Wes wrote:

>Why did someone invent a 12 tone system? How ridiculous is that? The very
>nature of the system defeats any true possibility of inspired art.  the
>creation of a pre-determined system of tones seems to me to be the creation
>of a mind searching for something other than what was presently known.
>Doesn't seem like "actual"  music to me...but rather a new "groundbreaking"
>idea.

"How ridiculous is that?" I'm not sure I understand you here.  I don't
think that is anymore ridiculous than a ii65-V7-I chord progression.
Do you have any backing for how the system "defeats any possibility of
inspired art?" If so, I'm waiting to hear it.  It seems that you are
blindly bashing something without giving any evidence for your statement.

I think that when Beethoven wrote his 3rd symphony there was truly nothing
like it in the entire history of music.  I think that Beethoven was perhaps
searching for something that wasn't known.  Regardless, I consider the
Eroica a marvelous work of art.  I think Berlioz and Symphonie Fantastique
falls into the same category.  Something that is new isn't automatically
crap.

I may tell you that Schoenberg was following his heart just as much as
Beethoven, and to the degree you believe me doesn't much matter until we
are able to raise both of them from the dead.  But his music still lives
on.  Listen to his piano pieces and tell me they don't seem richly inspired
and expressive.  In fact, Schoenberg himself wrote about the artistic
process and how "inspiration" for a piece would come in one highly artistic
moment.  Of course, as I said, all we have is the music.

What if I told you that sonata form defeats any possibility of
inspired art? That it doesn't sound like "actual music" but just another
"groundbreaking idea." Where does it all end? I think the groundbreaking
idea and the music are both there and perhaps all you have been able to
find hitherto is the idea.  Keep searching.

Kyle Major
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