Re: GG: Art of Fugue, and 12 tone

[neil@thump.org]

On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Elisha J Tseng wrote:

> Dear f-minoreans,
> I remember earlier that Kunst der Fuge was the main subject of this list.
>  My apology of mentioning it once more.
> Out of curiosity, I worked on Contrapunctus 9, which is perhaps the most
> popular of the 20 variations in the work.  My mother disliked it and
> dismissed it as repetitive and arcane.  

Incredible. For my money the most dazzling fugue ever written.

> Unconvinced, I brought the work
> to my old Russian piano teacher, to inquire on my mom's comment.  In a
> diplomatic way, he described the work as something only a few people can
> hear.  He made an analogy of a comment by Robert Schumann (and I'm just
> paraphrasing this): Within the deep forest admist a gamut of noises,
> there is this silence and this one single but soft note wavering in the
> air.  Only a few special people can hear it and appreciate it.  

I find that a complex or polite way of saying that the art of fugue is
tough music and not for beginners to appreciate. The same can be said of
20c Viennese school for sure. there's nothing remotely mystical in this
statement :-)


> Another comment he said, was that, like the Goldberg Variations, Kunst
> der Fuge must be played--during performance--in its entirety.  His
> reasoning was that one contrapunctus cannot stand alone, because it is
> not complete--much like the Goldberg's 30 variations must be played in
> "one fell swoop," instead of playing just variation 17 in itself. 

Playing individual movements of the Gouldbergs is akin to playing
movements from a symphony: they were not designed to stand alone; they are
part of a greater whole, the symphony.

> Lastly, he concluded that this work cannot endure repetitive hearing,
> because it will become "annoying" and the fact it is not usually
> performed because the audience does not appreciate such kind of work. 
> Most of them are unable to hear that "wavering note" admist the noises.

It think that's nonsense. Why should the A of F not be listened to every
day ? Its not that its so sacred you'd get tired of it quickly. Bach's
music is the most hardwearing and enduring of all. When I think how many
times I've listened to the WTC or played the violin sonatas and partitas !
I never tired of Bach. Rachmaninov played Bach everyday and never grew
tired of it...its a familiar story in the lives of musicians. I'm very
suspicious of poeple who can't understand Bach.

> Same thing he said about the second Viennese school, and the composers
> were just artists trying to break the old mould of "Romanticism," but it
> died anyway because of unpopularity.  Many people I know either never
> heard of Schoenberg or just dismissed him as one would with the Dada
> anti-art fad after WW I.
> 
> The situation disturbed me somewhat, or GG was wrong about his opinion
> that every man has the ability to comprehend these difficult styles when
> given the chance (GG example in the Two Portrait of an 8 month old child
> raised exclusively on 12-tone music).  At any rate, I had to return the
> KDF to the library and stopped working on it at my mom's request.
> 
Go back and learn the score, and politely suggest to your mother that she
is talking out of her hat. Follow your own heart and don't be duped into
accepting the opinons of so called peers. If you want to be a musician,
this is the only way to get there.

Neil