Classical Convert

Oh Schnittke, why are you so fickle?

A reason I think Schnittke is awesome (from the concerto grosso no. 2):

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Or (from the viola concerto)…

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And why he kind of pisses me off (also from concerto grosso no. 2):

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Arrrgh! I can’t stand that strident, single-stringed rapidly falling motif which he uses in almost every movement of everything I have by him. It drives me crazy. I love the funky polystylism and weird stops and starts, and even a dash of microtonal whining, but he always ends up pushing it too bloody far. Pretty much every time I hear a Schnittke piece I wonder why I am not listening to it more, why it isn’t one of my favorites – and then it gets really painfully strident and I turn it off because my brain starts crying.

He still kicks arse though.

Nielsen Out-Schnittkeing Schnittke

As part of my exciting foray into the compositional world of Nielsen (who is sneaking his way progressively further up my list of favorites every day) I’ve been listening a lot to his symphony No. 6, within which is a remarkably Schnittke-esque, in-your-face blurring of musical styles (or polystylism, as the cool kids call it.) Blurring probably isn’t such a hot description of it actually, it’s more like a smack in the face.

This is the kind of thing Schnittke does (taken from the second movement of his viola concerto):

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And here is the section of Nielsen’s 6th symphony:

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The Nielsen is even more surprising, in a way, because of the (comparably) reasonably normal tonality preceding the outbursts. It really jumps out at you. With Schnittke you’re always three-quarters expecting (Get it? It’s like half-expecting, but more so) something like that to happen. The Nielsen is one of the most sonically violent passages I know of from that time period – it was written in 1924/1925. I really like it. I love pieces which play off tonal order, versus disorder.

Serialism Versus Edgy Tonality

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.

Lera Auerbach Is In My Hands

Well, kind of. The actual American/Russian not-very-much-older-than-me composer chick isn’t, but a brand spanking new copy of one of her CD’s of piano compositions is. It’s called “Preludes and Dreams”, which is appropriate since it contains her 24 preludes for piano (Op. 41), a piece called Ten Dreams (Op. 45), and finally “Chorale, Fugue and Postlude” (Op. 31). It has a whopping 37 tracks, more than any other classical (and probably non-classical) CD I own, which makes me slightly worried about the Ballet Unfocusing Effect as I might call it from now on if I remember.

The BUE is what happens when there are two many separate movements which don’t particularly tie together. It means I often have a hard time digesting and appreciating a ballet (which is often independent 4 or 5 minute chunks) than I do a symphony (which is a wonderfully massive cohesive whole).

I shall reserve any kind of harsh judgment on Auerbach’s pieces though, they do seem to have a cohesive, similar, large-scale sort of feel to them. They’re all completely suicidal and miserable sounding. the first one of the “Dreams” is subtitled “As in a nightmare”, well, that pretty much applies across all of the Dreams and from what I can tell after a couple of listenings all the Preludes and in fact the entire CD.

This is not cheerful music.

It has the bleakness of Schnittke, but with the spacious semi-tonality of late Shostakovich. However, it isn’t nearly as grating and strident as the Schnittke which I have heard, which is a good thing. The smoothness makes it more powerful, more directly emotional. Schnittke often feels like someone dragging a rusty saw through my brain (which is just what you need, occasionally) whereas this is music to sit in a corner and go quietly insane to. It’s quiet and contemplative, but fundamentally restless and somewhat disturbing. It reminds of some of the bleakest bits from Shostakovich’s 15th string quartet, but for piano.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m not really selling it. I actually really do like it a lot! It’s definitely meaty, challenging stuff, not fluff with a bit of atonality thrown in to please the academics. It feels like it has real staying power. I think Auerbach is going to be major. Mosey on over to the listening room on her website to see if you might like her stuff.