@@colossaltitan3546 i was about to say, its not like the judges are actually reading this music, play some quiet notes and some loud notes with some made up rhythms and you're good to go. i would have hated to have been shoenberg's transcriber
@@RustyDodd well the thing with schoenberg is his serialist style actually has a distinct style, even though you technically could make rows with certain intervals for example thirds, he avoided them, accidentally play too many of those and a distinction in style would be pretty obvious to judges
@@Lalulalala824 it was a huge motivator for music in the 20th century to evolve past tragedy and victory since the n@zis kept using it as a tool for manipulation and propaganda
@@f.p.2010and this was written in the early 1920s, literally nothing to do with the nazis, he is using a new compositional technique to push past the boundaries of the tonal system and that’s all there is to it really
I love how his compositions blur away the melodic content and help listeners and performers gain clarity on musicality as a whole: contrasts in rhythmic phrasing, dynamic interests, "percussive" attacks on notes, and the rise and fall of general phrasing. All of these elements are what comprise a great piece of music for the performer and listener.
Not only do you have to respect the strange artistry of these compositions, but also the emotianlity which encapsulates the anxiety and terror of nazi germany
***** Thanks, but I actually don't record most of what I play, especially the things I work on for months or years. Ha, funny you bring up the berceuse. I just about deleted it but decided not to. Easily my worst :) and I can't afford to tune my piano too often, unfortunately.
I was so surprised at how much this music relaxed me. Following the score, I was able to detach from everything else around me, like reading a book, yet not needing to understand what I was reading, just to feel it. I really needed this today.
I grew up on Pollini's recording of the Suite for Piano. This is a worthy performance. Boffard is perhaps a little more sensitive than Pollini. They each bring out different aspects of the Suite. This recording is, for me, a revelation. I admit I have listened to Pollini for so long that I thought it was 'definitive'. Now I know it is not.
I know how you feel. I grew up with the Paul Jacobs and it's hard to shake the first wonderful interpretations of a piece such as this monumental achievement.
Gould was horrible! His Bach is divine...but he butchered Ravel, Berg and everyone else he turned his hand to. There's nothing wrong with Pollini but this recording is also fabulous.
@@geraintdavies4694 Oh come on. Gould doesn't butcher anything. If you don't prefer his interpretations that's fine. I actually like them, not always my favorites but his playing is impeccable and he's doing what he wants to do and he makes the listener think and hear the music in a different way, many times for the better.
Women are Objects Stockhausen is one of the great composer's, I definitely recommend checking him out. Some of his work is definitely more intense, dissonant and chaotic (intentionally) than Schoenberg could ever hope for, after all Schoenberg was just a romantic composer
@@JohnSmith-iu3jg answering 2 years later because my comment got hearted. I didn't mean the playfulness as a bad thing but rather just a thing. It's very musical and playful at the same time as being harmonically harmonically dense. Same as John Coltrane's Giant Steps. That being said I should listen to Stockhausen I still haven't haha
I wanted to thank you for sharing this particular recording. I think it's incredibly compelling and shows a great attention to formal aspects that aren't as apparent in recordings by other great pianists. I've also had a very hard time getting access to this recording anywhere else and I might have never heard it if you hadn't shared it. Bravo.
The first glimmer of appreciation for music like this is a sense of relief, a vacation from the tried and tired walls and gravity tonality, as though it were mundane life, beautiful and enduring in itself, but something from which we realize we have been longing to find respite from, however brief, even if only to catch our breath.
I love this piece. Schoenberg is a legit genius, and it's cool if you don't dig it. The great thing about that, is you can just listen to something else. Schoenberg's main problem, from a popularity standpoint, is that it's hyper-conscious, its pleasure requires a specific kind of paying attention. Which makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Don't hate if you don't like it. No one thinks they are better than you for liking Schoenberg. Or if they do, they are not worth wasting your breath. But it's naive to think that this is noise or nonsense or that a child could come close to replicating it.
@@johannkaribaldursson215 Either you don't mean that or you are not listening. You aren't wrong that there's some of that spirit of play and spontaneity. Unpredictability. But it's still an articulate and hyper organized version of that. The tempo is not erratic. And listen, when you are trained, it's incredibly difficult to avoid the patterns and resolves. Even if you don't enjoy it, it's a marvel of composition. I personally find it meditative. It avoids all the known pathways that western music follows. There are times when its all I can listen to. Only so much C-D tension resolving to G one can stand. You do you. But saying that it sounds the same as a child banging on a piano, compliment though it would be in some ways, just doesn't match whats happening. It is hyper specialized music for musicians though its kind of true.
@@heathflagtvedt5769 It doesn't "avoid all the known pathways that western music follows." It rejects some ideas about harmony inherent in almost all music (including non-western music.) Everything else (including many other aspects of harmony) are at most incrementally modified compared to almost all modern classical music, (such as Schoenberg's tonal works.)
@@marcusvaldes Lol thats a perfect response though! we dont need to debate what we like or dislike so much. Plenty of music out there for you to enjoy? do you like tarregas? david russell kills it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LhVPTSh5YHM.html
По-видимому вы в теме. Посоветуйте пожалуйста ещё яркие образцы его додекафонии ...... , я кажется нащупал корень арт-рока ! 🎹 С Благодарностью из Украины.
12-tone music, you have to follow the row but you’re allowed to repeat one or two notes immediately. Feels like an arbitrary effect, but it’s at least something to listen for.
What a fantastic performance of this incredible piece. I played portions about 30 years ago now and still hum parts (that's right) - full of melody and such piquant rhythmic and harmonic moments. Not a SINGLE tiresome moment.
@@otonanoC Not necessarily. Firstly, there are more than one type of 'harmony', and even the term itself can be fraught with subjective interpretation of what constitutes 'harmonising' relationships. However, if you're working from a definition of harmony which is directly associated with the lineage of Western 'tonality' [ - 'tonality' also being a potentially subjective term!] from say, Palestrina, to Bach, to Beethoven, to Wagner, to Debussy, to jazz, blues, rock, pop, country, etc, then yes - there is an obvious set of differences. However, some of those differences are 'structural', as in, they are inherently different due to the different structural parameters governing serial practice, and traditional or contemporary 'tonal' practice. However, there are numerous areas of potential commonality between them - but the key word is 'POTENTIAL', and that potential must be TAPPED!. Many, perhaps most, examples of serial composition which inform our perception of the 'practice', were associated with 'anti-tonal' perogatives, which were ADOPTED, yet presumed as being synonymous with serial practice. However, 'anti-tonality', or so-called 'atonality', do not have to be, and are not necessarily, associable with SERIAL STRUCTURE, with regard to its formal parameters and protocols, its structural principles. Several 20th C composers already proved this by incorporating 'tonal' elements into their serial approach, including Schoenberg himself (eg. in "Ode To Napolean"), as well as (famously) his student, Alban Berg, and later composers such as American, George Rochberg. However, I would put to you that even these composers barely scratched the surface of how traditional & contemporary tonal elements and principals can be fused with serial structure, or how serial structure can be approached and extended so as to develop 'tonality', and associated 'harmony' from its structural parameters. Essentially, serialism is somewhat algorithmic, and if you look into the work of composer/theorist David Cope, you will find a lot of research into how formulae produce repeatable results, and how this can apply even to traditional musical language and style, so that formulae can 'recreate' Mozart. However, the typical ('classical') approach to 12 tone serialism may not be able to produce 'Mozart' per se, yet it can produce its OWN type of 'tonality', as was discovered and championed by Josef Hauer (even before Schoenberg had solidified HIS concept of dodecaphonic serialism), as well as communicate typical, or atypical 'tonal' relationships and effects. Don't forget too, that serialism, even strictly formulaic applications of it, does not have to be dodecaphonic (12-tone), but may be applied to ANY group of notes, be it the major scale, a dominant seventh chord, the minor pentatonic, and so on. Any of them can be 'serialised'. Stravinsky famously applied serial principles to rows of four or five notes. Also, many of the 479, 001600 possible 12-tone rows inevitably contain such scalar/chordal entities as segments/portions, which can be exploited as separate tonal entities in applications of rows. The main point I'm making to you in this detailed reply is that many roads can be taken, and just as Wagner and Mahler showed that the diatonic scale and traditional tonal relationships could be manipulated within a chromatic environment to the point of extreme ambiguity and/or dissonance, so too can serial schemata be designed and/or exploited to promote consonance and tonal relationships. This is a current undertaking in my own compositional practice, and I'm discovering all sorts of possibilities by open-mindedly applying, both, tonal and algorithmic logic to very strict serial formulae. It's fun, and the music is proving the possibility of the two paradigms being united.
Quarter of a million listeners!!Schoenberg would be enchanted.I think, Steuermann, too.And I love this performance,too.I had the great pleasure of hearing Boffard in a stunning recital in Berlin's Musikfest in September 2018 I studied with one of Schoenberg's assistants and gifted student of Steuermann, Emil Danenberg.I played the Opus 23 at a recital in Berlin and Amsterdam...in 1983... and live on one of the three streets Schoenberg lived in his Berlin years..Boffard is .a great musician and pianist of !As has been commented in the Comments here far better than more 'famous' colleagues...c'est la vie....!
For me, nothing sounds academic in this suite; except perhaps the very beginning of he gavotte. Schoenberg applies to the series of 12 notes all the resources of his musical imagiination. I feel this suite easier to listen than say the perfectly tonal op. 9 and its dense contrapunctal effects rendrerd by a chamber orchestra. I would even sat that the pays betxeen a cell and its invesrion sound nice in that context.
@@johnappleseed8369 I think what he means is it is surprisingly, exceptionally imaginitive, playful and explorative despite the limitations of a compositional technique we might consider the pursuit of a serious minded intellectual more interested in theories than the living soul of existence
Both kammersymphonies are IMO, unsung masterpieces of the 20th Century, but the first was the subject of my favorite bad review of a classical work- "one long, 20-minute wrong note."
I enjoyed reading the comments. Thank you very much. This work will be forever memorable as the first 12-tone work. I think String Quartet No. 2 is historically much more important ...
I was trained that the entirely complete twelve tone piece was the piece that came after this The Woodwind Quintet. This piece was his Swan Song from tonality. Nevertheless the journey from Opus 1 forward to opus 25 was totally amazing as well as organic. Everyone should try this trip through his entire opus' and witness how his language logically developed unlike his successors. Whoops did they all forget he was the creator of this concept. He was so nice not to make it too complicated however the result was too complicated for the listeners to understand.
Couldn't really find a way to get into this for the first few minutes, but I feel like I got it by the end. It's basically an exhibition of the percussion side of the piano. An awesome one, at that. It's using everything EXCEPT harmonies to move you.
Yes, the rhythm is vivid, and important to the character of the piece, but as for 'not' employing harmonies, that is a misunderstanding, since the serial structure ensures the presence of a specific TYPE of harmony. True, the piece is not built from standard tertian chords derived from the major scale, but there are 'harmonies' other than those. This piece demonstrates 'other' types of harmony characteristic of chromatic aggregates (all available twelve notes one after another) in a fixed, repeating order (a 'tone-row'). Essentially, 'sitting on a piano' will create a 'harmony', but it may not be what you are able to musically 'hear', or it just may not be what you 'like'. Schoenberg had a gift for creating rhythmic interest, but harmony was his true field of expertise, and he did not abandon that connection to it, he just reworked it into the serial framework.
Having read Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony from front to back, my opinion is that, faced with ever more chromatic music being written in the Vienna of 1908-1910, Schoenberg developed the 12-tone formalism, not to break the system, but on the contrary, to put some order into the chaotic direction that music was evolving into. In a sense, he needed structure (reminiscent of Brahms’ FAF, “frei aber froh”).
I think he mentioned 4 types of harmonic structure somewhere in the modulation chapter (tonal center, free floating tonality etc.) and seeing that alot of composers went for free floating tonality without a clear center he went as a consequence of that for the last step which is deliberately avoiding harmonic movements and reorganizing the entirity of the chromatic scale
I think the "systemization" of atonality in the twelve-tone method was an after-the-fact rationale. The fact is, the entire Second Viennese School were having difficulty crafting longer-form pieces with the same intense concentration as their free-atonal miniatures. The twelve tone method made longer forms more approachable by winnowing the compositional choices. Tellingly, after having adopted the method, Schoenberg immediately set about pouring the duodecaphonic wine into Neoclassical casks.
@@DeflatingAtheism Very interesting! But don't you think both reasons played a role? I think there's no logical reason free atonality couldn't go with large forms
@@hippotropikas5374 oh free atonality definitely can go w larger forms, Schoenberg's Erwartung is an example, but that's one of the few examples bc writing long-form pieces in that style is just really damn hard
Não é uma criança desajeitada tentando tocar piano, é um desmantelamento da própria ideia de que possa haver um significante-mestre musical (um princípio ordenador que guia a experiência auditiva), um movimento que Zizek argumenta ser emblemático do mundo pós moderno em geral.
Years ago, I spent a weekend at a friend's house in Hartford with Yvar Mikashoff who, at the time, was learning Op. 25, and having a rough time of it. Not the world's greatest memorizer, he could hardly get the piece into his head, much less his hands. He was an intuitive player (the technique took care of itself) and found very little to grab on to. I don't know if he ever programmed it. In this superb performance, the Suite reveals itself as charming and humorous, yet still remote.
I actually enjoy listening to this. I think it has an interesting sound. I understand the concepts behind this music, but I still listen to it for pleasure and not academically.
No, it isn't. Just because music has something in common with language doesn't make music a language. If music could convey objectivity like language can, you'd have a more cogent point.
Schoenberg had to be such a genius, the rythmes are so catchy and original and it makes (along with the structure) the pieces good and not sounding like a total mishmash, even despite using dodecaphony!
I like this. But probably wouldn't remember anything about it unless I heard it a lot of times. And I don't think I would say I necessarily "understand" the language of it, if that's even the purpose, maybe it's not. It's like a person with no language doing a lot of intentional sounds and gesticulations, you can tell they are trying to express something with a lot of nuances but you can't really interpret what they mean precisely, and there's a slight chance they might just be crazy and it's all meaningless.
It's quite easy to understand the idea behind it. It's based on 12 notes, so you must compose using every single one of them to make a 12 tone row. Then and only then you can repeat the first note. To make things more interesting and adding variations you can play your row backwards, this is called the retrogade; or you can invert the intervals, meaning that if you went up a minor third you must go down a minor third; there's also the inverted retrogade and finally you can transpose your row. The notes can be also played harmonicaly. And that's pretty much how it goes.
I do wish I understood. From what I gather in the comments, if you know the theory, or just get it intuitively, this is actually highly structured music and demonstrates a magnificent access to its deeper levels. I hate to be so obvious by saying so, but it just doesn't give me any pleasure as a lay listener. I could maybe compare it to those who read favorite writers of mine, like Lispector, Rulfo, Ashbery, Krasznahorkai, Anne Carson, Can Xue, etc. who might similarly feel like they've run up against something opaque, joyless, or willfully meaningless. Whereas I see great beauty and insight in their works. I'm glad this exists, but I regret my own ears.
Music should never require theory knowledge to be enjoyed - music theory should deepen the enjoyment, but not be a requirement. Otherwise it becomes a dry academic exercise which computers can easily create, and the composer can feel like a misunderstood genius ahead of his time.
you're right. This work is Schoenberg's experimental work. So it's natural that you can't understand. Please listen to the piano work before Op.24. Or listen to Piano Concerto Op.42. Even if you don't understand them, you'll love them.
As a musical student I enjoy listening to this but not casually This makes me confused and I imagine a lot of situations where these themes could fit in, but it's mainly chaos and weirdness
don't try to "understand" it, just listen to it a few times and let your ear explore the music. If you get familiar with the piece (aurally), then you will be able to wrap your head around the structure of the piece eventually.
The great thing about this performance is how you hear the influence of Prokofiev (think Vision Fugitives) in Schoenberg's piano orchestration and the differing articulations of different lines. Although the language is very much Schoenberg's, the piano coloring (for lack of a better term) is much of its time and like a good deal of Prokofiev's piano music, transcends it.
Quite happy leaving twelve tone composition to the historical footnote it sits in. Perhaps music was meant to "go through" this experimental phase, in which case, I'm glad it came out the other side. :-)
Isn't it funny that when people don't understand a piece of music, it becomes automatically trash, degenerated, painful, worthless, waste of time, and so on and so forth...? Nice comments, by the way
Richard Laforest Kid's internet culture that has spread to adults too. They demand instant gratification and then stamp their feet when they don't get what they think they want within 15 seconds
What I meant is simply that in my opinion, people who usually say that this piece of music, (such as Schoenberg's for example) is trash, might be because of a lack of musical education.
@@BioChemistryWizard that makes no sense... schoenberg's music is filled with many repeating elements and underlying elements that raise questions which I personally think are cool... just because it doesn't sound good to you doesn't make it music for people with bad taste...
What I like about the Piano Suite--and what makes it easier listening than other piano works of Schoenberg--is the strong rhythmic element, with lively syncopations.
How does one begin to listen to this? sincere question, as I don't know how to listen to any music. If I listen to something enough, then I can begin to enjoy, but getting there is a trial.
It is amazing to me how this piece has grown on me. When I first heard it many years ago as a teenager, I thought it was impossible to understand much less enjoy. Today I find it not only understandable but completely enjoyable. People whose tastes don't go beyond "Stairway to Heaven" will probably never learn to appreciate it, but this is one of the real works of genius in the history of music.
I respect your opinion. But I find very annoying that for some Schoenberg fans one cant just dislike his music without being called ignorant. There are many cultivated classical music listeners who just dont like his music. I think its almost a crime to compare Schoenberg with any great composer. I have even heard some crazy fanatics placing Schoenberg above Beethoven and calling him the greatest ever. However I dont underestimate the perception and musical culture of his fans. I respect their opinion and perhaps some day I will find something enjoyable in his music, which I seriously doubt. So dont dismiss those who dont like his music.
@@Guillermopianista If you think Schönberg fans are dogmatic, try Bach fans. Heaven forbid someone doesn't like Bach, he must be either musically illiterate or stupid. Besides, the opposite applies as well, namely that people who don't like Schönberg accuse his fans of being posers who only pretend to like his music to appear cultured.
The cost of understanding art is always a type of alienation. Laymen expect art to magically conform to the expectations one holds in the mind, but the reality is that great art is something worth altering the state of your mind for. You adapt to it or you don't. Adaptation is always alienation from those unworthy or unwilling to do so themselves.
toothless toe Okay, it takes a genius to write it, but to most people, it sounds like an infant wrote it. Is that better? Actually, now that I think of it, Picasso said he spent his entire adult life trying to learn how to paint like a child again.
+Maestro_T No, it's not better. An infant can't do anything other than to eat, drink, shit, and cry. Your statement would make more logical sense if you said this sounds like a child made it. However, you'd still be wrong, because I know what a child would write and it wouldn't remotely come close to the complexity exhibited in this composition. If Schoenberg's goal was to get his music to sound childish (not the pejorative childish), he utterly failed in that regard.
toothless toe Do you really think Picasso meant he wanted to paint exactly like a child? I think he was referring to the freedom, imagination, and creativity a child's mind has, not inhibited by conventions and traditions that one picks up over years of formal training--not losing the other abilities and depth one picks up as an adult. Do his paintings look like a child did them? Obviously not. Anyway, the point is that to a lot of people, probably most, this sounds like a bunch of messing around that a child would do. That doesn't mean they're right. (It also doesn't mean this is a great aesthetic either just because it's so unconventional, incidentally, regardless of how genius it might be.)
"It also doesn't mean this is a great aesthetic either just because it's so unconventional. . ." If one thought this music was great just because it's unconventional, he/she would be a pretentious, ostentatious shitbag.
this very nice music, it showes the richness of nature, the hidden order in the wilderness, no chaos, only for a straight thinking human being it doesn't want to be understood. Change your perspective, a little closer, a step back and you wil dicover the beauty. It is no musical fastfood your ears can chew at a boring rainy afternoon, or during brain melting sun bath on July beach.
Honestly, I like it very much... It's atonal but, it works... As if the protagonist wasn't the harmony itself, but the rhythm, pitch range and melodic lines! Yeah, I like this. ❤
For those people calling this "Trash" or saying "This is random banging" , consider this section of Chopin's sonata written in 1844. Even this early we can see composers putting in sections of music that avoid tonality with the intent of creating a sense of chaos. watch?v=xGJxmCOPFVM?t=270 Schoenberg's Suite op25 is what happens when you go as far away from harmony as is possible.
Although different in a lot of ways, and not necessarily a rejection of tonality, Beethovens "Grand Fugue" was also a suggestion of the desire for order, even at the expense of traditional understanding of the average ear. Under the seemingly confusing outside, there is a very intriguing and complex inside, similar to this. Composers have been doing that stuff for years.
@@dpetrov32 Well, not really, according to Schoenberg. Schoenberg recognized that modernism may give rise to legitimate randomness and simply creates a way to avoid tonality and maintain order. He uses a 12 tone scale system that makes sure that there is musical democracy, along with certain rules about where high and low notes are placed. Theoretically, can modernism devolve into something completely random? The answer to that is probably yes, you have composers like John Cage who used to VERY heavily push the boundaries of music to its absolute limit (listen to his "Water Walk" or "4:33", both as live performances since the audience is "part of the music", and personally I think it occasionally gets too far out there for my taste), but in regards to Schoenberg, I say that it isnt infinite. Plus, even if there was no order, and the notes themselves were random, he maintains the use of rhythms that it some way mobe the music in a direction, even if the direction is unknown.
I can't say I enjoy Schoenberg's early 12-tone works that much - I have various issues with the 12-tone system (other than "it doesn't sound good"). That generally includes this piece, but I must say that this performance pulls it off surprisingly well. I can't say I'm loving it, but I don't hate it and I'm almost enjoying it. I will say, I do enjoy Schoenberg's tonal works a lot (that first string quartet!) and some of his later 12-tone works (the concerti).
Coming back here three years later to say, I still don't love this piece. I've gotten to know more of Schoenberg's 12-tone stuff, but this still doesn't sound all that good to me. I feel like he might have been trying a bit too hard with some of the rhythms (it comes across that way to me at least). To clarify: I often say that the only thing that changed in Schoenberg's music before and after the 12-tone system was how he dealt with harmony (or lack thereof), but looking at this piece in particular, I can't say it looks like I'm right in this case. Also, the fact that the gigue is unrecognisable as a gigue, which, you know, doesn't help.
This is not atonal at all, it sounds great!! I don't know what people are on about, there are Brahmsian melodies and Bachian polyphony everywhere, it's beautiful! :)
I'm confused by your use of the word "atonal." It looks as though you regard it as a pejorative, when it's merely a technical description, akin to saying that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is in C Major. I share your enthusiasm for this work; it DOES sound great! But the fact is that Schoenberg wrote it in 12-tone technique, which he developed precisely to ensure that any piece written by this method would have no identifiable tonal center.
No, Schoenberg thought that atonality was impossible because of the inherent possibilities in any group of tones to create hierarchy. He didn't want to erase centers, but rather create new ways of centering.
Ben Schweitzer Correct, it only takes one to go through the music slowly to see the way the centers morph and shift, to create truly "atonal" music would require all the notes of every octave to be played simultaneously for the entire piece (which wouldn't be an interesting piece)
+Andrei Anghel I don't really recall anyone comparing this "trash" with the music of Bach. Even if anyone did, although such comparison would be silly, it wouldn't constitute an offense.
I think shoenberg, is enjoyable in the way that some people enjoy equations, and discussing complex math. It doesn't give direct screaming results like, rocket ship, or in this cas liszt or chopin, but for some people it may be even more enjoyable.
I also strongly resent this music (I love the romantic period), but it is anything but random. Just Google 'Dodecaphony'. Themes are also split or mixed up. Trust me, I even had the first bars of this Suite as part of my final music exam at a Bavarian High School.