I like it when I discover composers I haven't heard before. I came across Czernowin, Scelsi and Lachenmann within a couple of weeks of each other... And I like it when I have to work at something to "get" it. I still find Xenakis very hard going, for example. But this works nicely for me, both as music and as a "music video". Thanks for taking the time to put this together - I'll keep coming back!
I think Frank was being facetious. Ms. Czernowin's goal is to stretch the strings' capabilities to their outermost bounds while working in unison. What I would like to have heard is each instrument playing in its own time signatures and tempos. For example, the I Violin playing Presto in 16/4 while the II Violin plays Largo in 7/8 and so forth. Mr. Girtain below has it right. This contemporary style of atonalism is what the music establishment demands from composers if they have any hopes of being accepted into today's classical music world. For the cultural elite Rachmaninoff is OUT; completely out and Ms. Czernowin is IN. That's why she's a composition professor at Harvard University, the most prestigious university in America. Romantic music is laughed at among professional musicians in private but it's played with respect in concert. Want a complete tonal shock? Click on my name and hear a traditional neo-Romantic piano concerto I recently composed. Both this quartet and my first version of it were put up on TH-cam at the same time, 2012. Mine has only 2K hits while Ms Czernowin's quartet has 47K. There's a very good reason why hers will endure while mine will never make it off the printed page. Possibly because mine is no good, or if it IS good because it is romantic and Romanticism is anathema to the music world if it was composed after 1940.
So many salty comments. But nothing that isn't expected. Why do people get so personally offended and why do they feel the need to insult others who do enjoy this music I will never get, however. This is a very informative score, thank you!
Right? What is that? Its music. It is soothing. Maybe that is just me but it meets today just fine.
3 ปีที่แล้ว +1
Human behaviour is sadly filled with reactionary responses fueled by narcissism. One type of music some grow familiar with becomes the definitive definition of what music is and trying to listen to anything else becomes a threat to their world view. The key is to remain curious and open-minded, not to close oneself off from the rest of human culture and expression.
It's really soul-crushing to listen to a piece like this (with the score given to us!) and then look at the cesspool that is the comment section. There is so much that could be discussed, so much analysis and yes, even critique, and yet everyone just takes turns saying, "I don't understand it, therefore it's bad." I love contemporary classical music but it seems like it's impossible to discuss in a public forum.
+Adam Shield You may "love contemporary classical music" but this is not music. The addition of the score and foreword only extend my discontent to my eyes as well as my ears. The "time signature" are an elaborate mix most likely used to show off the composers mathematical skills, to make up for their lack of musical talent. A foreword should be unnecessary, because music (with the score) should speak for itself. All this talks about is jolly little trip the Thailand! This has not been composed with music in mind, rather how to the shortcuts work on whatever music writing software was used.
jaspernatchez I dislike 95% of rap/hiphop (although if I'm in a hot club it can be okay to dance to) and minimalism (Glass in particular, but also all the others) as much as you dislike this piece of Czernowin. My reason for disliking them is that I find them ugly and annoying. But I am unlikely to say that they are "not music." I may think that the latest Marvel comic book movie is a bad film, but it is a film nonetheless. In every genre of expression there is a continuum ranging from works that I can't stand to works that I find extraordinary. I believe that's the case for most people. The most dangerous thing would be to limit the definition of music to works that are acceptable to a broad audience.
I'm curious about the meeting place of aesthetic and musical language in this piece. Whether or not the introductory notes about the mosaic quality of Thai temple fully articulate the aesthetic sensibility of this piece is an open question. While the vertical unity of the quartet (temple) and the horizontal re-occurrence of the timbre ideas (shards) are explicit, where do the composer's voice and aesthetic sensibility find expression? There is no doubt to me this piece humbly displays fluent command of an advanced contemporary language. But we should not mistake the act of choosing a musical language for one of aesthetic expression. Where can we find the soul seeking to express itself behind this music?
Context consideration! Professor Czernowin is an eminent composer at one of the world's most prestigious universities. Consider: perhaps this piece has a purpose beyond the general listener's scope. Artistic matters aside, this piece is an effective teaching tool for students of composition. Think of it as a treatise on contemporary notation and playing technique for string quartet. I am grateful this resource is here and freely available.
So the point is to put as many rare articulations (like quarter tones, quintolets etc.) as possible on the music sheet to show what is possible to notate? And the performance is intended to be a companion to the sheet music to show how those rare articulations end up being performed and how they sound once you give the parts to actual musicians? In other words, the intended work of art here is the score, rather than the intended performance of it?
I'm not sure this is a great teaching resource as it is experimental and for academic discusion. Most music students can explore this in their own way and should be taught ways of produces nice sounds as the rest doesn't need to be taught but discovered. However I do know a music teacher who used this as a example of what not to do when composing for a string quartet.
Is it possible to get an opinion: 1) what is the purpose and meaning of such music, except for the demonstration of technology? 2) Does conditioning and regularity still work in the expression of ideas/thoughts/feelings? For example, sounds and sizes, rhythms that are extremely difficult for the perception of the psyche and ear, as if they were created by a computer. Is this music intuitive? No, it's more abstract. What is the meaning of abstraction? 3) And finally, what is the "coolness" of such music
In the second half of the 20th century many avant grade composers created scores that were more impressive than the sounds they produced. This is a prime example. The quartet does every technical trick in the book while avoiding anything that could be mistaken for melody or harmony. This is music for the brain, not the heart. Perfect for Harvard.
Great demonstration of interesting timbres and techniques. Somehow I feel the frequently changing time signature is not necessary. Anyway, interesting peice and thanks for sharing.
Both Chaya Czernowin and Brian Ferneyhough used intuition as a primary composing tool. Both composers are generally classified as 'new complexity'. Czernowin: "Some composers go for inspiration and not intuition. That's not interesting to me. Intuition is extremely interesting and important because it can be analyzed and be used for further intuitive moves. So it is always a search to really be courageous and go follow your intuition, but then understand it and act upon what you understand to open the door to even more moves. That is for me a very very pragmatic [?] move for progressing in creative thinking." She composes in front of a window, writing down the music she imagines in her head. No computer, no piano nearby. She conceives the string quartet to be a unified instrument in this piece, but in general (correct me if I'm wrong...) she thinks of her own music as "water inflections and reflections", which I think may be present in this piece.
@@johanneeskens2759 This is generally an interesting topic. Cage believed that all European music is about - "look how I feel, suffer, how I can, how dexterous, smart, etc." Is music not about itself possible? About other? Have people learned to love in order to write such music?
It amazes me how composers come up with these great ideas and then get them down on to paper! It sounds very interesting because of all the different techniques that have been experimented with and used to create this cool piece of music. It disappoints me when people call this a 'cacophony' or 'trash' because really it's a new way to understand music, going into new forms and techniques which are really difficult to perfect! Brilliant piece 👍
I'm not sure what a "right" direction in music would be. I will say only that I like it. It certainly isn't "worthless". Not to me. And isn't that all that matters?
The riot was not really directed at the music, people mainly rioted against the choreography by Nijinsky. By most accounts, the dancing was what the audience found "shocking".
Great piece! I love the program note; the influence of architecture on form and structure is clear, similar to Feldman's Rothko Chapel and Dufay's Nuper Rosarum Flores. I'll have to sit down with this score some more.
OK. Some say this is not music. Which is ridiculous. It is certainly very interesting. Like someone in the comments were saying, it is satisfying to see how 4 wooden boxes can sound together. However, it is a valid question as to how a person without music education should approach listening to this. Zappa said "talking about music is like dancing about architecture". Well, I think we need to dance more about architecture. Don't look at an ant hill and say "this is not architecture". Dance about it, and you will get it. I need to listen to what others have to say about this piece to learn how to listen to it.
It's amusing to think instrumentalists use their whole life to create a sonorous and controlled tone on their precious instruments - and then they sit down to perform something like this...
There are three main threads in contemporary music: the retro/tonal/neoromantic thread (e.g., Jennifer Higdon); the minimalist thread (e.g., Phillip Glass, John Adams); and the new complexity/post-serialist thread (e.g., Brian Ferneyhough). The first two threads overlap to a certain extent, and do not interest me at all, in particular the minimalists. Personally I would prefer if the new complexity composers (and I am counting Czernowin among them -- I wonder if she would agree) had followed the serialist tradition. In this regard the late Milton Babbitt stands out as the last great modernist composer -- and a great composer he was, by any definition. Despite the "complexity" of the music (just look at that score passing by before your eyes), the end result of Czernowin's String quartet veers dangerously close to what I would call "interesting sounds" rather than music. That having been said, it's a very worthy piece, one to which I shall return frequently. ADDENDUM: After several additional listenings I now appreciate this work much more. It is absolutely on the level of the work of the best contemporary composers, in my opinion.
jaspernatchez For starters, Babbitt used quite a few triads in his works, part of his droll and witty approach to composing. If I understand well, what you are talking about is keeping only the rhythm and dynamics and randomizing all of the pitches, rather than having them based on a row. Of course anyone would hear the difference instantly. Even if you transposed all the notes in the score up a minor third they would hear the difference. I have heard many people express reasons why they do not like Babbitt, but that his music is in any way random or arbitrary has not been one of them. There is very little room for the arbitrary in integral serialism.
Yet another entry from the plink-plonck school of musical "innovation." Only there's nothing innovative about musical gestures first concocted over 50 years ago. I feel sorry for the poor musicians dragooned into torturing themselves to get every single minuscule refinement of this ridiculously demanding score precisely right. And I can just picture the composer hovering over them every step of the way to make sure each and every little plinck and plonck is executed perfectly. Why is this sort of thing still encouraged, after all these many years since the heyday of post-serialism? Stockhausen and Boulez were true innovators, whose work is fully worthy of detailed preparation, but after fifty years it's time to move on.
@@zgart I doubt it. I think they're intimidated into learning to play this stuff, because it's considered "avant-garde". What a laugh after all these years.
@@victorgrauer5834 LOL have you talked to anyone in a contemporary music ensemble? No one is intimidated into joining. Do you think Barbara Hannigan hates her job? I would love to join a contemporary ensemble one day because it seems like one of the greatest ways to engage oneself in immersive music
The fact that music somehow came to be patterns of noise bugs me to the core. I don't believe that this should be all there is. I love the sounds extended techniques yielded but since the *effect* became the *music* i feel that the music has lost much more than it gained. For starters audience. Contemporary composition has throughout ages been somewhat elitist and from my perspective this is just that. I don't believe this kind of music can be enjoyed thoroughly other than on a novelty level which just doesn't cut it for me. It *is* the age of pushing the limits aggressively and the quirky grabbing attention, but quirks quickly become boring and i just don't know where can it all go from this point. All i know is that it's going farther away from the audience which is keeping all of the arts alive. Is that the right path? I wouldn't know, but it certainly needs to be questioned.
Wow, extended techniques and atonality! Trailblazing stuff for 1995, really innovative. Did she come up with this by herself? A genius. I hope she writes more music before dying and being completely forgotten. How about... string quartet n.2 that is also full of extended techniques and funny noises, but twice as long as quartet n.1? A great idea IMO
@ "hostile", what a choice of vocabulary. Maybe my ears are just underdeveloped as some academic friends accused me of. Or maybe I just like leaving these comments because they give me funny reactions? Who knows
Interesting. I appreciate the ingenuity of sound etc. However what I don't like within this modern circle is all the chauvinism. Anyone writing anything tonal is looked down on and seen as inferior.
This music lacks air, and personality, and is trying too hard imo. "Hey here look, am I good, am I really good, and here I`m genius right, I must be, yeah Im genius, so complicated, and there, huh so deep, so profund". Tiresome...
It is the archetype of the music which has isolated the composer since 60 years while trying to make believe that it was avant garde, and put him at the periphery of the musical life. If this music was real avant garde (as stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, szymanowski were in their times) it would have conquered wide audiences...A music that owes her life only to goverment taxes. In one word, it is a SHAME !
BRUXELLESCENTRE Care to elaborate on your statement? It would help if you give a specific definition of what is this "archetype" you're talking about and also what the "real avant-garde" is. Please, not only examples. If you do give some definitions, then we might actually try to have an intelligent conversation rather than the non-sense bashing you're going with there, which I suspect comes from a lack of understanding.
There are plenty - check John Adams, Phillip Glass, Salonen, Crumb, Thomas Ades, some pieces by Cage and Feldmann, some pieces by Copland, the British 20th century classics (Britten, Vaughan Williams, etc.), the Russian classics (Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich), many pieces by Schnittke as well as Gubaidulina & Edisson Denissov. There are so many more! Friends of mine also compose music with tonal melodies nowadays, and are somehow still in the tropes of what's defined as "modern classical"
Gosh, how on earth can listening to this noise be an aesthetically gratifying experience to anyone with musical ears?This piece consists only of sound effects, it's really nothing more than that. There's no musical substance, there's no emotional expression, no variety, no perceivable structure - as a matter of fact, it's bad music, it's boring, it's academic, it sounds terribly dated and I suspect this kind of music will be completely forgotten in 30 years or so.
+arvidtom While I totally understand where you're coming from, what if in fact the composer is not attempting to provide musical substance or emotional expression in the way that you would like, or in the way that many people came to expect from string quartet repertoire during the Romantic period? What if not every composer is trying to fit into that mold? What if pieces like this are meant to make us ask what exactly the difference is between "noise" and "music?" Sure, we can call such a piece "academic," but I'd prefer not to. Anyone can ask those questions. Not just those of us with music doctorates.
+Geoffrey Hill Well if that is the sort of discussion that you want to have, this music has gone way past the point. I would also add that a music teacher has used this as an example of what not to do when composing for strings.
Come on, let's not fool ourselves. This is just ugly noise, plus the style is terribly dated (people were exploring this modernist kind of crap in the 1960s), I can't understand how anyone can get emotional satisfaction out of this.
Wonderful! This is hilariously bad... Fabulously pretentious pseudo-intellectual wannabe avantgarde diarrhea! Keep up the good work and you'll be almost on par with Stockhausen's epicly dimwitted Helicopter Quartet!
This is the most pretentious load of noise I have ever listened to. I would suggest that the composer finds themself a pair of ears! And as for the elaborate foreword, is the most pretentious assembly of words I have ever read.
Well, to me, this is much more beautiful and interesting as a piece of musical typesetting than as music. If I wanted to make cool looking sheet music, I'd compose like that, and if I wanted to make nice sounding audio, I'd compose in a totally different way. Like, for instance, take all those half-flats and half-sharps... they look really cool on sheet music, but they're totally pointless in an atonal and mostly unpitched work like this, no?
+boptillyouflop I agree. This "music" (and I will put it in quotes like that by way of demonstrating the current flexibility in its definiftion) is not pleasant to most ears but can be an interesting score and one of clearly vivid debate. However I do not think this composition should be praised for how it raises discussion, as many things do this and are often very harshly described.
![Chaya Czernowin - Sahaf [w/ score]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AjIiJo5Gzo0/mqdefault.jpg)
I like it when I discover composers I haven't heard before. I came across Czernowin, Scelsi and Lachenmann within a couple of weeks of each other... And I like it when I have to work at something to "get" it. I still find Xenakis very hard going, for example. But this works nicely for me, both as music and as a "music video". Thanks for taking the time to put this together - I'll keep coming back!
This is a great piece to study for composers who want to learn how to notate all these extended techniques!!!
Serious?????? 🤔
Ok!!!! 😅🤣😂😂😂
I know, it's really helpful! 😄
It's so refreshing to hear a contemporary quartet so chock full of appealing tunes.
+Frank Feldman ???????
I think Frank was being facetious. Ms. Czernowin's goal is to stretch the strings' capabilities to their outermost bounds while working in unison. What I would like to have heard is each instrument playing in its own time signatures and tempos. For example, the I Violin playing Presto in 16/4 while the II Violin plays Largo in 7/8 and so forth.
Mr. Girtain below has it right. This contemporary style of atonalism is what the music establishment demands from composers if they have any hopes of being accepted into today's classical music world. For the cultural elite Rachmaninoff is OUT; completely out and Ms. Czernowin is IN. That's why she's a composition professor at Harvard University, the most prestigious university in America. Romantic music is laughed at among professional musicians in private but it's played with respect in concert.
Want a complete tonal shock? Click on my name and hear a traditional neo-Romantic piano concerto I recently composed. Both this quartet and my first version of it were put up on TH-cam at the same time, 2012. Mine has only 2K hits while Ms Czernowin's quartet has 47K. There's a very good reason why hers will endure while mine will never make it off the printed page. Possibly because mine is no good, or if it IS good because it is romantic and Romanticism is anathema to the music world if it was composed after 1940.
Great piece, thanks.
I hope you meant to say that sarcastically. :)
Alyssa Burns nope
So many salty comments. But nothing that isn't expected. Why do people get so personally offended and why do they feel the need to insult others who do enjoy this music I will never get, however.
This is a very informative score, thank you!
Right? What is that? Its music. It is soothing. Maybe that is just me but it meets today just fine.
Human behaviour is sadly filled with reactionary responses fueled by narcissism. One type of music some grow familiar with becomes the definitive definition of what music is and trying to listen to anything else becomes a threat to their world view. The key is to remain curious and open-minded, not to close oneself off from the rest of human culture and expression.
It's really soul-crushing to listen to a piece like this (with the score given to us!) and then look at the cesspool that is the comment section. There is so much that could be discussed, so much analysis and yes, even critique, and yet everyone just takes turns saying, "I don't understand it, therefore it's bad." I love contemporary classical music but it seems like it's impossible to discuss in a public forum.
+Adam Shield Agree.
+Adam Shield You may "love contemporary classical music" but this is not music. The addition of the score and foreword only extend my discontent to my eyes as well as my ears. The "time signature" are an elaborate mix most likely used to show off the composers mathematical skills, to make up for their lack of musical talent. A foreword should be unnecessary, because music (with the score) should speak for itself. All this talks about is jolly little trip the Thailand! This has not been composed with music in mind, rather how to the shortcuts work on whatever music writing software was used.
As soon as the conversation devolves to "...this is not music," you know the discussion is over. This literally proves my point.
jaspernatchez I dislike 95% of rap/hiphop (although if I'm in a hot club it can be okay to dance to) and minimalism (Glass in particular, but also all the others) as much as you dislike this piece of Czernowin. My reason for disliking them is that I find them ugly and annoying. But I am unlikely to say that they are "not music." I may think that the latest Marvel comic book movie is a bad film, but it is a film nonetheless. In every genre of expression there is a continuum ranging from works that I can't stand to works that I find extraordinary. I believe that's the case for most people. The most dangerous thing would be to limit the definition of music to works that are acceptable to a broad audience.
I'm curious about the meeting place of aesthetic and musical language in this piece. Whether or not the introductory notes about the mosaic quality of Thai temple fully articulate the aesthetic sensibility of this piece is an open question. While the vertical unity of the quartet (temple) and the horizontal re-occurrence of the timbre ideas (shards) are explicit, where do the composer's voice and aesthetic sensibility find expression? There is no doubt to me this piece humbly displays fluent command of an advanced contemporary language. But we should not mistake the act of choosing a musical language for one of aesthetic expression. Where can we find the soul seeking to express itself behind this music?
Context consideration! Professor Czernowin is an eminent composer at one of the world's most prestigious universities. Consider: perhaps this piece has a purpose beyond the general listener's scope. Artistic matters aside, this piece is an effective teaching tool for students of composition. Think of it as a treatise on contemporary notation and playing technique for string quartet. I am grateful this resource is here and freely available.
So the point is to put as many rare articulations (like quarter tones, quintolets etc.) as possible on the music sheet to show what is possible to notate? And the performance is intended to be a companion to the sheet music to show how those rare articulations end up being performed and how they sound once you give the parts to actual musicians? In other words, the intended work of art here is the score, rather than the intended performance of it?
I'm not sure this is a great teaching resource as it is experimental and for academic discusion. Most music students can explore this in their own way and should be taught ways of produces nice sounds as the rest doesn't need to be taught but discovered. However I do know a music teacher who used this as a example of what not to do when composing for a string quartet.
So, not being a professor on an eminent university means - what? What is that kind of logic, I don't get it.
Is it possible to get an opinion: 1) what is the purpose and meaning of such music, except for the demonstration of technology? 2) Does conditioning and regularity still work in the expression of ideas/thoughts/feelings? For example, sounds and sizes, rhythms that are extremely difficult for the perception of the psyche and ear, as if they were created by a computer. Is this music intuitive? No, it's more abstract. What is the meaning of abstraction? 3) And finally, what is the "coolness" of such music
This is also relevant to *my* interests.
Thank you, Internet!
In the second half of the 20th century many avant grade composers created scores that were more impressive than the sounds they produced. This is a prime example. The quartet does every technical trick in the book while avoiding anything that could be mistaken for melody or harmony. This is music for the brain, not the heart. Perfect for Harvard.
Great demonstration of interesting timbres and techniques. Somehow I feel the frequently changing time signature is not necessary. Anyway, interesting peice and thanks for sharing.
Gotta say, I kept listening because I wanted to know what would happen next. I consider this a win in my books.
Both Chaya Czernowin and Brian Ferneyhough used intuition as a primary composing tool. Both composers are generally classified as 'new complexity'. Czernowin: "Some composers go for inspiration and not intuition. That's not interesting to me. Intuition is extremely interesting and important because it can be analyzed and be used for further intuitive moves. So it is always a search to really be courageous and go follow your intuition, but then understand it and act upon what you understand to open the door to even more moves. That is for me a very very pragmatic [?] move for progressing in creative thinking."
She composes in front of a window, writing down the music she imagines in her head. No computer, no piano nearby. She conceives the string quartet to be a unified instrument in this piece, but in general (correct me if I'm wrong...) she thinks of her own music as "water inflections and reflections", which I think may be present in this piece.
In simply words, a composer that talks about herself, thinks of herself, and judges by herself. A selfish composer. Me me and only me.
You obviously saw the documentary about her...th-cam.com/video/h35tHVHpq6o/w-d-xo.html
hmm but i don't think intuition and inspiration are entirely separate
@@Francescomedardo Yep!
@@johanneeskens2759 This is generally an interesting topic. Cage believed that all European music is about - "look how I feel, suffer, how I can, how dexterous, smart, etc." Is music not about itself possible? About other? Have people learned to love in order to write such music?
It amazes me how composers come up with these great ideas and then get them down on to paper! It sounds very interesting because of all the different techniques that have been experimented with and used to create this cool piece of music. It disappoints me when people call this a 'cacophony' or 'trash' because really it's a new way to understand music, going into new forms and techniques which are really difficult to perfect! Brilliant piece 👍
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I feel excited that you post the scores with the performance, just don’t stop it works really well. And I can see/hear what is happening.
I'm not sure what a "right" direction in music would be. I will say only that I like it. It certainly isn't "worthless". Not to me. And isn't that all that matters?
very nice!
All you salty commenters are the same type that would have rioted at the Stravinsky premiere. This slays.
Except it only took a year for people to like The Rite of Spring. This was composed over 50 years ago and people still don't like it.
+GONZOglasses This piece was written in 1995
I'll be dead when people possibly come round to this then.
Slays my ears damn right.
The riot was not really directed at the music, people mainly rioted against the choreography by Nijinsky. By most accounts, the dancing was what the audience found "shocking".
Fantastico
Very good for effects.
I can hear clear reference to Blue Danube Waltz at 7:25
Great piece! I love the program note; the influence of architecture on form and structure is clear, similar to Feldman's Rothko Chapel and Dufay's Nuper Rosarum Flores. I'll have to sit down with this score some more.
Excellent!!
so good ...
I see that Kachikawawa is still at it!
This comment section is a good laugh. An incredibly mobile work, cheers
Perfect...Thanks for the post
Love it!! :)
i'd like to learn to compose music like this !!!!
not difficult but but but needs patience to make it out
this is "perfection"
It's certainly difficult to make it sound exactly the way you want it to sound
thank you for this video
rare piece
terrific
OK. Some say this is not music. Which is ridiculous. It is certainly very interesting. Like someone in the comments were saying, it is satisfying to see how 4 wooden boxes can sound together. However, it is a valid question as to how a person without music education should approach listening to this. Zappa said "talking about music is like dancing about architecture". Well, I think we need to dance more about architecture. Don't look at an ant hill and say "this is not architecture". Dance about it, and you will get it. I need to listen to what others have to say about this piece to learn how to listen to it.
It's amusing to think instrumentalists use their whole life to create a sonorous and controlled tone on their precious instruments - and then they sit down to perform something like this...
This should be a lesson for composition students: extended techniques all the time is probably a non-starter.
How's the next generation of composers going to rebel against convention now?
I haven't seen any twoset comments yet?
Why would even care anyway, it's a very great thing that there's not any
well at least it works like a kind of 'catharsis' to me - music like this makes me kind of aggressive (and i'm a passionate music lover....)
Was it the associations to scores in horror films that shaped this reaction? Have you changed tastes in the last 7 years? Im curious 😄
There are three main threads in contemporary music: the retro/tonal/neoromantic thread (e.g., Jennifer Higdon); the minimalist thread (e.g., Phillip Glass, John Adams); and the new complexity/post-serialist thread (e.g., Brian Ferneyhough). The first two threads overlap to a certain extent, and do not interest me at all, in particular the minimalists. Personally I would prefer if the new complexity composers (and I am counting Czernowin among them -- I wonder if she would agree) had followed the serialist tradition. In this regard the late Milton Babbitt stands out as the last great modernist composer -- and a great composer he was, by any definition. Despite the "complexity" of the music (just look at that score passing by before your eyes), the end result of Czernowin's String quartet veers dangerously close to what I would call "interesting sounds" rather than music. That having been said, it's a very worthy piece, one to which I shall return frequently. ADDENDUM: After several additional listenings I now appreciate this work much more. It is absolutely on the level of the work of the best contemporary composers, in my opinion.
jaspernatchez For starters, Babbitt used quite a few triads in his works, part of his droll and witty approach to composing. If I understand well, what you are talking about is keeping only the rhythm and dynamics and randomizing all of the pitches, rather than having them based on a row. Of course anyone would hear the difference instantly. Even if you transposed all the notes in the score up a minor third they would hear the difference. I have heard many people express reasons why they do not like Babbitt, but that his music is in any way random or arbitrary has not been one of them. There is very little room for the arbitrary in integral serialism.
jaspernatchez Sorry that happened.
This is the product of a very twisted mind.
very very ferneyhough :D
Indeed, the first Bit looks very similar to his 6th string quartet
@@sebastianzaczek, you might be right, only, this was written 16 years before the 6th Ferneyhough string quartet .
Congratulations, you learned what an extended technique was. now do something with it damn it
Yet another entry from the plink-plonck school of musical "innovation." Only there's nothing innovative about musical gestures first concocted over 50 years ago. I feel sorry for the poor musicians dragooned into torturing themselves to get every single minuscule refinement of this ridiculously demanding score precisely right. And I can just picture the composer hovering over them every step of the way to make sure each and every little plinck and plonck is executed perfectly. Why is this sort of thing still encouraged, after all these many years since the heyday of post-serialism? Stockhausen and Boulez were true innovators, whose work is fully worthy of detailed preparation, but after fifty years it's time to move on.
This sounds nothing like Stockhausen or Boulez. Maybe in the sudden dynamic/register changes but that's about it.
Ever thought that many performers purposely perform this music because it’s a refreshing and fascinating challenge
@@zgart I doubt it. I think they're intimidated into learning to play this stuff, because it's considered "avant-garde". What a laugh after all these years.
@@victorgrauer5834 LOL have you talked to anyone in a contemporary music ensemble? No one is intimidated into joining. Do you think Barbara Hannigan hates her job? I would love to join a contemporary ensemble one day because it seems like one of the greatest ways to engage oneself in immersive music
@@victorgrauer5834 and besides, not all avant-garde music is similar to this work at all...
6:50
The fact that music somehow came to be patterns of noise bugs me to the core. I don't believe that this should be all there is. I love the sounds extended techniques yielded but since the *effect* became the *music* i feel that the music has lost much more than it gained. For starters audience. Contemporary composition has throughout ages been somewhat elitist and from my perspective this is just that. I don't believe this kind of music can be enjoyed thoroughly other than on a novelty level which just doesn't cut it for me. It *is* the age of pushing the limits aggressively and the quirky grabbing attention, but quirks quickly become boring and i just don't know where can it all go from this point. All i know is that it's going farther away from the audience which is keeping all of the arts alive. Is that the right path? I wouldn't know, but it certainly needs to be questioned.
Does this piece being almost 25 years old change anything for you?
Wow, extended techniques and atonality! Trailblazing stuff for 1995, really innovative. Did she come up with this by herself? A genius. I hope she writes more music before dying and being completely forgotten. How about... string quartet n.2 that is also full of extended techniques and funny noises, but twice as long as quartet n.1? A great idea IMO
That is as good as the string quartet by the composer $kdk44k##%%ifi:;rjro204920Ee"{[]. Why does this composer not have such a pseudonyme?
Too difficult to practice,but sounds great~
this is what nightmares sound like
What the fuck
welp, here is the OG every-single-note-must-be-extended-technique piece
This is typical of my favorite foods.
You seem to be very hostile towards extended techniques, or do you perhaps think they should serve a more narrative/climactic purpose?
@ He seems to dislike extended techniques taste a bit.
original gangsta?
@ "hostile", what a choice of vocabulary.
Maybe my ears are just underdeveloped as some academic friends accused me of.
Or maybe I just like leaving these comments because they give me funny reactions?
Who knows
0:39
What the FUCK???!!!
Interesting. I appreciate the ingenuity of sound etc. However what I don't like within this modern circle is all the chauvinism. Anyone writing anything tonal is looked down on and seen as inferior.
This music lacks air, and personality, and is trying too hard imo. "Hey here look, am I good, am I really good, and here I`m genius right, I must be, yeah Im genius, so complicated, and there, huh so deep, so profund". Tiresome...
This composition, in my layman's opinion, works so hard at being "interesting" that it quickly becomes tiresome.
Fredrick Zinos Well said...
It is the archetype of the music which has isolated the composer since 60 years while trying to make believe that it was avant garde, and put him at the periphery of the musical life. If this music was real avant garde (as stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, szymanowski were in their times) it would have conquered wide audiences...A music that owes her life only to goverment taxes. In one word, it is a SHAME !
BRUXELLESCENTRE Care to elaborate on your statement? It would help if you give a specific definition of what is this "archetype" you're talking about and also what the "real avant-garde" is. Please, not only examples.
If you do give some definitions, then we might actually try to have an intelligent conversation rather than the non-sense bashing you're going with there, which I suspect comes from a lack of understanding.
+BRUXELLESCENTRE This is an incredibly inaccurate assessment. Sorry. Whatever failings this piece music may have, your horse has no legs.
Please accept my opinion that this piece is a random nonsense.
basura hecha con instrumentos e intérpretes caros.
why cant there just be a modern classical piece with atleast some sort of melody
There are plenty - check John Adams, Phillip Glass, Salonen, Crumb, Thomas Ades, some pieces by Cage and Feldmann, some pieces by Copland, the British 20th century classics (Britten, Vaughan Williams, etc.), the Russian classics (Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich), many pieces by Schnittke as well as Gubaidulina & Edisson Denissov. There are so many more! Friends of mine also compose music with tonal melodies nowadays, and are somehow still in the tropes of what's defined as "modern classical"
This just isn't good music. To quote my friend who i showed it to, it is "Impressively bad". It's noise made with incredibly expensive instruments.
Wow, so accurate.
Gosh, how on earth can listening to this noise be an aesthetically gratifying experience to anyone with musical ears?This piece consists only of sound effects, it's really nothing more than that. There's no musical substance, there's no emotional expression, no variety, no perceivable structure - as a matter of fact, it's bad music, it's boring, it's academic, it sounds terribly dated and I suspect this kind of music will be completely forgotten in 30 years or so.
+arvidtom yet you keep coming back
well that's because some of your vids show up as 'recommended videos' on my user start page, so i visit them... no personal offense though...
+arvidtom While I totally understand where you're coming from, what if in fact the composer is not attempting to provide musical substance or emotional expression in the way that you would like, or in the way that many people came to expect from string quartet repertoire during the Romantic period? What if not every composer is trying to fit into that mold? What if pieces like this are meant to make us ask what exactly the difference is between "noise" and "music?" Sure, we can call such a piece "academic," but I'd prefer not to. Anyone can ask those questions. Not just those of us with music doctorates.
+arvidtom I'm not sure that we should limit it to those with MUSICAL ears, it could be extended to anyone with ears!!!
+Geoffrey Hill Well if that is the sort of discussion that you want to have, this music has gone way past the point. I would also add that a music teacher has used this as an example of what not to do when composing for strings.
Come on, let's not fool ourselves. This is just ugly noise, plus the style is terribly dated (people were exploring this modernist kind of crap in the 1960s), I can't understand how anyone can get emotional satisfaction out of this.
UNNECESSERY, UN HUMANİC COLD METALİC BAD SAUNDS
buuu
Wonderful! This is hilariously bad... Fabulously pretentious pseudo-intellectual wannabe avantgarde diarrhea! Keep up the good work and you'll be almost on par with Stockhausen's epicly dimwitted Helicopter Quartet!
and what have you done, Mason Starling?
This is the most pretentious load of noise I have ever listened to. I would suggest that the composer finds themself a pair of ears!
And as for the elaborate foreword, is the most pretentious assembly of words I have ever read.
+Ollie Edwardes Hate on new music all you want, but PLEASE get the gender right, ugh.
+incipitsify when it was composed matters not to me, neither does who composed it; it is still a terrible piece of "music"!
+Ollie Edwardes To make the situation worse, that "noise" was composed by the professor of music composition at Harvard!
Well, to me, this is much more beautiful and interesting as a piece of musical typesetting than as music. If I wanted to make cool looking sheet music, I'd compose like that, and if I wanted to make nice sounding audio, I'd compose in a totally different way. Like, for instance, take all those half-flats and half-sharps... they look really cool on sheet music, but they're totally pointless in an atonal and mostly unpitched work like this, no?
+boptillyouflop I agree. This "music" (and I will put it in quotes like that by way of demonstrating the current flexibility in its definiftion) is not pleasant to most ears but can be an interesting score and one of clearly vivid debate. However I do not think this composition should be praised for how it raises discussion, as many things do this and are often very harshly described.