Boulez: "Notations I-IV" 1/3

Pierre Boulez: "Notations I-IV" (part one) Boulez conducting a rehearsal of his composition with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• modern
• 12
• twelve
• tone
• serial
• serialism
• dodecaphonic

[scienceofengineering]

this is not the death of musical progression. You need to study post-romantic and modern music before you can make an accusation like that. or just don't listen to it. problem solved!

[joebassplayer]

@laurion69 go and listen to some pop then...

[sieracki001]

THis is not shocking music if you are even remotely familar with the Rite of Spring and other 20th century classics. A lot of the music here owes a lot to Stravinsky.

[cincijazzdrummer]

@MaestroTJS No but thank you for putting it in words exactly what frusturated me as well but i didn't know how to say i should take it to them though.

[MaestroTJS]

@cincijazzdrummer It always amuses/frustrates me when people in the status quo establishment don't actually realize they ARE the status quo establishment now (i.e., this happens in things other than music also) and still think they're on the fringes of new and cool.

I'm curious: have you or fellow students ever mentioned that to any of your professors?

[cincijazzdrummer]

Personaly i like the music. It sounds great. and i dont' think this school or any shcool ruined classical music. I think it was individuals from classical music started writting experimental "dissonant shocking music" for the sake of being out there with out any real feeling. I think if your going to write that kind of music thats fine, but make sure its what you really want to hear and write. most young composers now only write like that because they think its whats exceptable.

[cincijazzdrummer]

@MaestroTJS Your very right as a composer going to school for composition i do feel very forced to stay away from any form of tonality, and use only weird dissonant sounds. I don't have a problem with being different but Avant garde is no longer avante garde that envelope has been open and it shocked people yada yada now its time to move on. People still write music like this as if its still 1960 and its boring.

[PAPABEARSMUSIC]

Boulez walks down a road few would dare. He and Zappa both hung out by idiots,so what, I avoid the silly argumentsenjoy Boulez, Zappa and a bit of Dockstader.

[MaestroTJS]

@austerity101 I haven't shifted my argument; rather, I've had to clarify things because you have not read my responses closely in the first place. While some of what I've said may not have much to do with the video, it does follow from the previous responses (before yours) to which I was responding.

I haven't come across his recantation, but I'll take your word that he did recant. (Not that that changes my mind for the length of time he did believe what he said, though.)

[austerity101]

@MaestroTJS Boulez isn't a fascist and he supports many forms of musical expression that he finds valuable. He has never gone out of his way to squelch other forms of expression--he simply ignores them. Again, he made an infamously narrow statement that he later recanted.

If your issue is with schools that teach a certain way, bring it up with them--it has nothing to do with these videos directly. You've shifted your argument far too many times over the course of this discussion already.

[MaestroTJS]

@austerity101 You're right, this is but one, and that's fine. If people want to write or enjoy this music, far be it from me to stop them. I may have strong opinions about it, but I'm not a fascist. (I'll leave that to guys like Boulez.)

But I do dislike and disagree with composition schools that force a mode of composition on students and that mode is usually avant-garde.

[austerity101]

@MaestroTJS There's no "correctly" about this, however. 

If your issue is that you feel that this misrepresents classical music, that is your own problem. In this world are many veins of expression; this is but one of them.

To be fair, Boulez did once famously make a remark about dodecaphonic music being the ultimate musical direction, but he has since recanted. Indeed, this work exploits some of his far more improvisatory gestures and ideas of motivic expansion more so than serialism.