Listening to Haydn and writing atonal music

[Franco]

I plan on spending the next year or so writing nothing but string quartets, or I should say, practicing writing string quartets, using Haydn as my guide.  I will be writing in a loose 12-tone style (using a series but not being 100% strict with it), while trying to use the formal structure of a Classical string quartet: 4 (or 3) movements, Allegro, Adagio, Menuet, Presto - total length about 20 minutes max. 

Haydn is what I consider a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Using the structure of the Sonata form will be interesting in a atonal style, and may not work - but it is where I will begin this exercise.

This kind of approach is usually frowned on by practitioners of atonal composition.

I was wondering if anyone had any insights to share.

[karlhenning]

I have no problem with listening to music of a very different aesthetic to that which I am writing.

[Franco]

I have no problem with listening to music of a very different aesthetic to that which I am writing.

Maybe I didn't choose a very good title for this thread, but, as helpful as your comment is, that's not what I was wanting help with - it was using the formal structure of a Haydn string quartet and attempting to put atonal music into it.  Is this intrinsically artificial?

[karlhenning]

I have no problem with it.  Is it artificial?  The making of art is artificial.

Using tonal musical models for atonal composition?  The man who brought us composition with twelve tones did it; so why not?

[DavidW]

The entire model of the classical string quartet revolves around pleasure from resolving dissonances.  Since 12 tone music is not about coming back home to so to speak, using forms built around that idea wouldn't make sense.  Now if you had something that was modestly atonal merely in the sense of having say two centers, maybe something could be done.

I don't know that's just my stupid ramblings.

[karlhenning]

That's just the rodent talking 

[Franco]

The entire model of the classical string quartet revolves around pleasure from resolving dissonances.  Since 12 tone music is not about coming back home to so to speak, using forms built around that idea wouldn't make sense.  Now if you had something that was modestly atonal merely in the sense of having say two centers, maybe something could be done.

That's certainly the tonal model.  

I would be using the model of motivic development, how the instruments interact, and the overall movement structure, Fast-Slow-Fast.  

For the tonal sonata form, the sections do progress from Tonic to Dominant and a recap to Tonic, but this idea could be transferred to an atonal setting using texture, or pitch range, along with thematic relationships to mimic the key progressions.  I would attempt to use the Sonata form as a "A-B-A" form with the A and B being distinquished by something other than 'key". (Karl, this was the artificial aspect I was thnking of.)

So, while I recognize the obvious problems, what gets my creative juices flowing is the challenge of tranferring the style to a 12-tone environment.

[DavidW]

Well that seems neat then.

[rappy]

Well, there's just nothing new about that 

(as Karl has already mentioned)

[Franco]

Well, there's just nothing new about that 

(as Karl has already mentioned)

It would be new for me.

[Joe Barron]

Maybe I didn't choose a very good title for this thread, but, as helpful as your comment is, that's not what I was wanting help with - it was using the formal structure of a Haydn string quartet and attempting to put atonal music into it.  Is this intrinsically artificial?

No more artificial than a late romantic composer like Brahms or Dvorak writing a standard four movement string quartet.

Schoenberg's first 12-tone piece, the Suite Op. 25, followed the pattern of a Bach partita. The individual movements are marked Präludium, Gavotte, Intermezzo, Minuett and Gigue. The structure of Berg's Wozzeck also had classical references. So the grandaddy's of 12-tone music certainly saw themnselves as continuing  the classical tradition. Rosen has compared the 12-tone system to neoclassicism in that it was an attempt to return music from the expressionist dependence text and programs to purely formal procedures. But then you knew that. 

My feeling is whatever inspires you is valid.

[karlhenning]

Easy, James.

Might as well say delve into Brahms - he was an all-consuming influence on Schoenberg's harmonic thinking.

In fact, better to say Brahms 

[karlhenning]

. . . on many counts 

[Franco]

Yes, Brahms is certainly a composer I look to for guidance.  His use of the forms is the best of the latter 19th century, IMO.

I am not really interested in the harmonic precursors to Schoenberg, as much as how later composers used the classical forms.

[Franco]

I've spent the last few days finding the tone series I will attempt to use for the first quartet.  I usually choose a series with tonal elements, triads, and this one is no different with two triads: F minor and E diminished chords at the beginning and end and two chords based on fourths in the middle.  I've sketched out the first 16 or so bars and what I've got so far is a Largo introduction that will then be followed by an Allegro 1st movement.  But I may end up throwing out everything I have, because what usually happens is after about 30 bars, I will stumble upon something which I decide makes a better way to begin and go from there ...

I'm happy with this process so far.

[Luke]

That's all true, James - and after all the title of the thread refers only to atonal music, in whose ancestry  Wagner certainly looms as large as you suggest he does. However, in its substance the thread appears to be discussing the classico-formal* implications of atonal harmony, the use of tone rows rather than the use of freely atonal procedures - and in these areas, certainly, Brahms with his enormous formal sophsitication and dazzling motivic intensity, was a much greater influence on Schoenberg than Wagner was. just FWIW




*apologies for neologism, feeling lazy today!

[karlhenning]

The major consideration in this thread, too, is Franco seeking a path to write something;  slinging around the name Wagner in the teeth of Franco's remarks elsewhere to the effect of less Wagner is better Wagner, thank you very much . . . seems tone-deaf.

Not that there is any incompatibility between tone-deafness, and enthusiasm for Wagner 

[Franco]

Oh, I took James' remarks as being a humorous interjection, and actually agree that Schoenberg was influenced by Wagner - but that has nothing to do with what I'm interested in right now.  The Gurrelieder is Wagnerian, but not the kind of Schoenberg I am most interested in listening to.

[karlhenning]

Oh, I took James' remarks as being a humorous interjection, and actually agree that Schoenberg was influenced by Wagner - but that has nothing to do with what I'm interested in right now.  The Gurrelieder is Wagnerian, but not the kind of Schoenberg I am most interested in listening to.

[karlhenning]

Yea.. even in the earlier works (i.e.1st String Qrt) reflects his love of Brahms's "classical discipline", conservative piece but forward-looking. And in Transfigured Night he manages a sort-of reconcilation between Brahms & Wagner; the lyricism, instrumentation and sheer tunefulness reflect the influence of the former, while it's chromaticism & overall construction bear the marks of the latter.

So despite their reputation, the 2nd Viennesse School (Schoenberg, Berg & Webern) did not turn their back on the past at all. The 12 tone system of composition was not a negation of tonality, but its logical development. Most easily apparent in Schoenberg & Berg especially. As Boulez said of Berg "feels the attraction of the distant future, but is still tied to the recent past".

In all events, Boulez's "scorched earth" musical theory was kinda cute at the time, but it is both inartistic and wilfully dense.