The atonal century: In 1908Arnold Schoenberg reinvented classical music. What comes next?

National Post ^ | January 14, 2008 | John Keillor

[billorites]

Pingy.

[Age of Reason]

During this time, his wife Matilde left her husband to live with his painting instructor, Richard Gerstl.

His "music" probably gave her a headache.

[sitetest]

Dear billorites,

Thanks for the ping!

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sitetest

[Borges]

Here come a bunch of clueless ‘Atonality isn’t music!’ and ‘Atonality is moral relativism’ posts.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I love classical music but with the exception of John Williams, Scott Joplin, Aaron Copeland and the Gershwins, most modern classical music stinks. At least to me; YMMV.

[billorites]

Well what do you think of John Adams and Philip Glass?

It took a while, but their music has really grown on me, in an autistic sort of way, and I particularly like Adam's Nixon in China opera.

If you really want to mess with your mind check out Gavin Bryar's monumental Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me for a great minimalist modern piece (with Tom Waits). I ran, did not walk, to buy this after hearing in on the radio. BTW, I see that you can preview parts of this on Amazon.

Bryar's Sinking of the Titanic is also noteworthy.

[MinuteGal]

Here I am, right on cue!

Thanks for typing and posting my thoughts, LOL.

Clueless in Florida,

Leni

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I will give them a fair hearing. Thanks for the recommendations. Oh, I like Rachmaninoff too.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

An very good read for 20th Century ‘classical’ music fans is “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” by Alex Ross.

[Ozone34]

Verklaerte Nacht and Gurrelieder were the masterpieces of his career. 12-tone serialism was an experiment in idealist composition gone horribly awry.

Does anyone familiar with Puccini’s opera Tosca agree with me that the orchestral passage during Scarpia’s aria at the end of Act I bears an uncanny resemblance to the themes in the opening passages of Gurrelieder? Tosca premiered in 1900 and Gurrelieder in 1913.

[Borges]

Gurrelieder was written in 1901. It just wasn’t performed till 1913.

[Borges]

He wrote some of the most heartfelt, expressive music of his time.

[Billthedrill]

"I have discovered a technique that will guarantee German music's supremacy for the next thousand years."

Yes indeed - Schoenberg to Tupac. I tremble for the remaining 900 years.

I haven't a great argument with this change of direction in classical music; it wasn't as radical as, say, the inception of the pianoforte or the fugue. But if it isn't to taste - and it isn't - surely that's my business.

[Borges]

It wasn’t a change of direction. It was a continuation of German Romanticism in its inevitable tonal breakdown from Wagner to Mahler and beyond. Liszt had already written atonal music.

[aristotleman]

The article is horribly written. It makes it sound like Schoenberg just decided to “destroy” music. Same crap you read from 1908 regurgitated. Any music connoisseur worth their salt knows for a fact that Schoenberg is the natural progression from Mahler and Strauss. What else was he supposed to do?
Anyway, anyone who thinks his music is “dissonant” needs their hearing checked.
It just sounds like late romantic music, just a step away from it! So viennese in it’s essence. Just beautiful. I’m studying his piano music as we speak. Some great material there, with a really dry sense of humor and drama.

I liken his music to the decorative arts that thrived in the 1920s in Vienna, like the Wiener Werkstatte group.

[Borges]

Do you object to the atonality in Bach as well? It’s certainly there.

[MinuteGal]

It's heresy, I suppose, but I'm not into the music of Bach, Handel or other composers of the early 1700's. I appreciate the genius of their compositions as far as form goes, but I can only listen in small doses.

The sacred music of that time holds little interest for me musically, although the secular compositions get my attention in some cases.

I'm afraid I'm more into the romantic era of compositions for orchestra and just about any instrument....and, of course, opera has been my life-long passion.

Being part German descent (two Lutheran grandparents from southern Germany) I do confess to a pride in the body of works by German composers and the extraordinary, almost unsurpassed musical heritage they left to the world.

My grandma told me that in Germany when she lived there as a little girl in the late 1800's every town and burg, no matter how small and lightly populated, had its little musical companies of locals, with at least some mix of orchestras, bands, concerts, soloists, instrumentalists, church organs with skilled organists, opera, operettas, music halls....all giving inexpensive perfomances.....all probably a little amateurish with money certainly being in short supply in the poorer of the little hamlets.

But the music tradition in Germany and in the German soul is very powerful and it was the effort that counted.

Leni

[decal]

“There’s still a lot of good music left to be written in C Major.” — Arnold Schoenberg

[ZChief]

“Here come a bunch of clueless ‘Atonality isn’t music!’ and ‘Atonality is moral relativism’ posts.”

Please, allow me. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!! I love to listen to classical music. I may enjoy some pop music on the radio, but not much. I don’t own any pop CD’s and wouldn't pay to go to a pop concert. I would pay to see a classical performance. I remember attending a demo concert for school kids with my children. I was extremely amused by the audience reaction to the (blessedly single) sample of atonal crap. That reaction was almost worth the pain of hearing the junk drawer spill. For you “connoisseurs”, please, help yourself. Buy ALL the CD's and front row seats!