Alban Berg’s Dissonances • Hacker News Board

Re: Alban Berg’s Dissonances

#11

Post by klelatti » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

When I see Alban Berg on the front page of HN, it really tells me I'm in the right place. I consider him, Webern, and Schoenberg as the "end" of western classical music. It's like the whole field ran into the brick wall of their work and never made it past.

I’m sure I’m missing something in your comment here but Western classical music seems to me to have thrived in the years following the second Viennese school - so many interesting and innovative composers - Debussy, Messiaen, Varese, Lutoslawski, Boulez - to name a small handful.

Re: Alban Berg’s Dissonances

#12

Post by nescioquid » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

Aidevah wrote: post #9

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

When I see Alban Berg on the front page of HN, it really tells me I'm in the right place. I consider him, Webern, and Schoenberg as the "end" of western classical music. It's like the whole field ran into the brick wall of their work and never made it past.

The Second Viennese School feels like the termination of the long tradition probably because they were the last generation who felt an direct connection to their immediate predecessors. Schoenberg, despite being mostly an auotdidact, thought of himself as the heir of Brahms and Wagner. He was pretty adamant on mastering the old forms using his new language and demonstrate his place in the tradition. Stravinsky by con…

> Schoenberg...thought of himself as the heir of Brahms and Wagner

Great point about the continuity of tradition. It is amazing how these people really were so interconnected. Brahms was impressed enough with the young Schoenberg that he offered to pay his tuition to the Vienna Conservatory. Mahler spent time with Brahms and had competitive encounters with Schoenberg, etc.

Considering the antagonism between the Brahms and the Wagner camps, is this something Schoenberg would have expressed? Wagner and Bruckner considered themselves to be carrying on Beethoven's tradition (I assume the same for Brahms, but can't recall reading him declaring such). It would be hard to argue, however, that Schoenberg wasn't an heir in a real sense, though (probably because of his essays) associate him more closely with Brahms. Just curious for your thoughts.

Re: Alban Berg’s Dissonances

#13

Post by Aidevah » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

nescioquid wrote: post #12

Aidevah wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Second Viennese School feels like the termination of the long tradition probably because they were the last generation who felt an direct connection to their immediate predecessors. Schoenberg, despite being mostly an auotdidact, thought of himself as the heir of Brahms and Wagner. He was pretty adamant on mastering the old forms using his new language and demonstrate his place in the tradition. Stravinsky by con…

> Schoenberg...thought of himself as the heir of Brahms and Wagner Great point about the continuity of tradition. It is amazing how these people really were so interconnected. Brahms was impressed enough with the young Schoenberg that he offered to pay his tuition to the Vienna Conservatory. Mahler spent time with Brahms and had competitive encounters with Schoenberg, etc. Considering the antagonism between the Brahm…

Wagner, more than any other composer of his generation, undermined tonality as it was conceived and understood by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Schoenberg's debt to Wagner is most explicit in the Verklaerte Nacht, but I think it's more important in that he conceived his innovations as a necessary and logical consequence of Wagner's chromaticism.

Brahms definitely wanted to give the impression that he was following in Beethoven's footsteps. Just to state two examples, the theme of the final movement of his first symphony was obviously modelled after Beethoven's Ode to Joy (hence the 'any ass can see that' remark), and his first piano sonata (in C) not only opens with a theme reminiscent of of Beethoven's Op 106 sonata in B-flat, but the counterstatement for the theme is in B-flat, just in case anyone missed the resemblance.

Re: Alban Berg’s Dissonances

#14

Post by nescioquid » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

Aidevah wrote: post #13

nescioquid wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schoenberg...thought of himself as the heir of Brahms and Wagner Great point about the continuity of tradition. It is amazing how these people really were so interconnected. Brahms was impressed enough with the young Schoenberg that he offered to pay his tuition to the Vienna Conservatory. Mahler spent time with Brahms and had competitive encounters with Schoenberg, etc. Considering the antagonism between the Brahm…

Wagner, more than any other composer of his generation, undermined tonality as it was conceived and understood by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Schoenberg's debt to Wagner is most explicit in the Verklaerte Nacht, but I think it's more important in that he conceived his innovations as a necessary and logical consequence of Wagner's chromaticism. Brahms definitely wanted to give the impression that he was following in…

Oh, I don't doubt the influence. I was really only surprised about your assertion that Schoenberg believed that he carried on the traditions of both Brahms and Wagner, given the fractious climate around these two composers at the time. Not that he wasn't influenced by Wagner's music at all, but I've certainly considered him more in the Brahms camp.

What you said about the Brahms symphony reminded me of something Schoenberg wrote in "Brahms the Progressive", and so went to look it up and found another, more pertinent essay, "My Evolution" (written at 75).

In Schoenberg's essay "My Evolution", he writes that prior to Zemlinsky, he was a Brahmsian, but after he had a deep appreciation for Wagner's genius for writing music for stage action and goes on to detail how Verklärte Nacht was modeled on "Wagnerian 'model and sequence'...and on Brahm's technique of developing variation. He surely did acknowledge the influence as you suggest, which I suppose is tantamount to carrying on the tradition in some way, even if he didn't become primarily a composer for the stage.

Thanks for the post -- I had never thought to place Schoenberg somewhere in the Brahms/Wagner rift until your comment. That Schoenberg wrote the above about Wagner in 1949 rather than 1901 also let's Schoenberg affirm the influence with little risk to a new career.

Re: Alban Berg’s Dissonances

#15

Post by telesilla » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 6:02 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #5

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

When I see Alban Berg on the front page of HN, it really tells me I'm in the right place. I consider him, Webern, and Schoenberg as the "end" of western classical music. It's like the whole field ran into the brick wall of their work and never made it past.

There's this joke in the movie "Amadeus" where the emperor (Joseph II?) remarks that Mozart's music has "too many notes". He explains that the human ear can only hear so many notes. That might have a element of truth. Our perception is (obviously) limited, and beyond a certain point, complexity becomes overbearing. But on the other hand, minimal music is a much more recent development, and it is certainly part of the…

The quote was real!

"He is a great master, ran the usual critical line, but he cannot restrain his overweening imagination, his chilly intellectualism, his too many notes."

I cannot recommend Swafford's biographies on Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven highly enough.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-swafford/moza...

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-swafford/beet...

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-swafford/joha...