Stirling writes:

>While there is an almost universal resignation to not listening for tone
>rows in Schoenberg's music, it is in fact verymuch the reverse of his own
>goal. What other reason to open a work with a recitation of the rows, as we
>find in the Piano Concerto?

Now that you mention it, I do hear "melodies" in Schoenberg - melodies,
but not rows.  I can hum or whistle whole stretches of the Piano Concerto,
for instance, but I'm not humming the tone row.  If Schoenberg wanted me to
do this, why did he split the row in half (he once remarked that he was a
6-tone, rather than a 12-tone composer) and vary each half? Because 12-tone
composers differ from one another and from themselves in different works
(just like tonal composers), one listens to this music in different ways.
I hear Dallapiccola's melodies, not his rows, as well.  On the other hand,
I don't hear Webern's melodies or Babbitt's (usually).

>That this, among many other ideas, has been abandoned points to the
>philosophical failure of his project: he wanted music which was the old
>raised to a new level, but wound up being embraced by those who wanted a
>musical sound world utterly different.

In Schoenberg's case, I'd say he succeeded big-time, although I'd quarrel
with the word "raised." To me, the music's an odd combination of Mahler,
Strauss, and Wagner, with a thoroughly modern sense of orchestration.
I think "utterly different" truer of the music of many who came after
Schoenberg.  Webern and his followers seem to be going after something
which breaks more sharply from the past.

Steve Schwartz