Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning post mortem on the 20th c

Hi all-

A few random thoughts and questions at 4am....

Although temporal limits such as centuries are arbitrary, they provide
convienient frameworks for discussing historical periods. All the music that
was going to be written and played in the 20th century has now been written
and played, so it is now possible to nake some preliminary assesments. I
have been re-listening to alot of music and also listening for the first
time to alot of music from the 20th c., and having quite a fun time doing
so.

First of all, 19th c. music did not stop being written on Jan 1, 1900. In
fact, an argument could be made that it is still being written by composers
who would like to think of themselves as heirs to the great symphonic
tradition in "tonal" music, etc. This is not what I have been listening to.
Also, the great American music tradition that grew out of African American
culture early in the 20th c is another topic altogether. What I have been
listening to is the so-called "classical music" tradition, which has also
been called, with supreme (although unintentional) oxymornic irony,
"contemporary classical music". This oxymoron speaks volumes, for it points
to a deliberate desire to participate in, yet also break with, a tradition
of "classics" from the past that hardly existed before the last century.
Prior to the 20th c, musicians themselves may have been interested in "the
music of the past", but I don't believe there was a wholesale culture that
focused on music by deceased composers before the last century. The
formation of this culture is of course coincident with the rise of "popular"
music as a separate culture, which really means music being written and
explored by those concerned with what their peers are doing more then their
distant ancestors, as well as by marketing concerns.

This is not to say that the musicians who participated in "contemporary
classical music" were slavish followers of the preceeding centuries of
European "classical" music. Rather, much that they wrote was written in a
deliberate attempt to break from that tradition or even "demolish" it.
However, this intent only betrays just how much they felt the presence of
the past, and their need to try and escape from the shadow of the masters of
"German Tonal Art" (Schenker).

The degree to which these composers consciously fought with the past, or
simply followed their ears and imaginations varies from case to case, but I
think it is safe to say that the majority of the important composers in
question were perfectly familiar with and steeped in the music of the past,
and therefore could not help but be influenced by it, either through
solidarity or opposition.

In 1909 Webern wrote his op 5 pieces for string quartet, a work that to my
ears still sounds as progressive and visionary as much of what followed. In
the twenties, Varese wrote a series of works that already contained the
seeds of much of a certain type of exploration that came later and was
continued by others.

I mention these two examples in particular because they seem to me to be
starting points for two main directions in 20th c. composition: the
organizational direction that begins with the Second Viennese school and
continued through Boulez, Babbitt and others down to this day in composers
like Ferneyhough, and the sonic direction started by Varese that focuses
more on timbre and other sonic gestures, despite whatever organizational
methods may be present. This direction leads to Xenakis and Stockhausen, to
name only two major names (although both participated as well in the
organizational direction in their earlier works), their legions of followers
and imitators, and most of electro-acoustic music.

It is an inescapable fact that much of the music in these two streams
remains to this day of interest only to the most minute subsection of music
listeners. Much of it can cause the average listener to run screaming from
the room. I myself have had a love-hate relationship with much of it for
years. Webern's prophecy that within 50 years children would be singing his
music has obviously not come true, and probably never will. What is the
significance of all this? Is there music, as there is literature (Finnegans
Wake, for example) that will never appeal to the general listener, that is
nevertheless of the same artistic quality as Beethovern or Bach? Or is all
this music simply unsuccessful, as attested to by its rejection by the
unerring ears of the average listener?

Perhaps it might shed some light on these questions to look at what 20th c.
music actually is "popular" with general listeners. Stravinsky's Soldier's
tale or Copeland's "Appalacian Spring" will offend no season ticket holders
at the symphony, Bartok will not scare too many people, Shostakovich and
Prokofiev's lighter works can be enjoyed to a certain extent by businessmen
listening to the radio on their drive home. But in an important way, these
composers do not belong to either stream that I mentioned- either the
organizational or the sonic stream. They may all be considered conservatives
who carried on and extended the traditions of 19th c. music. Stravinsky
eventually took up serial technique, but those are not the pieces that are
performed and listened to. Bartok may have stacked fourths, but he also
looked to folk songs and never strayed too far from tonality. (I wonder how
many people in the audience for the recent LA phil performance of
Lutoslawski's 'cello concerto were hearing this kind of music for the first
time, and what their reaction was?). Stravinsky even "retreated" into
neo-classicism before beginning his late serial explorations.

Tonality. There, I said it. What is the one thing that the organizational
and sonic streams do not have that all these "popular" 20th c composers
have? Tonality. Tonality in the sense of the harmonic language that is
founded on the tonic-dominant relationship and its endless ramifications.
The organizational and sonic streams do not have much in common, but their
rejection, avoidance or unconcern with traditional tonality is what places
them is a single pigeonhole.

So perhaps the question then becomes. "is music without tonality viable (in
the long run)?" Of course it is viable for some listeners and composers. So,
if viable for some, why not viable for many? In fact, why so completely out
of the question for so many? Is tonality a cultural convention that is so
ingrained that at this point it is almost genetic? Or is it actually
genetic, hard wired into our ears and nerves because of the presence of the
harmonic series in pitched sounds themselves?

Are the people who enjoy listening to Webern, Boulez, Xenakis, Ligeti merely
fascinated intellectually by the "concept", or novelty of this music, or is
there a "musical" experience to be had from this music in every way as
"valid" as from Bach? (my overuse of scare quotes here points to the
ambiguity of these common terms.)? I love Boulez's Second sonata, but find
most of Babbitt insufferably dull. I'm can't hear the "structure" of either
without analysis, but then why the perceived difference in quality and
enjoyment?

I think Stockhausen's Helikopter string quartet is one of the coolest pieces
ever. Is it becuase of the "gimmick" of the helicopters? I do actually enjoy
repeated listenings to the piece itself, the sonic outrageousness of it.
Xenakis' Eonta is a major masterpiece that thrills me as much as Monteverdi
or Josquin. I wonder why? I am trying to figure out what I am hearing in
these splays of notes in the piano and overlapping dissonances in the brass.
I now have recordings of 65 works by Xenakis on my mp3 player (a liitle less
than half his output). I don't love all of them, but there is alot of
amazing stuff in there. How much of this stuff is actually listened to on a
day-to-day basis in the world?

Does it even make much sense to use a word like "music" to describe the
Helikopter piece? Yes, it uses instruments that we are used to hearing play
tonal music, but beyond that, and the fact that we contact it through our
ears, are they even from the same planet? Does Pithoprakta have anything at
all to do with a Sibelius symphony, despite the presence of similar
instruments making the sounds? It could be argued that instruments used this
way are just a preamble to electroacoustic and computer music. In fact,
Stockhausen's Kontact exists in versions for tape and instruments, and tape
alone. (I actually like the purely electronic version better).

Could 20th c music have been any more exciting? The experiments, the riot of
contrasting styles, the exploration of the continuum of sound from silence
itself to white noise? Minimalism, xentonality, non-western influences...I
wonder what people will still be listening to in 100, 200, 500 years? Or,
what nobody listens to now, that will be "classic" in the future? Will
Ellington be the major 20th c composer to future generations? Was Charlie
Parker the Einsten of music?" Will children ever sing Webern? Stay tuned...

As I said, just some random thoughts and questions @ 4am...

Dante

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

Thanks Joseph, I'm glad you liked it. I think I spoke too hastily in several
respects: I dont think I was right to class Bartok or Stravinsky so much
with the "conservatives", they were both major figures that not only
revolutionized music in the 20th c., but also had major influence on most of
the "progressive" composers in the second half of the century. That both
could also write accesible music, either while they were being
revolutionary, or when they wanted to, speaks to their genius. Still, it is
certianly true that Varese, Messaien and the early Serialists were going far
beyond anything B and S were doing in the early decades. In other respects,
Stravinsky was in advance of, say, Schoenberg in rhythm, etc. So the
situation is complex and multi-faceted. All the more reason why it is so
fascinating!

I have been listening to Stockhausen's electoacoustic works: Gesang,
Kontact, Microphonie, Telemusic, Hymnen. What a flabbergasting array of
sonic landscapes! Telemusic (or is it "Telemusik"? Those Germans love their
"k's".) is particularly amazing. It may be that in both his case and
Xenakis, it is their electroacoustic contribution that looms largest, with,
as I mentioned yesterday, their use of instruments almost as surrogate
electronics.

I also "did" Pollini's recording of Boulez Second Sonata again, with score
in hand. What a unique rhythmic flow that piece has! Not the disjoint or
vapid complexity that one sometimes hears in later serialism, but rather
something wildly organic, multi layered, like flows of lava shooting sparks.

Then I listened to three performances of Webern's Piano Variations:
Zimmerman, Pollini and Gould. All very different: Zimmerman plays it like
Chopin, Pollini is rather detached and mechanical, and Gould perhaps tries
to make it sound like Brahms. Its funny that two of the three can be heard
humming along (Zimmerman does this as well as Gould). In any case, the piece
has long been recognized as pivotal- what I wonder is where in the world did
Webern come up with this style, also heard in the Symphonie? Some try to
trace it to his musicological studies of renaissance polyphony, and while I
can buy that, it still does not explain it entirely. Studying Isaac surely
does not explain op. 5, thats for sure! He simply heard a musik that was
previously unknown and unthinkable, however familiar it is now (and although
familiar and supremely influential- there is still only one Webern!)
Sometimes its easy to forget how certain music must have sounded comming out
of nowhere- its easy to forget that before Hendrix, noone had ever played
the guitar that way, as an electro-acoustic instrument, since now untold
millions have done so and take it for granted.

Dante

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Pehrson [mailto:jpehrson@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 11:36 PM
> To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [metatuning] Re: post mortem on the 20th c
>
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dante Rosati" <dante@i...> wrote:
> > Hi all-
> >
> > A few random thoughts and questions at 4am....
> >
>
> /metatuning/topicId_6261.html#6261
>
>
> ***This is an excellent and thought-provoking essay, Dante. I think
> you should post it over at the American Music Center NewMusicBox, so
> that a larger public can see it...
>
> best,
>
> Joseph Pehrson
>
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> You don't have to be a member to post.
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

🔗Jon Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

Hello Dante!
I too wish to apolgise for not commenting on this sooner. i always enjoy what
you have to share and appreciate to send this to all of us.
I am less inclined to the less 'acoustically' based music even though that has
not always been the case. like Jon, i was alive and listening especially when
the whole 'revolt ' of the 50-60s hit and it so strongly reflected the time.
Being on the west coast i can't say webern wears that well with me. but greatly
prefer him to those who took up his direction.

>
>
> I mention these two examples in particular because they seem to me to be
> starting points for two main directions in 20th c. composition: the
> organizational direction that begins with the Second Viennese school and
> continued through Boulez, Babbitt and others down to this day in composers
> like Ferneyhough, and the sonic direction started by Varese that focuses
> more on timbre and other sonic gestures, despite whatever organizational
> methods may be present. This direction leads to Xenakis and Stockhausen, to
> name only two major names (although both participated as well in the
> organizational direction in their earlier works), their legions of followers
> and imitators, and most of electro-acoustic music.

I tend to let Feldman rightly claim himself as the desendent of Varese. with
Scelsi and Legeti also more toward the shaping of sound than anything. Xenakis
maybe being so textural , but karlheinz really is pretty structure oriented.
His other influences have seem to be more psychology, information theroy and
finally intuitive based religion.

>
>
> It is an inescapable fact that much of the music in these two streams
> remains to this day of interest only to the most minute subsection of music
> listeners. Much of it can cause the average listener to run screaming from
> the room. I myself have had a love-hate relationship with much of it for
> years. Webern's prophecy that within 50 years children would be singing his
> music has obviously not come true, and probably never will. What is the
> significance of all this? Is there music, as there is literature (Finnegans
> Wake, for example) that will never appeal to the general listener, that is
> nevertheless of the same artistic quality as Beethovern or Bach? Or is all
> this music simply unsuccessful, as attested to by its rejection by the
> unerring ears of the average listener?

I think much of this musics 'break' with the past. kind of a 'schism' that
failed to create a new language for the culture.
Basically it's flaw was that it did not speak the language of it tribe. Much of
our identity is connected to music and this i believe goes back to prehistoric
times. we knew the enemy because often they sounded different for us.
The stranger was the greatest theeat in ancient times- Jim Morrison

>
>
> Perhaps it might shed some light on these questions to look at what 20th c.
> music actually is "popular" with general listeners. Stravinsky's Soldier's
> tale or Copeland's "Appalacian Spring" will offend no season ticket holders
> at the symphony, Bartok will not scare too many people, Shostakovich and
> Prokofiev's lighter works can be enjoyed to a certain extent by businessmen
> listening to the radio on their drive home. But in an important way, these
> composers do not belong to either stream that I mentioned- either the
> organizational or the sonic stream. They may all be considered conservatives
> who carried on and extended the traditions of 19th c. music. Stravinsky
> eventually took up serial technique, but those are not the pieces that are
> performed and listened to. Bartok may have stacked fourths, but he also
> looked to folk songs and never strayed too far from tonality. (I wonder how
> many people in the audience for the recent LA phil performance of
> Lutoslawski's 'cello concerto were hearing this kind of music for the first
> time, and what their reaction was?). Stravinsky even "retreated" into
> neo-classicism before beginning his late serial explorations.

The really important innovations of these composers though lies not in the noun
but in the verb. Stravinsky, bartok and shostakovitch all did types of
'changes' that the others seems to not imagine. The serialist are on the
otherhand deaf to these type of emotional/psychological shifts. the changes in
only in the material , which to me is far more conservative that these above.
Shoenberg is to my ear more conservative than the above. webern did so many
interesting 'verb' such as speeding up at a cadence that he stands apart from
the rest.

>
>
> Tonality. There, I said it. What is the one thing that the organizational
> and sonic streams do not have that all these "popular" 20th c composers
> have? Tonality. Tonality in the sense of the harmonic language that is
> founded on the tonic-dominant relationship and its endless ramifications.
> The organizational and sonic streams do not have much in common, but their
> rejection, avoidance or unconcern with traditional tonality is what places
> them is a single pigeonhole.

I tend to agree that tonality is the thing, but i think if we had already used
for example a 19 tone scale the transition to 12 tone subsets would have
overcome the main problem of the ambiguous ness of a scale with equal sized
intervals, something that exist no where in the world.
i do think the varese direction , especially someone like ligeti
when in 1969 you has thousands of households listening to the soundtrack of
2001.
I also by the way find Messien more conservative than Ravel is that the
former expresses little beyond the catholosism, and love-death oppession we
find a century before. At a certain point it was so overwhelming to my ear , i
couldn't listen to him. Foretunately, he is so beautful, i can just ignore what
he is saying so to speak.

>
>
> So perhaps the question then becomes. "is music without tonality viable (in
> the long run)?" Of course it is viable for some listeners and composers. So,
> if viable for some, why not viable for many? In fact, why so completely out
> of the question for so many? Is tonality a cultural convention that is so
> ingrained that at this point it is almost genetic? Or is it actually
> genetic, hard wired into our ears and nerves because of the presence of the
> harmonic series in pitched sounds themselves?

It seems to me that our culture is now developing it music moore in the
direction of timbre and' sound' in general. Pop music although tonal has very
little to do with tonality as far as it s actual language. One has only to look
at the level of noise and electronics used , that without it , the tunes mean
little.

>
>
> Are the people who enjoy listening to Webern, Boulez, Xenakis, Ligeti merely
> fascinated intellectually by the "concept", or novelty of this music, or is
> there a "musical" experience to be had from this music in every way as
> "valid" as from Bach? (my overuse of scare quotes here points to the
> ambiguity of these common terms.)? I love Boulez's Second sonata, but find
> most of Babbitt insufferably dull. I'm can't hear the "structure" of either
> without analysis, but then why the perceived difference in quality and
> enjoyment?

the problem is that for some of us some of this music is very expressive and
are 'problem ' is that we speak something beyond the 'language of our tribe"
hence we cannot help to be an elite.

>
>
> I think Stockhausen's Helikopter string quartet is one of the coolest pieces
> ever. Is it becuase of the "gimmick" of the helicopters? I do actually enjoy
> repeated listenings to the piece itself, the sonic outrageousness of it.
> Xenakis' Eonta is a major masterpiece that thrills me as much as Monteverdi
> or Josquin. I wonder why? I am trying to figure out what I am hearing in
> these splays of notes in the piano and overlapping dissonances in the brass.
> I now have recordings of 65 works by Xenakis on my mp3 player (a liitle less
> than half his output). I don't love all of them, but there is alot of
> amazing stuff in there. How much of this stuff is actually listened to on a
> day-to-day basis in the world?

my comment above applies agsain
interestingly , you do not mention Partch, but this might be rightly so.
possibly his work recognized by the comp. class. world is misdirected. possibly
he relates more to pop/folk music

>
>
> Does it even make much sense to use a word like "music" to describe the
> Helikopter piece? Yes, it uses instruments that we are used to hearing play
> tonal music, but beyond that, and the fact that we contact it through our
> ears, are they even from the same planet? Does Pithoprakta have anything at
> all to do with a Sibelius symphony, despite the presence of similar
> instruments making the sounds? It could be argued that instruments used this
> way are just a preamble to electroacoustic and computer music. In fact,
> Stockhausen's Kontact exists in versions for tape and instruments, and tape
> alone. (I actually like the purely electronic version better).

I agree on the use of the instruments leading toward electronics or just plain
timbral music

>
>
> Could 20th c music have been any more exciting? The experiments, the riot of
> contrasting styles, the exploration of the continuum of sound from silence
> itself to white noise? Minimalism, xentonality, non-western influences...I
> wonder what people will still be listening to in 100, 200, 500 years? Or,
> what nobody listens to now, that will be "classic" in the future? Will
> Ellington be the major 20th c composer to future generations? Was Charlie
> Parker the Einsten of music?" Will children ever sing Webern? Stay tuned...

don't forget hendrix who has a right to being a great electro acoustic
innovator.
1983!!!!!

>
>
> As I said, just some random thoughts and questions @ 4am...

3:30PM in reply

>
>
> Dante
>
>

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

Dante Rosati wrote:

>
> I have been listening to Stockhausen's electoacoustic works: Gesang,
> Kontact, Microphonie, Telemusic, Hymnen. What a flabbergasting array of
> sonic landscapes! Telemusic (or is it "Telemusik"?

I used to meditate to Hymnen everyday ('71) and found i could tell which
direction the earth was rotating. I stopped when i started to astral project
cause it scared the living shit out of me cause i had no idea what it was. I
wish i had some preknowledge of this, but you aren't taught this with your Kant

>
>
> Pollini is rather detached and mechanical,

don't like 'em

>
> Sometimes its easy to forget how certain music must have sounded comming out
> of nowhere- its easy to forget that before Hendrix, noone had ever played
> the guitar that way, as an electro-acoustic instrument, since now untold
> millions have done so and take it for granted.

some french philosopher correctly stated that all true beginnings are madness.

help me shiva/kali to regain my ancient madness!

>
>
> Dante
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Joseph Pehrson [mailto:jpehrson@...]
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 11:36 PM
> > To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [metatuning] Re: post mortem on the 20th c
> >
> >
> > --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dante Rosati" <dante@i...> wrote:
> > > Hi all-
> > >
> > > A few random thoughts and questions at 4am....
> > >
> >
> > /metatuning/topicId_6261.html#6261
> >
> >
> > ***This is an excellent and thought-provoking essay, Dante. I think
> > you should post it over at the American Music Center NewMusicBox, so
> > that a larger public can see it...
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Joseph Pehrson
> >
> >
> >
> > Meta Tuning meta-info:
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> > metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> > Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
> >
> > To post to the list, send to
> > metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> >
> > You don't have to be a member to post.
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> You don't have to be a member to post.
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dante Rosati" <dante@i...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_6261.html#6263

> I have been listening to Stockhausen's electoacoustic works: Gesang,
> Kontact, Microphonie, Telemusic, Hymnen. What a flabbergasting
array of
> sonic landscapes! Telemusic (or is it "Telemusik"? Those Germans
love their
> "k's".) is particularly amazing. It may be that in both his case and
> Xenakis, it is their electroacoustic contribution that looms
largest, with,
> as I mentioned yesterday, their use of instruments almost as
surrogate
> electronics.
>

***I had the good fortune to attend Darmstadt in the 1970's and
*both* Stockhausen *and* Xenakis were there. Stockhausen had his
_Mikrophonie_ performed and Xenakis had a percussion work (I forget
which one...) Stockhausen addressed the group, alternately, in
German, English and French and Xenakis spoke in French and English.
It was an amazing experience...

>
> Then I listened to three performances of Webern's Piano Variations:
> Zimmerman, Pollini and Gould. All very different: Zimmerman plays
it like
> Chopin, Pollini is rather detached and mechanical, and Gould
perhaps tries
> to make it sound like Brahms. Its funny that two of the three can
be heard
> humming along (Zimmerman does this as well as Gould). In any case,
the piece
> has long been recognized as pivotal- what I wonder is where in the
world did
> Webern come up with this style, also heard in the Symphonie? Some
try to
> trace it to his musicological studies of renaissance polyphony, and
while I
> can buy that, it still does not explain it entirely. Studying Isaac
surely
> does not explain op. 5, thats for sure! He simply heard a musik
that was
> previously unknown and unthinkable, however familiar it is now (and
although
> familiar and supremely influential- there is still only one Webern!)
> Sometimes its easy to forget how certain music must have sounded
comming out
> of nowhere- its easy to forget that before Hendrix, noone had ever
played
> the guitar that way, as an electro-acoustic instrument, since now
untold
> millions have done so and take it for granted.
>

***This observation about Webern is something that many of us forget,
including myself. Now, of course, Webern is "old hat" since *too
many* composers have used this style. But when it was *new* it must
have seemed particularly weird. Feldman, I guess, also seemed weird
to some initially at the time.

It's easy to forget how revolutionary some of this guys really were...

J. Pehrson

post mortem on the 20th c

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

🔗Jon Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗monz <monz@...>

🔗monz <monz@...>