Serialism Versus Edgy Tonality
April 24th, 2007 Posted in auerbach, classical music, schnittke, shostakovich
Here’s an idea, the real thrust and import to Schnittke, Auerbach, and late Shosty is the revolutionary direction they have taken classical music. Yes, that’s a little controversial sounding because people *always* seem to bitch about how Shostakovich was stuck in the old boring romantic tradition while Boulez and Cage and everybody were doing so many wonderful, exciting things to push the frontiers of music!!1!1!!
Yeah, well, atonalism and over the top minimalism suck.
Sure, they’re academically “interesting”. Right. We can sit around and analyze all the clever stuff we’ve been doing and maybe argue with our friends about how 4’33” is actually very interesting and clever… but is any of this really enjoyable to listen to? Really? The tonal system is there because it sounds so bloody good to people. Forcing yourself to adopt some other system is all good and well as a practical exercise, but it doesn’t exactly communicate very well with real, human listeners who do not studiously study the score for clever inversions and retrothingies.
I think Berg, Webern, Schoenberg completely overreacted. They saw the late romantics pushing the boundaries of the tonal system and went completely over the top, when what they really should’ve done to still be appealing to listen to (except for Berg maybe, he wasn’t so far off) was to just push it a little more, to veer out into atonality without losing it completely. Just go on little expeditions.
That is what I feel classical music is coming around to. Tonality is essential. It’s okay to break away for alittle bit, but you must come back to it in the end. I feel that Shostakovich was very close to this towards the end. His violin sonata, for example, or 12th string quartet both use fundamentally atonal melodies, but they develop these in an tonal fashion. Schnittke and Auerbach both seem to do a similar thing (listen to Schnittke’s string quintet for a prime exmaple of atonalism fading to tonality).
It’s almost as if atonality has become the most fundamental mirror “key” to classic tonality. Instead of modulating to the dominant from the tonic you now modulate from tonality to atonality, but just like in the classical tradition, you pretty much always come back to the tonic in the end.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:05 am
If atonality isn’t your thing, fine. But it’s ridiculous for you to make universal pronouncements like “it sucks”, or that no one can understand it without the score (plenty of people can). I don’t make blog points telling people that common practice tonality is lame, I just let people enjoy what they want.
For what it’s worth, I find Boulez extremely enjoyable to listen to. Even for those who find Boulez’s insistence on twelve-tone serialism unfortunate often still think he has shown some interesting insights into harmony ever since “Le Marteau”. And even many of those composers returning to something closer to tonality, like George Benjamin, call Webern (especially the string quartet and the symphony) a wonderful inspiration.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Alright, fair point. I was being deliberately provocative when I wrote the original post, and I admit that claiming “atonalism sucks” is painting in an ugly color with an extremely broad brush.
On the other hand, I do think that it is quite rare to find someone who truly enjoys twelve-tone music in the same way as they do more tonally centered pieces. I very much feel that it is an inherently academic style of writing, which while being an interesting reaction, is ultimately unsatisfying to most listeners. Of course, this is all subjective, as music always is.
If you can suggest any pieces you think might sway me I’d certainly be interested in giving them a go!
May 4th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I’m not sure that you really have a handle on what you’re talking about here. You’re conflating categories of music (“atonal”, “serial”, “twelve-tone”) which are actually subsets of one another; also, statements like “use fundamentally atonal melodies, but [...] develop these in an tonal fashion” don’t really make any sense. ‘Angular’, ‘wide-spaced’ or ‘using dissonant intervals’ doesn’t equal atonal, the term refers to systems of harmonic organisation. The melodies in late Shostakovich are tonal.
With regards to listening suggestions it’s a bit difficult to guess what you’ve already heard from these posts. But in order to dispel the idea that ‘atonal/twelve-tone/serial’ music is all the same academicised kettle of fish, I’d suggest a good listen to:
Webern: 6 Bagatelles for string quartet, op. 9 (early expressionism)
Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra (mature Schoenberg-style twelve-tone)
Stockhausen: Zeitmasse (early 1950s serialism)
Dallapiccola: Sex carmina Alcaei (later, more melodically-oriented twelve-tone)
Babbitt: The Head of the Bed (academic US serialism)
Berio: Points on the curve to find (later serialism)
Nono: Fragmente-stille (late late serialism)
Ferneyhough: La Chute d’Icare (hyper-structured post-serialism)
I’ve had to really fight to keep the list down to only these; it only barely scratches the surface and I’m only including directly serial/twelve-tone pieces, except the early Webern and Ferneyhough which are moving towards and away from the technique respectively. This doesn’t offer any representation of other ideas in atonal and experimental music, of which there are many.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Hi Matt, thank-you for your listening suggestions. I’ve tried to address your other points on the front page: here. I didn’t expect this to generate quite as much controversy as it did!
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:24 am
As for enjoyable twelve note music I’d include:
Schoenberg’s Begleitsmusik Op 34 and the Fourth String Quartet Op.37
It is perfectly possible to write tonal twelve-note music, and twelve-note tonal music too. The trouble with the technique is it’s absence of rules, so bad composers think ‘anything goes’ and write bad music.
Handled sensitively, with an ear for the final results, serialism can produce quite listenable and enjoyable music.
October 28th, 2007 at 1:03 am
What is strange with atonality is that it seems more conditioned by social relationships and ideologies than pure musical viability (which, imho, leads straight to things like tonality or modality, and binary or ternary rhythm, as can be seen in a gazillion music systems around the globe).
My hypothesis is that tonal, organized music is very easy to criticize, and it’s easy to sort out who does it better and who doesn’t. Furthermore, there’s already a lot of tonal music, so if you compose tonal music, you have to use “standard” elements that have been used a gazillion times, so even if you come up with new modes or rhythmic structures, it’s almost sure that someone else came up with something similar before, so it’s easy to tar you as unoriginal.
Inversely, atonal music jumbles up all of this, so if someone criticizes you for doing something wrong, you can accuse him of not understanding your music and being close minded, and conserve a sort of moral high ground. It also provides a better defense against accusations of unoriginality, since it’s easy to invent all sorts of crazy systems if they don’t actually have to produce good music.
Because of this, composers that go in the atonal direction are “rewarded” for the “elitism” of their music by teachers and sometimes fellow composers, and they will praise other people’s atonal music in return. This is how atonal music sets foot in academic settings – despite its dubious musical viability, it offers an ideal social environment in which the group of composers can think highly of themselves. The problem is that, by doing so, they’re cutting themselves off from 95% of their potential audience.
Of course, sometimes atonal stuff can be interesting… but it’s basically for dimensions that WEREN’T all jumbled up by such techniques – in particular, the form, orchestration and timbre dimensions aren’t that touched, so often the main interest of such music comes from there. It’s also dependent on instrumentation – atonal music sounds much better on winds and chromatic percussions than on stuff like pianos or synthetisers, probably because the natural, soft tone of these instruments compensate for the harshness of the un-harmony and un-melody.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Hubert you speak out your butt. There is a whole GENRE of atonal music played on synthesizers and pianos. Music concrete! which is all either process music or atonal music is the heart of electronic music. Many of the original synthesizers were DESIGNED for atonal music because their timbres can be modified infinatley and mathmaticly.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:23 am
John, Hubert has it right on the money and your Visa card is maxxed out. As a side note, Ben did not say there is no atonal music for synthesizers. And there are no synthesizers “designed” for atonal music.
Moog, ARP, RCA and others designed synthesizers specifically to reproduce tonal systems. Many just happened to do atonal better.
And it’s musique concrete, not music concrete, you plebian lavatory laureate. If you’re going to criticize other people, at least know what you speak of. If he is talking out his butt, then you must be the ass.
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