tss@astrovax.UUCP (Thomas S. Statler) (06/05/84)
Some of the recent discussion has shown some interesting polarization over the music of Schoenberg and his disciples. (Everyone either thinks it stinks or it's great, no in-between.) Here's my two-cents worth... My main objection to the serialists/expressionists/dodecaphonists (pick your favorite name) is that fundamental to their music was the rejection of all that had come before. As a result, their music was 'academic' in the sense that no one who had not studied serialist techniques could understand it. But to me the best music is that which can be appreciated on many different levels. To write such music requires building on the work of one's predecessors and incorporating many different techniques and styles. To say that 300 years of work on the foundations of Western music is suddenly worthless is absurd. While it is true that Berg, and perhaps some others, produced some successful works, I find it hard to regard them as anything more than just interesting experiments. However, in the last ten-or-so years, a new 'school' of composition has sprung up, rather inaptly named 'New Romanticism'. One of the goals of the New Romantics seems to be a synthesis of all the free experimentation that has gone on in the first 3/4 of this century. I feel that it is in this context, as yet another style to be added to the composer's repertoire, that serialism will find its most productive place. Open to suggetions for a cute signature line, Tom Statler