Originally posted by scacchipazzoYeah, my classical tastes are actually fairly conservative. I can't stomach anything past Stravinsky or Prokofiev.
Never could get into Schoenberg or the other 12 tone composers, Alban Berg, Webern. I went to Wozzeck and found it only mildly interesting. I do not decrie modernity since I love Stravinsky and bartok. Exploring new idioms in music cannot go so far it is only understood by other composers. The regular bunch are hard enough for our uncouth ears.
Originally posted by NordlysThen your ears are not uncouth like mine. I am self educated music-wise. I read about a composer first then I listen. Perhaps the buildup to Berg and the others was what made me dislike atonality. Not all of it, just most of it. It took me years to get to the point where I understood traditional classical so atonality was shocking to me. More shocking still after being steeped in Italian and German opera. After reading about Schoenberg starting a whole new school of music I thought perhaps he would be shocking in the sense of the Grosse Fugue, not like a ton of bricks on one's head during an earhtquake.
I was going to say that! It's one of my favourite pieces, so beautiful and moving.
Originally posted by scacchipazzoI don't inherently dislike atonality, but I feel that atonality for its own sake is ridiculous.
Then your ears are not uncouth like mine. I am self educated music-wise. I read about a composer first then I listen. Perhaps the buildup to Berg and the others was what made me dislike atonality. Not all of it, just most of it. It took me years to get to the point where I understood traditional classical so atonality was shocking to me. More shocking s ...[text shortened]... in the sense of the Grosse Fugue, not like a ton of bricks on one's head during an earhtquake.
Originally posted by AttilaTheHornThen my brain is wired to detest atonality because i hear no tonal center. I actually find most of Schoenberg's material painful. Berg's Wozzeck made me want to set myself on fire. Perhaps my brain has not evolved to accept atonality. In general I don't relate to the 12 tone system.
I've always maintained that there is no atonality. No matter how "atonal" something is, I still hear a tonal centre. It's just the way human brains have been wired.
I still believe that there is always a tonal centre in all music. It's just harder to detect it in the 12-tone system. It's really no different than the chromaticism of 19th century music in which composers tried to disguise the tonal centre by increasingly complex modulation and the introduction of foreign keys to the music, all of which led up to Wagner's Prelude to Tristan und Isolde. After that, "normal" harmonic relationships slowly broke down, all in the name of super-romanticism and expressiveness, which in turn led to Schonberg's Transfigured Night followed by the inevitible 12-tone system. This system is the logical extension of chromaticism which can be traced back hundreds of years. There is a very short passage in Mozart's Symphony No. 40 which is very close to a perfect tone row and few people ever notice it, but Mozart knew exactly what he was doing.
Now you're truly exposing my memebrship amongst the muiscal igorami of the world. Indeed, what you say may be true, but these were no Mozarts. Mozart introduced the use of dissonance in one of his quartets, yet only Haydn understood him. My point is the 12 tone system produced nothing of great significance or memorability. Pollocks of music simply splashing what sounds to our untrained ears like buckets of notes with no rhyme or reason. If some atonality is blended with the old ways I don't mind it much. Cilea blends the two well and sounds sublime, Dallapiccola sounds like nails on a blackboard.
You said something quite significant: "untrained ears." One must do one's homework to understand what is going on. That was just as true in Mozart's day as it is today. Mozart's "dissonant" quartet is not the beginning of dissonance. One can trace dissonance back 1500 years or more and it is possible to look at all of music history as the evolution of dissonance. The 12-tone system sprang form this, and indeed, it had to because it was inevitable. Untrained ears are going to have a difficult time understanding, just as they did in Mozart's and Beethoven's day, or any other period of music history. However, dodacaphonic music may well have run its course in the same way that the brief expressionist period of Debussy et al seemed to have milked all possibilities very quickly.
I meant that Mozart used dissonance, not invented it. Some dissonance is pleasant. Nothing but dissonance grates on my ears. I go back to Dallapiccola. I find his music most unpleasant and gladly leave it to the cognoscenti to admire, enjoy and rave about. If dodecaphony has run it's course it is because no one will buy the nasty stuff. I hear nothing soaring, grand, memorable or uplifting in most of it. I shall stay with my older music and remain happy in my untrained ways.
Originally posted by AttilaTheHornIf your point with this post is that music constantly evolves, then yes, you're correct. However, there is a difference between pre-12-tone music and post-12-tone music, the difference being that in post-12-tone, dissonance is sometimes used for its own sake, and not as much with the perfect 4th and dominant 7th as with the other dissonant chords. In other words, it's generally harder to listen to.
I still believe that there is always a tonal centre in all music. It's just harder to detect it in the 12-tone system. It's really no different than the chromaticism of 19th century music in which composers tried to disguise the tonal centre by increasingly complex modulation and the introduction of foreign keys to the music, all of which led up to Wag ...[text shortened]... erfect tone row and few people ever notice it, but Mozart knew exactly what he was doing.
Originally posted by scherzo>All that is true, but it can be said that dissonance has always been used for its own sake and it has therefore always challenged the listener to grapple with it, meaning ever greater ear training and study.
If your point with this post is that music constantly evolves, then yes, you're correct. However, there is a difference between pre-12-tone music and post-12-tone music, the difference being that in post-12-tone, dissonance is sometimes used for its own sake, and not as much with the perfect 4th and dominant 7th as with the other dissonant chords. In other words, it's generally harder to listen to.
>In 1800, listeners were shocked at the first chord in Beethoven's 1st Sympnony, a dominant 7th discord, and not even the dominant 7th in the right key too. Numerous other examples can be given, such as the tonic chord played right on top of the dominant chord in the 3rd Symphony at the beginning of the exposition, a shocking polytonality, which was even anticipated earlier in Mozart and Haydn. Today, we hear all this as being quite normal, but that was not true in 1800. Back then was heard the same complaint we often hear with today's dissonance, fingernails scratching a blackboard, and a lot of people thought Beethoven was quite mad.
>Throughout the 19th century, composers grappled with the ground work laid by Beethoven, and his effect is still prevalent today. It inevitably had to lead to tone rows and ever greater dissonance. Even popular music is dissonance after dissonance, one dischord after another, just like Wagner.
Originally posted by AttilaTheHorn>All that is true, but it can be said that dissonance has always been used for its own sake and it has therefore always challenged the listener to grapple with it, meaning ever greater ear training and study.
>All that is true, but it can be said that dissonance has always been used for its own sake and it has therefore always challenged the listener to grapple with it, meaning ever greater ear training and study.
>In 1800, listeners were shocked at the first chord in Beethoven's 1st Sympnony, a dominant 7th discord, and not even the dominant 7th in the ri ...[text shortened]... en popular music is dissonance after dissonance, one dischord after another, just like Wagner.
I don't believe it was beforehand. It was previously used either as an unavoidable incident or as a part of a piece whose feeling required it.
Concerning your Dom. 7th analogy, the dominant 7th has always been used as a digression from just a V chord in semicadences, etc. Bach loved the chord, and although Bach was revolutionary for his time, his use of 7th chords wasn't exactly new.
>True, the 7th of the Dom. 7th chord was originally just a passing note, but in time it was used in the chord itself. It is a dischord (containling 2 unstable tritones) and traditionally requires resolution, all before Bach's time, as you point out. The longer you hang onto it before resolving it, the more tension (and colour) is created and the more the sense of relief when it's resolved. It seems no one can hand onto a Dom. chord longer than Beethoven, and sometimes he inserts an even more dissonant chord after it, the Dim. 7th which is even more unstable since it essentially obliterates the key momentarily. Sometimes he doesn't even resolve it "according to the book, " Bach too.
>In this way we begin to have more and more chromaticism throughout the 19th century, leading inevitably to dodacaphonic music and the breakdown of harmony and key relationships, sometimes even polytonality such as Stravinsky, Ives, and others.
>Some composers strive to break new ground, other strive to hang onto the old ways but in a modern setting. But that was true long before that too, such as the conflict between Brahms and Wagner, at least in the public's eyes.
Originally posted by AttilaTheHornNaturally, pre-Bach, it was considered horrific to hold the 7^ of dom. VII very long. But the unstable chords created by the 7^ are neither permanent nor for their own sake, even today. When we listen to the messes (in my opinion) that people like Schoenberg or Stravinsky cranked out (and several other "composers" continue to do today), there is absolutely no respect for the traditional boundaries of tonality. They shattered the last vestiges of order from the system, and although some composers still do adhere to that system, many more do not. With that sort of music, suddenly we've hit another "revolution," this one even more momentous than the Bach revolution. But even Bach respected order, and the rules of voice leading and four-part harmonies.
>True, the 7th of the Dom. 7th chord was originally just a passing note, but in time it was used in the chord itself. It is a dischord (containling 2 unstable tritones) and traditionally requires resolution, all before Bach's time, as you point out. The longer you hang onto it before resolving it, the more tension (and colour) is created and the more t ...[text shortened]... e that too, such as the conflict between Brahms and Wagner, at least in the public's eyes.