Bernstein: And no matter how serial, or stochastic, or intellectualized music may be, it can always qualify as poetry, as long as it is rooted in earth. Migos: She got a big ol' onion booty, make the world cry.
The most remarkable, intelligent and articulated man and musician. Interestingly (or ironically?) at that time the immediate future of popular music was the advent of EDM. It'd be interesting to hear his viewpoints on this. If anybody knows of a video please share 😊. Thank you.
I think Lenny was saying that atonality was merely a vacation from tonality. Because tonality is natural and atonality is decidedly unnatural, we will always return to tonality. And he said it in a way that makes the intellectual folk feel justified to return to tonality. Well done, sir.
I think, that the presence of atonality "in nature" is easily overlooked due to the striking appearance of tonality. For me, at least, atonal music is a way to lively examine the naturally non-ecstatic, yet persistent and undeniable factors in life.
They've found a 30,000 year old flute tuned to a pentatonic scale in France. All musical style and practice is essentially a pattern of innovation, and reaction, back and forth, like a pendulum.
@@HelloooThere It is in fact true, while it was found in Germany, not France, there was a flute carved from a Mammoth bone found in a sediment layer of which has been untouched for 30-40 thousand years. While the original instrument is too delicate to be played it has been reconstructed using modern technology and even recorded playing common popular tunes
"And finally, I believe that all these things are true, and that Ive's Unanswered Question has an answer. I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer. And the answer is yes." Daaaamn. This is officially my favourite Bernstein quote.
What Bernstein leaves out of his prediction are the roles, respectively, of recording, timbre, and noise. Sure, "tonality" has returned, but it's become the vehicle for explorations in timbre that are now foregrounded (relative to music of the past) due to the possibilities of recording and now digital signal processing. A big part of this is the use of noise - non "musical" sounds - in compositions ranging from avant-garde to pop.
rachmaninoff - "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”
I wonder who he was listening to to make such a statement and when. Was he on to something? How many exalting works have emerged since he wrote this? Hard to say since exaltation is tricky to pin down. Any nominations? I nominate Hovhaness's "Mysterious Mountain. "ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NI0I-jJZ7I0.html That's one. Reich's Variations for Wind, Strings and Keyboards is another for me. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Sgjwiadze1w.html Come on people let's make a list.
@@mcrettable Can you enlighten me on what Rachmaninoff means by 'exhalt?' My interpretation of Rachmaninoff's quote would point me to believe that the works of Jacob Collier would be our modern day example of a composer who might have "the capacity to make their works exalt" and "feel rather than think." ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NSbxiFjA1ZQ.html - In The Real Early Morning ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mPZn4x3uOac.html - In The Bleak Midwinter ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4VlZ3OiRReM.html - Piano Improvisation His work on bringing microtonality to the forefront of music rather than some experimental concept and reintroducing younger artists to the harmonic series and tuning theory will have a lasting effect on music to come. We've had Atonal music, our next step might be Microtonal music. Well, that's what I'd like to believe anyways.
Baloney. He makes little sense. He is spewing jargon, buzz words, and, if he has a message it is abstracted into austere form just like most classical music.
@@lurking0death ahhh yes your right he makes little sense yet too many seem to love and understand him. also he's speaking poetically if that offends you so be it, just understand this! many love bernstein few love lurking0death
I am proud to say, that I still learn from Maestro Bernstein as a teacher, even though he has not taken a breath on earth since his far to early death in 1990. As a composer, I am a tonalist of the 1st Viennese School. Though as a former professor, I had to teach Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Scriabin, and many other composers that were followers of serialism and/or atonal music. I really loathed having to teach their methods, but this is what teachers do. I agree with Herr Bernstein about tonal music, because good tonal music has the power to engage your listener, and touch their emotions with melody, harmony, and counterpoint. Though I have also always told my students, just remember, it is called "music theory," not "music law.".....Peace!
Good hear that. I only wish your comment were from one of my professors at Amherst College in the 70s (particularly one Donald Whelock) (sp?), who INSISTED that I write in the 12-tone idiom. How often today do we hear Webern and Berg in concert halls? And it's not because they're too advanced for our pathetically bourgeois ears. It's because they were creating music that was totally disconnected from life. I wish I had had this excerpt from Bernstein's lectures to throw at them back then. They were all out of Yale in the 50s, where and when atonality was the way and light, and anyone who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes was immediate ostracized (which, BTW, also happened at Amherst). In an effort to show how shallow and nonsensical their orthodoxy was, I took a piano piece that I had written in high school, and randomly moved keys around (literally, by tossing dice), and the professor's reaction was positive. Makes me very angry in retrospect, because I was totally denied the opportunity to practice and develop my ability to reach out people emotionally. Stop denying the essence of tonality, you stupid "intellectuals"!
This guy understood the main deal laid before us whilst we occupy the form that we occupy. I suspect he's out there right now getting down with the music of the spheres - whatever that is.
ThenewBuddyRichATM Nice to hear so much from you, thanks. Yes, I have Musescore as I am trying to compose too :D. I would love to hear as many pieces as possible. You can send it to undekagon (at) gmail (dot) com.
I'm sure he loved Chomsky, if only because of his politics. But my God, if ever there were a reason to move beyond political differences, this series of lectures is it.
[Bernstein exits the hall, the sound of applause still dimly audible in the background. Colombo enters, as if from nowhere.] Colombo: Y’know, that was something in there, really something. I was listening in the recording booth. Did you write any of that down, or does that stuff just sorta live inside your head? Bernstein: I’m first and foremost a musician. I rehearse. Now if it’s alright lieutenant, I’m very tired at the moment. Perhaps we could talk another time. [Colombo fumbles around for his notepad, and finds it after a few tries.] Colombo: Oh, this will only take a second. Uh… Ives. That’s the guy you were just talking about. I went ahead and listened to that record you gave me. And that was very generous of you. But I gotta be honest. I can’t get my head around that kind of music. Bernstein [exasperated]: I know you to be the kind of man who could get to the heart of anything with enough time and passion. And so, could you kindly ask me your question? Colombo: It’s about the record, sir. Could you tell me when you purchased it? Bernstein: Lieutenant, I don’t normally need to go through the trouble of purchasing recordings for which I was the conductor. [Colombo pauses. A piece has fallen into place.] Colombo [slowly]: So you never paid for that particular record?
As a painter and musician, I compare atonality to abstraction. We played with it mid century but we rediscovered figurative art. Abstract art today is withdrawn while figurative art is thriving. Meanwhile in the music realm composers such as Marjan Mosetich have turned away from atonality to embrace a neo romanticism that will move anyone with a heart to tears. The creative world moves in cycles.
I attended the Norton Lectures. I remember this one very well. I truly loved this guy. His music is a fresh today as it ever was. His ideas as interesting. He was one of a kind.
There's the argument that "classical" music was at it's most eclectic at the time that Bernstein was speaking, the 1960s and 1970s. As well as Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and other post-Darmstadt colleagues, there were Cage and Feldman, Poulenc and Virgil Thompson, Shostakovich and Weinberg, Messiaen and Cowell, Walton and Britten and Piston… an extremely broad spectrum of styles and personalities (and I haven't even started with jazz and other styles that are nominally "popular" but where there are artists who are, well, just as creative and skilled in their art). There is an argument to be made that this may have been one of the most varied periods in the history of "Western" music of the last few millennia. When I look at more recent lists of first performances and prizes, things nowadays seem, if anything, less varied. (There is the problem that one's perspective of history always suffers a kind of foreshortening the closer you get to the present, so a grain of salt is probably in order.) In any case, Schönberg always said, even during his most strictly dodecaphonic periods, "there's still plenty of great music to be written in C major." No one ever seriously denied the tenability of tonality. It's just that there was a lot of excitement about the things you can do without being locked down to a key signature.
Probably you do not mean "classical" music here, as that was a particular type of orchestral music of the 18th century. The term is "symphonic" music, which indeed has been eclectic.
The scare quotes around the word indicate I was using it in the commonly used (not the technical music-historical sense) of the term. I really don't need to be schooled on the technical meaning of the term. And I expect most readers understood, given the context, how the term was intended.
Sorry, no need to take the comment personally as it was not meant that way. It is only that using the term "classical music" causes confusion, especially when you are referring to eclecticism. i was actually agreeing with your comment about modern symphonic music.
The 60s and 70s were a high watermark for artistic cultural production in general it appears in hindsight. This is one of the best appraisals of that period, as concerns music, I have read on youtube.
If you find atonal/serial and microtonal music tuneful, you have indeed conditioned yourself. That music works by dint of expectation of deviation from tonality. Having the semitone as 12th root of 2 is not a musical concept based in the ear's understanding of harmonics. It is a compromise to reasonably suggest what free intoning instruments could play and perform the feat of stacking thirds to end at the octave. Our ears are lo-fi and arbitrary scales 19, 31 tone scales work by suggestion.
In fact all human history is the same. When you see today´s chaos in information technology you need to think about the renaissance period. I like your pendulum comparison :-)
It’s dope, vague, yet us. Harmony is from the human race thru trial and error. The beauty of living will always keep us ready for more great sounds! Would marvelous if harmony and balance work universal. Maybe it does is not outlandish
Music is a language with rules and laws...classical being pure and jazz,rock,the blues speak slang....contemporary "words " that make sense in our day and age. We've heard the "what yonder light breaks" music...we likebit we appreciate it....but we like to hear "what the fuck is that light" music too
Not true. The scale is made up from the lower orders of the overtone harmonic sequence mapped back into one octave. The higher harmonics cannot be reasonably heard so we construct our scales from the lower orders. This is what he meant by being "rooted in the earth". Atonal and Microtonal music is a perversion of the concept of the harmonic series. 12 tone ET is only meant to *suggest* pure intervals, it is not an end in itself - the ear listens to relative pitches, especially with chords.
In general I am "a fan/supporter" of L. Bernstein. Could it be that "the not qustioned answer" is more the task than his answer of the unansered question? Respect to all human beings who were part of nthe public media also in the 20th century. Here in Germany it was quite elite and not fair. There were "nose factors" and "good relationships" necessary to become "a part of this family" (even in the real sense!). The chancelor Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl was an asshole ARSCHLOCH and he was corrupt not honest and bribing all here in Germany (better: the Kohl systeme or systeme Kohl). The malice way he and the CDU was acting and manipulating elections here in Germany and all the military persons (including General Spears etc) who in my point of view are demonstration the typically wrong understanding of maleness worldwide were the real problem in the 20th century!!!! I was born 1968 and 1993 me (Peter Babnik) suggested thze mobile internet for all human beings worldwide and this was no military secret!!!! I can think of my own!!!! Yes, I can!!!! L. bernstein seems to be a little bit selfloving his self or maybe you can name it: vanity. Music is a human skill even for all human beings worldwide. I was asked to explain something "like Bernstein" on video when 1993 I suggest the mobile internet for all human beings worldwide. I have/had respect of L. Bernstein and his skills. I am as I am. And I am straight heterosexual and sensitive and hopfully sensible. So I decided not to the same like L. Bernstein. I just kept studiing till 2015 here in Koblenz/Germany (RLP) near Ramstein (for all USA human beings). And yes: there are other music ideas possible ven if they are not so high quality like all the classical composers and L. Bernstein music. Music is a human human related global glocal language worldwide. Thank you L. Bernstein for your music!!!! And for the "Ode an die Freiheit" in Berlin in the 90s!!!! Best wishes Peter Babnik, VIVA TV inventor and optimist
WOW. Are you a licensed psychologist? We ALL have serious issues! AND...some narcissists are geniuses!! (NOT agreeing that he was a narcissist.) Who was his equal at the time? Would love to hear some names...not name-calling.
messrtwinky Herbert von Karajan was Bernstein’s equal at the time. Not equal in a bad way as the two had a fond friendship and respect for one another. They were totally different in discipline and how they carried themselves. Bernstein gave into raw uninhibited passion in his music making. Karajan was off the podium a pleasant joke telling person but on the podium was discipline incarnate. A strict and hyper-detailed tactician of music.
"Die Welt ist Klang" Joachim Ernst Berendt (Auch der Titel des Buches) "Die Planeten schwingen und klingen in den bekannten Harmonien der klassischen Musik"
A Grand Notion... Tonality is grounded in the Earth. Notice that he neither dismisses nor disrespects Atonality, an enormous intellectual achievement, arrived at by great Musicians who are also great Thinkers (Theoreticians); he is simply averring that Tonality, that overt expression of the physical Universe, through the elegant and naturally-occurring Overtone Series, is where we land when we keep our feet on the ground. Bernstein at his most intellectual, and most poetic.
Yet we don't use the harmonic series; rather, we go so far as to literally use irrational numbers for intonation. Thus, the earth's 'natural intonation' has little pull on actual modern music.
Bernstein is saying two things at the same time: the reason why music speaks and delivers messages to human beings, and why music is/can be a universal medium to connect human beings in the future. This is my interpretation of this speech. And this interpretation of mine is relatable to what I saw Friedrich Nietzsche’s Netflix movie where the philosopher speaks about music being something impossible to describe in words and that the music is felt in the pain of heart rather. And as far as I remember he said that the music is the most comprehensive “tool(?)” to deliver the messages(? i forget right terms). Anyhow, I often find top level musicians speak about music and life parallel and abstract not definite or concrete. This short speech got me to stop the whole video watching and made me think for 30 min now. Still thinking. So infinite in terms of the great range he is covering in his speech. So touching. I’m open: if you’re shy to speak publicly, send me pm to share thoughts.
There is a longer version of the ending of his last lecture, printed in the book "Unanswered Question", as well as a longer audio version recording that is 15 minutes in length, in which Bernstein talks about Tonality, after "Oedipus Rex", When Stravinsky 's style changed to Schoenberg's atonal style after Schoenberg's 1951 passing, plus another issues when Stravinsky stopped composing and passed on in 1971, which brought Tonality back to the forefront of music.
Tonality is just a definition. Almost all music is "tonal" in the sense that they are built around a known set of sounds and following a particular type of rules. When you hear the Ugarit song, made mor than 3400 years ago, you feel some tonality, although not the same a Bach or Haydn used for their works. In that sense, I agree with Bernstein. There is a central uniform and natural set of rules where soon or later, the music will go, and this repeats from time to time in history.
„by the nature of its sources tonal...“ Then the sources are the human system of auditory perception starting with the ear and going deep into the brain.
I wonder what he would think about some of the completely incomprehensible trash that we sometimes get at a premiere performance. Well of course I know the answer to my own question because Bernstein was a genuine composer/musician not a charlatan.
tonality is NOT a system that exists in the natural order of frequencies. it is man made and has nothing to do with the "earth," which in its natural state is free from the human need to create a teleological meaning out of everything, including music.
I also believe along with Keats that the 'Poetry of Earth' is never dead, as long as spring succeeds winter & Man is there to perceive it. I believe, that from that earth emerges a Musical Poetry which is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources caused to exist a phonology of music which evolves from the Universal known as the Harmonic Series [ *spellbound*]
AND...there is alway room for discussion. Since when is ANYTHING in music right or wrong? If he didn't allow for discussion, I'd like to know how you know it.If you have an opinion you don't wishy-washy around.
Everyone here apparently has only listened to the most gutter music of the recent decades. Modern music grows more and more beautiful if you listen to the right artists. Tame Impala take you on a trip, Frank Ocean delivers feelings of love to all men and women gay or straight, Alex Turner has awed people with his lyricism. I just don't know what you guys are listening to that is all "ass ass ass ass" like cmon? Try to get out there a bit.
Matt Dunn lol some people just want to sound edgy as shit and so they keep on yapping about how they were born in the wrong generation and shit. Just ignore them
Well maybe because no one ever heard of them? I mean, turn on the radio for once or go in search of music and that's what you're gonna find. Numbers always shine more than quality hard work.
mmm Tame impala,bit shiny and vacuous,Frank Ocean would sound better if he didnt banaly rap over the top of it,and the AMs sounded more original before they went to America
All the theory in the world doesn't make you anything. music is ultimately about what's inside the person and getting that out in the form of music. if it's not about that , I fire you.
So , explaining the elements of music doesn't help people who want to express themselves do just that? That's like saying, just get out on the field and play football, or just go into the classroom and teach! Hundreds of years of experience and theory by damned! Yes, of course, human-to-human interaction is all about "what's inside the person," but please don't denigrate those to try to help us understand the essence, and the potential, of artistic expression.
@Strefanasha One wonders though, how Bernstein's own music makes for the greatest argument FOR 12 tone music(A Quiet Place; Mass; the Symphonies; and even West Side Story and Candide) . One of my favorite Composers George Rocheberg said "Atonal and tonal music are opposites... but see where they overlap." Rochberg, Bernstein, Copland, Berg, Carter, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, and countless others have extracted beauty from atonality, and dead end or not, that makes it worthwhile to me!
There is nothing is West Side Story that is not rooted in tonality. Perhaps a diversion into ambiguity now and then, but always with the ultimate tonal resolution to come. Listen to the very end (as Tony dies), where the bass stays on the same tone while the melody moves to what seems to be a higher key. High expectations anchored to horrible reality by that base note. Tell me how he could have possibly have accomplished that without universally-accepted tonality.
