Classical Convert

Webernification (or: Me vs. Atonality, Part 10,243)

After reading the section in The Rest Is Noise about Webern I was immediately inspired to grab a copy of the 6 Pieces, despite my current dislike of truly atonal pieces. What grabbed me so much from the pages?

“It is an incomparably disturbing work in which the rawness of atonality is refracted through the utmost orchestral finesse … arguably the supreme atonal work”

Man I love ellipses. And how could one not love to sample the opus after that knife-edge of a summary? Happily, pinched pensioners wireless access down here in the South, in combination with my not-canceled eMusic subscription results in instant musical gratification. The 6 Pieces are just a few clicks, taps and shufflings around the room to optimize stolen borrowed signal strength away.

So how do they strike an atonal unfan? Well, after only almost a couple of listens (initial impressions here, currently) I feel a stronger connection than with either Berg’s Violin Concerto, or Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra or Serenade. This is surprising to me, as previously my misconception was that Webern was going to be ultra-astringent, like each of his opuses would be one viciously plucked tone-row with a 10-note chord thrown in at the end for discordantly good measure.

I’m finding quite hard to identify why this is. They are certainly murkier than I had imagined, they sound sometimes plaintive, lost. Often  scary. Shimmering notes lying over wandering ostinato depths. Basically I’m a sucker for melancholic music, hence the Shostakovich lust. There’s more though, what? They are almost… not tonal exactly… but less abrasively atonal than the Schoenberg, and more depressively atonal. There is something about the tempos, also. I feel like with other atonal pieces the speeds are scattered around as much as the notes are, in a deliberate, unemotional fashion, as if the composer is trying to use each speed equally just as he uses each note. Here, however, the variation feels more emotionally driven.

More listening is required to get thoughts somewhat straighter on these areas. What really puzzles me is why these seem to make more sense to me than the “emotional atonality” of the Berg Violin Concerto. Doesn’t that fit the description above even better than Webern?

PS dear reader, one more quick thought before I pretend to go to bed: I like the vague, muttering percussion/percussive background he sometimes uses.

The Rest Is Noise on Holiday

I’m vacationing downsouth in the wildly wiles of South Carolina, currently, and to a general audience of surprise and satisfaction there is wireless in existence. Praise be! Simultaneously with this pleasing, non-lab, intermittent internetting, the stack of books that collects itself together over termtime (and even more so over the present-giving period) is getting partially digested. For one, this includes the ever so enlightening tome which is The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross.

Only up to about page 100 or so, so far, but it’s already an extremely inspiring experience. His descriptions of pieces are wonderful, a perfect blend of technical details with emotional feeling. As Emanuel Ax testifies in a blurb on the back:

“… Alex Ross has written a true rarity — a book about music that makes you want to run and listen to every note he talks about”

I wanna get my hands on Mahler 6, and even some of the particulrly uncomfortable sounding bits by Berg, if only to compare their notes to his written ones.

There are a bunch of other points which deserve talking about, but that’ll have to wait until another day as my head is too red-wined up, and full of food and sleep.