In English we’re doing a group report on Arnold Shoenberg, now this isn’t help on the project as I’m certain as soon as I went into technical details the class would glaze over and a resounding, earth cracking “whoosh!” would preside over the class. It more got me thinking as a theory student, and one who won’t get to twentieth century music this year (or for a long time, I’d minor in music but my College doesn’t have a program for it), I’m interested in learning it, even in possibly doing a quick analysis on one of Shoenberg’s pieces that use it (probably most of them considering he pioneered the technique).
So how exactly does this thing work? I seem to grasp something about using all twelve tones in a “set” and no note may be repeated in it. Of course couple this with a really complicated looking table[sup]1[/sup] with a bunch of squares and some notations in the middle and it looks like a really complex version of musical sudoku to me.
Wow, those are great, thanks GFactor.
And I posted it in GQ because I wasn’t quite sure whether it fell under “question” or “music discussion.” Good to know for whenever a question like this pops up again.
An alternative opinion: those who can write melodic music do; those who can’t, find ways to disguise their lack of talent and ability, and hope that no-one has ever read a story about an Emperor who wanted some new clothes.
It’s perfectly fine to be ‘experimental’, but it’s also arbitrary and easy. I’ve just invented music played solely by switching a vacuum cleaner on and off in a manner determined by Fibonacci numbers fed through a shredder and glued to a stave. Never been done before? Check. Interesting mathematical basis? Check. Mix of aesthetic choices, chance and rational factors? Check. Call it music? Only if you want your working definitions to be so loose as to be meaningless.
Heard of Verklarte Nacht? Schoenberg was perfectly capable of writing tonal music with a traditional expressive immediacy, but it turned out that this language did not fulfil his needs.
No, I haven’t. Neither has anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe this provides a clue about the merits of this particular work and its enduring appeal. We’re getting into interesting territory here. I’m sure I’d just love to hear about these needs, apparently felt by Mr Schoenberg, that were fulfilled by his twelve tone compositions but not by his tonal music.
Apparantly he just liked non-chord tones to the point where he said “screw it, i’m writing atonal music, and inventing a technique for it.” (cliffnotes version at least from my research so far).
But seriously though how many people do you know who listen to a lot of schroeder in the first place (I may want to know that answer).
And heres a link to part of the song, the sound alyer has that annoying “someone left the tap on” sound, but once they start getting louder and you can hear it it’s quite a beautiful piece.
Verklarte Nacht is simply one of the best pieces of romantic music that has ever been written. This is my subjective opinion, of course, so don’t take my word for it and have a listen. Schoenberg wrote a treatise called The Theory of Harmony that is still one of the most standard works on the subject.
Twelve tone music theory may seem exceedingly arcane to someone not familiar with music theory in general but it’s not much more complex than traditional music theory.
Actually, there was considerable amount of thought that went into Schoenberg’s work going atonal.
This biography does a good job of concisely describing the context in which these works were created.
You have to remember also that Schoenberg wanted to write music that couldn’t be hijacked for political causes. Of course twelve tone music is difficult to listen to – it’s meant to be.
I’m a listener who adores Schoenberg’s music. The early, Romantic stuff, the pieces that push tonal harmony to the bursting point, the free atonal period, the 12-tone period: I hear great beauty in many pieces from every period in his oeuvre. I don’t like absolutely everything he wrote, but there has never been a doubt in mind that Schoenberg is one of the greatest composers ever.
Upon familiarity, it becomes apparent that Schoenberg’s Romantic soul sings out in just about every bar of every piece he wrote, 12-tone works included.
Favorite early pieces: Verklaerte Nacht, op. 4, Gurrelieder
Favorite pieces that stretch the extremes of what tonality is: String Quartet No. 2, op. 10, Chamber Symphony, op. 9, Friede auf Erden, op. 13
Favorite atonal pieces: Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19, Pierrot Lunaire, op. 21, Serenade, op. 24
Favorite 12-tone pieces: Variations for Orchestra, op. 31, Piano Concerto, op. 42, A Survivor from Warsaw, op. 46.
I have no idea what ‘one of the most standard works’ means. I had no idea there was such a thing as being ‘more standard’ or ‘less standard’.
Thank you for sharing your condescending attitude. For the record, I have no problem with things that may be said to be ‘arcane’. Nor do I have any difficulty with topics that may be said to be complex. What I do have a slight problem with is the subtle implication that anyone who regards Schoenberg’s atonal ‘compositions’ as lacking merit is de facto unable to appreciate anything arcane or complex in nature, or unable to see past the apparent complexity. If I say the Emperor is wearing no clothes, you are of course free to disagree with my opinion. But there’s no need to imply that the deficiency must lie with my eyesight. This is just as unhelpful as it would be for me to imply (I do not) that Schoenberg had a tin ear and so do his fans.
ianzin, I never intended my post to be condescending. I must have used poor wording and I apologize for whatever negative insinuations might be read in my short post.
By “one of the most standard works” (which is poor English, I admit) I simply meant that this isn’t an obscure, out-of-print tome. It is still widely read by composition students. You insinuated that atonal composers lacked the skill and talent to write tonal music (at least, that’s how I read your first post.) I simply pointed out that Schoenberg had a very good, very deep understanding of tonal music theory, as proved by his writings. I also provided a link to what I consider one of the most beautiful pieces of tonal music so that you could make your own judgement as to AS’s talent as a tonal composer, as there is no objective way to prove whether he had any.
I mentioned that twelve-tone theory might seem complex and arcane because I suspect that to someone who has never studied classical music theory things like row operations and “twelve-tone matrix” might seem like a very complicated, theoretical approach to making music. However, tonal music theory is very much like that too.
I do not have time to go into what I think of the Emperor’s fable, but that is the topic of a new thread anyway.
To illustrate this point, fugues also produce complex diagrams when one explains the basic principles, which make this structure seem like an equally arbitrary, dry and mathematical approach. Which, of course, it can be, in the wrong hands.
Thank you, Jovan, for your very polite and good-natured reply. I apologise in turn because I probably came across as being more irritable and argumentative than I really am. Peace! I still don’t care much for atonal music, and I reserve my right to harbour my doubts about its origins and merits (even if these may betray some aesthetic feebleness on my part). But I appreciate the various posts here that have tried to at least meet me half-way and provide some illumination.
Have you heard anything by Alban Berg, Ianzin? Though not tonal in the conventional sense, a lot of it is appealingly melodic and often harmonically lush. Try his Violin Concerto on for size if you’re up for it – it’s the kind of music that sounds like tonal music heard through a funhouse mirror.
Count me as a genuine admirer of Schoenberg’s music; I especially like the early atonal (non-serial) piano music, like Opus 11. I’m not an admirer of the (IMO) absurd dogmatism that sprang up among some of the later serialists, or of the acerbic attitude toward tonality that dominated academic circles until at least the early 1980s (I would need two hands to count my composer acquaintances who were denied acedemic opportunities back then because their music was deemed too accessible and therefore inferior). But there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Atonality contributed tremendous expressive resources to modern music. Think of where modern film music would be without it! And a great deal of atonal music is genuinely beautiful and important. But like bitter food it takes a while to develop your taste for it. And, like bitter food, sometimes bitterness is all it has to offer, in which cast I stop listening.