepared for an article about Stravinsky a few years ago, I found Adorno's text from "Philosophie der Neuen Musik" the most interesting, despite his negative angle. I think he was one of the greatest music critics of the 20. century.
And I would even go further and say that his very distict esthetic positions are essential for his significance.
That classical music has become so irrelevant today is mainly because liberal culture is at odds with the culture of classical music. If everything is "ok", nothing can be exceptional.
There's a "debate" (it's a civil conversation) between Stockhausen and Adorno about this from some old german radio programme here on youtube. No subtitles though iirc.
As Italian composer Luciano Berio has put it, Adorno had failed to consider a compromise, a 'third way' to be developed in western music: for instance, the works of Béla Bartók. (For further reading I recommend Two Interviews with Rossana Dalmonte and Bálint András Varga, New York - London, Boyars 1985). Adorno's ideas about Schoenberg's musical «sacrifice» as a virtuous means of creation as opposed to the petty, market-oriented Stravinsky didn't consider a variety of elements. Such as the importance of the Russian popular folklore, or the musical 'bluff' as a way of expressing freedom. It is no chance that Berio was heavily influenced by both the Second Viennese School and Stravinsky, choosing the 'third way' himself ;)
Really enjoyed your thoughts on these very interesting questions. I’m a bit of a minimalist, so nothing more to add, except that I love your Piano Piece No. 2.
"The emancipation of the dissonance" rolls around in my head at all times. It is why I have come to view all the chromatic tones we have in WEMS as one giant chord and any one note at anytime is can be a leading tone. The "sciencing of the arts" has been an issue that all art has wrestled with, and the Vulcanization (Star Trek) leads to "emancipation of emotion" from the arts.
Samuel Andreyev never met a question he didn't want to take issue with the premise of.
Darling, Samuel Andreyev has just posted a 47 minute video!
If I understand correctly I think a question similar to the one about Beethoven is addressed in Borges' famous (it's got its own Wikipedia page) short story _Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote_ In the story a modern author, Pierre Menard, immerses himself in the time of Cervantes with the aim of being able to write (not re-write) _Don Quixote_ word for word, and the claim is that, despite being identical word for word with the original, Menard's version is better because of, for instance, the imagination required to span the centuries since the original was written. I've probably butchered that in several ways but look it up. It's a great story, and only eight pages long :-)
The most interesting comment: Borges' story (and his work) deals so much with modes of reading (i.e. a "sacred" text is not sacred because of the writing but rather because it is read with reverence and awe). So, to take your analogy further, our current modes of listening may not be (I generalize);very conducive to any kind of classical music as compared say, with earlier eras in Western history. Technology has made everything available like never before, but this can also dull or dampen artistic sensibility (through saturation). To really appreciate Schonberg, Berg...or Borges or Emerson or Cervantes requires a lot of time and attention which seem just the things our devices, with their multiplicity of attractions, are not made for: if you had only 10 books instead of 10,000 in your device, chances are your mind would be less restless. Same holds for the great classical masterpieces: who is going to spend an hour or two with Bruckner or Mahler. This whole tradition is the result of much free time aimed at heart: not only the creators, but the enjoyers as well.
One aspect I really enjoy about your dialogues is your unedited responses to the questions. I could see you ponder the questions in real time, trying to wrap your head around them, and then very thoughtfully reply to them with your specific reasoning………without a slew of “likes” interspersed throughout! (Gosh, those “likes” drive me crazy.) Your delivery reminds me very much of “What’s My Line`s” John Charles Daly.
Well, generally I don’t know what I’m going to say beforehand, so I’m trying my best to think things through. And no doubt I’m often wrong.
"How many of the composers who have won the pulitzer prize do we remember today?"
I went to a performance today of a Jacob Druckman work and was simultaneously shocked by the quality of the work and saddened by the fact that virtually no one outside of this one institution (Rice University) performs his music anymore.
Thank you for reminding me of Jacob Druckman, whose music I haven't listened to for some time. I listened to his work "Prism" on UA-cam, which I love.
Kendrick Lamar seems to be doing well since winning the Pulitzer...it's strange to me that they haven't given the Pulitzer to any other popular musicians since then.
Let’s not forget that the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to a lot of composers for music that, frankly, was second-rate. An awful lot of music has been written since, say, 1910 by extraordinarily talented people, but most of it is a waste of time. A tiny portion of it is pretty damn good, but a tiny portion of even that will be remembered/played/heard 25 or so years from now. Great composers don’t need doctorates, great music doesn’t need prizes; nevertheless, there is a disconnect between the music and the listener; much of this music is an acquired taste - it’s not for everyone. Let’s accept that and move on. Atonality isn’t the problem; it’s what’s actually being said - the manner in which the notes are being presented - too much music has been, is being written by people who have nothing to say.
@@eai554 The John Cage legacy. He himself said : 'I have nothing to say and I'm saying it' but it was funny back then. 😀
@@eai554 A big problem with the Pulitzer is that winners tend to get a single recording by a mediocre American pickup orchestra, often with little rehearsal time. This doesn’t exactly inspire wide enthusiasm about the work so that it gets performed again. I’d love to see some European new-music ensembles revisit and record some American Pulitzer winners like Reynolds’ "Whispers Out of Time".
8:15 I think we are all ideological, and should accept it in order to mitigate it. I feel that the Western focus on individual self-expression leads people to deny their hidden ideologies. I suspect that musicians from less individualistic cultures (e.g. Indians) may have an easier time admitting their ideologies. For example, Carnatic musicians believe that the twelve notes are a gift from the divine, so they use all of them. They believe that rhythm is omnipresent, and not inherently metrical, thus lending the music a certain pacing. Their relationship to the past is distinct from the Western classical view. Each tradition carries with it a constellation of ideas (i.e. ideology) that is like the proverbial water that the fish swims in.
Yes, thank you @alexyuwen ! This "rejection of ideology per se." was the only thing I disagreed with in the video.
Nothing is free of ideology.
The Sistine Chapel ceiling is a piece of propaganda for the Medici family and the Vatican. You can talk about humanism and "the eye is led" and whatnot, but the point of the work was to celebrate the power elites. That is still the case, the elites have changed.
Many of Mozart's most celebrated works are (most correctly) propaganda for Viennese aristocrats. Arguably Bach was great(est) because his ideology was driven by technology (organ maintenance and excellence) as much by the tastes of the ruling class.
I strongly recommend attending to Michael Levin (a biologist and systems thinker) who points out that "memory" (or in the cultural sense "posterity") does not commit the perfect message over time. Instead, it commits *the perfect instructions* for that memory to be *unpacked* in a way that is valuable. This is relevant for the topic of accurate (and continued) transcription of compositions, which is mentioned at the start of this video.
Why is Dr. Wilson from Dr. House talking about atonality?
I notice in the questions, and also in your answers in this particular video, that the underlying issue of making music because one has something to say, a story to tell, does not seem to get much attention. The modern composer has a vast array of tools that he or she can use---the means that are used to achieve the goal of doing the best job one can of telling the story. If there is no real story there, the music will not be very compelling. If there is a real story there, the artist will tend to gravitate by instinct, as well as by education, to employment of those tools that will best tell the story. Somewhere out there in the vast world is at least one person who will listen to that story with appreciation. To that person, the composer, who may be forever unknown to the world at large, will have become a valued friend.
Hello Samuel Andreyev! Could you please do an analysis for the music of Thomas Adès? I really like his composition "Dawn
Chacony for orchestra at any distance", but also many other compositions of his. Have a wonderful day!
so great to hear from you
I participated in a score competition this year, and since my interest sparked, I checked what the winners music was like in this and other composing competitions. Boy, everything sounds the same, like some kind of amalgamation somwhere between Lachenmenn and Ferneyhough. There are other people, who better described the "competition style". It feels like, the institutions are so cramped up in NEW music, that they only accept stuff that sounds like 1 or 2 generations' before now new music, but in combination. Not sure what's going on here. I imagine some kind of old people checking boxes on modernism signaling in the score. Not sure where I'm going with this... To complete this post: Yes I was rejected in the first phase in the competition. And as far as I'm intending right now I won't participated ever again in one.
The question about atonality is poorly framed. I think it was hinting really at the idea that classical music was ruined by atonality. In a more specific context the works of the 2nd Vienna school and the Darmstadt school of the following generation came to take up significant space in the world of classical music...particularly in the academy; but certainly not to the average person on the street. There was a certain amount of dogmatism that became associated with this school of composition and it did assert significant control. My musical friends abroad assert the avant garde still has a strong hold in Europe moreso than in America where a more eclectic range of styles is allowed to thrive, including neotonality.
Hi, i was wondering 🤔
How do you think a composer should dress ?
forenstance i got a piano tie recently.
What do you and you all think 🤔
thanks for reading
and await your replies
Leaving a comment for the algorithm. Your videos never disappoint. Glad to hear you're composing! Cheers!
Regarding contemporary German composers, Helmut Lachenmann is the obvious choice. He's probably one of the most influential composers around today.
I like the idea of a programme note for Pérotin. But written for the people of his day. Quite a challenge.
'Hey, you might not like it but I'm sure God loves it!'
The DEFINING feature of Western Classical music is "The Score". The stylistic developments have always been intrinsically linked to the ideas and forms that naturally develop from the architectural framework it creates.
This also means that composers could meticulously "craft" pieces of music that didn't depend upon aural memory alone.
Polyphonic planning, motivic development, complex harmonies - these all developed because of this.
Rhythmic complexity was one of the things that took longest to develop. It's harder to notate! Plus Classical music is not driven by a percussion backbone like most folk music is.
Classical music can be almost anything, it's limitless - but the "centre" of it is "The Score".
It becomes more clear when we compare it with other musical traditions and the ways they have developed.
Progressive Rock and Jazz for example both have a degree of complexity to them but the parameters which they develop most are the ones that can be communicated aurally - and don't require the architectural tapestry of the Classical Score.
Rhythmic complexity, ornamental complexity - spontaneity and "jam-like" music - they are all metrics of complexity that can be developed without the Score - but the "Classical approach" is defined by the harmonic and contrapuntal tapestry and also the carefully "planned" form.
It’s partly true. But other musical cultures have developed various forms of musical notation but not prioritised polyphony to nearly the same degree.
@@samuel_andreyev Yes Western Classical has a greater capacity to be architecturally advanced and also much more "exact". Leonard Bernstein talked about "alternative names" for Classical Music and I think "Exact" was one he mentioned... it makes sense because Prog Rock and Jazz often work with "loose outlines" that can be filled in with spontaneous ornamental details but Classical Music is much more exact and leaves less room for improvisation.
Having said that - some Renaissance and Baroque era music sounds a bit bare without some degree of added improvisatory ornamentation so the "loose outline" concept actually crosses over with Western Classical music - up until a certain point where the architectural and polyphonic "exactitude" really demands much stricter following of every single note of a piece. Nothing is "left to chance" - apart from interpretation of course!
V convincing point, yes.
The presentation is enjoyable and thought-provoking! I just found myself reaching for the "double like" button, but I couldn't find it.
I love atonal music. I heard it since i was 14.
Very interesting questions and answers! Regarding Beethoven vs John Doe, good to establish how unrealistic the scenario really is. You cannot take Beethoven out of his historical context. But the question is still valid as a thought experiment. I think of the famous adagio by Giazotto that was initially attributed to Albinoni. What would the reception have been if not attributed to Albinoni? (Although, to my ears the music is clearly neo-Baroque and as such not convincing as a copy of the past.) If timeless music is music with qualities that transcends time, it doesn't mean that the historical context is irrelevant. In that sense I don't think there is any contradiction in some music being both timeless and outdated.
Beethoven’s string quartet #6 in Bb Major is- effectively- a long-form pastiche of an earlier era, but that earlier era was 20 years prior to its composition, not 200 years prior. Perhaps the thought experiment should be that some composer discovers a manuscript for an unknown, unpublished 19th Century symphony in an attic and slaps his own name on it, since no one seems to be able to write a Beethoven symphony except Beethoven.
@@DeflatingAtheism Agreed, that would be a more realistic version of roughly the same question. It isn't hard to imagine people being convinced it's a new work even though of course they should be skeptical.
first video of yours i watched.. enjoyed your thought processes and POVs..! ✌
Many thanks for addressing my question. I agree with your response, and I must admit that my hypothetical about Beethoven’s music was too fantastical to be answerable, and wasn’t a necessary example!
Interesting question tho!
@@samuel_andreyev I kind of think you missed the question a bit. First, what might contemporary music be like without the influence of Beethoven? That's a big question, which is a large influence on the second. How would Beethoven stand out today, writing as he wrote? We would not know the name of Beethoven. Many film scores, even cartoons, make extensive use of orchestral music. Hildur Guðnadóttir wrote the score for _Joker_ and based on what I've heard of her earlier personal music, I would never have thought any of that would result in that soundtrack. Philip Glass drove a taxi for years. Beethoven wasn't an overnight success in his own time; he worked at it. Today he would be hustling just like every other composer, and he would be writing what he felt he needed to write.
An interesting counterpoint to Beethoven though is, if we are not the same to compose it... Then... Are we the same to listen to it? How could we? Wouldn't it be BETTER to recompose it? Why does the weight of music history really have to put itself on top of us?
Tbh I disagree with the notion that we can't, just think that the people that could are mostly focused on doing other things... And I think that it could be equally genius, in theory, but no, no one would care... Beethoven is way more than it's music, specially for casual listeners, because they don't really understand the details and dynamics of the works, they don't know what composing really is...
But to finalize, in my opinion, yes, we should learn music history and technique just the same... But music, no, it shouldn't put it's weight on us so much, I truly defend "new music at all costs"... I'd rather have music get worse but be more alive... The knowledge of Beethoven and others has to be there, of course, but we should avoid playing the same works over and over again, specially in this rich comtemporary world of audio recording. In my dream classical education world, at least 1 in 4 should be first time performances (I know it seems absolutely radical, but think about the pros and cons of it, and how other styles do achieve that somewhat)
11:43 ...kind of explains why I never learned to enjoy contemporary art, even though art teachers tried to hammer it into my brain through years of high school and college. I always feel like the message is sort of parallel or even superior to the art and you have to decode it because the art doesn't appeal to your senses as it's more of a riddle. Not all pieces though, but I feel confident in saying it's the absolute majority, 95%+ of all contemporary art exhibitions. I just like to be affected by art without having to 'think' my way through it.
Shoenberg: "Production of an entire piece through the application of variation is an approach to the logic of larger compositions" !
I love atonal music.
Very stimulating Q&A, thanks for the video. I am very curious about your decision to mention Reimann and not Helmut Lachenmann. We probably agree on the fact that there's a great probability that the latter will be mentioned for decades, while the first is, even today, very little known (not to mention their respective impact on the contemporary music) . Could you elaborate a bit on the criteria behind that decision? Thanks!
I love Lachenmann’s music. But he is still alive and writing, whereas Rihm and Riemann are recently deceased. That is why I mentioned them, and not him.
@samuel_andreyev Thanks for the quick response! My mistake, I did not get that you were talking about deceased composers.
In regard to the "timelessness" of any style, that simply means that the style appeals to listeners across history, not that it's independent of the time and culture in which it was produced.
I don’t think people typically talk of styles as being timeless, but rather pieces of music that are timeless despite being historically situated in style. Ironically, much like Harold Bloom’s assertion that Shakespeare’s characters are universal because of- not despite- their individuality, a piece of music can be so completely _of_ its time and place that it achieves its own timelessness.
If Beethoven hadn’t existed, someone today could not write in the style of Beethoven. The history of music would be different. It’s like a sci fi movie hypothetical. Beethoven was discovering new territory on the frontier of music in his time.
I would like to respond to the Schoenberg question. I think you gave a very model answer, but fail to respond to the legitimate gut feeling that many people who studied classical music, or music lover in general has. No matter how you look at it, compare to his peers like Hindemith, Debussy and even Stravinsky, it was a great departure from the sonic experience many have built up when studying Classical Music, which in reality, is still very hegemonic in Western Music education system. The later three may change the syntax of harmony, but the materials are still somewhat connected to tradition, in addition to the clear distinguishable rhythm, that the early second Viennese school vow to destroy. Also, even though there is popular music genres may not share the same rule and aesthetic of Western Classical Music, they mostly do share the common harmonic language of major-minor (sometimes modal) key system, and the rhythm is still mostly in tact which strengthen and reaffirms our connection to tonality.
That's why, Schoenberg’s music is particularly foreign and disconnected to our daily experience of what it is perceived and assessed to be "music". You may say, not many people knows Schoenberg, but he is almost always a central figure when Music is taught in public school, which from my experience in Hong Kong, is mainly focused on Classical Music. Certainly, the periodisation framework used in teaching Western Classical Music history, and the way music from 20th century is presented imo, did a great disservice towards 20th music in general by labelling and stigmatising it as the degeneration and breakdown of the stream of tradition that was built from Gregorian Chant, all the way through the 19th century.
I can understand that you may view this question very logically and rationally as a scholar or artist familiar with the tradition, but for many, whether casual music lover or music students who are not as historically informed, I do feel there is a grain of truth in this question, or at least some legitimacy towards the gut feeling the question is trying to express.
Even Hindemith's fans are apt to complain that the massive reputation he enjoyed during his lifetime and his technical innovations, have seen a massive decline in interest in recent decades, a few works aside. Schoenberg, on the other hand, remains controversial but still gets lots of passionate advocacy. The gulf between the two composers isn’t as wide as you’re suggesting.
Do you know what I find fascinating about that question about "saving art", and how any random person can (supposedly) recognise the genius of Mozart? Is that the person is using an "argumentum ad populum" to claim that one type of music is brilliant, but the same profile of people will use the exact same argument to DISCREDIT certain types of music! You see that all the time: the fact that a certain pop artist is very popular is taken as a sign that they're artistically irrelevant, while Jacob Collier is a genius because only the "select few" can recognise his brilliance. Those arguments are diametrically opposite, but they are both equally used to defend this idea that art needs to be "saved": everyone loves Mozart, and that proves he's genius, and everyone loves Lady Gaga, and that proves she sucks.
Other than that, thank you giving a profound and honest answer to a question that, sadly, had that peculiar appeal to the ideas of "degenerate art", that came from those wacky Italians and Germans a century ago.
@@FernieCanto Jacob Collier is very popular. Maybe he's not the best example you could possibly use in your argument.
@@bazingacurta2567 I only used him as an example because I hate his music and the way he sounds like he's constantly yawning.
@@FernieCanto Haha! He does always sound like he's yawning, but he's great.
You said that the survival of Havergal Brian's work, which you don't like, was down to "luck". He just happens to have a society dedicated to him and amenable program directors and audiences. That, my friend, is not luck, but is something called popularity (in the relative terms that minor 20C composers may be said to enjoy popularity).
I prefer to say that rhythmic and dynamic pointillism "ruins" music more than atonality. When there's an underlying rhythm and dynamic for a certain period of time, sense of tension and release, regularity and irregularity can be attained in comparing to this underlying "gauge" even if the music is atonal. Pointillism throw these away altogether and what we hear (if we do not analyse the score) is just a huge cadenza. Pieces that sound totally rubato throughout that was created in a older day also sound very uninteresting.
This is the reason I prefer Schoenberg to mature Webern
I agree, the abolition of an easily perceptible pulse or meter is a bigger barrier to public appreciation than the abolition of tonality, however defined (it should also be noted that ‘tonality’ folds rhythm into itself, as the function of a tonic is married to the function of a downbeat.) Schoenberg invoked the name of a Swedish mystic to claim that atonal music existed in a “Swedenborg space” where there is no absolute up or down, but many post-Darmstadt atonal composers have extended that to the rhythmic realm for music that may be expressive of a protracted mystic state, but will never capture- say- the villagers‘ dance. When I was looking at the score to the Tanzscene from Schoenberg’s Serenade, I was struck by how inventive and strongly rhythmically defined that clarinet solo is, which lends to its haunting quality- something that can never be captured by flurries and arabesques and constellations of notes.
Person: asks something
Samuel Andreyev: “I disagree with your question.”
Bottom line: there’s so much music available to hear and far too much music being written now - there simply aren’t enough performers/performance opportunities to play all of this music. Just not going to happen. Even in pre-20th century music, there’s so much music that isn’t performed very much. And, more to the point, there are classical music lovers who can’t stand to listen to, say, late Beethoven, late Schubert, Medieval music, and so on.
Compounding this problem, listeners now have a millennium’s worth of music at their fingertips, so there’s none of the demand for novelty that existed in Mozart’s day. Ironically, composers who lived a generation before Mozart are greater competition for contemporary composers than they were for Mozart!
The period of atonality was perfect for the time period. Music reflects the time period. Art is general is a reflection of what was considered “normal” at the time. Atonality came at time when the world really did feel like its was at wits end, and the “horrible” sounding music was able to emphasize and reflect the “horrible” and “primal” nature of humans, without any organization, constant chaos, and multiple ranges of emotions
Would a rhythmic object be analogous to word or phrase? Would the theme from "Mission Impossible" have started as a rhythmic idea independent of the "tune".
I love and thrive on Strav, also Schoenberg and Varese. But I've also recently discovered Taylor Swift, well her older songs. Am I wrong?
I stopped listening to classical music 20 years ago because of the excessively fast tempos and the performers' show-off attitudes. I just want to hear the music, not witness an athletic competition. I used to hate Mozart until I started listening to his music at half the modern tempo. Now I find it amazing!
Theodor Adorno and Don Van Vliet walk into a bar.
And the good Captain kicks his pretentious, effete and grotesquely privileged ass in an entertaining plethora of ways.
It’s the blimp, Theo, it’s the blimp.
I don't think the question at 34:37 should have been "how do you feel about being part of the Peterson Academy?", but, rather, "do you identify with the academy's mission statement and see yourself as part of the opposition to the 'onslaught of idiot ideological propaganda'"? I had no previous knowledge of Andreyev's involvement with this - somewhat surprised but also aware that everyone has a price.
Do you totality identify with the mission statement of your employer? If so, I think you are probably in the minority.
@@nathangale7702 my company's mission statement stops short of calling anyone an idiot
He also participated to the "triggernometry" podcast, a ostensibly right wing podcast. All things considered I think there's little ambiguity. I am really disappointed tbh.
29:09 - Helmut Lachenmann, Mathias Spahlinger, Arnulf Herrmann, Jörg Widmann, Heiner Goebbels?
As far as writing is the style of Beethoven. You can emulate him but you must realize that Beethoven didn't have himself to emulate. His style was very original at that time. A good example of a modern composer emulating composers of the past would be John Williams (emulating Gustav Holst).
You gotta figure Charlie Parker knew about 12-tone. You can hear the influence of “atonal” in his solos!
... the question about writing in Beethoven style was "if he had never existed...". So it's not about copying Beethoven, but about BEING Beethoven today. If Beethoven never had existed, then all of his followers wouldn't have existed either. So the musical landscape of today would be to some extent a different one, and Beethoven's music would be new music. Would he be recognized as bringing something new to the table, or would he be perceived as outdated? We can assume that even with that gap Beethoven would have left in the 19th century, by not existing, atonality would still have proceeded, and anyone composing in tonality today would be conscious about the possibility of atonality, microtonality etc.; so if they still decide for tonality, it is a different decision than it was 200 years ago. So the question is: would Beethoven today, being conscious of atonality, microtonality, etc. still compose the same music he actually composed 200 years ago? The answer is propably 'yes', because he couldn't do otherwise (and still be Beethoven) but if he did, he would do it for different reasons, and it would be perceived differently. I think that thought experiment exactly defines the purpose of performing Beethoven today: it should be performed as if it was contemporary music.
36:30 Immediately made me think of John Zorn, his Book of Angels series is basically just that.
Did you mention Alban Berg and Anton Webern at 27:27?
It's not really against Beethoven, but Beethoven's approach to form and composition permeates the study of classical music to an extent that is unhealthy, and unhelpful in understanding (and appreciating) other composers to the extent they deserve it. That doesn't mean that that kind of approach should be eliminated or shoved to the background, but we need new directions, and those can only be discovered if we are willing to break with tradition.
I agree that there is an overemphasis on the high classical style to the detriment of other, equally viable and significant approaches.
I like the Webern Op 24 T-shirt!
Aw thanks, you noticed!
Leo Ornstein`s son, Severo, has been instrumental in keeping his father`s music alive. And he is no slouch himself as a pianist. You do need your advocates.
The question about what if Beethoven symphonies were written today by an unknown American, rather than by Beethoven, is interesting because it gets to the idea of quality. Is there some quality in those symphonies that transcends their origin and makes them "timeless"? I think there may be, but whether it would be generally recognized today if an unknown contemporary wrote it is a different question. I doubt that it would be recognized, or even paid attention to, except perhaps by a few, very independent-minded connoisseurs who recognize musical quality when it appears, even if it is anachronistic. Because of that, it might be better to pose the question as being about, say, the late sonatas and string quartets - the symphonies would never even get performed.
Good work Sam!
In short .. patronage; who pays for the work, what it was commissioned 'for', why the artist is considered adept at presenting it and the art apt sufficiently to enhance or encapsulate the purpose of the commission = where it is to be shown, how it is to be framed (yes, even in terms of music, with a hummable tune or stripped of it - for effect).
Thus, a Latin Mass society wants to commission a new work to present - adequately and sublimely - the New Order of Mass, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (with some local vernacular), for a newly constructed basilica with typically (and recognisably) Catholic fabric, its Sacred Tradition, and and its ageless meaning (though within the strictures of the latest Vatican instruction). You go and have a look at the building (the framework) and its focus (the context) .. you do not find icons of Pachamama or Luce, the artwork is not in the Rupnik manner .. let alone that of red squiggles .. yet it is 'modern' (light, though colourful, minimalist, yet humanistic, resonant, but quiet; might you feel able to deliver .. something memorable, re-do-able, and with a capacity for some artistic licence in the performance (over the next hundred years) ..
Here, should you consider it, you have to understand the shifting shades and lights of mood, for instance, it might be that the occasion is to commemorate the joy, sorrow and glory of Mary's Assumption or the grief, abandonment, and hope-against-hope of Good Friday's Stations of the Cross .. both offering scope for atonal shocks and tonal sentiments, the plainest plainchant and the merriest polyphony, with fugues or drum-solos, and, if appropriate, with nods to the Missa Luba and Missa de Angelis, to Palestrina, Allegri, Beethoven, Faure, Messiaen, Górecki .. but all set in the strictest of strict attention to the liturgical action - a Herculean task, I grant you, if not quite Mission Impossible territory, yet perhaps worthwhile (even in our swift-passing 'today') ....?
;o)
Idk about "ruining music" but it certainly BORES me to death 😴
18:38 this is one of the keys to understand music
A short answer" Yes. Perhaps not "ruin" but certainly narrow its appeal to a tiny minority. We are pattern seekers, building stories and scenarios in all subjects. It's why tonal music is so powerful and has spread to cultures with other systems. A musical "surprise" - a leap, odd chord, key switch, etc - draws interest but an entire piece of unexpected, atonal randomness tires quickly. Perhaps Rachmaninoff and friends took tonality to its limits but as a pianist and symphony goer, I will say that atonal music has no more fans today than it did decades ago.
Bravo, Adorno!
While I agree with the gist of not being able to pin down "Western classical music," I don't think it's *that* difficult to find the essence, especially in a Q&A that includes atonality "ruining" music. Western classical music is basically characterized by modal tonality produced by (roughly) 12-TET. There are clear key centers. This is opposed to non-Western music written in different scales like Indonesian gamelan, or Indian, or Chinese.
To a lesser extent, at least in the "classical" tradition, compositions fell into a clear form, like sonata or fugue or passacaglia etc.
The reason atonal compositions were so shocking was that it was such a clear break from the classical Western tradition.
Schoenberg still used ancient forms like sonata in his pieces, like Berg and webern. They always used 12 tet, and maybe yes they don't show clear modal or tonal center in their pieces, Wagner doesn't either in his late operas. By the way most people wouldn't say their are dramatic intellectual difference of music conception between wgner opera and r Strauss ones, but Strauss actually use tonal centers (at least in Elektra that i studied) to obtain an oepra that is in sonata form. Do people realise how much oppisitie it is to wagner's durchkomponiert ?
What do you make of Jacob Collier? Could you maybe make a video reacting to him and his music?
I think atonality is often confused with dissonance. I don't think atonality is very noticable, you can for instance start a piece in C major and end it in F sharp major, and not many people will perceive this as intolerable. I think the main issue listeners have is with dissonance. But I compare it a bit with a spice in a dish, some like a lot of pepper, other don't, reason unknown, and the same goes for our musical perception I think. And not only in classical music: why do some people enjoy heavy metal or dubstep and others only Simon and Garfunkel?
very inspiring..... as always !!!!
Polyphony might be the thing that holds Western classical music tradition together? What on Earth? So when Mozart, for instance, writes in a melody plus accompaniment type of texture he's not taking part in the Western classical tradition because he's not, at that moment, preoccupied with polyphony? Seems like a pretty absurd thing to think of, to me at least. Yes, polyphony was crucial to the start of the common practice era, and even to renaissance music, but since the classical period it has just been one possible texture among several others. So, polyphony's central importance has only been the case for less than a half of the Western classical music timeline.
28:10
🇩🇪Helmut Lachenmann
🇦🇹Georg Friedrich Haas
🇨🇭Beat Furrer (Graz based)
And I feel I'm missing someone.
matthias spahlinger possibly (passage/paysage specifically)
maybe not atonality but imo total serialism gave birth to non-intuitive representations of atonality. When I listen to music I don’t try to find the relations between onset times of notes and the pitches. Or even multiplying PCs because it is analogous to FM Synthesis?? These concepts are not applicable to music in that way. They sort of worked in the pieces because composers repetitively applied the same rules in their pieces. Not because of some wrong interpretation of the science behind FM Synthesis. Thankfully spectralism brought a better understanding of time and pitch, but also integrated the ideas from atonality within itself
I was wondering what looked different here, then I realised, you're wearing a t-shirt!
I don't think what you say around 15:00 is quite right. The questioner gave an extreme example: an early 21st c. average guy writing Beethoven. Less extreme examples affirm the force and relevance of the question. People really thought Kreisler was arranging Baroque masters.
I cannot say that the man who wrote Verklaerte Nacht was not a musical genius. He clearly was. But it is often the strongest swimmers who drown!
On German and Austrian composers: Hemut Lachenmann???
Sometimes my music veers tonal sometimes atonal. They are both "colourblind or colors to be deployed if you will.
Yes i AM a composer !( lol)
Composer/non-performers are a later 19c innovation. Before then, composers also conducted or played in the church, or in salons, etc.
Schumann and Mendelssohn played. Brahms played. Wagner and Berlioz were conductors, as was Mahler. Schoenberg, not so much. Berg, not at all.
Honestly for me Mozart is a racket. Too many notes ;-)
I'd say Helmut Lachenmann is one German composer who is leading the German scene and in fact is musically more interesting and engaging than Rhim.
I’m forging a highly accessible tonal melodic motivic symphony with a Trump vibe
We’re going to make the Symphony Great Again 😎💪🏼
Janacek was pretty opaque for many years.
Did Switzerland really produce the same number of great composers as Austria ?!?
There is nothing inherent in any art form that confers guaranteed immortality or universality (like religions): they survive as long as they continue to speak to any individual or (small or big) group. How much has been canonized and how much more (and loads of good stuff too) has merely fallen into oblivion? Atonality sprang from a culture whose assumptions, ars poetica and discipline most, even people versed in classical music, can only access over time (if it was for the few back then, then even fewer today). Listener response (like the commentator below who mentions writer JL Borges) is like reader response...and there have been and will always be niches: today technology through saturation and immediate availability of everything has changed our sensibility and things requiring protracted effort and singleminded concentration (say reading Proust or listening to Berg) are really far on the periphery of reading or musical tastes.
You completely missed the point with that question about atonality possibly having "ruined music". Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are not widely listened to precisely because their music is unpalatable to most people? How could they possibly be popular if, according to the person who asked this, they may have ruined music? Your reasoning makes no sense.
And yet, their influence on the Western classical music tradition is completely disproportionate, their legacy still playing, to this day, a central role in the way composers write and in said tradition's self-conception.
Atonality did ruin music. It is mainly good with few exceptions for one thing: horror movies.
"Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are not widely listened to precisely because their music is unpalatable to most people?"
Why is it that people with opinions like yours tend to have such a patronising, insulting way of saying things? "Has it ever crossed his mind"? No, I'm sure he NEVER, EVER thought of that in his life! Like, a professional musician, who *lives* in the circles of professional music and interacts with artists, academics, promoters, etc., all the time, has NEVER, EVER heard of that hypothesis even once in his life!No: it was you, the supreme genius of mankind, who personally came down to this channel like Prometheus carrying the flame of the gods, to bring this gold nugget of a question for the first time. I mean, of course Alban Berg is utterly unpalatable to most people! His violin concerto has never, ever been performed, because no one likes it.
"How could they possibly be popular if, according to the person who asked this, they may have ruined music?"
Maybe because the person who asked that is a dumbass, who has completely misguided assumptions about Samuel Andreyev's beliefs and made a loaded question because they want validation, and not because of a bona fide desire to learn something?
@@FernieCanto I enjoy a good old intellectual skirmish, even if it is so démodé nowadays. Being assertive and slightly aggressive makes things more fun, in my estimation. Of course, I am willing to accept an equally antagonistic response by Samuel Andreyev, if he wishes to do so. Those are the rules of the game.
Also, you do not know my opinions on this topic. In fact, I am a big fan of Berg and Webern, and I respect Schoenberg a lot. The issue is way bigger than my personal taste though, and Samuel Andreyev just decided to nonchalantly jump over it, which I personally found quite annoying. This is a serious topic; this musical tradition is dashing towards total irrelevance, and it is obvious to most people that the origin of such a trend is atonality in general and Schoenberg in particular. This is the single most important thing we should be discussing right now.
Also, you called someone a dumbass; that is way worse than asking "has it ever crossed your mind?", for me at least.
@@bazingacurta2567 I don't know which musical tradition exactly you think is fading into irrelevance. Would that be classical music in general? Because, if that's the case, the atonality is the least of our problems. It's not like atonalism has removed Beethoven from everyone's radar. On the contrary: we're living in an era where you can listen to classical music and watch videos of concerts anywhere, anytime, in your cellphone. If classical music is becoming irrelevant, well, maybe it's because that's how history goes? Skiffle has faded into irrelevance, and it's not because of the rise of atonal skiffle.
I give more credence to Samuel's opinion that the biggest hurdle for classical music is the pulverisation of styles and "musical languages". Everything has become a niche, so how is it even possible to have a "traditional" in such circumstances? Now, is that necessarily bad? I'm not sure, honestly.
Also, yes, I called someone a dumbass, and I'll do it again: the person is a dumbass. Yes, it's a direct, gratuitous insult, but asking a loaded question and putting words on someone else's mouth is way more dishonest.
@NiT981- I'm doing that right now as we speak. It's just a shame that I ran out of lube.
Yesss a new video!
Here's a question: Are you concerned that Artificial Intelligence will make human composers obsolete?
No
I think the way an artist was defined in the video answers this question. Art isn't necessarily linear, so it is difficult for a computer to do.
Atonality is like salt for food. It can make food more delicious and tasty but if you only eat salt you'll die.
No. That makes utterly no sense. Atonalism is more like sex: it can make life more appealing and pleasant, but if you only ever had sex, well, SIGN ME UP!!
The analogy doesn't work. Atonlity isn't just a garnish that can add little flavour, but a whole expressive language in its own right. It's an entirely different (and complete) cuisine.
And nobody will die by listening to atonal music.
I found several of these responses to be obtuse. Like the guy can't just name a song or two from his body of work that he particularly likes? He has to spend a minute explaining why he finds the premise problematic, before granting he finds some of his compositions "more musically convincing than others," but then doesn't even deign to name one of the "more musically convincing" ones? That is grating stuff.
Master, it would be interesting to try to see how a horde of young composers try to copy the epic of film music, where anything goes, and above all continue to believe themselves to be free creators, free?
Did tonality ruin music?
Regarding "atonal" or not… Should we stop speaking of night and day because our experience of them becomes blurry twice everyday? Should we stop calling dachshund, pitbull, boxer… "dogs" because of how different their phenotype is, and stop considering they share a fundamental difference with wolves?
Night and day are natural phenomenons. Taxonomy is a science. Music is a social construct.
So no to both questions, because the definitions of musical characteristics can change while earth’s rotation and the scientific method stay the same.
And yes, the concept of tonality is subjective while the physical world and science is not.
How about the Albenoni adagio? That was a relatively convincing baroque faximilie.
Aligning yourself with a grifter like Peterson is a huge disappointment...
You are (were?) better than that.
Please, please, reconsider.
🎯
One of the first video's on UA-cam with Andreyev was his interview with Peterson many years ago. They have a lot in common. Both are opponents of the woke agenda in higher education. Andreyev advocates for a curriculum based on merit instead of identity.
@DmitriBron1973 💯
@@DmitriBron1973 I also oppose the woke agenda, but the idea of meritocracy is even more ridiculous than the idea of political identity. Only a child thinks "merit" means anything real whatsoever.
@@bazingacurta2567 so Beethoven has no more merit then Czerny ?
Yes, Samuel, please join Harvard instead of Peterson so you can at least be far left (still better than not existing at all).
With so many offers pouring in from Ivy League universities, it’s hard to know which ones to accept!
How is Harvard far left?? uness your definition of far left is anything left of Pinochet
@@samuel_andreyev Fortunately, not so hard to know which ones to decline.
I wonder how many famous composers of the past would be aligned with the woke movement in music today. I fear that they would all be canceled on the spot ;-) Even Eisler and Weil (Israel).... Nevermind Boulez and Stockhausen... they were the most authoritarian patriarchs of the lot. Stockhausen even had his own harem ;-) So even the most left wing composers of the past would be considered toxic by today's standards.
I recall that Stockhausen was “cancelled”- _avant la lettre-_ for his comments about September 11th.
@DeflatingAtheism True. I remember also that the home of Boulez was searched by the police after 9-11 for his 1970ies article in which he said that all opera houses should be blown up. I disagreed. They were just using hyperboles. But some commenters here seem ready to cancel Andreyev if he will not denounce Peterson for his refusal to be forced into newspeak.
No, it was not atonality that ruined music - DOGMATISM has brought music to the brink of ruin! Tonality and atonality are like concrete art and abstract art. Atonality has its right to exist, just like tonality, but atonal sectarianism does not.
Yes.
I love jordan peterson, a guy who singlehandedly defeated antihumanistic ideologies like feminism, communism and postmoderism. One of the most relevant thinkers today.
I don't think Dr. Peterson understands feminism, for just one example, if he considers it antihumanistic.
More to the point, one can't singlehandedly defeat an ideology, unless there are no longer believers in that ideology.
Atonal music is anti-music, similar like modern architecture is basically anti-architecture