Stravinsky vs Schönberg

was a composer who writes at the piano

otm!! his harmony constructed just like two hands on the keyboard, and you can "see" it progress in a manner that would lend itself really well to solo piano

tho I say Ligeti had a fair amount of this happening as well, or at least struck a good balance of intuitive music vs conceptual structure

the serial method was supposed to assure the supremacy of german music, to find a form that could organize dissonance and thus be better capable of expressing individual suffering than the overwrought decadence of many of the composers succeeding wagner. it is more a rehabilitation than a fundamental rejection of romanticism.

the rite of spring is a more immediate rupture with subjective poetics

"Overwrought decadence" strikes me as being kind of extreme language, so I'm wondering which composers we're talking about.

Reminds me that Milton characterized Satie as "deprogramming for centuries of classical music sentimentality" the other day. Sorry to be argumentative, but I think that's also very extreme language.

Also don't think The Rite of Spring is any less "subjective" than late Romantic music.

xp @ Dominique: The fact that his harmony is constructed just like two hands on the keyboard, in the case of his ballets and Les Noces, was because he was writing piano reductions in advance of the orchestration.

When Schoenberg made that "at the piano" comment, I think he was referring specifically to the fact that Stravinsky was primarily interested in intuitive composition. The sounding out of chords and contrasting colours. Something that Schoenberg maybe felt was somewhat decadent? Passe? At any rate, it was Stravinsky's first and last lesson with the dude. (Source? I can't locate it...)

But instead, a great article by Robert Craft about Stravinsky's adoption of serialism, and later, 12-tone: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/82dec/craft82.htm

Also don't think The Rite of Spring is any less "subjective" than late Romantic music.

― timellison, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 22:20

how is one piece of music more subjective than another? if it helps, read as /intrasubjective poetics/

I'm happy to call a bunch of my favorite composers of that era 'overwrought decadence'!

Bax, Szymanowski, Suk, early Schoenberg...

Also re: 'subjective' it depends on which scalpel you use to seperate Romantic from Anti-Romantic. In most of the above usage Romantic would prob be meant to denote highly chromatic tonal music with an emphasis on grand passion and grandeur in general.

If you take the idea of Romanticism at a more abstract level then there are a hell of a lot of 20c avant gardists who still have to be called Romantics in the sense of "here's the great adventurer deep inside unexplored territory, bringing back visions to polite society'

transfigured night is certainly my favourite schoenberg and one of the most affecting pieces in all of music. it's perfectly excessive.

the s/s binary still works, if not entirely on adorno's terms or in his favour. they still seem like foundational figures for tracing the years since, whereas bartok while comparably great still seems very much individuated and without a distinct and arguable lineage overshadowing his successors, for all that he may have influenced them.

And wonderfully well-argued, as rhapsodic as it seems to be and as is unusual for pieces with a similarly fin-de-siècle apocalyptic aesthetic — the harmonic language might be post-Wagner, but the construction is definitely post-Brahms.

xp

ya, admittedly i don't know brahms very well but i can see parallels with his symphonies. schoenberg saw him as the last great master of the tradition, i think.

that is to say, previous great.

actually that's probably the reason I rate Schoenberg over Stravinsky — every detail seems essential to the whole, contra Stravinsky's Debussyian use of impressionistic "sound-images" that are more or less non-reflective (which are still interesting). Also upthread otm about Stravinsky's harmonies — those spacious quartal chords hit something deep in me

like this is irresistibly gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ZI4SIAuMA

youtube fight yall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFT6NIYMF1I

nah maybe some restraint with the youtubes is in order cuz both of these have enough great things to create a The Geir Hongro listening club -esque thread unloadable on computers more than 18 months old

orpheus and apollo both have limpid pellucid sunlit brlliance to rank against the agonized geometry of les noces

idd, I actually prefer those pieces over the early big works — more personable; I relate to them

this is where i note that KLANGFARBENMELODIE is one of the greatest words. the latter versh of petrushka was on the program for the first really good concert i saw, which probably helped endear it as my immediate favourite stravinsky. third movement of symphony of psalms attains a rare unity of form and articulation and i've been known to play it on repeat for hours. so damn great........

totally — that was the first non-Rite Stravinsky that sold me and was one of the catalysts for me getting deep into CM

Sorry to be argumentative, but I think that's also very extreme language.

well Tim I should make my bias clear -- in my early twenties when I started investigating classical beyond Charles Ives, I found myself allergic to almost everything between Bach and Schoenberg -- I kept trying, but something in the sound and performances of it threw me, I didn't enjoy it, had trouble even respecting it. This was reenforced when I randomly discovered Gesualdo and branched out into early polyphonic choral music, it seemed like there was a wrong turn around the 18th century and it was righted for me around the early 20th. so while I don't mean to be overtly judgemental when I use words like 'deprogramming', it's really only very recently that I've been even really been able to enjoy most things from the baroque / romantic stretch. If an occasional term creeps in that shows my residual allergies they should just be taken as a problem that I have.

And I like Schoenberg. The second you begin studiously avoiding tonality as the central organizing principle, you rediscover sound as music in and of itself -- and before he came up with an atonal system, there was almost nothing left to notice. it almost seems like he considered 'klangfarbenmelodie' as a side-effect of his real invention, but he couldn't help but notice it and name the phenomenon. It wasn't really until Varese that people began accepting arrangements / orchestrations / organized sound as anything more than decadence or ornament, but Schoenberg was one of the first people to run into it and the Five Orchestral Pieces are still my favorite of his, they are far more of a sound riot than Rite of Spring & they still sound shocking

xpost

bartok while comparably great still seems very much individuated and without a distinct and arguable lineage overshadowing his successors, for all that he may have influenced them.

Well, the relationship is not exactly the same (more an attitude than a particular musical DNA passed down) but Bartok is father to the many many folk-modernists who quickly followed. His effect upon the way folk tunes would be used in forward-thinking composition was huuuge, surely!

orpheus and apollo both have limpid pellucid sunlit brlliance to rank against the agonized geometry of les noces

― kid 606: the nultness (nakhchivan), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 7:03 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

idd, I actually prefer those pieces over the early big works — more personable; I relate to them

― corey, Tuesday, March 15, 2011 7:07 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

In that case, if you haven't heard Persephone, get it post-haste!

ya i think of these two as special in that embody so much polemical baggage that later composers had to confront. i like babbitt's reading of bartok.....

For all that these works span an entire creative career, there is,
throughout, a single conceptual attitude, and, from the second quartet on,
a personal sound is present, through which this conception is disclosed. Most
important, the unity of purpose emerges in all its significance as
the identification of the personal exigency with the fundamental
musical exigency of the epoch, emphasizing the impossibility of a
strategic aspect. For it is in this respect that Bartok's music is so
completely of its time, and achieves a contemporaneity far trans-
cending mere considerations of style or idiom. It is non-provincial
music that reveals a thorough awareness of the crucial problems con-
fronting contemporary musical composition, and attempts to achieve
a total and personally unique solution of these problems.

this is a beautiful thread.

Hate both, but hate Schönberg the most. "Firebird" isn't too bad actually....

J. OTM! Voted Schoenberg. (np: Maurizio Pollini's performance of the "Piano Suite".)

I don't know to what extent I'm siding this way since I've studied him so much more though tbh.

No, that seems to be like all the Ginastera I've heard — parts cribbed from Ravel and Stravinsky, all flash, little substance.

Do you know the Sonata for Guitar? (You might still feel the same way but I'm just curious.)

in my early twenties when I started investigating classical beyond Charles Ives, I found myself allergic to almost everything between Bach and Schoenberg

This is a pretty incredible statement btw!

No one cares, Geir.

Do you know the Sonata for Guitar? (You might still feel the same way but I'm just curious.)

I don't! I also hear his SQs are more interesting than his orchestral music, so I should give him another try.

It's one of the major late 20th century pieces for the instrument, ranked as the greatest by some. Roberto Aussel's recording is really good.

(Tbf, Geir was called out by name on the thread.:P)

Thanks!

The Guitar Sonata was also on the bill I saw last Thursday night-- it was performed right before Cantata Para America Magica. I was definitely impressed with it, but it was my first hearing and I would need more listening to really 'get it'.

I'm weirdly ignorant about classical guitar repertoire given that I'm a guitarist (electric) myself...

For good or ill Stravinsky didn't break as decisively with Classical harmonic tradition or rhythm, until under Schonberg's influence. Very different composers ultimately. Schoenberg definitely more strictly modernist, and admirable for that, but perhaps Stravinsky was more all-round musical?

xxxxxx-p Didn't Beethoven's Fifth's opening motif invent metal? (And no, the rest of it didn't invent disco, lol)

Huge "Rite of Spring" and "Petrouchka" fan but it's not fair to vote since I've never heard any of Arnie's works, even though I keep intending to, just 'cause he irritates Geir so much.

Start with Verklärte Nacht and the 1st Chamber Symphony.

and the 5 Orchestral Pieces

^^

the scherzo fantastique is really pretty great, if not quite first tier stravinsky

http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Plays-Schoenberg-Webern/dp/B000025VDL
http://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-Piano-Works-Arnold/dp/B0000028O6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1300324409&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-Webern-Berg-Orchestral-Works/dp/B000083LR4/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1300324610&sr=1-3

Gould plays Schoenberg Piano -- First link is the earlier CBC recordings, really ruffneck & adrenalized. Second is slightly more elegant / linear & more like Bach. I said upthread that 5 Orchestral Pieces were my favorites but I've listened to these two discs more than my copy of Simon Rattle doing the Pieces.

and this is a good rec. of the two chamber symphonies (No. 1 is in his "atonal" period, No. 2 is a reworking of an early piece he did late in life) and verklärte nacht — all are very accessible imo, and the recording is extremely clear so you can hear all the instrument-doublings and color combinations

I think you can try "Pierrot Lunaire" too. Something like really demented cabaret music. And the third string quartet has a pretty great riff.

If you're going to credit any classical work with the tendentious distinction of Inventing Metal it's Holst's "Mars" fullstop

(I was making Schoenberg recommendations for Myonga, to be clear, not making any claims about the invention of metal.)

Sorry Sund4r that was an xp
Also I've never heard the guitar sonata (!) thanks for the recommendation

For good or ill Stravinsky didn't break as decisively with Classical harmonic tradition or rhythm, until under Schonberg's influence.

This makes no sense to me. How do Le Sacre and Les Noces NOT break decisively with classical rhythm?

Appreciate the recommendations, everybody, thanks.

And hahaha I think I made that "Mars" --> metal connection myself in a Holst thread a few months ago! (Or somebody else did and I agreed)

Even before Mars, there was Liszt in doom mode -- check "Funerailles" and "La Notte". And the third Mephisto Waltz supplying the tritones for the first Sabbath album and King Crimson's Red.

...plus King Crimson's cover of Mars

Plus that Mars quote in the British Nuggets box set-- I think it's "Listen To The Sky"?

Plus Led Zep's "Friends"

Plus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SB-3TUEcQU&feature=fvwrel

Frogman Henry here. Old account unworkable on this pc.

In this contest it's undeniably Schoenberg, actually it would be Schoenberg up against most 20c composers for me, only Webern, Mahler and Bartok would seriously challenge him for me, but I'm happy to concede that says something about my listening experience, there are many composers of whom I have only a cursory hearing.

I'm going to make some enemies here maybe, but I find Stravinsky soulless in most of his catalogue.
I like the symphonies (in C, 3 moves, Psalms etc) precisely because some anger and some personality seems to come out in them, but an awful lot of Strav in the middle/later ballets and the widdly neo-classical pieces seems to me to be note-spinning with little feeling or commitment( I listened to Dumbarton Oaks the other day; wow was that ever inconsequential). This is very pleasant somtimes, I love chilling out to the colours and pungent sensuality of Apollo or Pulcinella, but they move me not a jot, and they leave me feeling like you do when you listen to music by minor composers of Haydn's time. Stravinsky is often ravishing to the ear, but strangely empty.

With Schoenberg, as you can guess, it's jsut the opposite. Completely agree with this "I get the same searing hanging-off-a-cliff-edge-by-your-fingernails romanticism that he was overtly pursuing in his early pieces, it's all completely feverish & heart-rending when it's done right" to the extent that it's probably redundant for me to add to it cos I can't expresss it better, but I will do anyway - I feel I am involved with AS, with him on his journey, and subject to the the same perils. Of course there are times where you can feel lost, where you don't know if you trust the old Trickster/Nemesis, like around the middle of the Variations for Orchestra op.31, which I struggled with, and where you really do feel the 12-tone bogeyman of classical music start to confuddle and maybe repulse you. But repeated listenings allowed me to unravel the musical logic as well as be enraptured by the sound, and now I do see how it's one of his masterpieces, and one that I can feel (relatively) comfortable with. I got into AS via Webern, so the comparative heaviness, struggle and as it seemed imperiousness were hard to reconcile with what I conceived about 12-tone at first from AS's pupil, but I like all these things now, and AS seems - once again to use this divise term - more human, more afraid, more subjective, maybe more interesting.
I've immersed myself in the string quartets and the orchestral pieces - Erwartung (I noticed no one mentioned that, don't know why) the Chamber Symphonies, the Five Pieces and the Variations.
Verklate Nacht is also great of course.

(The interview is from 15 years ago)

the process of absorbing what is composed during this century is a very slow process

wow Boulez otm! People are quick to be aware of something and move on, but very few go in for the depth of anything, and subsequently, only the most immediately rewarding music gets played.

Schoenberg is a really weird dude who kind of has one foot in each world, a heaving late-late romantic disciplining himself with pitch games-- i have to wonder if this oddness has to do with his "difficulty" for listeners, like with Webern, Lutoslawski, Birtwistle, Boulez you immediately know this is a new world and go into sci fi traveller mode. IDK.

Yeah I think one of the reasons why Schoenberg can be difficult is that while the harmonic language is different to anything that came before, his instrumentation is still closer to that of late romanticism, the orchestral pieces in particular feel heavy heavy heavy in a particularly Germanic way and aware of their place in a particular German canon. The Webern I've heard has a similar heaviness that I don't hear in Boulez and other later serialists/atonal composers.

wow Boulez otm! People are quick to be aware of something and move on, but very few go in for the depth of anything, and subsequently, only the most immediately rewarding music gets played.

― Dominique, Monday, 30 March 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not feeling that Boulez quote - there are always anecdotes from idiots who don't want to play something. However for the most part the stuff is played, to be reckoned with.

I think stuff from the 70s on is hard to see although concerts in the last couple of years have tried to address that.

Actually, I was reading it as a comment on music in general, starting in the 20th century. I think it's insightful, and the way most music is discussed on messageboards like ILM is a good example of this. A rolling stone of music consumption gathers few repeat plays (especially if it's a little on the "indigestible" side to begin with).

Schoenberg can be a bitch and a half to sing because the harmonic language flies directly against everything your ear has been trained to recognize as a logical musical line.

At least it's in standard tuning!

ah ok fair enough Dominique.

Just come back from the concert:

Evan Johnson sounds p/substantial composer to me. The idea seems to me that he has taken something akin to Feldman's intuition (perhaps how the same sounds appear and disappear and don't have a very definable mid-point???) and bought it to his music. Unlike Feldman Johnson isn't shaping his music in these blocks the way Feldman did. An original sensibility, god knows if I'll ever get a CD by him - or anyone - ever again.

Hoban's music I love but this felt a bit like odd one out for him. Took me a while to see that the pianists were almost playing some of the passages in parallel to one another. Couldn't quite get into it, though its mostly my fault. Again a recording would be useful.

Ligeti and then following this up with Stravinsky was a masterstroke. I don't care for anything of Ligeti's after about '68 or so. This is from '76. Ligeti mentions Reich and Riley but Nancarrow plays as much of a role in the 2nd section, which makes his remarks on automation (in the concert notes) ever more relevant in the way this is used to wage war on the worker. Thought I'd find this as useless as the Etudes but not at all.

I need a version of The Rite for two pianos. It was, ahem, a riot. Can anyone recommend?

I don't know what your skill level is but if you've any, get the sheet music and a friend to read it through, prob the most fun you can have at a piano

No skills :-(

Loved watching although the looks the piano players were giving each other while performing the Ligeti were just as good. For a second you thought they wouldn't make it.

The recording of the two piano rite on rca by tilson thomas and another guy is very very good

Thanks.

Thinking also as to whether this could be the version of the Rite for me but effect has worn off a bit in the morning.