Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>That 12 tone music was more difficult was considered by Schoenberg as a
>>virtue of the music - he stated that composers were making more difficult
>>music for the most demanding of music lovers.
>
>I think this simplifies Schoenberg.  I believe he wanted it both ways.
>He wanted the love of both connoisseurs and, eventually, the general
>classical-music public.  In short, he wanted to be Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
>Wagner, and (now) Mahler.  Oscar Levant tells a story about Schoenberg's
>Violin Concerto.  Schoenberg was unhappy over the premiere performance and
>the initial critical reception.  Levant replied that the music was so
>complicated, who could play it.  Schoenberg replied, "In a hundred years,
>everybody."

I agree - he also said he wanted to be "a better sort of Tchaikovski" and
"I just hope they go out whistling the tunes", from Pierrot Lunaire.

>Now comes the sermon (and this isn't a criticism of Stirling's post, but
>...  Schmidt - which seems the property of a very small group.  Yet, it
>doesn't occur to anyone - at least I haven't heard it here - to denigrate
>this work as Snobmusik.

Partially because so many of the supporters had a messianic vision for
it.  It would replace tonality, and said many denigrating things about
the musical acumen of those who did not agree.  On the other side of the
ledger, 12 tone music, and its successor serialism, hit a raw nerve among
the supporters of the older music.  Nothing summed up on part of the wave
of the 20th century that threatened to destroy the past than a music which
was embodied the anxiety that eventually the well educated person would not
be able to understand the world that he/she lived in.

This anxiety is an undercurrent in the debate, and should be looked at
carefully by those trying to understand it

Stirling Newberry
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