standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo

just trying to get this post into the archives of this list ...
apologies for the redundant copies.

-monz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Monzo [mailto:monz@attglobal.net]On Behalf Of
> monz@attglobal.net
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 11:22 AM
> To: 'tuning@yahoogroups.com'
> Subject: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo
>
>
> i just happened to re-read this old post:
>
>
>
> > From: monz [mailto:joemonz@yahoo.com]
> > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:53 PM
> > To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [metatuning] Re: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring
> > up the term religion here..."
> >
> >
> >
> > > From: genewardsmith <genewardsmith@juno.com>
> > > To: <tuning-math@yahoogroups.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:44 PM
> > > Subject: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring up the term
> > > religion here..."
> > >
> > >
> >
> > > --- In tuning-math@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hopefully this will be seen as a little levity ... ;-)
> > >
> > > Pretty good. :)
> >
> >
> > (see tuning-math Message 2860 for details)
> > /tuning-math/messages/2860?expand=1
> >
> >
> > > [Gene:]
> > > Why is music, even here, so rife with arch-conservativism?
> > > In other fields you seem to be able to express a thought
> > > without people jumping you, but here even the radicals
> > > are conservatives.
> >
> >
> > [me, monz:]
> > I think this might have something to do with a circumstance
> > which Partch touched on in his book. It's not as true today
> > as it was during his lifetime, but to a large degree it's
> > still more true of music than of any other art-form. Most
> > musical compositions require an outside body of performers
> > for their realization, with the resultant need for cooperation
> > and standardization that artists working in other media don't
> > have to deal with. Thus, the concommitant conservatism about
> > changing the status-quo.
>
>
>
> this discussion began on the tuning-math list, right
> at the time when i was working out my study of the
> "rational implications" of Schoenberg's theory as
> presented in his 1911 book _Harmonielehre_.
>
> thus, i'm surprised that at that time i didn't mention
> Schoenberg in connection with what i wrote here, because
> i had already come to the conclusion that it was primarily
> for reasons of his own career survival that he decided
> to abandon his quarter-tone experiments and stick
> with 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg maintained at several points in his book
> that microtonality would surely become practical for
> use in the future ... but that at that time (1910)
> microtonality was not a practical choice for a composer
> who wished to have his music performed (mainly because
> of the lack of suitably tuned instruments). thus, his
> decision to stay with 12edo but use it in a new way
> (which we now call "free atonality", but which he
> called "pantonality").
>
> what's really interesting to see are the changes which
> Schoenberg made to the revised 3rd edition of _Harmonielehre_
> which appeared in 1922, just after he made public his
> invention of the "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones
> Which are Related Only with One Another" (now called
> "serialism"). he removed or softened many of his 1910
> pronouncements about microtonality, since he felt, as he
> announced in his new method in 1921: "I have made a
> discovery that will ensure the superiority of German music
> for the next 100 years."
>
> unfortunately, the only complete English translation
> available for the _Harmonielehre_ is Roy Carter's 1978
> version, titled _Theory of Harmony_, and it's based
> on the 1922 edition. Carter mentions the most important
> changes made by Schoenberg in footnotes, in two cases
> even including translations of several sentences which
> Schoenberg removed or modified. but it would be nice
> to have a complete English text of the 1911 version.
> i've been translating chunks of it myself when i find
> a big discrepancy between the two editions.
>
> the original 1911 version of _Harmonielehre_ was written
> right after Schoenberg had made his most radical experiments
> in the first group of "atonal" pieces (listed here in
> order of composition):
>
> Quartet no. 2, F-sharp minor, op. 10 (1907/08)
> 15 poems from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_, op. 15 (1908/09)
> 3 pieces for piano, op. 11 (1909)
> 5 pieces for orchestra, op. 16 (1909)
> Erwartung [Expectation], op. 17 (1909) (soprano, orchestra)
>
> he had not yet formulated a new "method" for the
> manipulation of the harmony in his music, and was
> at this point more interested in freeing music from
> the restrictions imposed by "traditional tonality",
> so that his compositions could "express pure feeling".
>
> none of Schoenberg's quarter-tone experiments have
> come to light -- those sketches were probably destroyed
> in World War 2 -- but based on the survival of some
> microtonal sketches of Webern songs, also on poems by
> Stefan George, i have concluded that Schoenberg played
> around with quarter-tones in the voice parts of some
> of the later songs from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_,
> in late 1908 and/or early 1909.
>
> it was only a short-lived experiment, for by September
> 1909 he had written to Busoni that he had abandoned
> the idea of using microtones in his own compositions.
> Busoni had just sent Schoenberg a copy of his _Sketch for
> a New Aesthetic of Music_, in which Busoni outlines
> 113 new scales that could be constructed in 12edo,
> then suggests using 1/3-tones, in the form of 36edo
> as two "bike chains" of 18edo a semitone apart.
>
> Schoenberg, having just decided to give up microtonality,
> didn't put much stock in this last proposal, but Busoni's
> rhetoric does seem to have inspired Schoenberg to
> produce what i think is his most radical work of all,
> _Erwartung_, which he began composing immediately after
> this exchange with Busoni.
>
> it's also important to note that, after struggling for
> years to find a publisher with whom he could hope to
> gain some financial security, immediately after composing
> _Erwartung_, Schoenberg signed a 10-year contract with
> Universal Edition, then the leading publisher -- and
> an aggressive promoter -- of "new music" in Vienna.
>
> when it came time for Schoenberg to write _Harmonielehre_
> in the summer of 1910 for his upcoming teaching job in
> September, he was clearly trying to formulate some
> suggestions on how to deal with the complex sonorities
> he had introduced in these pieces, especially _Erwartung_,
> and was just as clearly still interested in microtonality,
> at least intellectually.
>
> but by the time the revised edition came out in 1922,
> he had hit on his new strategy for regulating the use
> of all 12 pitches of 12edo, and therefore no longer saw
> any need to promote the idea of microtones.
>
>
> but to relate all of this back to the original point ...
>
> the *reasons* which compelled Schoenberg to abandon
> microtones had to do with his survival as a composer.
> he emphasizes in _Harmonielehre_ that at that time
> (1910) there were too few instruments available which
> could produce those microtones.
>
> of course, today we have talented performers who know
> how to produce quite specific microtonal pitches from
> regular orchestral instruments. but in 1910 it's likely
> that instrumentalists had not yet figured out how to
> do that, and in fact that most wouldn't be the least
> bit interested in doing so. at that time, the piano
> was clearly the "king of instruments" in the German
> musical world, and it was, almost universally, tuned
> in 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg, having grown up in this musical mileu and
> almost entirely self-taught, was not aware of the
> history of Pythagorean and meantone tunings in European
> music (up to about 1500 for Pythagorean and 1850 for
> meantone). and as he clearly states several times in
> _Harmonielehre_, aside from his more-or-less simplistic
> "overtone model", he was also unaware of the mathematics
> of intonation. he had "perfect pitch" and could hear
> overtones up to about the 11th harmonic, and he could
> hear that the 7th and 11th harmonics were tuned quite
> differently from their 12edo representations, but he
> was obviously unfamiliar with any actual use of tunings
> other than 12edo, or of a conception of tuning where
> the "sharps" and "flats" are different pitches, as in
> both Pythagorean and meantone.
>
> many performers, audiences, and newspaper critics had
> already displayed a tremendously negative reaction to
> his "atonal" 12edo music in concerts of 1909 and 1910.
> but even outside of his immediate circle of students
> and supporters, Schoenberg did have a small group of
> admirers, and his new contract with Universal Edition
> gave him at least some small measure of confidence about
> the future of his work, and the possibility of earning
> income from it.
>
> it makes complete sense to me that at this juncture
> (1910), he would not have been willing to jeopardize
> the prospect of earning royalties from his compositions
> by using "non-standard" tunings. it seems to me that
> this desire for standarization is what lies at the root
> of Schoenberg's rejection of microtonality and
> enshrinement of 12edo.
>
> if Schoenberg had been in a position to create his
> music entirely by himself, as Partch had the courage
> and skills to do for many years, and as we can do easily
> today, i think it's very likely that he *would* have made
> further explorations into the use of microtonality.
>
> i find it one of the great ironies of music history
> that just at the time that microtonalists such as
> Mager, Mollendorf, and Haba began giving demonstrations
> and concerts involving quarter-tones in Vienna
> (around 1912-1918), Schoenberg moved to Berlin and
> thus missed the opportunity to actually experience
> quarter-tone music. he had already been in contact
> with Josef Hauer during this period and had begun to
> formulate his 12-tone method. perhaps if he had
> stayed in Vienna during those years, or if the
> microtonalists had begun their work just a few years
> earlier, Schoenberg might have been more favorable
> towards the actual implementation of microtonal music,
> and the history of 20th-century music may have turned
> out to be vastly different. i just love to speculate ...
>
>
>
>
> REFERENCES
> ----------
>
>
> Monzo, "Sch�nberg's 1909-8-24 letter to Busoni"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/to-busoni-1909-8-24.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Searching for Schoenberg's Pantonality"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/harm/1911-1922.htm
>
>
> Schweiger, "Webern's Rejected Microtones"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/Webernmicro.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Program notes to Webern's microtonal songs"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/webernmicro-monznotes.htm
>
>
> "bike chains"
> http://sonic-arts.org/dict/bikechain.htm
>
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