Len Fehskens writes:

>And if this is indeed the case, as music approaches this
>ideal, most advanced form, it will sound more and more like noise.

While the exploration of the relationship between random noise and music
may have been something that Cage and Stockhausen in particular may have
undertaken, I think it is grossly unfair to stereotype all pantonal music
as being therefore no different to noise.  There was a time in the post-war
period when free experimentalism was pursued as an end in itself.  Some of
the things that were done remain interesting but other things were done
with the intention of avant garde provocation as an end in itself.  It was
just a sign of the times.  It is simply not fair to judge Schoenberg or
Webern as a result of what might have been done during those years after
their deaths.  However even Stockhausen has gone on to write music which
sounds more like an end in itself rather than a means to experimentation.
Much of this music is surprisingly assessable, but as I have repeatedly
stressed it is still preferable to start somewhere easier rather than to
dive into the deep end of 20th century music.

Peter Varley writes that serialism musical language is as obscure as
Cornish or Manx and that it is not worth his while trying to learn anything
so marginal.

>I may question whether it is worth my while taking the time and effort
>necessary to learn to read Cornish or Manx, given that (i) there are
>so many interesting things still being written in English, my native
>language..

Indeed it was Schoenberg himself who said that there was much good
music still to be written in C major.  Having said that I think that
serialism/pantonality is a major musical language.  To not listen to it is
akin to not listening to Renaissance Polyphony.  There is plenty more good
music, that is true, but you are still denying yourself something really
worthwhile.

Peter Varley makes another interesting point that I

>...seem to assume that people who dislike Webern's music invariably do so
>because of his use of serial techniques.  Perhaps some do.  I dislike much
>of Webern's music because of its brevity - continuing the literary analogy,
>it comprises sound-bites, not well-constructed arguments.

I mentioned Webern as just one possible example but I could have mentioned
any one of many other names.  Webern certainly is the least accessible
of the Second Viennese School but I sometimes wonder if he is also the
most profound.  His works are at least the most tightly argued: so taut
that they can seem impossible to unravel at first hearing.  Nonetheless
Mahlerians in particular should still try the 6 Orchestral Pieces, if
nothing else.

But still Peter Varley raises a critical point in that it is silly to
assume that because someone likes tonal music, and that because Berwald
writes tonal music that therefore that person must like Berwald.  Similarly
just because you might like Webern does not necessarily mean you will like,
say Xenakis (or whoever!).

>The second faulty assumption is that the dividing line between what
>everyone finds acceptable and what those of us who dislike "atonal music"
>object to invariably comes mid-way through Schoenberg's career - that
>anyone who likes late Schoenberg will also like Berio, and that anyone who
>hates Berio will also hate late Schoenberg.  Again, perhaps this is true
>for some.

Well it is fair enough to insist that it is a false assumption to assume
that a person who likes Schumann has to like Brahms, or that the person
who likes Haydn must like Beethoven.  I don't disagree with that at all.
However it would be true to say to someone who has likes Schumann should
then at least go on and at least try some Brahms.  That's why I made the
recommendations that I did.

>I can't hear any melody in Berio Sequenzas, and I can't hear any rhythm,
>harmony, counterpoint or symphonic development either.  ... those of us
>who are looking for something in the tradition of Beethoven, Brahms and
>Sibelius (and for that matter Berg and Schoenberg) aren't going to find
>what we're looking for in Berio...

I made no assumptions that anyone who likes Schoenberg will inevitably like
any other composer after him any more than I would assume that anyone who
likes Lizst must inevitably like Bruckner.  If you do not like Berio that's
either just you're taste or because you have not heard the right work by
Berio.  I would recommend Berio's "Coro" and the Sequenza VIII (Corale) as
being really rather accessible - melodically, rhythmically, harmonically,
contrapunctully with an eloquently argued developmental structure.  Someone
once called Berio the Rossini of the avante garde.  I rather liked that.
Nonetheless I would still urge people not to rush into listening to works
by Berio (perhaps even those which are the most accessible) without first
becoming really thoroughly familiar with the most accessible works by Berg.

Talking about accessibility I would also strongly recommend Boulez's
'Rituel' as one of the most readily accessible compositions from the
post-war period.  I am sure some people might find it even more immediately
attractive than even Berg's Violin Concerto.  Do others have useful
examples of immediately attractive pantonal composition to share with
people on the list? The only other one that springs readily to mind is
Ligeti's Piano Concerto - somebody once said it sounded like Gershwin!

Lastly I am amazed beyond words that Deryk Barker and Achim Breilling both
mentioned Boulez's Pli Selon Pli because that was PRECISELY the work on my
mind when I wrote:

>I can think of some really beautiful haunting dodecaphonic melodies (even
>from Boulez!).

In particularly the theme to the words "Le vierge, le vivace et le bel
aujourd'hui" was what came most immediately to mind.  Deryk and Achim seem
to have read my mind!  In fact Pil Selon Pli is still the work I probably
love the most from Boulez.  I think it is a pure miracle.  To have been
born and lived in the 20th century without having heard this work is like
having lived in the 19th without having heard Beethoven's 9th symphony.

The 20th century - were you there?

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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