Bernstein on Schoenberg
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ธ.ค. 2024
- It could be very easily argued (because it's true) that the music addressed by this lecture was the inevitable result of the evolutionary trajectory of all of Western music . Nevertheless the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg represent a hugely compelling intellectual/artistic achievement that could only have come from true visionary genius . Learning to hear and appreciate the free atonality 1908-1923 and 12 tone music of Schoenberg can and will allow you to hear all of music with fresh phonological ears . This is music beyond the precipice the Tao the Ching where Yang becomes Yin and Yin becomes Yang . It is nothing to fear it can re-illuminate and re-inform your musical world . It is where all of music history was heading . My god don't you want to know? This lecture ends with "The Berg Violin Concerto" ; five posts it took to get to the end . So on my channel there are 4 more posts continuing this lecture .
My goodness. What an intelligent, articulate man Bernstein was. I'm giving a lecture on Schoenberg to my music appreciation class tomorrow, and think I'll just spend a good chunk of time showing them this......
+Max Pankau cool
@Sasuntidictous Rhoireiphapos and likewise, you are an ignorant piece of trash :)
@@user-ef4de6ds6f that smiley face ruined the roast tbh
@Sasuntidictous Rhoireiphapos you still suck regardless
@@mr.clasher-clashofclansboo7286 we have to stay nice tho 👩🦲
I have to admit, I underestimated Bernstein until now. But his interpretation in the few bars he's playing of 10 show a deep understanding of that work that actually impresses me, even more than the lecture.
I can't believe that these 5 Schoenberg posts (excerpts) from lecture 5 have generated so much response and so many hits . I seem to have inadvertently stumbled across a very active intelligent and inquisitive musical sector of You Tube . For my channel this post is on fire !
Both these videos and watching the lectures again, it makes me want to go back to Schoenberg, and I think I will. Thank you, again.
darkprose Sorry missed your comment . Glad to hear it !
it should be more than on fire... this should be viral. As a piano hacker myself and following my father who played the piano and knew what Bernstein was talking about, I have 'written' /played my own pieces that sound a bit like what we have here. My pieces, I think were written to go against what my parents were playing/listening to at home. I wanted some disturbance to play against the pretty melodic pieces they were usually listening to. Perhaps that is why I fell into the rock/free jazz that I fell into?
cool
The notes in silent tile cards are very helpful .Anyone composing a score or a musical piece at the edge or beyond the edge of tonality will benefit from this lecture .......and the notes .Thank you .
Listening to Bernstein play Schoenberg on piano reminds me of some of the avant garde/post-modal jazz pianists of the 1960s. Great lecture, I always enjoy what he has to say, and play.
Look ,anyone who is going to be antisemitic ,or racist, or so irrational as to characterize Schoenberg or any other artist mentioned here as pure evil or any such BS might as well not post because your comment will be immediately taken down . All comments must show some positive intent or curiosity or at least some honest rational basis . I would also like to thank the vast majority of posters for making such a real contribution to my channel .
I understand you like this type of music ( "de gustibus"), but, after all, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. they don't HAVE to like it, and if they don't, why can't they express their thoughts? It doesn't much sound like music to me. if I put my kittens to walk on the piano keys, they'll produce an equally beautiful piece.
+naly202 it doesn't mean, I reject it, of course. it's another way of expression.
Amen to that.
OH the internet ....yes well the subject of this post is music just music .
And how exactly does this relate to Schoenberg's music. There are plenty of non-wealthy jews, even poverty stricken jews. There are plenty of filthy rich thieving Gentiles, like the Trump family, e.g.
Although film music (that is, music composed for film from roughly the mid-30s to the present) is often under-valued by musical scholars, good film music composers have embraced virtually every musical style invented as simply yet another "tool" is their musical toolbox with which to create the various expressions demanded by the films. Thus, "atonality" (within the context of film) is less of a "progression" and more of a "discovery". Bernstein correctly points out that atonality in art music can often be difficult for the listener, and yet those same listeners would have no trouble with accessibility at all when hearing the exact same music appropriately accompanying a scene in a film. Take the opening scene in JAWS, for instance. Would more "accessible" music even have had as great an impact? Subjectively speaking, probably not. Not all film music is good. (In fact, much of it is awful.) And not even all of the parts of a good film score are good. But film music is seldom appreciated for what is perhaps its greatest contribution: to provide an avenue for new and challenging concepts to be heard by the general public.
Jerry Goldsmith studied with Schoenberg
Check out my composition Music for Film on this channel
I'm not so sure about this. The score to the opening scene of Jaws is a particularly successful instance of Williams' brand of musical impressionism, but although it makes use of techniques that may have grown out of atonalism, it is not strictly atonal by any means. If you want to argue for the success of a score that is truly atonal, you'll want to track down one that truly qualifies. Even North's 'Dragonslayer' is a bit tricksy in its atonality, although in overall feel it qualifies more than any film score by Williams or even Goldsmith.
Very interesting and you are so right about how we accept in a film what would perplex us in the concert hall.
@@AndSendMe It's funny that you mentioned North's DRAGONSLAYER. Of course, we all know that it was originally the rejected score for 2001 A APACE ODESSEY. The trailer for the film, however, was quite different, featuring bars from Mahler's First Symphony. I was 13 when it came out, and was very disappointed. In fact, I'm in the preliminary stages of re-recordingi the entire sound for the film, from dialogue and sound effects to music. (An original score, perhaps? We'll see.) Anyway, my point entirely is that atonality is just one of many tools the film composers rely upon when creatively required, whether for the entire score or just a few bars.
Bless you of posting these. The more the merrier.I can't tell how how they open up my ears.
+12 Tone Rose If you only had ears like an elephant, you would run in the other direction. However, since you're most likely human, it will probably take a little longer for you to catch on to one or more of these wonderful (musical) jokes related to 'educated' music of the 20th century. In short, Schoenberg's compositions. Like Voltaire said, "This world is a bad joke being told by God to an audience so captivated by fear that they are incapable of laughter." CVD
If I read you correctly, you are saying "the emperor wears no clothes".
5:10 A talented painter, but also a talented designer of furniture and architectural installations, and even an inventor of a reimagined chess game for four players. A true Renaissance man.
5610winston Yes! One can check out his game and paintings and Tennis Notation Sonifications at the Schönberg Center in Vienna.
I wish I could find a Coalition Chess board and set.
I truly love atonality now that it's grown on me. I understand it very well now. The themes are really quite dark, eerie and mysterious. Beautiful as hell once you understand it.
+Mehra Ahsan, the themes are always dark, eerie, horrific, not mysterious, but plain incomprehensible - that's all a harmonic language composed of dissonance alone is capable of achieving. I agree with you, though. "beautiful" as hell, no doubt.
cool . It's true that anything truly mysterious e.g. higher dimensions or the multiverse is scary because it absolutely lets us glimpse what what primitive Flatlanders we are . Extended chromatically altered tonalities eventually become polytonality which if nudged a bit more becomes free atonality which can become 12 tone if the composer is interested in denying accidental tonal ghosts from haunting his music or can he? Then even in that world you have great leeway check out the difference between Berg and Webern .
Bernstein, what a great master and teacher. He made simple and easy to understand what is so obscure in scholarly books.
Bernstein could make a stroll in the park sound like an epic act.
The Buddhists say it is! They further assert that if you could perceive the intrinsic beauty of everyday things you would be reduced to tears. This is the same insight reported by many LSD users.
@@paxwallacejazz That sounds quite Proustian.
@@paxwallacejazz To see the World in a grain of sand, etc.....BLAKE!
@@BeauJames59 If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite!
@@sverigetv1 I've long hypothesized that our defense mechanisms developed simultaneously with our increasing consciousness; that perhaps raw reality is so much to take in that our defense mechanisms arose along the way to somehow keep our attention focused on more-immediate concerns (e.g., avoiding predators, finding food & shelter). I.e., that there must necessarily have developed some heavy filtering / over-simplification of sensory input -- otherwise we'd be so awed by our very existence that it would be difficult to *function*.
We're perhaps kind of getting a bit removed from Schoenberg here but I don't often get to express such ideas, so there it is.. ;-) I'm not the biggest fan of 12-tone serialism but perhaps we could say that this style of expression is demonstrating and/or or marveling in the aspects of reality that our more-typical "classic western harmony" (aka European harmonic tradition) does not.
This man loved performing in front of his admirers the most. In addition to all his musical activities, he should also be a film actor.
Nice! I've been on a Schoenberg kick lately, listening to his entire oeuvre in order of opus number. I'm up to Op 21. It's great listening to the evolution toward the 12 tone system!
KIBanshee9 Just think how hard that would've been before the Internet.
Thank you for posting this. We are performing this quartet in November in Brookline and Salem, MA and will share with our audiences.
Wow so glad to hear that !
Excellent and very pedadogic presentation by Leonard Bernstein.
This was beautiful to listen to. Bernstein makes the music speak to you.
For the full lecture see : The Unanswered Question 1973 5 The XXth Century Crisis Bernstein Norton
Yes the whole purpose of these carefully edited excerpts is to provide an intelligent briefing for interested parties who might not have 3 hours to watch lecture 5 . If anyones interest is piqued enough to take Mr. cagin's advice then my mission is accomplished indeed .
Neither Stravinsky have got my full attention and necessity to listen those compositions again and again. Only once for reasons of curiosity 100%, keeping my heart completely relaxed.
It's not a coincidence that Jazz took off right around the same time. Tonal music never went away. After Debussy, tonal music found its home in Jazz.
Sina Fallah Right I agree.
Debussy isn't really tonal.
@@soyoltoi most of his pieces are. Maybe voiles was atonal but even it has a pentatonic passage
@@lordspongebobofhousesquare1616 I'm being a bit pedantic here. He is most known for his modal compositions. I don't have detailed statistics on his collected works, but his most influential ones moved beyond the tonality of the 19th century. Therefore, it's not tonality in the strict sense, even though some of them contain elements of tonality with things like V-I root movements, so you may call it the vague term atonal.
Even after Debussy, tonality still existed in classical music. But it was just one tool out of many that composers used, and many actively avoided it so as not to be "cliché" or "populist". And there were several extensions to tonality too, such as Bela Bartok's axis theory and polytonality.
@@soyoltoi My god man "tonal" doesn't mean following the rules and conventions of tonal music theory. If what you're doing can be reduced to any combination diatonic and or nondiatonic inventories of notes deriving from the harmonic series than it's tonal. Yes Debussy is tonal 🤦♂️
Excellent post. This is extremely helpful for a project I have. Bernstein also happens to have one of the best speaking voices I have ever heard, lol.
cool
+Finkldorkin I agree. He sounds alot like Alan Watts. Listen to him and compare the two.
As a guitarist I was influenced by the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg. I believe I was the first to post atonal guitar music on You tube many years ago. People seem to like my serialism compositions (over 50,000 views) which you can hear an example by listening to "Dissonant Departure" on my channel or search Atonal music by Ray Tutaj Jr. I took music composition classes in college and was very intrigued by this method. I love these videos with Bernstein. Thanks for posting them.
+Ray Tutaj Jr cool gonna check you out !
Exceptional. While some people may call this music an "acquired taste", it's certainly a taste worth acquiring. I truly do enjoy the freedom with which one can write 12 tone music.
Right well cool; as a teen wasn't crazy about free atonality or 12 tone music (different things) myself . Ah 12 tone or dodecaphonic music is actually a tricky thing to pull off ...it's not really anything goes even though it might sound a bit like that . All that gets explained in the course of these videos .
Justin 102798 Well said. Agree 100%.
+paxwallacejazz
I've ventured in the opposite direction. Once upon a time I featured Webern's piano variations and Boulez' Notations in my senior recital at university. I then went on to do my doctoral thesis on several orchestral works of Milton Babbitt. If anyone "gets" what dodecaphonic music (and its successors) is supposed to be about it's me. One day I just had to admit that I didn't like this music. I thought it ugly and I just had to look myself in the mirror and admit it. I think the aim of Art is to express beauty. I take Keats' observation as my starting point: "beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." I don't think this music is beautiful. I feel that serial music was an attempt to "liberate" music from tonality, but it only created chaos and confusion. I call it "communism for music theory." No tone is more important than the next, right? Well, Nature is pure hierarchy. Humans are instinctively hierarchical creatures. The law of Nature is hierarchy. That is why attempts to smooth out differences, whether in the Arts, or in political and social spheres, is doomed to failure.
I agree with you, that's why the public doesn't like 12 tone music.
This reminds me of when I first read Donald Mitchell's "The Language of Modern Music" a long time ago. I learned a lot from that book. Highly recommended, if you can find it.
Thanks for posting. Was just talking to my students about Schoenberg's composition methods.
Jason Giaccone I missed this comment , I am always excited to hear that anything on my channel might assist somehow with music education .
Your ringing phone added character to the Schoenberg piece
Watching this in 2020 makes me feel like our priorities as human beings are all in the wrong order, the wrong mixture, compared to the way things might have been. Let me re-phrase: fuck we’re all so stupid now.
Thanks for uploading these, they are super interesting for me as a musician and also a great showcase of how talented Bernstein was.
In a way Schoenberg defined the location of the cliff beyond which there be dragons . It's not a place I would choose to live but I grow fonder and fonder of it's possibilities !
"The more intricately-detailed a system of organization is, the more random seems to be the final result."
Peter Hazzard, Composer-in-Residence at the Hogwarts of Music, in Boston, 1979.
Zing!
I can't believe I'm just seeing this for the first time. Schoenerg is really under respected and deserves more recognition from the greatest-respected musicians/ conductors like this.
Dude, thanks, for real, thanks. You're freaking awesome. Best channel ever
jimihd1 Wow really? I thank you for bothering to take a look around it . Seriously :-)
🙏 I think Bernstein was brilliant, I love to hear his Highlights of Mass, I am not a musician, just someone that likes to listen, and sometimes trying to understand.
Many times people express their dislike of this kind of music because of the dominant concept of tonal and harmonic music. It makes me think of people who don't like paintings that represent chaos or chaotic subjects, whether naive, surreal, impressionist, cubist, abstract or figurative. In music as in painting and other forms of art, there is a universal range that goes between harmony and chaos and there is a lot of stages represented in between. I personally appreciate composers that venture into new territories and expand our horizons because we get to experience new raw emotions that we did not even imagined before.
I think you'll find there are ample representations of chaotic subjects in romantic art and tonal music. To declare those forms exhausted and obsolete seems to me more indicative of a poverty of imagination than artistic heroism.
This is such an incredible interesting lesson, showing that Bernstein really got deeply involved with what he talks about. Yet, on the other hand, watching 50 years later, and after the further development of contemporary classical music, this seems like a historical document, in some sense proven to be wrong by many compositions since then. Many composers have shown up with great atonal works that rely on the help neither of the tonal nor of the dodecaphonic system. But, yet, it is very entertaining and very informative to listen...
I would like to point out that {(since the advent of tempered tuning)} the entire trajectory of western european art music could be characterized by the continued acquisition of notes outside the key. The system of tempering allowed these subversive little notes to be seamlessly incorporated into any single piece . So all the great composers where rushing to find their own original methods of increasing chromatic density or learning the methods of others .They where in effect dragging the music theorists in tow leaving in their wake new academic codifications . This process became the faustian bench mark that almost all composers secretly adhered to . You see the notion of just writing some compelling music was insufficient . Ones music "at the end of the day" had to make some kind of expansion of the theoretical possibilities (often harmonic in nature) of western music . This process led inevitably to a point of saturation where no further chromatic density could be achieved without abandoning the rules of western tonal music theory . This point is called (by Bernstein) the 20th century crisis: This point was reached about 1905 to 1910 . So modern music was absolutely the product of what was churning underneath all that Bach Mozart Beethoven Berlioz Chopin List Brahms Wagner etc. The inevitable result of the entire trajectory of western art music . Enter Schoenberg and Stravinsky :-) If you don't completely understand what I've written then watch these 6 lectures in their entirety . Posted many places on TH-cam.
When, and if, I would grow old, I want to be making instructional videos on music like this.
How are you getting on 3 years later?
....I love listening to this guy just talk!
Such great achievement! Congrats from Brazil, paxwallacejazz, thanks for posting!
+Sheila Zagury Sheila you are most welcome
Being a jazz pianist I would like to say that free atonality is about chromatically dense as jazz is likely to get without adopting a tonal architecture other than our western well tempered system (I think) . I mean I did know a jazz pianist who had internalized some tone rows however I can't see this as an approach that would ever generate much excitement in the jazz world . The human ear can develop a free atonal intuition however. So jazzers listen up .
... to me the most ear-opening moment begins at 9:16 ... although the whole lecture is so great...
Love the written commentary. Keep it.
Having just watched a recent movie, "Woman In Gold" (Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds) which features this composer's music, I had to find out more about it. Thank you for posting this, it was very helpful.
Franklin Hoffman Really ?! huh , did not know that ; very cool wanna see that movie .
thank you so much for posting this. Much appreciated.
You are most welcome Eric .
On one of the classical music forums I frequent there has been an ongoing argument -- okay, heated discussion -- that there is no such thing as atonality and the people who use the term "atonal music" or ask questions about it are never answered, the discussion devolving into what is or what is not tonal. But words are rarely precise. We all know what we mean by the term "atonal," meaning moving away from the common practice era methods. It is gratifying to see Bernstein using the term "non-tonal" in this lecture, giving credence to the term when academic pedants (whom I admire nonetheless) go all pedantic on us laymen.
8:33 wow yes that is some GREAT music
Well said, Mr. paxwallacejazz. Thanks for posting.
Mr. Long I thank you for watching/listening
Bartok was a very eloquent, Kafkaesque iconoclast of harmony. Bartok was the best dissonant harmonist, I think.Schoenberg did not want cliches. Bartok had something to say.Schoenberg was interested in form, not content.
Penelope White I agree with all your praise and completely disagree with all your criticism. But very happy you are interested in these masters to what ever degree; it is a rare thing.
Indeed that does sound like an 'air from another planet," and very useful for sci-fi soundtrax !
But did Schoenberg actually bequeath to us a new vocabulary? or did Stravainski get it right
that strong rhythms and ethnic / folkloristic [ aka popular] themes were what would endure?
Does anyone know where can i buy/rent the full episodes?
0:20 - Debussy died in 1918...
A superb voice. Rich and melodic. Erudite and seductive. Yes. It’s seductive. This is what great minds sound like.
I recognise the skill of atonal composer's music. I just don't like the noise it makes.
Yeah...there is THAT!!
You’re in company with not a few people, including me. Apart from it being an interesting exercise chromaticism and atonal outputs hardly fit in the category of ‘If music be the food of love, play on!’ Would put me right off.
i don't like the noise it makes either, but it simply makes almost anything before it not as exciting in comparison. so i listen to those noise almost exclusively now.
half joking of course, but imo it's all about feeling the intensity in the music. as bernstein discussed here, atonality is just a natural development of western music tradition, which you can find clue everywhere in wagner, debussy, stravinsky. but people happily accept those composers, compared to schoenberg who went just one more step 'forward'. but the difference is in fact a lot more subtle than it sounds like at first.
In some cases atonality can sound good but I agree
Problem (with the text introduction at the beginning of this video):
Debussy passed away in 1918, not 1911.
I know I'll just have to live with it there are about 22 corrections in comments 🤷♂️ but it doesn't change the fact that his passing spured modern music forward to fill that vacume. Stravinsky and Schoenberg
Very interesting but from what series of programs is this taken from?
I don't quite understand the introductory statement at the beginning (0:16) about the deaths of Debussy and Mahler in 1911, for Debussy died in 1918.
quite right stand corrected
thanks for posting! what is the name of the whole unedited lecture series? maybe there is a dvd or something. I'd like to watch everything from start till end. greetings from Vienna!
"The Unanswered Question" c.1973 Leonard Bernstein's Harvard/Norton Lectures in 6 parts . DVDs on Amazon it's also posted all over You Tube ,well at least in 2 places . I think one of channels is called "cagin". Each lecture is between 2.5 and 3 hours long and, I am glad to hear that you're interested enough in them to tackle them in their entirity. They are exceptional . I am posting only the bits that stick out for me . PS catch a Vienna Art Orchestra concert .
I forsee the day when, as a result of the continued progress I see in each new generation, the human mind's ever expanding capacity to absorb and understand very complex matters will embrace what we now consider difficult music; when the human processor can hear the serialism and perceive the retrograde tone rows for what they are, for instance, and see the beauty (maybe mathematically, maybe just aesthetically as art for art's sake, or whatever) that's surely present in the serialism--in what we now consider difficult music; when people generally are bemused that Schoenberg wasn't widely embraced and enjoyed. We'll get to the point where we complain we can't get a particular twelve tone row out of our heads. I believe this because there are people like this already, and I think we'll find more and more.
Finally someone who's entire existance isn't somehow deeply threatened by the very existance of free atonality and 12 tone music.
Dodecaphony is simply another language, and therefore another form of life. For example, even if a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand what he said, because we can't possibly know the world a lion inhabits. Will the individual who speaks through twelve-tone series be able to understand the ramblings of a diatonic speaker?
This is exactly what Schoenberg mistakenly thought, 100 years later the postman still isn't singing his tunes.....
@@DaveFlynnComposer Its in movies though...
@@aoeu256 yes, as background music to a few horror/tension scenes in a small amount of films. Not exactly what Schoenberg had in mind I suspect! It's a useful technique in some contexts, one I've used a little myself, but the dogma it became was destructive.
Is there a way I can find all of these complete videos? Bernstein was one of the most amazing musicians I have ever known and I wasn't even born in his era. Thanks for the video.
I have answered this question 500 times since I posted this. Do you know how to search you tube? Did you read what I posted? I've only posted excerpts BUT other channels have posted the entire series. Type "Unanswered Question Bernstein" Should be enough. These are 6 lectures from Harvard circa1973
@@paxwallacejazz I'm sorry, but I must say that I feel that your seemingly hostile reply to this commenter is entirely unwarranted and highly unprofessional of you, being the host of this channel. Bryan Reyes was just trying to get more complete information about your fascinating video clips. He even thanked you for the video! So, I really don't understand the hostility in your tone & the ungratefulness that you've shown this young man. I can understand your getting frustrated for getting the same question over & over again (compliments of your excellent video - did you ever think of *_that_* ???), but your over-the-top reaction is just totally uncalled for IMHO.
Has anyone experimented with serial "speech melody" and "intonation?" I don't mean composed songs. I might go with improvised but I'm really wondering about "common" speech.
Why did you edit out Bernsteins comments about Scheonberg being a painter in Der Bleu Reiter art movement? That experience played a part in his development as a composer.
Absolutely brilliant lecture.
I'm not the biggest fan of serialism, but free atonality is quite wonderful!
At 8:50 one of the audience seems to go out the door! Then comes back in!
more or less came to this as my little son started to try on the
piano and it reminded me to atonal music....i went through some of the comments here...unbelievable how some
can construct the most bizarre connections to politics and race .... i
agree with what one poster said...it is about MUSIC
r d here here
I think the big problem with the "second viennese" school is that they never overcame the inevitable reality that all music is based on the harmonic (or "overtone") series, which isn't a "human" or even "earthly" phenomenon, but a universal principle of periodicity that extends throughout the whole universe, and which makes itself most apparent in the act of hearing, and once again this is not limited to human hearing alone (even birds sing in it's ratios). After studying Schoenberg and those who followed him for years, I feel they never understood this fully, and were instead intellectually chasing after some abstract linear progression of the arts, as they imagined it. They also did not seem to realize that the 12-tone equally tempered scale was an arbitrary limitation, and that greater forms of consonance, dissonance, and ultimately expression can be acheived by alternate tuning systems (such as Harry Partch's 43-tone octave, or even older methods of tempered keyboard scales, such as were used by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, etc...). As such, I am now no longer confused as to why this music will never gain widespread acceptance by the public. As much as I love many of their works, and as much as I respect their artistic integrity, their works are truly self-serving and misguided.
Ok well, as seemingly rational and well thought out as your objection might be you don't seem to understand that Schoenberg was the inevitable result of post tempered tonality ! You know the one that allows for the successful inclusion and seamless integration of ultimately all other notes outside the key . This being achieved through modulation, chromatically informed melodies and most importantly chromatically altered harmonies . This is the reason why the history of western art music from Bach to Schoenberg can only be described as a composer driven power dive into ever increasing chromatic density. Each successive generation finding more and more ways to include more and more notes outside the key until it became necessary to abandon the rules of tonal music theory . Bernstein calls this the 20th century crisis . Enter Schoenberg and Stravinsky etc. It is clear that Atonality (if it even exists using our 12 tones) and polytonality is the inevitable out growth of Tonality not at all something arbitrary. Now I would like to point out that I am a tonal Jazz musician/composer however understanding the relationship between chromatic density and human affective response is invaluable . This creates a spectrum of affective response from diatonic music to and through atonality . The ability to wield this amazing creative possibility ( to consciously take the listener through echelons of human affective response as determined by the spectrum of chromatic density is) a humbling lifelong pursuit that can not be swayed by the misguided dismissal of the entire history of western music . Now if your point is to somehow invalidate the 12 tones of western music... Well Good luck with that . Now I have to go practice the piano .
No, my point isn't to invalidate the 12TET tuning system or western music. Far from it. My point was that while Schoenberg (and others) presume that atonality is an inevitable result of tempered tuning, the same could be said of ANY tuning system, and that actually this was just the result of focusing on an abstract (and I would argue, imagined) linear progression of art and not a focus on the fundamental workings of music. The 12TET system (and other tempered keyboard systems before it) was adopted to increase the expressive ability of a TONAL system, and to make this increased expressivity compatible with a wide array of instruments from a wide array of places. While it may be argued that music gets more chromatic as time goes on, this in no way implies an inevitable abandonment of tonality, only its expansion, and even saying "the history of western art music from Bach to Schoenberg can only be described as a composer driven power dive into ever increasing chromatic density" just shows that the focus is being placed on an abstract linear historical progression and not the fundamentals of music itself. (I should also mention that I feel this isn't actually the case, since we can find in the works of Bach more chromaticism than many composers who followed him, including many modern ones.) Schoenberg famously said "in 50 years the postman will whistle my tune" yet over 100 years later even people who study his music have trouble whistling his tunes, and I feel there will never come a time when any postman whistles Schoenberg because he misses the fundamental inner workings of music in his compositions and instead focuses on an arbitrary system of his own devising. And that was my point. Like I said in my original post, as much as I like some of the works of the second viennese school, after years of studying them (and music generally) I'm no longer confused as to why their works will never gain widespread acceptance from the public. Schoenberg and his followers missed the mark on what the next phase of western music would be because they rejected the fundamentals of music in favour of an abstract idea with no basis in the way music actually works. It's not "the inevitable result of post tempered tonality" but a theoretical dead end.
I think it's weird to consider twelve-tone music a "failure" just because it only broke away from *some* arbitrary limitations and not all of them. I think it's like calling Aspirin a failure because it only cured your headache and didn't also make you a millionaire. I mean, indeed, whatever tuning system you come up with will be fully arbitrary, whereas the harmonic series is a truly universal principle that extends to everything in the universe... ... well, *not quite*, you know? If you're working with electronic music, and you can choose the frequencies you're producing with pretty damn absolute precision, the harmonic series becomes every bit as arbitrary as everything else.
Also, the twelve-tone technique itself may not be very fashionable today, but when you look closely, atonality has become relatively mainstream today, being used in lots of heavy metal and electronic music, and even pop singles have elements of atonality. Schoenberg's ideals probably weren't quite as on the mark as he hoped, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a strong historical importance in Western music.
Saying heavy metal and electronic use atonality is trying to mould the world to fit the narrative. If you can point me to music in said genres(or popular music in general - as long as it's actually popular and not some fringe artists experimenting) I'd appreciate it. Expanding tonalism is not atonality.
Fernie Canto Why does frequency precison invalidate the harmonic series? There's no reason for any of us to ever believe that the perfect fifth isn't the most consonant interval, and I don't see how the progression of time would ever change that.
8:37 Maestro annoyed by f.... phone ring. Love the space time theory evocation.
I wonder if I could ever relax listening to this music?
Debussy starb 1911?! Von 1911 bis zu seinem Tod von 1918 komponierte er "Jeux", 12 Etüden, 3 Sonaten ( für Flöte, Bratsche und Harfe, für Cello, und für Geige).
Yes, anyone, especially popular culture musicians, who can understand and convey the artistry of Schoenberg and his 12-tone system, is someone who’s extremely rich in understanding music in general; it’s like rock and pop music where the musicians only use barre chords, it illustrates their poor sound as it sounds very predictable; learning to use inversions and extended chords (7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths) illustrates the musician’s ability to utilize ‘expensive chords’; and, learning these different elements of music theory only enhances the performance, composition, and provides for avenues that are new and fresh!
As a music theory and composition professor (the subject most music performance/composition students absolutely dislike) that’s what I teach my students; and, at the end of each semester, I hear the progress the student’s understanding of music is a million miles away from the first day of my course: I wish musicians of folk music, popular music, would utilize a host of enriching art techniques (classical and jazz musicians) already utilize a plethora of beautiful enriching artistry.
Besides harmonies, there are other, equally affective, techniques such as rhythm alone, e.g., mixed/changing meter and/or odd time signatures: it’s refreshing to the ear to hear something other than 4/4 or 3/4; listening to hear something in 5/4 (like Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’), a rhythmic interesting piece; or, 7/8 (like Sting’s ‘Straight To My Heart’), just a fresh song! I so love music theory and can’t get enough of it:-)
Forgive my ignorance but what did Mahler bring to the table in terms of tonal/atonal evolution?
Aachoo Crony He was Schoenberg's teacher not to mention Frau Mahler was a big influential Schoenberg supporter. But in strictly musical terms when really understood Mahler himself arguably as much as Ravel and Debussy set the stage for the 20th century crisis. If you are actually intrested go to channel cagin on You Tube and watch lecture 6 of "The Unanswered Question" with your thinking cap on. All your questions will be answered.
Mahler was Schoenberg's 'teacher' therefore...?
That's what your thinking cap came up with?
How about just listen to his music? you find his grasp of harmony more forward than Bruckner, Elgar, Richard Strauss? how about Mozart, Bach, Beethoven etc etc etc?
The lectures are a personal take on harmonic history and the 'crisis' is a commercial hook. Couldn't be bothered-couldn't get past the over-emphasis on the tritone...maybe if I took off my thinking cap I'd have more patience. Basically the tritone was crucial to Stravinsky's compositions...so???
It's strange how Busoni: his 2nd sonatina, his Berceuse, his Nocturne Symphonique, are just written out of the script (so to speak.) And recitatives in his Toccatta also employ near tone rows. Bach himself alluded to tone rows, both on WTC book one and also in book two.
Hey watch them all even these highly edited excerpts (5 of em I think) he talks alot about Bach's near tone rows etc. He also talks about how in reality the serial world is haunted by the ever present ghost of tonality. Hell just watch "Lecture 5 The 20th Century Crisis".. in its entirety. Its all over You Tube! Just type in the Unanswered Question Bernstein.
Such a distinguishable erudition!! Leonard Bernstein could never be ‘atonal’ in his discourse!
Is there a posting of this lecture without the "marginalia"? Debussy died in 1918 I think.
Very cool, ominous textures... I think all harmonies/dissonances, in effect all blends of pitches, combined with rhythms and sonorities, creates different atmospheres and characters. There is no right and wrong, only different forms of expression 😊
Maybe you missed the part where he said one is in pressing need of a controlling system. Only with it expression can make sense (like the twelve-tone technique). Anything else would be wrong, as it would be no music at all.
Fabulous music beautifully articulated.
One student of Schoenberg was film. composer Jerry Goldsmith. whos work for the first film Planet of the Apes at times
, showed traces of atonality, I believe atonality was an essential inevitable event in classical music.
Interesting and Goldsmith I've always thought was as heavy as they come .
The film score composers are a very diverse group .John Williams aka John Towner was at one point the pianist for the famous film composer Alfred Newman who topped the academy awards list .
On Schoenberg I can only say that the effect on film was indirect but still a strong effect .
i have been using the twelve tone row writing original funk bass lines with different motifs and ostinatos mixing it with tonal music .
Send me a link brother . I will see if i can send something your way .
cool . will do.
What is this from?
Is this from the unanswered question series?
Pretty sure Debussy didn't die in 1911...
He died on 25 March 1918 - aged only 55!
Debussy did not die in 1911. He died in 1918.
When (you in particular) say stuff like that I hesitate to respond right off the bat because I wouldn't presume (You know) . However: Do you mean because of the emotional charge infused in the tone they managed bring out of their respective instruments, and their expansive phrasing? I know you are aware that Coltrane was investigating Solimsky and making his own theory informed breakthroughs like Naima .
Looking forward to part 2. What program was this lecture recorded for? Was it a PBS program?
Yes PBS 1973 its all on amazon or posted elsewhere on TH-cam
What Bernstein and the editor omit is the importance of American composer Charles Ives, who was experimenting with non-tonal music long before Schoenberg. See, the award winning 1996 biography, "Charles Ives: A Life with Music" by composer and historian Jan Swafford, who, in 2014, wrote a massive biography of Beethoven.
He does another lecture on Ives' The Unanswered Question.
do you think it's necessary, in order to appreciate schoenberg 12 tone music, to have a full understanding of music theory and a great ear?
No.. but I think it takes ;that sonically open minded adventurous spirit that some folks just naturally seem to posses or, it takes exposure to those musicians/composers/teachers ,who in the course of time,repeatedly express their admiration (sometimes grudgingly) for the man . There is this precipice and on one side of it music hasn't lost it's universal appeal and on the other side it is haunted by the ghost of that universal appeal . Much of the 20th century was spent exploring that boundary .Jazz expends much energy exploring that boundary . It is extremely fascinating for some folks to listen to the music that established this boundary (both sides). PS Thats a great question ! So my answer is "no I don't think so" .
PS I am not sure I have ever encountered a"Full" understanding of music theory . I've met some folks who think thats what they have,but they are just academics who don't actually have to prove it . I have met some pretty damn comprehensive overviews of music theory and folks who posses a really great working understanding of music theory . I guess I am saying that it's very humbling this music thing past a certain level .
No more than you need to understand chromatic harmony, secondary dominants, etc., to appreciate Bruckner. In some ways it's actually less essential since 12-tone technique is (often) more of a method for getting the piece written than a cognitive model. You listen to it like any other atonal pitch-oriented music, by hearing (consciously or not) motives, collections of notes used to form melodies and chords, and listening for their repetition.
StromboliKicks not necessarily, but it does require some sort of Historical context
Bernstein is somewhat wrong-headed about this. Free-atonality (if such a thing exists) didn't abandon all the rules at all - there was compositional and musical logic in every single piece. Play through all of the Op. 11 and you will see things like repeated motives and phrases, and development of these phrases in quite a classical way. There are even regular pulsations! (2nd mvt, opening) You will also observe contrasts as violent (made more forcible by the increased dissonance) as those in Beethoven.
+sjouanny I distinctly remember saying exactly what you just said he talks about all the embedded structural elements . Listen those of you who think ol lenny is on the attack here ( quite the contrary) oughta check out the whole thing here all 5 posts or better yet just watch the 20th century crisis lecture 5 I think it's all over you tube
+sjouanny structure and rhythm alone can't drive music. No, not even in RAP or hiphop: they have basically only rhythm, yes, but tons of letters and dancers and gorgeous women in the clips, etc to grab the audience's attentions.
"Son of Tristan!"
I feel that this as a atonal as a piece can get while still being coherent. Of course his atonal works are genius among themselves.
When was this recorded?
You mean by Bernstein? 1973 by me 8yrs ago edited from lecture 5 the 20th century crisis.
Debussy died in 1918.
+joernbroeker Yes I stand corrected .
+joernbroeker Good for you man, you are better than bernstein now!
+Giovanni Battista Boccardo Actually I was just referring to the information text stating that Mahler and Debussy both died in 1911 which is correct for Mahler but not for Debussy. Bernstein in his lecture never claims that Debussy died in 1911, he just gives amazing explanations and comments on Schönberg's music. I never claimed to be better than Bernstein, as a matter of fact he is my favourite Mahler conductor.
@@giovannibattistaboccardo1410 I bet you feel pretty dumb now
About the first slides: Debussy died in 1918, not 1911
I struggle with this style of music, and actually like some of it. But, there is much that makes me think the average listener would just rather hear a well played version of "Happy Birthday To You" than try to make sense of something that is essentially for their enjoyment.
What is the piece he's playing parts of in the first few minutes?
Op. 11
One of the greatest music and gay icons of the 20th century. What an amazing man.
"yielding to tonality"??? Is tonality a obsolete force which must resisted? Also we hear new music as a descriptor. "New music" is now over 100 years old. Is it still new--and will it be new forever?
Very good points made here . Clearly Bernstein didn't think that tonality was anything to be resisted as I don't think he ever composed anything remotely non-tonal . And yet I find it a tribute to this educators commitment to making it possible for the layperson to understand the( tonal) origins of the 20th century crisis . (That took place in pre-WW1 Europe) as you pointed out . The existence of anything that could be considered modern harmonically (from Impressionism to Schoenberg) owes it's existence to the "Western system of tempering" thus allowing for modulation and chromatically altered harmony etc. From Bach to Schoenberg the game became centered on the acquisition of more and more notes outside the key: until tonal music theory could no longer contain any further increases in chromatic density either vertical or linear .
*its
0:21 Debussy died in 1918 during the bombing of Paris (He did not died from the bombing itself aperently)
Thanks Pax-Wallace...exactly. i just copy and pasted this onto a you tube page for haters of modern music! It could be very easily argued (because it's true) that the music addressed by this lecture was the inevitable result of the evolutionary trajectory of all of Western music . Nevertheless the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg represent a hugely compelling intellectual/artistic achievement that could only have come from true visionary genius . Learning to hear and appreciate the free atonality 1908-1923 and 12 tone music of Schoenberg can and will allow you to hear all of music with fresh phonological ears . This is music beyond the precipice the Tao the Ching where Yang becomes Yin and Yin becomes Yang . It is nothing to fear it can re-illuminate and re-inform your musical world . It is where all of music history was heading . My god don't you want to know?
I watched all the 5 lectures educative informative
Oh you're the one . Glad to hear it .
Sorry for irrelevancy and repetition; should've read comments before showing off. More to the point, I don't like atonal, dodecaphonic, or serial music, with a few exceptions, e.g. Berg's Violin Concerto, Stravinsky's Agon, a few works by Copland (which are not strict--and always sound like Copland, very beautiful in their way), and maybe Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, which I'm just getting acquainted with. Even the Schoenberg pieces here I can like. But in general, even 60 years after I fell in love with Bartok at age 14, serial music is unpleasant to me. I compare it to a painter using all colors on a canvas not necessarily randomly, but according to rules which no visual inspection, or only the most protracted, can discern; and mixing them up so much on the canvas that the overall color approaches some kind of ugly uniformity. I call such music brown music. (At the other extreme--in a sense--can be found Webern's musical pointillism: too me the final disintegration of European music.) A good example for me of brown music is any written after the 1940s by : way too ever-changing and complicated. I don't know whether, technically, his music is serial or even atonal. I can hear no harmonic development or even color, and lose all interest. Maybe some of the problem is that many composers (e.g. [I think] Leland Smith, from whom I had a class at Stanford in the early '60s, though I heard only a few of his piano pieces) took dodecaphony as a guaranteed way to write good music and music that would be well received, even when inspiration was lacking. Well, I'm glad that you, paxwallacejazz (BTW I love jazz), can appreciate such music. Maybe you are just smarter musically than I. In any case, tastes differ; that's for sure.
wow, thanks for posting this - it was really inspiring! is this available on dvd or is it from tv?
x iLeon Yes and yes DVDs still on Amazon and it's posted on You Tube. This particular set of snippets are all culled from lecture 5 " The 20th century crisis"
oh, great - thanks!