I think Lenny was saying that atonality was merely a vacation from tonality. Because tonality is natural and atonality is decidedly unnatural, we will always return to tonality. And he said it in a way that makes the intellectual folk feel justified to return to tonality. Well done, sir.
I think, that the presence of atonality "in nature" is easily overlooked due to the striking appearance of tonality. For me, at least, atonal music is a way to lively examine the naturally non-ecstatic, yet persistent and undeniable factors in life.
Baloney. He makes little sense. He is spewing jargon, buzz words, and, if he has a message it is abstracted into austere form just like most classical music.
@@lurking0death ahhh yes your right he makes little sense yet too many seem to love and understand him. also he's speaking poetically if that offends you so be it, just understand this! many love bernstein few love lurking0death
They've found a 30,000 year old flute tuned to a pentatonic scale in France. All musical style and practice is essentially a pattern of innovation, and reaction, back and forth, like a pendulum.
@@HelloooThere It is in fact true, while it was found in Germany, not France, there was a flute carved from a Mammoth bone found in a sediment layer of which has been untouched for 30-40 thousand years. While the original instrument is too delicate to be played it has been reconstructed using modern technology and even recorded playing common popular tunes
Bernstein: And no matter how serial, or stochastic, or intellectualized music may be, it can always qualify as poetry, as long as it is rooted in earth. Migos: She got a big ol' onion booty, make the world cry.
"And finally, I believe that all these things are true, and that Ive's Unanswered Question has an answer. I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer. And the answer is yes." Daaaamn. This is officially my favourite Bernstein quote.
I am proud to say, that I still learn from Maestro Bernstein as a teacher, even though he has not taken a breath on earth since his far to early death in 1990. As a composer, I am a tonalist of the 1st Viennese School. Though as a former professor, I had to teach Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Scriabin, and many other composers that were followers of serialism and/or atonal music. I really loathed having to teach their methods, but this is what teachers do. I agree with Herr Bernstein about tonal music, because good tonal music has the power to engage your listener, and touch their emotions with melody, harmony, and counterpoint. Though I have also always told my students, just remember, it is called "music theory," not "music law.".....Peace!
Good hear that. I only wish your comment were from one of my professors at Amherst College in the 70s (particularly one Donald Whelock) (sp?), who INSISTED that I write in the 12-tone idiom. How often today do we hear Webern and Berg in concert halls? And it's not because they're too advanced for our pathetically bourgeois ears. It's because they were creating music that was totally disconnected from life. I wish I had had this excerpt from Bernstein's lectures to throw at them back then. They were all out of Yale in the 50s, where and when atonality was the way and light, and anyone who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes was immediate ostracized (which, BTW, also happened at Amherst). In an effort to show how shallow and nonsensical their orthodoxy was, I took a piano piece that I had written in high school, and randomly moved keys around (literally, by tossing dice), and the professor's reaction was positive. Makes me very angry in retrospect, because I was totally denied the opportunity to practice and develop my ability to reach out people emotionally. Stop denying the essence of tonality, you stupid "intellectuals"!
I attended the Norton Lectures. I remember this one very well. I truly loved this guy. His music is a fresh today as it ever was. His ideas as interesting. He was one of a kind.
rachmaninoff - "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”
I wonder who he was listening to to make such a statement and when. Was he on to something? How many exalting works have emerged since he wrote this? Hard to say since exaltation is tricky to pin down. Any nominations? I nominate Hovhaness's "Mysterious Mountain. "th-cam.com/video/NI0I-jJZ7I0/w-d-xo.html That's one. Reich's Variations for Wind, Strings and Keyboards is another for me. th-cam.com/video/Sgjwiadze1w/w-d-xo.html Come on people let's make a list.
@@mcrettable Can you enlighten me on what Rachmaninoff means by 'exhalt?' My interpretation of Rachmaninoff's quote would point me to believe that the works of Jacob Collier would be our modern day example of a composer who might have "the capacity to make their works exalt" and "feel rather than think." th-cam.com/video/NSbxiFjA1ZQ/w-d-xo.html - In The Real Early Morning th-cam.com/video/mPZn4x3uOac/w-d-xo.html - In The Bleak Midwinter th-cam.com/video/4VlZ3OiRReM/w-d-xo.html - Piano Improvisation His work on bringing microtonality to the forefront of music rather than some experimental concept and reintroducing younger artists to the harmonic series and tuning theory will have a lasting effect on music to come. We've had Atonal music, our next step might be Microtonal music. Well, that's what I'd like to believe anyways.
What Bernstein leaves out of his prediction are the roles, respectively, of recording, timbre, and noise. Sure, "tonality" has returned, but it's become the vehicle for explorations in timbre that are now foregrounded (relative to music of the past) due to the possibilities of recording and now digital signal processing. A big part of this is the use of noise - non "musical" sounds - in compositions ranging from avant-garde to pop.
There's the argument that "classical" music was at it's most eclectic at the time that Bernstein was speaking, the 1960s and 1970s. As well as Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and other post-Darmstadt colleagues, there were Cage and Feldman, Poulenc and Virgil Thompson, Shostakovich and Weinberg, Messiaen and Cowell, Walton and Britten and Piston… an extremely broad spectrum of styles and personalities (and I haven't even started with jazz and other styles that are nominally "popular" but where there are artists who are, well, just as creative and skilled in their art). There is an argument to be made that this may have been one of the most varied periods in the history of "Western" music of the last few millennia. When I look at more recent lists of first performances and prizes, things nowadays seem, if anything, less varied. (There is the problem that one's perspective of history always suffers a kind of foreshortening the closer you get to the present, so a grain of salt is probably in order.) In any case, Schönberg always said, even during his most strictly dodecaphonic periods, "there's still plenty of great music to be written in C major." No one ever seriously denied the tenability of tonality. It's just that there was a lot of excitement about the things you can do without being locked down to a key signature.
Probably you do not mean "classical" music here, as that was a particular type of orchestral music of the 18th century. The term is "symphonic" music, which indeed has been eclectic.
The scare quotes around the word indicate I was using it in the commonly used (not the technical music-historical sense) of the term. I really don't need to be schooled on the technical meaning of the term. And I expect most readers understood, given the context, how the term was intended.
Sorry, no need to take the comment personally as it was not meant that way. It is only that using the term "classical music" causes confusion, especially when you are referring to eclecticism. i was actually agreeing with your comment about modern symphonic music.
The 60s and 70s were a high watermark for artistic cultural production in general it appears in hindsight. This is one of the best appraisals of that period, as concerns music, I have read on youtube.
[Bernstein exits the hall, the sound of applause still dimly audible in the background. Colombo enters, as if from nowhere.] Colombo: Y’know, that was something in there, really something. I was listening in the recording booth. Did you write any of that down, or does that stuff just sorta live inside your head? Bernstein: I’m first and foremost a musician. I rehearse. Now if it’s alright lieutenant, I’m very tired at the moment. Perhaps we could talk another time. [Colombo fumbles around for his notepad, and finds it after a few tries.] Colombo: Oh, this will only take a second. Uh… Ives. That’s the guy you were just talking about. I went ahead and listened to that record you gave me. And that was very generous of you. But I gotta be honest. I can’t get my head around that kind of music. Bernstein [exasperated]: I know you to be the kind of man who could get to the heart of anything with enough time and passion. And so, could you kindly ask me your question? Colombo: It’s about the record, sir. Could you tell me when you purchased it? Bernstein: Lieutenant, I don’t normally need to go through the trouble of purchasing recordings for which I was the conductor. [Colombo pauses. A piece has fallen into place.] Colombo [slowly]: So you never paid for that particular record?
As a painter and musician, I compare atonality to abstraction. We played with it mid century but we rediscovered figurative art. Abstract art today is withdrawn while figurative art is thriving. Meanwhile in the music realm composers such as Marjan Mosetich have turned away from atonality to embrace a neo romanticism that will move anyone with a heart to tears. The creative world moves in cycles.
The most remarkable, intelligent and articulated man and musician. Interestingly (or ironically?) at that time the immediate future of popular music was the advent of EDM. It'd be interesting to hear his viewpoints on this. If anybody knows of a video please share 😊. Thank you.
Bernstein is saying two things at the same time: the reason why music speaks and delivers messages to human beings, and why music is/can be a universal medium to connect human beings in the future. This is my interpretation of this speech. And this interpretation of mine is relatable to what I saw Friedrich Nietzsche’s Netflix movie where the philosopher speaks about music being something impossible to describe in words and that the music is felt in the pain of heart rather. And as far as I remember he said that the music is the most comprehensive “tool(?)” to deliver the messages(? i forget right terms). Anyhow, I often find top level musicians speak about music and life parallel and abstract not definite or concrete. This short speech got me to stop the whole video watching and made me think for 30 min now. Still thinking. So infinite in terms of the great range he is covering in his speech. So touching. I’m open: if you’re shy to speak publicly, send me pm to share thoughts.
A Grand Notion... Tonality is grounded in the Earth. Notice that he neither dismisses nor disrespects Atonality, an enormous intellectual achievement, arrived at by great Musicians who are also great Thinkers (Theoreticians); he is simply averring that Tonality, that overt expression of the physical Universe, through the elegant and naturally-occurring Overtone Series, is where we land when we keep our feet on the ground. Bernstein at his most intellectual, and most poetic.
"Die Welt ist Klang" Joachim Ernst Berendt (Auch der Titel des Buches) "Die Planeten schwingen und klingen in den bekannten Harmonien der klassischen Musik"
There is a longer version of the ending of his last lecture, printed in the book "Unanswered Question", as well as a longer audio version recording that is 15 minutes in length, in which Bernstein talks about Tonality, after "Oedipus Rex", When Stravinsky 's style changed to Schoenberg's atonal style after Schoenberg's 1951 passing, plus another issues when Stravinsky stopped composing and passed on in 1971, which brought Tonality back to the forefront of music.
Music is a language with rules and laws...classical being pure and jazz,rock,the blues speak slang....contemporary "words " that make sense in our day and age. We've heard the "what yonder light breaks" music...we likebit we appreciate it....but we like to hear "what the fuck is that light" music too
This guy understood the main deal laid before us whilst we occupy the form that we occupy. I suspect he's out there right now getting down with the music of the spheres - whatever that is.
ThenewBuddyRichATM Nice to hear so much from you, thanks. Yes, I have Musescore as I am trying to compose too :D. I would love to hear as many pieces as possible. You can send it to undekagon (at) gmail (dot) com.
what he's talking about was being realized already. Jazz, modern classical, Prog Rock, Fusion. these forms of music had their day In the 60s and 70s, and they still live on today, but they're overshadowed by the shallow music that has been popularized today.
In fact all human history is the same. When you see today´s chaos in information technology you need to think about the renaissance period. I like your pendulum comparison :-)
It’s dope, vague, yet us. Harmony is from the human race thru trial and error. The beauty of living will always keep us ready for more great sounds! Would marvelous if harmony and balance work universal. Maybe it does is not outlandish
Tonality is just a definition. Almost all music is "tonal" in the sense that they are built around a known set of sounds and following a particular type of rules. When you hear the Ugarit song, made mor than 3400 years ago, you feel some tonality, although not the same a Bach or Haydn used for their works. In that sense, I agree with Bernstein. There is a central uniform and natural set of rules where soon or later, the music will go, and this repeats from time to time in history.
I also believe along with Keats that the 'Poetry of Earth' is never dead, as long as spring succeeds winter & Man is there to perceive it. I believe, that from that earth emerges a Musical Poetry which is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources caused to exist a phonology of music which evolves from the Universal known as the Harmonic Series [ *spellbound*]
I'm sure he loved Chomsky, if only because of his politics. But my God, if ever there were a reason to move beyond political differences, this series of lectures is it.
@Strefanasha One wonders though, how Bernstein's own music makes for the greatest argument FOR 12 tone music(A Quiet Place; Mass; the Symphonies; and even West Side Story and Candide) . One of my favorite Composers George Rocheberg said "Atonal and tonal music are opposites... but see where they overlap." Rochberg, Bernstein, Copland, Berg, Carter, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, and countless others have extracted beauty from atonality, and dead end or not, that makes it worthwhile to me!
There is nothing is West Side Story that is not rooted in tonality. Perhaps a diversion into ambiguity now and then, but always with the ultimate tonal resolution to come. Listen to the very end (as Tony dies), where the bass stays on the same tone while the melody moves to what seems to be a higher key. High expectations anchored to horrible reality by that base note. Tell me how he could have possibly have accomplished that without universally-accepted tonality.
"I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer, and the answer is Yes." As a prog rock fan, I couldn't help but smile here. (Yes: We "Can ...s and Brahms". Excuse the pun. I'm not qualified enough to comment on the issue at hand, as much as it fascinates me.) And I actually started to think about Carl Sagan, too.
Not true. The scale is made up from the lower orders of the overtone harmonic sequence mapped back into one octave. The higher harmonics cannot be reasonably heard so we construct our scales from the lower orders. This is what he meant by being "rooted in the earth". Atonal and Microtonal music is a perversion of the concept of the harmonic series. 12 tone ET is only meant to *suggest* pure intervals, it is not an end in itself - the ear listens to relative pitches, especially with chords.
Are other types of music besides classical tonal? Classical music talks about tonality a lot, and i get it that it has to do with chords and things being in the right pitch, although I don't know much more than that. Rock and roll is what I'm primarily wondering about, but I'm asking more broadly about other music, in general, so the same question covers Jazz, Hip-hop, electronic dance music, folk music, pop standards. I listen to a lot of music, but I'm only a beginner when it comes to theory, so given me the simplified version... Thanks.
Most music in general is tonal. All that means is that there is a note that all of the other notes center around, and resolve to, meaning that different songs can be in different keys. This is what most people are used to listening to. Atonal or nontonal music is mostly found in classical music starting in about the 20th century, where all of the notes are treated equally so there is no tonic note that the other notes can resolve to, so it sounds weird and dissonant, or at least ambiguous, most of the time. I'm not going to say that all rock, jazz, hip-hop, EDM, folk, and pop music is tonal because there are always exceptions, but most of it is. Most classical is tonal too. If you want to hear what atonal music sounds like, look up Arnold Schoenberg and you'll get the idea. Hope that helps.
Of the genres you mentioned, I'd say jazz is the most likely to experiment with atonality, free jazz in particular. Also the more experimental side of electronic music and some progressive metal--I've heard the band Blotted Science has experimented with 12-tone, Schoenberg-style atonal metal but haven't heard it myself. I could see some hip-hop being atonal since that style tends to focus a lot more on rhythm and the percussive beat instead of melody and harmony, but I'm not 100% sure and can't name any examples. Pop and folk music would probably be the least likely of the genres you mentioned to experiment with atonalism, because it would likely sound far too experimental--too alienating to sell to a mass audience, and too unnatural sounding to have much of a "traditional" folky appeal.
yeah- I'm listening to a lot of different stuff from the mid-70s, and both the free jazz and atonal classical both sound the most experimental (although very different from each other). I think "atonal pop" would be an oxymoron, unless public taste has a radical shift!
Haha, totally agree about atonal pop. I could maybe see some more artsy underground pop artists experimenting with that, but I seriously doubt it will ever become a major thing in that genre, like something in the Top 40.
„by the nature of its sources tonal...“ Then the sources are the human system of auditory perception starting with the ear and going deep into the brain.
If you find atonal/serial and microtonal music tuneful, you have indeed conditioned yourself. That music works by dint of expectation of deviation from tonality. Having the semitone as 12th root of 2 is not a musical concept based in the ear's understanding of harmonics. It is a compromise to reasonably suggest what free intoning instruments could play and perform the feat of stacking thirds to end at the octave. Our ears are lo-fi and arbitrary scales 19, 31 tone scales work by suggestion.
Yet we don't use the harmonic series; rather, we go so far as to literally use irrational numbers for intonation. Thus, the earth's 'natural intonation' has little pull on actual modern music.
Tonality is alive and well and living in current American choral music, if nowhere else. Listen to Morten Lauridsen or Eric Whitacre. The evidence is there for all to hear.
WOW. Are you a licensed psychologist? We ALL have serious issues! AND...some narcissists are geniuses!! (NOT agreeing that he was a narcissist.) Who was his equal at the time? Would love to hear some names...not name-calling.
messrtwinky Herbert von Karajan was Bernstein’s equal at the time. Not equal in a bad way as the two had a fond friendship and respect for one another. They were totally different in discipline and how they carried themselves. Bernstein gave into raw uninhibited passion in his music making. Karajan was off the podium a pleasant joke telling person but on the podium was discipline incarnate. A strict and hyper-detailed tactician of music.
He believes that a "great new period of eclecticism is at hand," and then invokes classical harmonic music. That is not consistent. Earlier in this series, he did mention that an unpredictable future could be coming with electronic music. At the time the academic circles were making tone rows with computers. What happened in popular music, however, was that recording techniques and synthesizers were pushing boundaries. A range of structures not possible with classical instrumentation emerged. The answer was "yes."
@@leomiller2291 You misunderstood. Electronic music introduced sonorities not possible with classical instruments which open a new dimension for composition. That our modern troubadours got there first is perfectly in keeping with what happened 600 years ago when the lay performers stole a march on the ecclesiastical. The latter perfected notation, but the former made melody and instrumentation breakthroughs that survive in an aural tradition. Do pop musicians notate today? No, they still don't. In fact, they refuse to learn, as I can testify. Do their experiments promise a path to innovation. Absolutely.
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I think Lenny was saying that atonality was merely a vacation from tonality. Because tonality is natural and atonality is decidedly unnatural, we will always return to tonality. And he said it in a way that makes the intellectual folk feel justified to return to tonality. Well done, sir.
I think, that the presence of atonality "in nature" is easily overlooked due to the striking appearance of tonality. For me, at least, atonal music is a way to lively examine the naturally non-ecstatic, yet persistent and undeniable factors in life.
Tonality is not natural
@@wanderlngdays I think the harmonic series would disagree with you
@@sinatra3021 tonality is partially based on the harmonic series, but that’s all. In fact that’s a very eurocentric opinion
I still don’t get it. Please explain in English
"I’m no longer quite sure what the question is, but the answer is 'Yes'." - Leonard Bernstein
Mic drop.
1973. Jon Anderson would agree.
This is the most beautiful and poetic talk about music I have ever heard. This man knows what music really is.
Pascal Schmidt hell yeah.
Pascal Schmidt it is so sad he had to die.
Baloney. He makes little sense. He is spewing jargon, buzz words, and, if he has a message it is abstracted into austere form just like most classical music.
@@lurking0death i think you are mistaking austere form just because orchestral instruments might sound to you old fashioned
@@lurking0death ahhh yes your right he makes little sense yet too many seem to love and understand him. also he's speaking poetically if that offends you so be it, just understand this! many love bernstein few love lurking0death
They've found a 30,000 year old flute tuned to a pentatonic scale in France. All musical style and practice is essentially a pattern of innovation, and reaction, back and forth, like a pendulum.
yeah right
@@HelloooThere It is in fact true, while it was found in Germany, not France, there was a flute carved from a Mammoth bone found in a sediment layer of which has been untouched for 30-40 thousand years. While the original instrument is too delicate to be played it has been reconstructed using modern technology and even recorded playing common popular tunes
@@thebruckler3707 oh....wow
@@thebruckler3707 i new dat frum hi skool
yeah except the world probably isn't anywhere near 30,000 years old
Bernstein: And no matter how serial, or stochastic, or intellectualized music may be, it can always qualify as poetry, as long as it is rooted in earth.
Migos: She got a big ol' onion booty, make the world cry.
That's not music
Mr. Clasher- Clash of clans & Boom Beach why not
I am not familiar enough with Hip-Hop, but I recognise the Blues in it, which is very much of the earth, an Onion booty, indeed!
@@Deliquescentinsight haha I agree. Hip hop if nothing else, is rooted in earth. What is more earthly for humans than sexual attraction?
😂😂😂
"And finally, I believe that all these things are true, and that Ive's Unanswered Question has an answer. I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer. And the answer is yes."
Daaaamn. This is officially my favourite Bernstein quote.
He was right on, YES is the answer. Close to the Edge in particular.
@@kennywowie In my head canon this will always be what he actually meant.
I am proud to say, that I still learn from Maestro Bernstein as a teacher, even though he has not taken a breath on earth since his far to early death in 1990. As a composer, I am a tonalist of the 1st Viennese School. Though as a former professor, I had to teach Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Scriabin, and many other composers that were followers of serialism and/or atonal music. I really loathed having to teach their methods, but this is what teachers do. I agree with Herr Bernstein about tonal music, because good tonal music has the power to engage your listener, and touch their emotions with melody, harmony, and counterpoint. Though I have also always told my students, just remember, it is called "music theory," not "music law.".....Peace!
Good hear that. I only wish your comment were from one of my professors at Amherst College in the 70s (particularly one Donald Whelock) (sp?), who INSISTED that I write in the 12-tone idiom. How often today do we hear Webern and Berg in concert halls? And it's not because they're too advanced for our pathetically bourgeois ears. It's because they were creating music that was totally disconnected from life. I wish I had had this excerpt from Bernstein's lectures to throw at them back then. They were all out of Yale in the 50s, where and when atonality was the way and light, and anyone who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes was immediate ostracized (which, BTW, also happened at Amherst). In an effort to show how shallow and nonsensical their orthodoxy was, I took a piano piece that I had written in high school, and randomly moved keys around (literally, by tossing dice), and the professor's reaction was positive. Makes me very angry in retrospect, because I was totally denied the opportunity to practice and develop my ability to reach out people emotionally. Stop denying the essence of tonality, you stupid "intellectuals"!
Cool, can you tell me how to compose an opera? I mean it :)
I attended the Norton Lectures. I remember this one very well. I truly loved this guy. His music is a fresh today as it ever was. His ideas as interesting. He was one of a kind.
You're so lucky!
rachmaninoff - "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”
I wonder who he was listening to to make such a statement and when. Was he on to something? How many exalting works have emerged since he wrote this? Hard to say since exaltation is tricky to pin down. Any nominations? I nominate Hovhaness's "Mysterious Mountain.
"th-cam.com/video/NI0I-jJZ7I0/w-d-xo.html
That's one. Reich's Variations for Wind, Strings and Keyboards is another for me.
th-cam.com/video/Sgjwiadze1w/w-d-xo.html
Come on people let's make a list.
mysterious mountain is cool!
@@mcrettable
Can you enlighten me on what Rachmaninoff means by 'exhalt?'
My interpretation of Rachmaninoff's quote would point me to believe that the works of Jacob Collier would be our modern day example of a composer who might have "the capacity to make their works exalt" and "feel rather than think."
th-cam.com/video/NSbxiFjA1ZQ/w-d-xo.html - In The Real Early Morning
th-cam.com/video/mPZn4x3uOac/w-d-xo.html - In The Bleak Midwinter
th-cam.com/video/4VlZ3OiRReM/w-d-xo.html - Piano Improvisation
His work on bringing microtonality to the forefront of music rather than some experimental concept and reintroducing younger artists to the harmonic series and tuning theory will have a lasting effect on music to come.
We've had Atonal music, our next step might be Microtonal music. Well, that's what I'd like to believe anyways.
Ken Ray Wilemon probably someone from the second Viennese school
And that's everything wrong with modern contemporary music. Too much head, enough heart.
I could listen to him and Gould for hours
What Bernstein leaves out of his prediction are the roles, respectively, of recording, timbre, and noise. Sure, "tonality" has returned, but it's become the vehicle for explorations in timbre that are now foregrounded (relative to music of the past) due to the possibilities of recording and now digital signal processing. A big part of this is the use of noise - non "musical" sounds - in compositions ranging from avant-garde to pop.
There's the argument that "classical" music was at it's most eclectic at the time that Bernstein was speaking, the 1960s and 1970s. As well as Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and other post-Darmstadt colleagues, there were Cage and Feldman, Poulenc and Virgil Thompson, Shostakovich and Weinberg, Messiaen and Cowell, Walton and Britten and Piston… an extremely broad spectrum of styles and personalities (and I haven't even started with jazz and other styles that are nominally "popular" but where there are artists who are, well, just as creative and skilled in their art). There is an argument to be made that this may have been one of the most varied periods in the history of "Western" music of the last few millennia.
When I look at more recent lists of first performances and prizes, things nowadays seem, if anything, less varied. (There is the problem that one's perspective of history always suffers a kind of foreshortening the closer you get to the present, so a grain of salt is probably in order.)
In any case, Schönberg always said, even during his most strictly dodecaphonic periods, "there's still plenty of great music to be written in C major." No one ever seriously denied the tenability of tonality. It's just that there was a lot of excitement about the things you can do without being locked down to a key signature.
Probably you do not mean "classical" music here, as that was a particular type of orchestral music of the 18th century. The term is "symphonic" music, which indeed has been eclectic.
The scare quotes around the word indicate I was using it in the commonly used (not the technical music-historical sense) of the term.
I really don't need to be schooled on the technical meaning of the term. And I expect most readers understood, given the context, how the term was intended.
Sorry, no need to take the comment personally as it was not meant that way. It is only that using the term "classical music" causes confusion, especially when you are referring to eclecticism. i was actually agreeing with your comment about modern symphonic music.
The 60s and 70s were a high watermark for artistic cultural production in general it appears in hindsight. This is one of the best appraisals of that period, as concerns music, I have read on youtube.
False. The term is not "symphonic" music. What about chamber music? Solo piano music?
This speech was a piece of art in itself....
A humanist and a great mind.. finding words to express so finely what somehow some of us feel but can’t speak out.. what a man..
Truly his greatest legacy is his teaching!!!
[Bernstein exits the hall, the sound of applause still dimly audible in the background. Colombo enters, as if from nowhere.]
Colombo: Y’know, that was something in there, really something. I was listening in the recording booth. Did you write any of that down, or does that stuff just sorta live inside your head?
Bernstein: I’m first and foremost a musician. I rehearse. Now if it’s alright lieutenant, I’m very tired at the moment. Perhaps we could talk another time.
[Colombo fumbles around for his notepad, and finds it after a few tries.]
Colombo: Oh, this will only take a second. Uh… Ives. That’s the guy you were just talking about. I went ahead and listened to that record you gave me. And that was very generous of you. But I gotta be honest. I can’t get my head around that kind of music.
Bernstein [exasperated]: I know you to be the kind of man who could get to the heart of anything with enough time and passion. And so, could you kindly ask me your question?
Colombo: It’s about the record, sir. Could you tell me when you purchased it?
Bernstein: Lieutenant, I don’t normally need to go through the trouble of purchasing recordings for which I was the conductor.
[Colombo pauses. A piece has fallen into place.]
Colombo [slowly]: So you never paid for that particular record?
As a painter and musician, I compare atonality to abstraction. We played with it mid century but we rediscovered figurative art. Abstract art today is withdrawn while figurative art is thriving. Meanwhile in the music realm composers such as Marjan Mosetich have turned away from atonality to embrace a neo romanticism that will move anyone with a heart to tears. The creative world moves in cycles.
I love what you've said and I agree with it very much, as a composition and art student myself haha
Not ignoring his wonderful words but... this man makes me melt
What a pleasure to hear and listen to this great teacher that even a self taught like me can fully underestand what music is all about.
His words are poetry in themselves.
Such an ovation for this 3 minute rant?
Bernstein was indeed a legend.
The most remarkable, intelligent and articulated man and musician. Interestingly (or ironically?) at that time the immediate future of popular music was the advent of EDM. It'd be interesting to hear his viewpoints on this. If anybody knows of a video please share 😊. Thank you.
a priceless few minutes of my life
Bernstein is saying two things at the same time: the reason why music speaks and delivers messages to human beings, and why music is/can be a universal medium to connect human beings in the future. This is my interpretation of this speech. And this interpretation of mine is relatable to what I saw Friedrich Nietzsche’s Netflix movie where the philosopher speaks about music being something impossible to describe in words and that the music is felt in the pain of heart rather. And as far as I remember he said that the music is the most comprehensive “tool(?)” to deliver the messages(? i forget right terms). Anyhow, I often find top level musicians speak about music and life parallel and abstract not definite or concrete. This short speech got me to stop the whole video watching and made me think for 30 min now. Still thinking. So infinite in terms of the great range he is covering in his speech. So touching. I’m open: if you’re shy to speak publicly, send me pm to share thoughts.
Bernstein, genius of our times.
A Grand Notion...
Tonality is grounded in the Earth.
Notice that he neither dismisses nor disrespects Atonality, an enormous intellectual achievement, arrived at by great Musicians who are also great Thinkers (Theoreticians); he is simply averring that Tonality, that overt expression of the physical Universe, through the elegant and naturally-occurring Overtone Series, is where we land when we keep our feet on the ground.
Bernstein at his most intellectual, and most poetic.
This man seriously knew what he was talking about. A true intellectual of our time. It's a shame he died before I got to ever meet him
"Die Welt ist Klang" Joachim Ernst Berendt (Auch der Titel des Buches) "Die Planeten schwingen und klingen in den bekannten Harmonien der klassischen Musik"
Bernstein to me was one of the greatest advocates in the 20th century of western culture.
Leonard was a great conductor in his time.
Merci, M. Lachance, et Merci Maestro!!!!!
He was wonderful. Beyond wonderful
What a wonderful and succinct musical description, and true!
What a beautiful and intelligente man !!
Love you, 💕 Lenny B
There is a longer version of the ending of his last lecture, printed in the book "Unanswered Question", as well as a longer audio version recording that is 15 minutes in length, in which Bernstein talks about Tonality, after "Oedipus Rex", When Stravinsky 's style changed to Schoenberg's atonal style after Schoenberg's 1951 passing, plus another issues when Stravinsky stopped composing and passed on in 1971, which brought Tonality back to the forefront of music.
Music is a language with rules and laws...classical being pure and jazz,rock,the blues speak slang....contemporary "words " that make sense in our day and age. We've heard the "what yonder light breaks" music...we likebit we appreciate it....but we like to hear "what the fuck is that light" music too
No clue what he said, but at least Jim Morrison predicted the use of technology and computers into music
I'm into tonal music but, atonal music can be beautiful too.
Try Simpson's music and see how far you can go.
i feel like he did this entire series in one single take
He’s right. But the fact is the return to tonality had already started some nine years before, and I’m sure he was aware of that.
He ends with “Yes”-as Joyce did in “Ulysses.” Let it be. So be it. Amen. Amen means yes.
A bit tonalitarian.
This guy understood the main deal laid before us whilst we occupy the form that we occupy. I suspect he's out there right now getting down with the music of the spheres - whatever that is.
says the ant to the astronaut.
ThenewBuddyRichATM Hi, I am interested in your compositions. Is there any chance I can listen to them?
ThenewBuddyRichATM Nice to hear so much from you, thanks. Yes, I have Musescore as I am trying to compose too :D. I would love to hear as many pieces as possible. You can send it to undekagon (at) gmail (dot) com.
@@remonholubek8123 He is speaking of the battle between tonal and non-tonal music, of serialism vs traditional composition.
what he's talking about was being realized already. Jazz, modern classical, Prog Rock, Fusion. these forms of music had their day In the 60s and 70s, and they still live on today, but they're overshadowed by the shallow music that has been popularized today.
shallow pop music isn't a new thing
There’s a daylily named after Leonard Bernstein! 🥰
I love you Bernstein and you're right
This man was a genius.
you can see he's aware of how good he looks ;)
He was always very full of himself--but undeniably a brilliant musical analyst.
Can you blame him ? Haha
In fact all human history is the same. When you see today´s chaos in information technology you need to think about the renaissance period. I like your pendulum comparison :-)
I've never heard Hip Hop described so eloquently.
Wat
Allan Holdsworth was the only person who reharmonised the western modal system. It will take some time for that to catch on. Maybe 100 years.
no war, no famish. only music and happiness. o bliss….
What?...
I wanna live in America.
It’s dope, vague, yet us. Harmony is from the human race thru trial and error. The beauty of living will always keep us ready for more great sounds! Would marvelous if harmony and balance work universal. Maybe it does is not outlandish
Ah you beat me to it :-) I was gonna post this excerpt also . Well now I don't have to .
What characterize geniuses is that they can be wrong sometimes... but with class.
Tonality is just a definition. Almost all music is "tonal" in the sense that they are built around a known set of sounds and following a particular type of rules. When you hear the Ugarit song, made mor than 3400 years ago, you feel some tonality, although not the same a Bach or Haydn used for their works. In that sense, I agree with Bernstein. There is a central uniform and natural set of rules where soon or later, the music will go, and this repeats from time to time in history.
It's not "rules" so much as nature, and physics.
I also believe along with Keats that the 'Poetry of Earth' is never dead, as long as spring succeeds winter & Man is there to perceive it. I believe, that from that earth emerges a Musical Poetry which is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources caused to exist a phonology of music which evolves from the Universal known as the Harmonic Series [ *spellbound*]
Sounds like he read some Chomsky.
what do you mean?
He did mention Chomsky at the beginning of the lecture when comparing music to linguistics
I'm sure he loved Chomsky, if only because of his politics. But my God, if ever there were a reason to move beyond political differences, this series of lectures is it.
What did I just hear!!!
There are many like Bernstein, really.
@Strefanasha One wonders though, how Bernstein's own music makes for the greatest argument FOR 12 tone music(A Quiet Place; Mass; the Symphonies; and even West Side Story and Candide) . One of my favorite Composers George Rocheberg said "Atonal and tonal music are opposites... but see where they overlap." Rochberg, Bernstein, Copland, Berg, Carter, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, and countless others have extracted beauty from atonality, and dead end or not, that makes it worthwhile to me!
There is nothing is West Side Story that is not rooted in tonality. Perhaps a diversion into ambiguity now and then, but always with the ultimate tonal resolution to come. Listen to the very end (as Tony dies), where the bass stays on the same tone while the melody moves to what seems to be a higher key. High expectations anchored to horrible reality by that base note. Tell me how he could have possibly have accomplished that without universally-accepted tonality.
I have no idea what he's saying but it sounds smart
"I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer, and the answer is Yes."
As a prog rock fan, I couldn't help but smile here. (Yes: We "Can ...s and Brahms". Excuse the pun. I'm not qualified enough to comment on the issue at hand, as much as it fascinates me.)
And I actually started to think about Carl Sagan, too.
He was a prophet
Excellent!
If you've been listening to video game music of the last 30 years, it's safe to say everything he predicted came true.
You read my mind
Does anyone know what he was talking about?
Yes. Basically, he was saying: 'needs more cowbell'
@@khtnsuwdih ohhhh great
NOW I know his secret to success!!!!!!!!
Yes the band?
Actually, Yes (the band) have written some pretty sophisticated pieces - they knew their Stravinsky as well as their Elvis.
Incredible language from a Virgo - Earth sign.
and Lenny, I believe that you are SMOKIN HAWT!!!
post-tonal wasn’t his thing but he respected it.
Based Leonard
Ah, the unanswered question!
Yes!!!
Why music, why dance? Both remain mysteries...and that's okay.
He's talking about Aphex Twin. :)
I think it would break his mind to conceive of rap music.
Not true. The scale is made up from the lower orders of the overtone harmonic sequence mapped back into one octave. The higher harmonics cannot be reasonably heard so we construct our scales from the lower orders. This is what he meant by being "rooted in the earth".
Atonal and Microtonal music is a perversion of the concept of the harmonic series. 12 tone ET is only meant to *suggest* pure intervals, it is not an end in itself - the ear listens to relative pitches, especially with chords.
Are other types of music besides classical tonal? Classical music talks about tonality a lot, and i get it that it has to do with chords and things being in the right pitch, although I don't know much more than that.
Rock and roll is what I'm primarily wondering about, but I'm asking more broadly about other music, in general, so the same question covers Jazz, Hip-hop, electronic dance music, folk music, pop standards.
I listen to a lot of music, but I'm only a beginner when it comes to theory, so given me the simplified version... Thanks.
Most music in general is tonal. All that means is that there is a note that all of the other notes center around, and resolve to, meaning that different songs can be in different keys. This is what most people are used to listening to. Atonal or nontonal music is mostly found in classical music starting in about the 20th century, where all of the notes are treated equally so there is no tonic note that the other notes can resolve to, so it sounds weird and dissonant, or at least ambiguous, most of the time. I'm not going to say that all rock, jazz, hip-hop, EDM, folk, and pop music is tonal because there are always exceptions, but most of it is. Most classical is tonal too. If you want to hear what atonal music sounds like, look up Arnold Schoenberg and you'll get the idea. Hope that helps.
yes, it definitely does- thanks! I've been listening to a good smattering of classical stuff from the 70s and a lot of it seems to be of this vein...
Of the genres you mentioned, I'd say jazz is the most likely to experiment with atonality, free jazz in particular. Also the more experimental side of electronic music and some progressive metal--I've heard the band Blotted Science has experimented with 12-tone, Schoenberg-style atonal metal but haven't heard it myself. I could see some hip-hop being atonal since that style tends to focus a lot more on rhythm and the percussive beat instead of melody and harmony, but I'm not 100% sure and can't name any examples. Pop and folk music would probably be the least likely of the genres you mentioned to experiment with atonalism, because it would likely sound far too experimental--too alienating to sell to a mass audience, and too unnatural sounding to have much of a "traditional" folky appeal.
yeah- I'm listening to a lot of different stuff from the mid-70s, and both the free jazz and atonal classical both sound the most experimental (although very different from each other). I think "atonal pop" would be an oxymoron, unless public taste has a radical shift!
Haha, totally agree about atonal pop. I could maybe see some more artsy underground pop artists experimenting with that, but I seriously doubt it will ever become a major thing in that genre, like something in the Top 40.
He's so missed!
„by the nature of its sources tonal...“ Then the sources are the human system of auditory perception starting with the ear and going deep into the brain.
YES!!
Yes
Sean Penn?
I mean wow.❤
Pretty sure if he heard Cardi B and the drivel of the Top 10 charts today, he would have a different response!
If you find atonal/serial and microtonal music tuneful, you have indeed conditioned yourself. That music works by dint of expectation of deviation from tonality. Having the semitone as 12th root of 2 is not a musical concept based in the ear's understanding of harmonics. It is a compromise to reasonably suggest what free intoning instruments could play and perform the feat of stacking thirds to end at the octave.
Our ears are lo-fi and arbitrary scales 19, 31 tone scales work by suggestion.
He would've loved doom metal.
Why do we have reggaeton?
can sombody translate pls
"Good sounding music sounds good."
@@DystopiaFatigue Brutal!
Yet we don't use the harmonic series; rather, we go so far as to literally use irrational numbers for intonation. Thus, the earth's 'natural intonation' has little pull on actual modern music.
Tonality is alive and well and living in current American choral music, if nowhere else. Listen to Morten Lauridsen or Eric Whitacre. The evidence is there for all to hear.
Just say it, Len.
...And then came hip hop. Woops
Which has literally nothing to do with music.
@@jamesbachreeves exactly
WOW. Are you a licensed psychologist? We ALL have serious issues! AND...some narcissists are geniuses!! (NOT agreeing that he was a narcissist.) Who was his equal at the time?
Would love to hear some names...not name-calling.
messrtwinky Herbert von Karajan was Bernstein’s equal at the time. Not equal in a bad way as the two had a fond friendship and respect for one another. They were totally different in discipline and how they carried themselves. Bernstein gave into raw uninhibited passion in his music making. Karajan was off the podium a pleasant joke telling person but on the podium was discipline incarnate. A strict and hyper-detailed tactician of music.
I wonder what he would think about 100 gecs
He believes that a "great new period of eclecticism is at hand," and then invokes classical harmonic music. That is not consistent. Earlier in this series, he did mention that an unpredictable future could be coming with electronic music. At the time the academic circles were making tone rows with computers. What happened in popular music, however, was that recording techniques and synthesizers were pushing boundaries. A range of structures not possible with classical instrumentation emerged. The answer was "yes."
Pop music? Really? Pathetic.
@@leomiller2291 You misunderstood. Electronic music introduced sonorities not possible with classical instruments which open a new dimension for composition. That our modern troubadours got there first is perfectly in keeping with what happened 600 years ago when the lay performers stole a march on the ecclesiastical. The latter perfected notation, but the former made melody and instrumentation breakthroughs that survive in an aural tradition. Do pop musicians notate today? No, they still don't. In fact, they refuse to learn, as I can testify. Do their experiments promise a path to innovation. Absolutely.
❤️