Peter Varley:

>What's wrong with (amongst others) Alfven, Arnold, Atterberg, Bacewicz,

absolutely nothing, except that Atterberg wrote only one interesting piece
and that several people in the list that followed wrote dodecaphonic
serialism.

>Serialism as such isn't another language - it's just another way of coming
>up with thematic material.

Yes, indeed.  That's almost all it is.  A mere recital of a row makes
no more sense than one of the thematic cells of Beethoven's fourth piano
concerto.  Neither one of them is a piece.  To find the value in both, one
has to see how composers have used them in actual works.  You don't judge
the worth of Beethoven's concerto even mainly on the basis of its thematic
quality, but on how he has put together (com-ponere) these cells.

>>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.
>
>This is a valid opinion, but not one I agree with.

To quote Donald Mitchell, you are entitled to your wrong opinion.

>IMO, Indian Classical music is a major musical language.  It's not one I
>understand, but even so, I've heard pieces which I found appealing.  It's
>also a tradition which goes back several centuries, so there's a lot of it
>both in quantity and in variety.
>
>By contrast, the pantonality tradition lasted a few decades at most.

In fact, it's still going on, whether you pay attention to it or not.

>It seems, judging by previous posts, that three or four pieces (none of
>which I've heard) are regarded as beautiful.

Only three or four pieces have been cited.  There are far more than three
or four pieces I and the people who are into 12-tone would regard as
beautiful.

>The few dozen I have heard have struck me as dull if not downright ugly.
>
>If I decide that I need to learn a new language, which is the more natural
>choice - one with a long and varied tradition and where I already find some
>of what I've heard appealing, or one with a short tradition, little if any
>future, and where what I've heard hasn't appealed at all?

That's entirely up to you.  However, let's consider the possibilities.
If you don't listen to it, the chances hover around zero that you'll never
get it.  This denies you access to a large body of music.  As I've admitted,
when I was younger, I didn't like Brahms, outside of a few pieces.  The
symphonies literally put me to sleep.  The violin concerto seemed to me the
dullest piece of music ever written, short of "99 Bottles of Beer." The
temptation was clearly there for me to regard Brahms as a charlatan who
pulled the wool over the eyes of the undiscerning (not me, of course).  Due
mainly to concert and radio programmers "forcing" me to listen to Brahms,
I have finally "gotten" Brahms.  It was by no means certain that I would,
but I have.  He's become one of my favorite composers.

I've gained access to a large body of great music.  That's certainly worth
all the work I put into it.  It would probably have been worthwhile even if
I hadn't received my tangible reward, but that depends on how valuable you
consider the search itself.

Steve Schwartz