Re: Atonalism

["Robert C. Kunath" <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>]

Dear Minors,

	I am absolutely unqualified to discuss the artistic merits of Schoenberg,
but I do think there is a real case to be made for them.  Long doses of
atonal music are wearying, at least for me, but relatively short pieces are
fascinating (I think above all of the "5 Pieces for Orchestra").  Kristen
mentions the 'bare-bones' aspect of atonal composition, but I'm not so sure
that applies entirely to Schoenberg: before he went atonal, his orchestral
works are positively lush late romanticism (I think of Guerrelieder and
Verklaerte Nacht), and a composition like the "5 Pieces for Orchestra"
strikes me as lush in its own way.  Kristen's description sounds like a
perfect description of Webern, though, for whom I would have expected Gould
to have more enthusiasm than he did (I know he expressed enthusiasm for
Webern, but he doesn't seem to have recorded much).

	One partial explanation for Gould's taste for the atonal: in some ways, it
was de rigueur for musicians, especially those who--like Gould--thought of
themselves as potential composers, in the years after World War II.  I
recall his article on Ernst Krenek in the GG Reader, where he talks about
his student days and says "We were all hard-edged Constructivists then." 
After World War II, the visual arts were dominated by Abstract
Expressionism, and atonalism was the aural equivalent (of war?).  Gould's
references to Shostakovich seem to me to reflect that Cold War disdain for
socialist realism (a pity too, because I would have loved hearing GG play
the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues).

	Did anybody see the interesting article on "Serialism" in the New York
Times Arts & Leisure section a few weeks ago?  The defenders of serialism
were very, very defensive about accusations from more tonal composers that
they had tried to elevate serialism to a rigid orthodoxy in the late 50s
and 60s.  That's about the time that GG was really forming his music
preferences, and it suggests to me that he imbibed some of the musical
attitudes prevalent among the musical/compositional elite at the time.

	Our guest room is yours for the asking, Kristin, but it's a long way to
Toronto, alas.

	Robert

	

----------
> From: Kristen Immoor <kimmoor@mindspring.com>
> To: f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
> Subject: GG: Atonalism
> Date: Monday, September 15, 1997 5:54 PM
> 
> Hi gang,
>     One last question before we leave that old Mozart thread behind. A
> point was raised that perhaps Gould championed the more "alternative"
> composers because there was less tradition at stake and therefore less
> reputation to live up to. It was the less competitive route. It could be
> inferred from this that composers like Berg or Schoenberg, indeed the
> entire minimalist or atonalist school, provided a wide field of
"throwaway
> pieces" that Gould believed he could raise to high art. Were the works of
> these composers low art to begin with? Schoenberg especially is a hot
topic
> on the classical newsgroups, no one can seem to decide if he was a freak
> occurrence in the world of music whose compositions were at best a
novelty,
> or if he was an unsung genius who is vastly underrated and deserves more
> respect. There can be little question that atonalism never really "caught
> on" as a style of western music, and I wonder what it was exactly that
> Gould found so fascinating in the style. Was GG just being perverse when
he
> said that Schoenberg would be revered as the greatest composer of the
> century?