Is Serialism Dead?

Obviously, you have not been involved in the conversation up until the post I quoted. The majority of that was directed at the crowd of people chiming in on Crt's side that serialism is no longer relevant or actively being pursued. The fact that you chimed in to voice your disinterest in the named serialists alligned you with that crowd.

No. I'm aligned with the "crowd" that flatly doesn't have any interest in pursuing serialism as an artistic goal. I'm not giving any opinion about it being "dead" or "alive". Let other composers be influenced by it or even put it into practice if they believe it's alive and worth further development. I'm not likely to follow suit, but since I'm already as irrelevant a composer as I can be, it's a moot point nonetheless.

I was expressing my frustration that someone who claims to be well informed on the modern music scene seemed to be confident in his assertion that there is not a single well known respected composer that specializes in serialism.

We all could see how good you are at expressing your frustration.

Besides, Bob, I'm pretty sure you're a pedophile.

Besides, Chris, I'm positively sure that, no matter how hard you try not to be a jerk, it's just beyond your reach. Better luck the next time.

No. I'm aligned with the "crowd" that flatly doesn't have any interest in pursuing serialism as an artistic goal. I'm not giving any opinion about it being "dead" or "alive". Let other composers be influenced by it or even put it into practice if they believe it's alive and worth further development. I'm not likely to follow suit, but since I'm already as irrelevant a composer as I can be, it's a moot point nonetheless.

 

We all could see how good you are at expressing your frustration.

 

Besides, Chris, I'm positively sure that, no matter how hard you try not to be a jerk, it's just beyond your reach. Better luck the next time.

I understand that you do not subscribe to the words of the opposing side of this discussion. However, you stepped into the middle of it and my comments were directed at the opposition as a whole, not specifically at you. I feel likeI already expressed that, but whatever. Everyone loves having arguments on the interwebs.

Your individual viewpoint seems much more reasonable than several other people. If I was wrong to quote you specifically as I replied to your comment as well as many others that preceded it then you have my apologies, Bob.

x

The most important question has to be "What is it time for now?" but never "What do I believe in?" because an artist must be passive, and react to the culture rather than trying to form the culture to himself. 

There is no answer to the question "what is it time for now?" If composing "new" music is contingent on receiving the most approval by the largest audience then you better get with the times and ask Taylor Swift for composing lessons buddy. 

x

And that is exactly what people seem to be doing - Steve Reich takes influence from electronic/hip-hop music, Turnage from jazz, Danielpour from classic rock, the list goes on. And people turn to more popular mediums (film, video games) for their audience. This isn't a new thing - in Bach's day the church was popular, so he wrote for the church. In Ravel's day, jazz was hip, so he borrowed from it. Takemitsu wrote hundreds of film scores. Franz Liszt was a womanizing superstar. I could keep going.

To thine own self be true.

Serialism was a fashion throughout 1950's. But when fashion dissapears, results of pure quality remain. Most of composers maintained dodecaphonic organisation of pitches later throughout 20th century but not other parameters to create purely serial works. And lots of them abandoned atonality from 1970's onwards. Peter Maxwell Davies writes in neoromantic style, so does Penderecki. Lutoslawski started to create ear-pleasant music in 1980's and used 12-tone dodecaphony less and less (although it never fully dissapeared - Lutoslawski is a rare true master of dodecaphony). Rautavaara made a huge turn in late 1960's to favour Romanticism - try his first piano concerto and cello concerto. Sallinen also became a Romantic composer - check his operas and symphonies. Also Joonas Kokkonen. John Adams used dodecaphony or a close-up to it as a style imitation (Chamber symphony, Harmonielehre, which is mostly eleventone music, not twelvetone) but it never became his frequent approach. Experimental composers (Messiaen, Cage, Globokar, Carter, Brown, also Stockhausen) began to explore other stuff: silence, aleatorics, theatre, metric problems and expansions, space. No dodecaphony nor serialism.

So again, with big letters so everyb(lo)ody will undestand: NAME SOME SIGNIFICANT COMPOSERS WHO HAVE BEEN WRITING SERIAL MUSIC IN LAST 30-40 YEARS, PLEASE. COMPOSERS OF REAL IMPORTANCE! THANKS!

This is likely to be my last post in forums for unknown time.

NAME SOME SIGNIFICANT COMPOSERS WHO HAVE BEEN WRITING SERIAL MUSIC IN LAST 30-40 YEARS, PLEASE. COMPOSERS OF REAL IMPORTANCE! THANKS!

I mean, I did. There was two big ones you have failed to address. And then I taunted you about it, remember? I saracastically said let's pretend like your point still stands.

Milton Babitt

Charles Wuorinen

 

Nah, let's ignore those names and pretend like your point still stands. It's not like they're pulitzer prize winning composers specifically noted for their adherence to serialism.

 

Oh, wait...

 

Bummer, indeed.

Unless, of course, pulitzer prize winning composers don't count as having real importance.

Composers like Brian Ferneyhough, Heinz Holliger, Wolfgang Rihm, Harrison Birtwistle and Hans Werner Henze have been building on the serial tradition during the last 40 years (in quite different ways—sometimes incorporating different influences as well). Traditions don't crystallise, they evolve. You can't claim Beethoven abandoned sonata form when he got rid of the repeats and put the second theme in the mediant and added an extra long coda.

Magnus Lindberg composed serial music between about 1975 and 1989, as did Esa-Pekka Salonen. They both became quite renowned during this time. Another well-known (underrated IMO) serial composer who died fairly recently is George Perle. And in Germany & Austria there are plenty of relatively minor composers still carrying on: Yörk Holler, Robert HP Platz, Johannes Schöllhorn, JM Staud etc.

This really is a tired argument. The answer depends upon how you define serialism. Personally, I like Milton Babbitt's definition:

It's not dead at all, there are still composers using the technique in their music. A lot of those composers are in academia and you are most likely to not be aware of them because they are protected behind the walls of music libraries and one bedroom apartments. The composer that uses serialism is still alive and thriving, yet to be extinct.

Also, the matrix can manipulate your melodies in unique ways and I encourage anyone to try serialism out :)

:D

After a year hiatus, it's nice to see people here arguing about the same scraggy. 

I concur that Charles Wourinen is the last best proponent of serial music, who specifically wrote serial music and has written a book on the subject. However, serial music composition these days is dated. Composers looking forward into the future are using technology and multi media along with software and computers (Max/Msp/Jitter). See below. The "gesture" has replaced the tone row as musical glue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqZNeDGmgVY&index=18&list=WL