Edgar Beach <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There are often very interesting discussions on this list about the
> value of atonal music such as ones "Blind Test" thread.  I, personally,
> have never learned to appreciate the music of composers like Schoenberg
> and Webern.  Is it fair for me to assume that the majority of serious
> (for lack of another word) music lovers also cannot tolerate much of
> today's disharmonic stuff?  Again this is an assumption and note a fact.
> Is it possible, for the lovers of Schoenberg and other atonal composer's
> music, to explain clearly why they do like it so.  I know why I don't
> care for it.  It is because it violates my personal sense of what is
> beautiful.

I find the incredibly concise pieces for orchestra or string quartet
of Webern beautiful on every level: as pure sound, and also in their
suggestiveness; it is as though the composer is inviting me to use my
brain and my heart to add to the mix.  (This in spite of the fact that,
according to Alex Ross, Webern was something of a Nazi sympathizer.) I
find the Schoenberg piano concerto to be equally beautiful in a different
way: it is muscular yet thoughtful, alternately tender and tough as
nails, and funny in places.  I love the recordings by Glenn Gould and
also the lastest (of four, I think) by Alfred Brendel, which makes me
almost jump out of my seat...  But a recent issue of an old radio recording
from Canada by Gould was on the same CD with equally old, thin radio
recordings of Beethoven concerti, and listening to the CD I sang along
with the one as happily as the other, surprising even myself.

Also, what do you mean by 'today's disharmonic stuff'?  The Webern and
the Schoenberg are now 70 or 80 years old, and much of today's stuff is
'tonal'.  It seems to me that a great many listeners today do not want
to hear anything that they haven't heard before, which is not good for
music.

Donald Clarke

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