Listening to Schoenberg's "Tonality"

While studying the works of Arnold Schoenberg I was reminded of the numerous people who have said something along the lines of: “it doesn’t even sound like music, my 6 year old can go bang on the piano and make sounds like this…” Of course, we have all heard something similar to this kind of a statement with respect to modern visual art such as the Jackson Pollack piece submit to you below.



Jackson Pollack, Lavender Mist (1950)
Original URL: http://2modern.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/jackson_pollock_1.jpg

But is it true? Does Schoenberg’s style really constitute “just noise” or does it speak to something higher in the way we think of “tonal” music? Before I embark on my short answer to this question, let us first take in a documentary put out by the Arnold Schoenberg Society explaining his “tone-row” system. Schoenberg was hardly the first to do this, there were several composers working on similar approaches to composition at the same time as, or before Arnold, however; it can be safely said that Schoenberg’s was the most elegant system.


Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dOI2MtvbA

This video makes some very worthwhile points about Schoenberg as a composer, namely his desire for his music to be considered as aesthetic works not purely mathematical puzzles to be sorted out. Ironically, that is precisely the process we as music theorists/historians take with the great composer J. S. Bach whose chorales first year theory students arduously pore over in order to learn the methods of voice leading, non-chord tones and functional harmony. In short, most masterworks tend to have some kind of scientific or analytical basis; otherwise it would be a work of pure randomness. This is why the six year old child is not able to write music like Schoenberg, because there is a governing theoretical basis to the process of composition. If the 6 year old’s banging sounds like Schoenberg to a listener, that cannot be the fault of Schoenberg any more than people who use the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” in order to describe how every language other than their native one sounds the same. The problem is not with the languages, the inability to distinguish is wholly on the part of the listener.

Now, let us turn to what Glen Gould has to say about Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Listen especially to the Alban Berg Sonata 1 excerpt that Gould plays around 3:20, hear how tonal it really is. Quite Neo-Romantic in a way:



Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhKWTVTl5Y4


Finally, I would like to leave you with an explanation and performance by one of my favorite pianists; Mitsuko Uchida. Ms. Uchida is so eloquent in her speech of explaining Schoenberg as an artist and you can tell she has a genuine admiration for the man. She also corroborates what has been said about Schoenberg by the likes of Leonard Bernstein and Robert Morgan; that he loved music and he loved his German-speaking homeland (he was never fully accepted by either during his lifetime). During her performance please look at the expressiveness on her face; it would be very hard to fake that kind of enthusiasm. Certainly she is feeling something profound while playing the work; perhaps by listening to it with an open mind we could feel the same experiences.



Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWRttCo7lo


Works Cited:

http://2modern.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/jackson_pollock_1.jpg. Retrieved October 19, 2009. Provided Jackson Pollack image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dOI2MtvbA. Retrieved October 19,2009. Provided video documentry on 12-tone composition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhKWTVTl5Y4. Retrieved October 19, 2009. Provided Glen Gould Footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWRttCo7lo. Retrieved October 19, 2009. Provided Mitsuko Uchida footage.