Bill Pirkle wrote:

>I don't think that one should have to put too much work into listening.
>I find that 20th CM (some) requires that kind of in depth study, where I
>find the 19th century music is more imeadiately obvious (most at least).

I don't think one should have to put too much work (in the sense of
"study") into listening either.  At the risk of being *extremely* tedious
I'm going to paste in a long quote from a message I recently posted on
another list on this very topic - not that it's more than e-list ephemera,
(hmmm, "e-Phemera"?) but I'm too pressed for time to write something new
that will say basically the same thing.  (Mahler-L folks, hit the "delete"
key now.) My point was that one can come to enjoy pan-tonal / serial /
atonal music *just by listening* - no in depth study required.  That's how
most of us came to enjoy classical music to begin with.  I know I certainly
found 19th century music more immediately intelligible at first because I'd
been listening to music based on the Western tonal system of the past 250
years or so for my entire life up to that point - albeit mostly in its less
well regarded idioms such as pop music, film scores, Broadway musicals, and
(gasp) commercial jingles, but basically, stuff cut from the same cloth.
So of course 19th century classical music was immediately understandable -
I'd spent the previous 15 years learning the language by "total immersion"
so to speak.  Here goes:

   I'm one of those geeks who actually ENJOYS listening to pan-tonal
   and serial music.  (This doesn't mean that I *like* all of it; I
   don't like all tonal music, either.) Since I'm barely a competent
   amateur and am only now pursuing formal training in music theory,
   it would be hard to blame the undue influence of the academy for
   this state of affairs.  So how did this happen? My theories:

   1.  During my senior year in high school (back when dinosaurs roamed
   the earth), I decided to start taking piano lessons again after a
   many-year hiatus.  Since I had never developed a proper technique to
   begin with and since my basic musicianship was in a shambles, my
   teacher decided to start me back at the beginning-but by using Bartok's
   Mikrokosmos rather than some of the more standard alternatives.
   Let's just say that key signatures and the circle of fifths don't
   play a major role in at least the earlier portions of Bartok's method.

   2.  I started attending the New York City Ballet religiously when I
   moved to NY to go to graduate school.  Balanchine was still alive,
   and his ballets constituted the bulk of the company's repertory.
   Many of his ballets were set to the music of 20th century composers,
   including Webern.  I got the opportunity to hear a lot of music I
   might otherwise have avoided.  After a while, it all seemed intelligible
   enough(perhaps the choreography helped).

   3.  About 10 years ago, I started listening to a lot of non-Western
   "classical" music-mostly from the Subcontinent, Japan, China, and
   the Middle East.  The systems upon which these sophisticated musical
   traditions are based are, to greater or lesser degrees, different
   from the Western "perfect triad" tonal system.  They "make sense"
   nonetheless and are enjoyed by (literally) billions.  When I first
   started attending classical Indian music concerts, I was clueless.
   I had no idea where the music was going; it would stop when I expected
   it to go on and would go on when I expected it to stop.  I couldn't
   even tap out the rhythmic patterns much less reproduce some of the
   intervals I heard.  The rest of the audience would go "oooh" or
   "aaaah" and make approving gestures at what seemed to me to be the
   least remarkable places.  (I quickly learned that exclaiming and
   gesturing when one has been moved by a particularly brilliant
   improvisation is the polite thing to do-listening in dead silence is
   not.) After a while-just by listening-it started to make sense.
   Interestingly enough, I started to listen to Western music in a
   different way-as the product of *A* system not *THE* system-and things
   that had grown perhaps a tad stale got more interesting again.  Plus,
   I had learned how to (gradually) make sense of something unfamiliar
   through repeated listening, and this more than anything has made it
   possible for me to really enjoy that Second Viennese sound.

   Here are my admittedly amateur suggestions for those who would like
   a way to approach listening to serial and pan-tonal music:

   1.  Start with smaller-scale works for solo instruments or chamber
   ensembles.  I find that a composer's string quartets-if he or she
   wrote any-are usually the easiest way to approach his or her particular
   idiom.  (Note:  I think this works for me because the basic sonority
   of the string quartet is one that I'm very familiar with and love.
   Others might find keyboard works or orchestral works more approachable
   for the same reason.)

   2.  Listen "locally" (i.e., to units as small as three or four beats)
   and take in each pearl before you try to put together the whole
   strand.

   3.  Listen for passages of tension and release and perhaps for "open"
   and "resolved" rather than for "home" and "not home."

   4.  Focus on and appreciate the physical sensations of listening
   rather than the intellectual (perhaps "formal" is a better word)
   appreciation of what you hear.  Definitely let it wash over you.
   Make pictures in your head.  (I choreograph ballets.)

   5.  Try to hear the music played in concert.

   6.  Accept that it will be like listening to a foreign language that
   you don't know well yet.  You'll pick out a few words before you
   understand whole sentences, but you have to keep listening if you're
   going to get past "I love you" and "goodbye."

   7.  Find a piece you like (or can at least tolerate) and listen to
   it repeatedly to get the idiom in your ears.  You do *not* have to
   start with Milton Babbitt.  Single-malt scotch probably didn't feature
   prominently in your first pleasant experience with alcohol, after
   all.  Tonal example:  I liked "Nozze de Figaro" before I liked "Tristan
   and Isolde." Now I sing "Mild und Leise" in the shower along with
   "Deh Vieni." Next, "Erwartung"!  (Actually, my husband thinks that
   my version of "Deh Vieni" sounds an awful lot like "Erwartung" or
   maybe just plain awful . . .)

I agree wholeheartedly with Satoshi Akima - one doesn't have to be a
professional, or even very musically literate to love pan-tonal / serial /
atonal music!

Kathleen O'Connell