Is Serialism Dead?

[Resonant- Serpent]

Fascinating subject. There are some mentions of history in this thread that I had no idea about.

Could someone recommend some books on this subject and the composers? I know the names, I know the music, but I've found little on the actual creative impulses/history.

For Schoenberg, I think it's best to go to the source. The book of essays called 'Style and Idea' has most of his best writing. Berg and Webern left behind very little writing unfortunately. If you can find it, Willi Reich translated some of Weberns words in a book called The Path to the New Music.

For the later developments, Joan Peysers biography of Boulez, though tendentious, gives a good sense of the goings on at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.

Googling the names Allen Forte and George Perle will bring you to numerous books. Check out especially the latters 'Serial composition and atonality. Also google George Barraque, who wrote extensively on these matters from an insiders perspective. His music was probably the most approachable of any of the participants at Darmstadt, after Messiaen.

Thank you.

[Aroused by JarJar]

The influence of the "sound" of serialism (obviously there are many different "sounds" of serialism but hopefully people will know what I mean) is quite widespread and popular. Leaving aside questions of strictness, there is a great deal of this allegedly academic style, or music influenced by it, in the movies.

Some trained people are going to protest the idea maybe, I find myself wanting to disagree with myself as I say it. But I think it's an honest and accurate assumption, and it can be colloquially tested by playing say some George Perle to an unsuspecting listener who isn't well versed in contemporary concert music, and asking them their associations.

Lessee...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bJUI14BB_1M

tell me that doesn't sound a whole lot like "movie music". This observation has been made before of course. I can't remember the exact quote and the university library is under reconstruction, but there's a bit in one of the texts about how the 2nd Viennese school's audience turned out to be fans of American B-movies, or something to that effect (vis a vis Berg's statement about how the music would become accepted in 50 years).

Of course you have Leonard Rosenman, who literally wrote a 12-tone Hollywood score, lessee...

http://www.moviemusicuk.us/rosenman.htm

but there is far more "serialism" presence in the movies than just this one guy (who was major-league anyway).

I suspect that what "kills" serialism is the same thing that "kills" microtonal Western music, and that is that so many people making it are actually have extremely conservative ears and enjoy "shocking" themselves, assuming that others are just as shocked as they are. So they are secretly mortified by acceptance by laypersons. Whereas audiences have enjoyed countless hours of jarring dissonances, "serialistic" and serial music in the movies for decades and so obviously don't have anything against these things in and of themselves. Same thing with "microtonal" music- most of the music of the world is "microtonal", not playing in 12-tET is only shocking to those completely locked into a small world.

Same thing with free-jazz, "atonal" electronic bleeps and bloops, screeching and howling noises, whatever. Audiences are cool with any damn thing, in context, it's mostly "musicians" who are rigid, from what I have observed.

Great thread by the way, thanks.

[MaxSynths]

tell me that doesn't sound a whole lot like "movie music".

By all means. Really interesting... It's a rare thing but I have to investigate the topic deeply.

Thanks for this thread.

[MadBrain]

I suspect that what "kills" serialism is the same thing that "kills" microtonal Western music, and that is that so many people making it are actually have extremely conservative ears and enjoy "shocking" themselves, assuming that others are just as shocked as they are. So they are secretly mortified by acceptance by laypersons. Whereas audiences have enjoyed countless hours of jarring dissonances, "serialistic" and serial music in the movies for decades and so obviously don't have anything against these things in and of themselves. [...]

That's an interesting theory. Any observations that corroborate it?

[Download SOphist]

According to Stockhausen the purpose of serialism is (was) to kill and replace romanticism.

Ironically, that strikes me as a very romantic idea

incidentally.

[jancivil]

I suspect that what "kills" serialism is the same thing that "kills" microtonal Western music, and that is that so many people making it are actually have extremely conservative ears and enjoy "shocking" themselves, assuming that others are just as shocked as they are. So they are secretly mortified by acceptance by laypersons. Whereas audiences have enjoyed countless hours of jarring dissonances, "serialistic" and serial music in the movies for decades and so obviously don't have anything against these things in and of themselves. [...]

That's an interesting theory. Any observations that corroborate it?

Mad's post reads rather like an observation to me.

[Aroused by JarJar]

I suspect that what "kills" serialism is the same thing that "kills" microtonal Western music, and that is that so many people making it are actually have extremely conservative ears and enjoy "shocking" themselves, assuming that others are just as shocked as they are. So they are secretly mortified by acceptance by laypersons. Whereas audiences have enjoyed countless hours of jarring dissonances, "serialistic" and serial music in the movies for decades and so obviously don't have anything against these things in and of themselves. [...]

That's an interesting theory. Any observations that corroborate it?

Well that would take a whole book but in the end it would still be: just how it seems to me after many years. I do organize a music festival and that has only made the feeling stronger, as it's the musicians who tend to be unsure about being "different" while the while audience members have thanked me numerous times for not promoting the same old same old. Of course sometimes that is just a matter of fixed ideas about audience reception and not musical timidity on the part of musicians. I have convinced a few musicians to do things they have only done at home but not in front of people because they were concerned people might laugh or boo, and what do you know- those were the most succesful shows.

[fluxmv]

According to Stockhausen the purpose of serialism is (was) to kill and replace romanticism.

Most new genres that come about are typically in reaction to an existing genre. It is true that Romanticism has grown into this behemoth that has for, IMHO, far too long exerted its influence on music - so some composers may have felt a need to slay that dragon. But, that's not the purpose of serialism. The purpose of serialism is to produce compositional material based on a pre-conceived series of elements.

I think that "slaying the dragon of romanticism" was far more than a matter of musical aesthetics for Stockhausen. I believe that he had no other choice than to start with a "clean slate":
Stockhausen's father fell in WW2. His mother was murdered ("euthanized") by the Nazis for being depressive. Stockhausen must have associated "romantic" music with Richard Wagner, a composer who didn't only have antisemitic views of his own (quite common for the time) but also had been held in highest regard by Hitler and the Nazis.
No German composer could have continued composing in the "romantic" style, disregarding anything that had happened before, at that time.
I could ramble on for pages and pages in my crude, somewhat alcohol-influenced English now, discussing the divide between European and American composers, the ugly-sounding music of the avantgardistic 50's (fully agree it ain't pretty), please forgive me for my simplistic account etc.: but don't forget that composing after WW2 and the holocaust was something different than opposing a certain style is now.

Thanks,
fluxmv

[MaxSynths]

Good point Flux. The problem is that Stockhausen reaction to "romanticism" (as something related with the facts that have influenced his personal life) is absurd and "totalitarian" exactly like the type of romanticism the nazi people claimed to be linked to.