Sketch No. 92, "On Schoenberg"

This piece uses the prime form {0 1 4} from the eighth movement of Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunnaire" and puts a lot of pseudo-variations on it. It uses the same instrumentation as "Nacht" (that movement) without the Sprechstimme voice. Sometimes I think the prime form is a little too on the nose but I think blends itself well to create its own aura of darkness. 

Great!

I think Schoenberg created wonderful rows, most time they had inner relationships.

The atmosphere here is well built. It sounds misterious to me. I like the way you explote the simple motive. Not sure if  octave doubling it's often done... I also like the "economy" in general, in the atonal style.

Monarcheon, I'll give you my 2c, even though this is not my favorite kind of music and I have zero experience with tone rows. It seems to be lacking an emotional arch and was too academic. I didn't hear the mystery that Luis spoke about. I think that you should post complete compositions and not just sketches because it's hard to comment on your intentions when it's only a sketch.

If the paradigm you're using is the deconstruction of traditional harmony by way of tone rows, then you need other methods, maybe rhythm, maybe register, to keep the listener interested. Most of this was in the same register. Maybe you were copying Schoenberg, I don't know.

There were some inconsistencies in the score that you might look at. Bar four has three very low notes. Bar five uses a different bass clef to denote the pitch. You should pick one or the other. Bar seven's right hand piano part is very clear, but the left is unclear with all those tied eighth notes. ???

1 minute ago, Ken320 said:

Monarcheon, I'll give you my 2c, even though this is not my favorite kind of music and I have zero experience with tone rows. It seems to be lacking an emotional arch and was too academic. I didn't hear the mystery that Luis spoke about. I think that you should post complete compositions and not just sketches because it's hard to comment on your intentions when it's only a sketch.

If the paradigm you're using is the deconstruction of traditional harmony by way of tone rows, then you need other methods, maybe rhythm, maybe register, to keep the listener interested. Most of this was in the same register. Maybe you were copying Schoenberg, I don't know.

There were some inconsistencies in the score that you might look at. Bar four has three very low notes. Bar five uses a different bass clef to denote the pitch. You should pick one or the other. Bar seven's right hand piano part is very clear, but the left is unclear with all those tied eighth notes. ???

 

I appreciate it, Ken! I think it's important to note that for "Nacht", Schoenberg did NOT use 12-tone rows, he simply reused motives in their prime form. 

The second paragraph there was indeed intended to keep the same sort of atmosphere as Schoenberg used in "Nacht", though I will concede that perhaps it was a little bit too much. For me, it was just using that prime form and permuting it correctly throughout.

The first thing you point out in terms of score is valid. The second is a technique used by Scelsi in occasions where the eighth note should be more pronounced than the grand bar itself (note: 8/8 instead of 4/4).

I tend to post sketches I consider complete works. In the pantonal repertoire, you'll see very, very short movements in comparison to what we think relatively as "classical music". For example, "Nacht", the piece this was based on is actually only about 10 seconds shorter than this piece. Webern's movements were also quite short, and while I can't say my pieces are as quality, I think they capture at least a bit of their essence. I personally believe that this piece was "finished" (though not without score errors).

Thanks, again! 

I am not very educated about atonal music, so there is not much I can say about technique. But I did like the piece, and can't say it bored me or lost my attention. I would agree with Luis about the dark atmosphere. In that way, it is a lot like what I've heard from Shoenberg and his cronies. It was the later atonal music that began to become emotionless and overly technical, with some exceptions. As far as I can tell, not very many composers are interested in that style of serialism anymore. 

Anyways, my point is that your sketch does create atmosphere for me and capture my attention, in that dark and strange way that the atonal style allows. 

26 minutes ago, fishyfry said:

It was the later atonal music that began to become emotionless and overly technical, with some exceptions.

Webern and Boulez are your guys for that. It's so different.

27 minutes ago, fishyfry said:

Anyways, my point is that your sketch does create atmosphere for me and capture my attention, in that dark and strange way that the atonal style allows. 

I'm happy! That's what I was going for. Listen to the original movement if you have time "Nacht" by Schoenberg, and spot similarities and differences.