Advant Garde music

[pizza]

. . . . . the world premiere will take place inside my head.

That's true of every musical performance.

[Gary]

Also true of every crazy person. I know, I know...the question, again, is, by whose definition? Mine.

I'm starting to believe that you, Pizza, and everyone else on this discussion board are mere characters in the opera being performed in my head.

[val]

pizza

Cage also considered it his masterpiece. He did write other works in that style and language and influenced others do do likewise, such as Boulez in his Third Piano Sonata.

I see a greater influence in Boulez 4th piano Sonata.

[pizza]

pizza

Cage also considered it his masterpiece. He did write other works in that style and language and influenced others do do likewise, such as Boulez in his Third Piano Sonata.

I see a greater influence in Boulez 4th piano Sonata.

Possibly because you haven't really heard the 3rd!

[pizza]

I'll one-up Cage here. I suggest that we "listen" to Piccasso's Guernica.

The American abstract artist Robert Rauschenberg probably anticipated your suggestion more than 50 years ago with his famous "White Paintings"!

Kandinsky once explained how his mid-career abstractions were simply visual analogs of the ultimate abstract art--music.

[hautbois]

I guess no one bothered to check out the link i pasted on the initial post?
This is way off topic now and has gone nuts.

[PJME]

Hello Hautbois, true, it has been an..agitated topic! But at the same time it is interesting to see how one thing leeds to another.
John Cage's "Silent" piece (it is never really silent of course - it is a "happening" ..people move , a bird chirps, papers rustle,the pianist opens or closes the lid...) manages to stirr up the emotions (it keeps us alert) and Pizza adds some Art history. And he hasn't mentioned Malevitch Black square yet!....
the changes in Art and Art perception of the last 50-60 years, are giving us still a lot of trouble. A tough but fascinating epoch.

Since I'm not trained as a (performing) musician at all , I can only watch the Penderecki capriccio in amazement .Challenging to perform, hardly "great " music. Do you know when this work was written? It sounds like "early" Penderecki to me ( ca 1960-1970) - before he became a kind of neo Romantic /neo Tonal composer.

[Corlyss_D]

John Cage's "Silent" piece (it is never really silent of course - it is a "happening" ..people move , a bird chirps, papers rustle,the pianist opens or closes the lid...) manages to stirr up the emotions

[pizza]

In Corlyss' case the very idea sends her into a state of hilarious ecstacy -- imagine the effect if she were actually present at a recital

[PJME]

Radio 3 plays 'silent symphony'

BBC Radio 3 has aired more than four minutes of complete silence... by design. The BBC Symphony Orchestra gave a performance of composer John Cage's seminal piece 4'33", which does not contain a single note. Radio 3 broadcast the entire composition live, even having to switch off its emergency system that cuts in when there is apparent silence.

The performance took place on Friday night at London's Barbican Centre. It was part of a weekend of Cage's work. The late avant-garde composer "wrote" the piece in 1952. TV viewers were also able to watch the event when BBC Four broadcast the concert, which also featured works that music lovers could hear.

Cage's reasoning for composing 4'33" was to demonstrate that "wherever we are what we hear mostly is noise". Mostly what you could hear was people getting up and walking out. BBC Symphony Orchestra general manager Paul Hughes of the 1952 premiere. His estate won a bizarre copyright battle in 2002, when composer Mike Batt agreed to pay a six-figure sum to a charity because his album featured a tongue-in-cheek silent track which he credited as co-written by Cage.

General manager Paul Hughes told BBC Radio 5 Live the orchestra had rehearsed to "get in the right frame of mind". Despite having no notes to play, the musicians tuned up and then turned pages of the score after each of the three "movements" specified by the composer. The silence was broken at times by coughing and rustling sounds from the audience, who marked the end of the performance with enthusiastic applause.

Mr Hughes denied the performance was a "mindless gimmick" and said Cage believed "music was all around us all the time" and the piece was his attempt to make the audience focus on sounds that were "part of our everyday lives".

'Discomforted'

But the audience at the premiere in 1952 was "so discomforted that mostly what you could hear was people getting up and walking out", he said. "They were completely outraged and extremely angry," Mr Hughes added. He said Cage, who died in 1992 aged 80, was very proud of the silent composition.

[PJME]

hilarious ecstacy

Here is a good example . Fortunately it is quite harmless.

[Corlyss_D]

Peter! You promised not to show that snap of me celebrating Beltane!

[Gary]

I'll one-up Cage here. I suggest that we "listen" to Piccasso's Guernica.

The American abstract artist Robert Rauschenberg probably anticipated your suggestion more than 50 years ago with his famous "White Paintings"!

Kandinsky once explained how his mid-career abstractions were simply visual analogs of the ultimate abstract art--music.

I think I saw parts of this American Masters documentary on Rauschenberg some months back.

Conceptually, this whole avant-garde stuff strikes me as very oriental. That nothing isn't really nothing, very Yin-Yang.

And listening to 4'33" seems nothing more than a brief meditation session. Not original at all.

[pizza]

Conceptually, this whole avant-garde stuff strikes me as very oriental. That nothing isn't really nothing, very Yin-Yang.

And listening to 4'33" seems nothing more than a brief meditation session. Not original at all.

If "nothing isn't really nothing", you've proven beyond question that listening to 4'33" is indeed something more than a brief meditation session. Quite original after all!

[Gary]

But the earlier question remains: Is it music?

[pizza]

And the later question remains: By whose definition?

[Gary]

La commedia è finita!

[val]

pizza

In Corlyss' case the very idea sends her into a state of hilarious ecstacy --imagine the effect if she were actually present at a recital.

But if Corlyss was present at a recital he would be an instrument, to fullfill with sound the 4' 33''. Like all other spectators. If he laughs, 4' 33' would become a comic piece.

[Gary]

But if Corlyss was present at a recital he would be an instrument, to fullfill with sound the 4' 33''. Like all other spectators. If he laughs, 4' 33' would become a comic piece.

Val,

I thought Corlyss was a "she".

[rogch]

I haven't heard the 4'33''. Some will perhaps argue that nobody has. But i just wondered: How long would a Celibidache recording of 4'33'' last?

[pizza]

Probably longer than Chopin's Minute Waltz and shorter than Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours!

[rogch]

Probably longer than Chopin's Minute Waltz and shorter than Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours!

Are you sure? As a man with good taste he perhaps woud make an exception from his normal speed-policy. "Get the mediochre opera over and done with as soon as possible!" Enough modernist-bashing, let's bash something truly worthy of it

[Corlyss_D]

But if Corlyss was present at a recital he would be an instrument, to fullfill with sound the 4' 33''. Like all other spectators. If he laughs, 4' 33' would become a comic piece.

Val,

I thought Corlyss was a "she".

She is most definitely a she.

[mourningstar]

Avant-garde music is most likely music without a crowd

[jbuck919]

I'll one-up Cage here. I suggest that we "listen" to Piccasso's Guernica.

The American abstract artist Robert Rauschenberg probably anticipated your suggestion more than 50 years ago with his famous "White Paintings"!

Kandinsky once explained how his mid-career abstractions were simply visual analogs of the ultimate abstract art--music.

I think I saw parts of this American Masters documentary on Rauschenberg some months back.

Conceptually, this whole avant-garde stuff strikes me as very oriental. That nothing isn't really nothing, very Yin-Yang.

And listening to 4'33" seems nothing more than a brief meditation session. Not original at all.

I have to question how fruitful it is to assume that the same thing or parallel things happen in every art form. I love Rauschenberg's Ocean Park Series, but of course what I love is irrelevant. The point is that each of the three great art forms--literature, visual art, and music--is going to have its own life course and internal logic. When did two of those forms reach their greatest height in modern times? In the sixteenth century. That also happens to be the time when music also had a golden age, but neither art nor literature went on to have an even greater age that only climaxed in the 18th and 19th century, when visual art and literature still produced great works but inevitably, on their own terms, not on the level of Michelangelo or Shakespeare.

[diegobueno]

Getting back on topic, that's quite a feat of tonguing from the oboist, and it's fun to be able to watch the musicians do what they do. This is a good example of Penderecki's 1960s style. I was glad to hear/see it.

[karlhenning]

And listening to 4'33" seems nothing more than a brief meditation session. Not original at all.

I think you aren't being fair to Cage; to make such a thing a musical 'happening', with a notated score, was surely original.

[karlhenning]

Avant-garde music is most likely music without a crowd

Then at least, we have no difficulty finding a seat

[miranda]

Well, I like select works by John Cage, Gyorgy Ligeti, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, and Olivier Messaien. (I loathe a lot of what I've heard by Messiaen, though.) I don't know if all these composers would be considered avant-garde or not.
My feelings about most atonal music can be summed up in one word--blech.

[hautbois]

I almost choked out my lunch the first time i heard Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony with the Concertgebouw and Chailly. Extreme atonality that even Bartok's string quartets can stand aside. Again i do not despise atonality, as it has been evident in many cases that it works in music. But this is just too much. I guess you can't call everything advant garde crap in some cases. But IS Messiaen in this category? I doubt he is in any:) , but i have recently heard rave reviews about his quartet for the end of time or something like that?

[Corlyss_D]

Avant-garde music is most likely music without a crowd

Then at least, we have no difficulty finding a seat

Post of the Day Award to ya, Karl.

[diegobueno]

I almost choked out my lunch the first time i heard Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony with the Concertgebouw and Chailly. Extreme atonality.

Actually Turangalila is modal, though the modes are are of the composer's own invention. Still, the tonal centers are pretty clear. The 5th movement, "Joie du sang des étoiles" is very strongly in Db major. The finale is very strongly in F# major, as is the 6th movement "Jardin du sommeil d'amour".

[val]

Corlyss

She is most definitely a she.

Sorry for the confusion. It was my passion for 4' 33'' you know ...

[val]

diegobueno

Actually Turangalila is modal, though the modes are are of the composer's own invention. Still, the tonal centers are pretty clear. The 5th movement, "Joie du sang des étoiles" is very strongly in Db major. The finale is very strongly in F# major, as is the 6th movement "Jardin du sommeil d'amour".

I think that the closest Messiaen came to atonality - free atonality, not serial - was "Chronochromie" for orchestra.

[jbuck919]

diegobueno

Actually Turangalila is modal, though the modes are are of the composer's own invention. Still, the tonal centers are pretty clear. The 5th movement, "Joie du sang des étoiles" is very strongly in Db major. The finale is very strongly in F# major, as is the 6th movement "Jardin du sommeil d'amour".

I think that the closest Messiaen came to atonality - free atonality, not serial - was "Chronochromie" for orchestra.

The main reason I take a jaundiced view of Messiaen is because virtually all of his organ music is not only atonal, it is arbitrary. If you have a Cavaille-Coll organ in a Parisian church at your disposal, you can make two cats walking in opposite directions across the manuals sound atmospheric, which is exactly in my mind what he got away with.

[hautbois]

For an amateur like me, any mode that makes me choke is considered very 'atonal'. Only the 1st movement (i am surprised i survived all 10) was enough to grant me a headache. Thankyou for the correction diegobueno!

[diegobueno]

hautbois,

Next time, jump directly to the 5th movement. That one is so tonal it makes the modernists choke!

[diegobueno]

diegobueno
The main reason I take a jaundiced view of Messiaen is because virtually all of his organ music is not only atonal, it is arbitrary.

None of it is atonal. None of it is arbitrary. Quirky yes, but that's what makes it interesting.

[BWV 1080]

diegobueno

Actually Turangalila is modal, though the modes are are of the composer's own invention. Still, the tonal centers are pretty clear. The 5th movement, "Joie du sang des étoiles" is very strongly in Db major. The finale is very strongly in F# major, as is the 6th movement "Jardin du sommeil d'amour".

I think that the closest Messiaen came to atonality - free atonality, not serial - was "Chronochromie" for orchestra.

Messiaen actually wrote some pure serial pieces for piano in the 1950's they went so far at to use serial operations on rhythm as well as pitch.

[karlhenning]

Next time, jump directly to the 5th movement. That one is so tonal it makes the modernists choke!

Real modernists don't choke on tonality.

But you knew that.

[Richard Mullany]

I first joined this group when it was part of the Amazon collection of forums. That was in 2001. I had a long absence until I came back online last year.

When I left the subject of AC was live. My first post was, I think, "What is AC". I got involved only slightly, the argument even then seemed to generate more heat than light. When I started up again I wondered if the topic ever came up here.
If I recall correctly the origin of the term AC for atonal crap was a lady friend of Ralph commenting on a concert she or they had attended. Ralph might set us straight on this.