Serial music you can relax to?
Fri, Jun 22 2012, 8:29PM
I was listening to Schoenberg's 3rd String Quartet today, and I have not appreciated before just how beautiful the slow second movement is. As it progresses it get more aggitated and angsty, but the first half of the movment is remarkably elegant and lyrical.
This got me thinking about serial/12 tone pieces that have moments that are calming/elegant ... are there any (aside form Berg's Violin Concerto)? I'd be interested to have a few pointers.
Fri, Jun 22 2012, 10:02PM
#2
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
You can't relax to any serial music, it is impossible and to state you can is just fooling yourself. Serial music is like abstraction in painting, it can be used to great effect in small parts but when it becomes the whole picture it is just a pointless mess. Of course you will find plenty of 'arty types' who will tell you how it will enrich your soul but they are either lying to you for profit or lying to you because they think it is funny. Serial music and abstract art are not funny and they are not clever. Anyone who tells you they are is just a naughty little boy.
Fri, Jun 22 2012, 11:22PM
#3
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Despite I don't embrace Uber's tone and style, he is once more right as for the essence of the matter. There is no relaxation, in musical terms, in something that has no harmony (as it is defined in music) but only its own, the orchestration has its own rules, the rhythms are vague and incontrollable. A music of ganz und wahr angst!
However, the works Chris mentioned are some of the very best examples of this kind, if atonal, serial and the rest of this music can talk to you.
Parla
Sat, Jun 23 2012, 9:00AM
#4
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Despite I don't embrace Uber's tone and style,
Parla
That's because I'm Atonal and Serial in spirit. I just grate on people.
Tue, Jun 26 2012, 3:46PM
#5
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
I just find your remarks cheesy.
Tue, Jun 26 2012, 7:33PM
#6
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
You say 'cheesy' as if there were only one type of cheese, cheese has a fantastic variety. You get almost 'art cheese' to cheese that has kept the rural working class alive through famine, to dutch cheese. Can you be more specific when you say 'cheesy'.
Tue, Jun 26 2012, 10:54PM
#7
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
I expect he means emmental, because there are so many holes in your arguments.
Tue, Jun 26 2012, 11:43PM
#8
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Of course 'cultures' are very important in the production of cheese, I expect that was what he was refering to.
Thu, Jun 28 2012, 6:14PM
#9
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Of course 'cultures' are very important in the production of cheese, I expect that was what he was referring to.
It was of course a joke referring both to your term "grate" and the American slang expression meaning "tasteless, valueless etc".
To take the original question seriously: try Benjamin Frankel's Serenata Concertante, a delight from beginning to end. So is Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, actually. But great music of any kind heightens our sense of meaning and value at the same time as it relaxes our personal hangups and is not comparable to such as Perry Como, to take an example from my distant youth.
Mon, Jan 28 2013, 2:01PM
#10
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
In the end, the synthetic lifestyle proven to be so amazing and effective and scrambling in the mid-day serials make females more enthusiastic about priggishness and hygiene sweet serials
Mon, Jan 28 2013, 2:34PM
#11
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
For some reason I always loved this concerto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvLDNoFf7Cc
There is also a live recording of this piece with Theo Bruins and Bernard Haitink on Qdisc
Mon, Jan 28 2013, 6:40PM
#12
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Quite a bit of film music uses serialism, most notably classic horror films. Frankel, Searle and Lutyens come to mind.
Having sampled some of these, I can now listen quite happily to Searle or Frankel's symphonies. Not sure if I would regard it as relaxing though.
DSM
Mon, Jan 28 2013, 6:51PM
#13
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
Schoenberg famously said that somewhere in the future, schoolboys will whistle his tunes.
Don't see that happen soon, or ever, but I can't see why serial music would by definition be tense or angsty. I can call a dozen pieces by Schoenberg alone which are uplifting, happy in mood and harmonious. Just take what's arguably his masterpiece - Moses und Aron, which its fitting theme of the relationship between humanity, emotion and law, which can be seen as a metaphor for Schoenberg's music in general.
Sure, his works will never become elevator music, but I don't like to see ANY good music to be degraded to that level.
Tue, Jan 29 2013, 1:12AM
#14
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
I don't think it ("their" good music) is necessarily "degraded", but it can be easily disregarded.
Parla
Tue, Jan 29 2013, 1:40AM
#15
RE: Serial music you can relax to?
I don't think it ("their" good music) is necessarily "degraded", but it can be easily disregarded.
Parla
That's just your opinion - and your loss, really.
Two other works of Berg come to mind (besides the violin concerto). The Lyric Suite (for string quartet) and the chamber concerto (for piano, violin and wind instruments), recently recorded most beautifully by Boulez with Uchida, Tetzlaff and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Elegant and sometimers calming. Superb music!
Chris
Chris A.Gnostic