defending arnold et al
OK, I'm getting really weary of all the
discussion pro and con regarding dodecaphonic music on Sequenza21. However, I'm
struck by how negative a lot of blogs outside of Sequenza21 have been regarding
12-tone music and that of Schoenberg et al. (by "et al" I mean Berg, Webern and
a few others).
It's really strange that I'm suddenly defending 12-tone music. After all, I am the antithesis of academic music, and 12-tone music is often felt to be synonymous with academia. I haven't written 12-tone music in many many years, although I don't write "tonal" music either. Books I used to read very intently, such as Leibowitz's "Schoenberg and His School" now seem to me an empty polemic, almost like some of the stuff Mao and Lenin wrote.
That said, I feel bad for Schoenberg. I think he's been very misunderstood. In general, I really like his music, as I do Berg and Webern. I don't expect most people to like their music, but I do, and that's all that matters to me. But when I read terms like "infertile" or "overrated" or even "hoax" applied to an entire movement, I get concerned.
As mentioned numerous times, I think how a piece is written, while possibly interesting, has no bearing on whether or not I like it. There are a lot of well-constructed, logical works of music I can't stand, and there are works that are not so intelligently constructed that I rather like. That said, I like much of the New Vienna School's music for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the 12-tone technique; i just like them as music, just as I like a lot of music by Glass, Satoh, Riley, Adams, Feldman, Bartok, etc.
I do agree, however, that too much has been made of 12-tone music as the end-all be-all in music. It's not that at all, any more than tonality is everything. But I think we're going from appropriately (in my opinion) criticizing the exclusionary attitude often felt in academic circles to inappropriately trashing everything associated with uptown music, such as dodecaphony. And again, I'm writing this as an unconventional composer who has no affinity for academia, the "uptown" establishment or even musicology. I just think we need to take a step back. There is a huge difference between saying that 12-tone music no longer is dominant (a good thing, in my opinion) and dismissing what really was a very revolutionary approach in its day as a hoax.
I'm hardly a music historian, but consider the context in which Schoenberg (and Hauer) developed the 12-tone technique. Tonality ruled; indeed, everything was being written in a grandiose Romantic scale by Wagner, Mahler and others. Mahler was starting to stretch tonality quite a bit, as did Brahms, and Schoenberg was a natural evolution of this process. You can hear it starting at times in Verklaerte Nacht, a bit more in the 1st string quartet, and finally it all goes down the toilet by the end of the second string quartet and the op 11 piano pieces. All the 12-tone technique is is a way to extend serialism to all 12 tones, and essentially democratizing the tones of a scale, such that no one tone is more important than any other. It was a way to organize pitches, and the reason why I think it was valid is that it is based so much on the idea of constant variation.
That said, one of the primary reasons I gave it up long ago is that I felt I had done as much with it as I could. I also hate rules in general, and couldn't go on trying to make the technique fit what I wanted to write in the first place. At first I thought of it as a challenge: let's see if I can write 12-tone music that still sounds like me. And I did, but after awhile I wanted to go in other directions and just gave it up in 1981 or so. I doubt I would ever go back to it, although it would be an interesting experience. I did write a piece last year that starts off with all 12 notes before going on to something else, but aside from a few serial manipulations involving 5 notes here and there, it is not at all 12-tone in nature. I don't think that was any more significant than Feldman placing a row here and there in his String Quartet #2 or Philip Glass writing a row in Part 12 of Music in Twelve Parts. But I digress.
My point: so 12-tone music isn't the revolution it was thought to be (same with communism). But that doesn't mean one can't like music in spite of the technique, if any, used to create it in the first place. It's the music that's important, not how it was written.
It's really strange that I'm suddenly defending 12-tone music. After all, I am the antithesis of academic music, and 12-tone music is often felt to be synonymous with academia. I haven't written 12-tone music in many many years, although I don't write "tonal" music either. Books I used to read very intently, such as Leibowitz's "Schoenberg and His School" now seem to me an empty polemic, almost like some of the stuff Mao and Lenin wrote.
That said, I feel bad for Schoenberg. I think he's been very misunderstood. In general, I really like his music, as I do Berg and Webern. I don't expect most people to like their music, but I do, and that's all that matters to me. But when I read terms like "infertile" or "overrated" or even "hoax" applied to an entire movement, I get concerned.
As mentioned numerous times, I think how a piece is written, while possibly interesting, has no bearing on whether or not I like it. There are a lot of well-constructed, logical works of music I can't stand, and there are works that are not so intelligently constructed that I rather like. That said, I like much of the New Vienna School's music for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the 12-tone technique; i just like them as music, just as I like a lot of music by Glass, Satoh, Riley, Adams, Feldman, Bartok, etc.
I do agree, however, that too much has been made of 12-tone music as the end-all be-all in music. It's not that at all, any more than tonality is everything. But I think we're going from appropriately (in my opinion) criticizing the exclusionary attitude often felt in academic circles to inappropriately trashing everything associated with uptown music, such as dodecaphony. And again, I'm writing this as an unconventional composer who has no affinity for academia, the "uptown" establishment or even musicology. I just think we need to take a step back. There is a huge difference between saying that 12-tone music no longer is dominant (a good thing, in my opinion) and dismissing what really was a very revolutionary approach in its day as a hoax.
I'm hardly a music historian, but consider the context in which Schoenberg (and Hauer) developed the 12-tone technique. Tonality ruled; indeed, everything was being written in a grandiose Romantic scale by Wagner, Mahler and others. Mahler was starting to stretch tonality quite a bit, as did Brahms, and Schoenberg was a natural evolution of this process. You can hear it starting at times in Verklaerte Nacht, a bit more in the 1st string quartet, and finally it all goes down the toilet by the end of the second string quartet and the op 11 piano pieces. All the 12-tone technique is is a way to extend serialism to all 12 tones, and essentially democratizing the tones of a scale, such that no one tone is more important than any other. It was a way to organize pitches, and the reason why I think it was valid is that it is based so much on the idea of constant variation.
That said, one of the primary reasons I gave it up long ago is that I felt I had done as much with it as I could. I also hate rules in general, and couldn't go on trying to make the technique fit what I wanted to write in the first place. At first I thought of it as a challenge: let's see if I can write 12-tone music that still sounds like me. And I did, but after awhile I wanted to go in other directions and just gave it up in 1981 or so. I doubt I would ever go back to it, although it would be an interesting experience. I did write a piece last year that starts off with all 12 notes before going on to something else, but aside from a few serial manipulations involving 5 notes here and there, it is not at all 12-tone in nature. I don't think that was any more significant than Feldman placing a row here and there in his String Quartet #2 or Philip Glass writing a row in Part 12 of Music in Twelve Parts. But I digress.
My point: so 12-tone music isn't the revolution it was thought to be (same with communism). But that doesn't mean one can't like music in spite of the technique, if any, used to create it in the first place. It's the music that's important, not how it was written.
Posted: Tue - March 22, 2005 at 10:17 PM
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Published On: Mar 23, 2005 12:05 PM
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Published On: Mar 23, 2005 12:05 PM