Frederic Rzewski performing Four Pieces for Piano (excerpt)

Frederic Rzewski perfoming Four Pieces for Piano (excerpt) Hertz Hall, June 8, 2007

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Rzewski
• piano

[friendlybipolarbear]

I can't understand how people cannot enjoy modern music. It is a direct response to the compositional environment, just as every other style period has been. Twelve-tone was a response to the atrocities of WWII. Rzewski's late work is a response to the world making less and less sense to him. I have been in a masterclass with him when he said, to paraphrase, "Why would I want to make music that makes sense when none of the world makes sense. It is not a true reflection." Rzewski is amazing

[outis1953]

Why do so many of these comments degenerate into nastiness? Live and let live, listen and let listen, and try to imagine that maybe your own limitations are at fault if you can't enjoy something that many other people genuinely enjoy.

[remork138]

@JohnEBPiano: The range of emotion is not expanded in atonal music?

maybe yours isn't, but i'd appreciate it if you speak for yourself on this one.

to each his own.

[JohnEBPiano]

@friendlybipolarbear I find it hard to believe twelve tone was a responce to the atrocities of WWII when it's history of use dates back to 1921. Did the world make so much sense in the nineteenth century? Were there not atrocities then? The atonal music of today emerged from a notion that music must constantly evolve, whether or not this notion is true I do not know, but I am almost certain that what I hear in this video cannot be music. The range of emotion is NOT expanded in atonal music.

[Malaka57]

@friendlybipolarbear It must have been a great master class. Rzewski is one of my all time favorites. And I agree with you.... modern music has to be listened to. The more we do it, the easier it becomes to understand.... but our society goes in the other direction. We want simple and standard and boring (but loud and electronically amplified).

Just a note.... you mean World War One, surely. Schoenberg began developing 12-tone in 1921. Have a Nice Day

[joshisanonymous]

@friendlybipolarbear I think you mean "modernist" music? Anyway, the twelve-tone technique was developed long before WWII broke out and even if it did have anything to do with WWII that would still have absolutely no bearing on whether people should enjoy it or not. You might as well be saying that every piece of art based on anything in the world must be enjoyable to everyone. Clearly, that's an absurd statement for numerous reasons. Not that I don't enjoy modernism...

[mikern2001]

He had to have the music, so he wouldn't miss a note.

[friendlybipolarbear]

Sorry, ran out of room. I just wanted to say that I do agree with your opinion of art approaching a higher plane. But I also think that beauty can exist in non-sensical music and sounds. So I guess I am on the fence, but I just wanted you to know that I appreciated your comment. Much peace.

[friendlybipolarbear]

You are correct. Twelve tone was around before WWII, and I may have phrased that inappropriately. I was simply referring to the idea that 12 tone worked to reflect society, such as the emancipation of the dissonance and restructuring of intervallic material. I guess what I was trying to say is that 12 tone was a musical language that allowed for a response to the atrocities of WWII. I have always thought about how European cultures steeped in beautiful music could create social atrocity.