Is classical music really better?

[Ploutos]

I think it can be said that Western music in general, including Medieval music, and folk music, developed in the consciousness of Christian teachings. Until well into the 1700s, Music Theory was half concerned with directly connecting everything in pitch and rhythm with numerical symbolism, particularly Biblical symbolism around the numbers 3 and 7. From the 1750s until 1900, they were concerned with the order of nature from a scientific perspective. They were very explicitly doing this from Guido of Arezzo to Paul Hindemith. That means that the system that underlies Classical music is in some sense tied to a Biblical view of the natural order. A case can be made that Schoenberg, and certain 20th century schools deliberately set out to attack this. Popular music is a mixed bag in terms of style.

Schoenberg simply codified postmodernism and moral relativism as a philosophical undergirding for music theory. "Emancipation of the dissonance" is nothing other than the music academy's version of the call to liberation and self-autonomy so common everywhere else in the 20th century. Tonality wasn't dead, but he and Webern did their best to kill it.

 

[TheBoringBaptist]

Schoenberg simply codified postmodernism and moral relativism as a philosophical undergirding for music theory. "Emancipation of the dissonance" is nothing other than the music academy's version of the call to liberation and self-autonomy so common everywhere else in the 20th century. Tonality wasn't dead, but he and Webern did their best to kill it.

How do you guys know so much about music?

 

[Ploutos]

How do you guys know so much about music?

The same reason I know so little about alligators with hats. I spend a lot of time listening to classical music, and very little time reading about alligators with hats.

 

[TheBoringBaptist]

The same reason I know so little about alligators with hats. I spend a lot of time listening to classical music, and very little time reading about alligators with hats.

I'm more talking about whether you went to school or specialize in something having to do with music? I can hardly keep up with the conversations, but I am left intrigued.

 

[cmiersma]

How do you guys know so much about music?

I have an MA in Music Theory from the University of Alberta.

 

[TheBoringBaptist]

I have an MA in Music Theory from the University of Alberta.

Neat. Is it possible to learn music theory if one is tone deaf? I would like to learn something of music. Or at least the making of music.

 

[Ploutos]

I'm more talking about whether you went to school or specialize in something having to do with music? I can hardly keep up with the conversations, but I am left intrigued.

I have some musical training in my past, but more to the point, it's probably inconsiderate of me to dive so deep into the rabbit hole when only a few other people on here will understand. Even most of my musician friends don't listen to as much classical music, or listen to it as obsessively, as I do. I will refrain (pun not intended) from going so heavy on the "in-house" speak - thanks for the tip-off, even though I know you probably didn't intend it that way.

 

[cmiersma]

I have some musical training in my past, but more to the point, it's probably inconsiderate of me to dive so deep into the rabbit hole when only a few other people on here will understand. Even most of my musician friends don't listen to as much classical music, or listen to it as obsessively, as I do. I will refrain (pun not intended) from going so heavy on the "in-house" speak - thanks for the tip-off, even though I know you probably didn't intend it that way.

Point well taken. Without delving into too much detail, and to answer the main thrust of the original post, I think it can be said that the system underlying Classical music was developed primarily by church musicians who consciously sought to incorporate religious symbolism in their music from about 900 AD to 1700. During the period most Classical music was written (1700-1900), various people were using science to prove that the order the church musicians had developed was in fact embedded in the nature of sound itself, so that it can be said to be something created by God and discovered, not merely a human invention under God's providence. Starting around 1900, various people have more or less deliberately attacked that order in their music. The attack has been particularly deliberate in the academic circles I spent a few years in.

As far as whether Classical music is better, that is tricky, because there is a lot of misuse of the system for bad ends in Classical music, and there is a lot of popular music that uses the system, though it tends to be obscured my an emphasis on other things such as the performer. I do think it can be said that the style of music associated with traditional Psalters and hymns is in some sense objectively preferable to other styles for use in worship, because of the way in which it uses and emphasises the system. This is true whether we are talking about four-part harmony, or just the simple unaccompanied tunes used by many churches in the UK. The system was already there in a form in the earliest Psalm tones that we know of. As a case in point, Music Theory students in college are generally required to learn to write or complete basic compositions in that Psalter/hymn style, usually using the works of Bach as their model.

As for what people listen to for entertainment, one can makes use of even some bizarre modern compositions in some lawful way. However, it is worth knowing that there is an order tied to the creation, and that it is used symbolically in some music and that it is attacked in some other music.

 

[Neil]

Schoenberg simply codified postmodernism and moral relativism as a philosophical undergirding for music theory. "Emancipation of the dissonance" is nothing other than the music academy's version of the call to liberation and self-autonomy so common everywhere else in the 20th century. Tonality wasn't dead, but he and Webern did their best to kill it.

I'm not sure if it would be fair to call Schoenberg a relativist. If anything, his aim was the opposite - he strived for a rigid objectivity and the twelve-tone system imposed a very strict set of rules onto everything he composed after that point. As for it being atonal, it's actually quite hard to define atonality - in a sense, any music which uses tones, or especially the twelve tone system, is tonal, and so Schoenberg's music is obsessively tonal. The Second Viennese School, contrary to what a lot of people accuse them of, were very concerned about their place in music history, and tried to rescue western music from relativistic, rules-free music, which their adherents saw in people like Stravinsky. If anything, Schoenberg's problem was that he tried too hard to avoid relativism. His 'atonal' system was just another type of musical language which used the twelve-tone system in a new way for new effects, and while it is certainly dissonant, the overall tonality of the piece really isn't 'emancipated' from a traditional tonal structure anymore than late Wagner or Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which have no defined key centre and no discernible harmonic trajectory (you could argue that this is much more 'relativistic' than Schoenberg). Like anything, twelve-tone music requires a lot of time spent listening to it to learn its language, and while it certainly isn't for everyone and that's ok, it makes a lot of sense. It's far from random noises (it's literally the opposite, an imposed series), and like any musical system, its greatest users knew that it was the breaking of the system which actually made it useful - the great atonal composers (Schoenberg, Webern, and especially Berg) knew that their music shouldn't be entirely dissonant, and usually turned the system on its head to create moments of very poignant consonance. This can be hard to catch, and this kind of music does require lots of attention, but a good piece where it's very clear is Berg's violin concerto, which is anything but 'atonal' (the tone series is just a set of major and minor chords).

I think too many Christians try to construct grand narratives about societal decline and then impose preconceived notions onto music, which leads to misunderstanding it. It's ok to not like Schoenberg, but too many arguments against his music don't really take it seriously and just group it with 'postmodernism' (which is unbelievably broad and also anachronistic), thus associating it with being anti-Christian. At the end of the day, music is music, and as you have pointed out in your original post, the philosophy behind Beethoven's music was distinctly un-Christian as well. Scripture is not concerned with specific aesthetic points of view, and any attempt to construct a specifically Christian theory of music is going to fail, as well as warp God's word to back up our own theories. I would especially caution against arguing from the nature of God himself. The fruits of this approach in modern Trinitarian theology have been less than satisfactory - just look at how John Zizioulas and Mirsolav Volf both argue from God's nature to their own very different political philosophies. I have become suspicious that lots of reformed theologians are now doing the same sort of thing to vindicate particular, more conservative philosophies. This kind of arguing is backwards, and could really justify anything. For instance, one person could argue that God is orderly, and so we shouldn't listen to dissonant music, like Schoenberg, while another could argue that God is orderly, so above all else we should value music with a defined and orderly harmonic structure, like Schoenberg. For a very amusing experience you can read the initial reviews of Beethoven's Eroica symphony - the people of his day felt that the piece was indicative of all the disorganised chaos and societal decline with which many now associate with Schoenberg. The arguments were the exact same (and paid suspiciously little attention to properly understanding the music itself, except to make uncharitable generalisations, as well as failing to embrace the fact that Beethoven was trying to do something very different to his predecessors, which was valuable in a different way). All that is clear from Scripture is that we should value order, and not embrace chaos, but the application of this to music is complex. When it comes to engaging with modern culture, we need to bear in mind the Reformers' teaching on the scope of Scripture's sufficiency, as well as common grace. I think there is a way to use beauty to argue for Christianity, but it needs to be done carefully, and ethical concerns should do the heavy-lifting.

 

[Ploutos]

I'm not sure if it would be fair to call Schoenberg a relativist. If anything, his aim was the opposite - he strived for a rigid objectivity and the twelve-tone system imposed a very strict set of rules onto everything he composed after that point. As for it being atonal, it's actually quite hard to define atonality - in a sense, any music which uses tones, or especially the twelve tone system, is tonal, and so Schoenberg's music is obsessively tonal. The Second Viennese School, contrary to what a lot of people accuse them of, were very concerned about their place in music history, and tried to rescue western music from relativistic, rules-free music, which their adherents saw in people like Stravinsky. If anything, Schoenberg's problem was that he tried too hard to avoid relativism. His 'atonal' system was just another type of musical language which used the twelve-tone system in a new way for new effects, and while it is certainly dissonant, the overall tonality of the piece really isn't 'emancipated' from a traditional tonal structure anymore than late Wagner or Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which have no defined key centre and no discernible harmonic trajectory (you could argue that this is much more 'relativistic' than Schoenberg). Like anything, twelve-tone music requires a lot of time spent listening to it to learn its language, and while it certainly isn't for everyone and that's ok, it makes a lot of sense. It's far from random noises (it's literally the opposite, an imposed series), and like any musical system, its greatest users knew that it was the breaking of the system which actually made it useful - the great atonal composers (Schoenberg, Webern, and especially Berg) knew that their music shouldn't be entirely dissonant, and usually turned the system on its head to create moments of very poignant consonance. This can be hard to catch, and this kind of music does require lots of attention, but a good piece where it's very clear is Berg's violin concerto, which is anything but 'atonal' (the tone series is just a set of major and minor chords).

I think too many Christians try to construct grand narratives about societal decline and then impose preconceived notions onto music, which leads to misunderstanding it. It's ok to not like Schoenberg, but too many arguments against his music don't really take it seriously and just group it with 'postmodernism' (which is unbelievably broad and also anachronistic), thus associating it with being anti-Christian. At the end of the day, music is music, and as you have pointed out in your original post, the philosophy behind Beethoven's music was distinctly un-Christian as well. Scripture is not concerned with specific aesthetic points of view, and any attempt to construct a specifically Christian theory of music is going to fail, as well as warp God's word to back up our own theories. I would especially caution against arguing from the nature of God himself. The fruits of this approach in modern Trinitarian theology have been less than satisfactory - just look at how John Zizioulas and Mirsolav Volf both argue from God's nature to their own very different political philosophies. I have become suspicious that lots of reformed theologians are now doing the same sort of thing to vindicate particular, more conservative philosophies. This kind of arguing is backwards, and could really justify anything. For instance, one person could argue that God is orderly, and so we shouldn't listen to dissonant music, like Schoenberg, while another could argue that God is orderly, so above all else we should value music with a defined and orderly harmonic structure, like Schoenberg. For a very amusing experience you can read the initial reviews of Beethoven's Eroica symphony - the people of his day felt that the piece was indicative of all the disorganised chaos and societal decline with which many now associate with Schoenberg. The arguments were the exact same (and paid suspiciously little attention to properly understanding the music itself, except to make uncharitable generalisations, as well as failing to embrace the fact that Beethoven was trying to do something very different to his predecessors, which was valuable in a different way). All that is clear from Scripture is that we should value order, and not embrace chaos, but the application of this to music is complex. When it comes to engaging with modern culture, we need to bear in mind the Reformers' teaching on the scope of Scripture's sufficiency, as well as common grace. I think there is a way to use beauty to argue for Christianity, but it needs to be done carefully, and ethical concerns should do the heavy-lifting.

There is no actual such thing as a relativist. A relativist is merely a person who wishes to substitute one set of absolutes for another and uses the dishonest guise of relativism as a tool to effect that substitution. To continue the analogy, the movement for sexual liberation was in actuality no such thing, as is evidenced by the strident prevalence of the "new morality" with its convoluted notions of consent and power dynamics.

And yet, we use the term relativist to denote someone who makes the claim to relativism.

I say the same thing is true of Schoenberg and much of the avant garde music that followed in his wake. I do not agree with your assessment of Schoenberg. I grant that he did not care for some of the terminology we have applied to his music, but I do believe that his philosophy of music is a philosophy of postmodern relativism, determined to overthrow what came before and impose a new set of rules very much against nature, and very much discordant to the ear. It is deliberately deconstructionist and built on a non-Christian foundation.

I don't want to fall back into the error of engaging in overly technical conversation on a forum that is about theology and not music. I do think there is a fundamental difference between the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg/Berg/Webern) and the late Romantics / early Moderns (Debussy/Wagner/late Scriabin). There is a large gulf between music that stretches the bounds of tonality and music that deliberately dispenses with it altogether. I'm not saying the philosophical underpinnings of Wagner are necessarily any better - just that there's still a measure of restraint in the late Romantics that prevents some aspects of their musical philosophy from being carried out to its logical conclusion. (Ditto for Beethoven.)

When Schoenberg talked about the "emancipation of the dissonance" - to try to explain this in layman's terms - he was saying that there is no objective difference between a dissonant sound and a consonant sound: in other words, that it was all conditioned. The tension and release of moving from discordant sounds to consonant sounds is at the core of the western music tradition. It's part and parcel of virtually every hymn or psalm in every Christian songbook of the last 500 years, and it's part and parcel of virtually every classical work from Palestrina to John Williams, part and parcel of jazz, rock n roll, virtually every noteworthy sound track, even much hard rock and heavy metal. To deliberately break with this is a radically deconstructionist move. I don't believe the western music tradition is inherently superior just by virtue of being the western music tradition. But all civilizations, regardless of scales or tuning systems, know that some sounds are consonant and others aren't. The precise notion of what is euphonious or cacophonous may vary from civilization to civilization, but the idea is a universal one. Schoenberg dispensed with it. That goes against nature and against created order.

 

[Neil]

When Schoenberg talked about the "emancipation of the dissonance" - to try to explain this in layman's terms - he was saying that there is no objective difference between a dissonant sound and a consonant sound: in other words, that it was all conditioned. The tension and release of moving from discordant sounds to consonant sounds is at the core of the western music tradition. It's part and parcel of virtually every hymn or psalm in every Christian songbook of the last 500 years, and it's part and parcel of virtually every classical work from Palestrina to John Williams, part and parcel of jazz, rock n roll, virtually every noteworthy sound track, even much hard rock and heavy metal. To deliberately break with this is a radically deconstructionist move. I don't believe the western music tradition is inherently superior just by virtue of being the western music tradition. But all civilizations, regardless of scales or tuning systems, know that some sounds are consonant and others aren't. The precise notion of what is euphonious or cacophonous may vary from civilization to civilization, but the idea is a universal one. Schoenberg dispensed with it. That goes against nature and against created order.

I wouldn't say that's what Schoenberg meant by the 'emancipation of dissonance'. There is of course a difference between dissonance and consonance, but he merely meant to point out that it is a difference of degree and not kind, which from a technical standpoint is true. I don't know of any musicologist who would hold to the assessment that Schoenberg was a radical revolutionary who marked a decisive break with the entire western music tradition, anymore than someone like Beethoven or Wagner. People have said that about Schoenberg, but it's largely believed to be a caricature, and I think listening to his music alongside the music of his day would prove that to be the case. 'The tension and release of moving from discordant sounds to consonant sounds' is quite broad and I don't think it sums up the core principles of the Western tradition. Firstly, it doesn't make sense in an early music context, with something like Gregorian Chant, which is 1) purely homophonic and 2) modal rather than relying on the major chord. Lots of modern music draws upon this earlier modal tradition, as well as music from other cultures to which our tonal framework doesn't apply. Secondly, as Schoenberg has pointed out, and which is accepted by the vast majority of musicologists, the sounds which are consonant and dissonant rely entirely on the surrounding context of the music itself (especially in its relation to the tonic, which is what we really mean by 'tonality' in the Western tradition).

Schoenberg certainly wrote in a new style, which discarded much of what previous musicians were doing, just as Beethoven did, but it didn't throw out some necessary aspect of the tradition which everyone else kept to. It certainly was not his intention, and I don't know of any musician who would make a serious case for that. He was reacting to the fact that the music of his day was using 'tonality' without even understanding how it was supposed to be used, which led to some pretty awful late romantic music. Tonality really had completely lost its way after Wagner, and I don't envy Schoenberg's position (or Stravinsky's for that matter), because music had genuinely gotten itself stuck in a cliched rut. If you listen to Schoenberg's total output (he himself started as a romantic composer), you will hear how subtle the transformation actually was between late romantic tonality and his new 'atonal' style. In any case, it certainly was not a 'deliberate' break with tradition, as you claim. He saw himself as continuing on the work of Bach, Beethoven etc., but just in the logical next step, and most of his interpreters from what I can see would agree on this point. A good place to start would be his book on harmony (which is remains probably the greatest book on Western harmony ever written, and still used in universities today - it is anything but radical). Or you could read his essays where he talks about this stuff (I think it's in Opinion or Insight? where he talks about emancipation of the dissonance, and from memory I'm pretty sure he should lay out the idea there that dissonance and consonance are not opposites but must belong together, which is not a very radical concept). I would also recommend watching Glenn Gould's stuff on Youtube about him, as well as Leonard Bernstein's lectures on 'The Unanswered Question', which talks about Schoenberg in detail towards the end, and explains how music arrived there quite logically.

I don't want to fall back into the error of engaging in overly technical conversation on a forum that is about theology and not music. I do think there is a fundamental difference between the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg/Berg/Webern) and the late Romantics / early Moderns (Debussy/Wagner/late Scriabin). There is a large gulf between music that stretches the bounds of tonality and music that deliberately dispenses with it altogether. I'm not saying the philosophical underpinnings of Wagner are necessarily any better - just that there's still a measure of restraint in the late Romantics that prevents some aspects of their musical philosophy from being carried out to its logical conclusion. (Ditto for Beethoven.)

I agree with you about technical conversation, and I apologise for my long responses. But in a way, that is the point that I'm trying to make. This conversation should make it clear that any discussion about beauty in music has to rely on actual musical arguments, not just broad generalisations. So it has to be technical in order to be actually accurate. As a musician (though a very amateur one), I find that what is sometimes claimed by Christians about art in sweeping statements is just not true, musically speaking. If you want to argue against Schoenberg's music, then that's fine, but you'll have to give references to actual scores, and his works, and scholarship about him - and most importantly, try to understand as best as possible before you critique, like you would with a book, which would involve listening attentively and charitably to lots of his music. My point in all this is to highlight just how far removed all this is from theological concerns. I don't see how you could label Schoenberg's music as 'un-Christian'. What has one's opinion on western tonality got to do with Christian faith and practice? I don't know where you would even start to make such an argument, seeing as it is concerned so much with music theory, and the music in question has no lyrics. You rightly point out that western music was heading in Schoenberg's direction since Beethoven, but argue that earlier composers like Wagner still had a measure of tonal restraint which Schoenberg didn't have. Am I right in understanding you to say that this is the point in music which can be considered no longer 'Christian', because it has embraced some sort of relativism? To say that something isn't in accord with Christian values is quite a strong claim, and implies that it's something to be avoided and detested, something sinful. You can make a case that it is ugly if you want, but such a case relies on complex musical arguments, as well as the judgment of human reasoning, which is fallen and unreliable. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, it seems that from a Christian standpoint you are saying:

1) The Bible makes the claim that beauty is Christian (e.g. Phil.4:8-9);
2) Schoenberg's music is not beautiful;
3) Schoenberg's music is un-Christian.

I understand that this is laying it out very simply, but notice that all the argument is surrounding the second premise, not the first. That's what I'm disputing, and it's a completely musical subject which the Bible says nothing about. I know that Turretin allowed for the whole argument to be Biblical/theological if the minor premise was philosophical, but if this was the sort of thing he was talking about, then I don't see how he could justify it within the limits of Sola Scriptura, seeing as the entire argument is now hinging on the truth of a completely non-biblical and purely philosophical premise.

 

[Pictet]

I think it can be said that Western music in general, including Medieval music, and folk music, developed in the consciousness of Christian teachings. Until well into the 1700s, Music Theory was half concerned with directly connecting everything in pitch and rhythm with numerical symbolism, particularly Biblical symbolism around the numbers 3 and 7.

While I think Classical music is great and am probably on the same side as you in this debate, it's worth remembering that this numerical-symbolism approach to music is pre-Christian. It's as much to do with Pythagoras as it is with Christ, even if monastic writers reassigned the significance of the numbers.

 

[Seeking_Thy_Kingdom]

For me it’s just a nice vibe, currently listening to Chopin Piano Concerto No.2 while reading Calvin’s commentary on the Psalms.
It just works.

 

[cmiersma]

While I think Classical music is great and am probably on the same side as you in this debate, it's worth remembering that this numerical-symbolism approach to music is pre-Christian. It's as much to do with Pythagoras as it is with Christ, even if monastic writers reassigned the significance of the numbers.

This is what Andreas Werckmeister has to say about that:

"And whereas music is a partner to theology, it becomes apparent how the heathens stumbled about in this subject, and although they made great strides, could ascertain nothing definite. For just as they had no true knowledge of God in that they did not recognize the Trinity in God, they also could not recognize the harmonic triad, for they did not consider the third to be a consonance, even though harmony without the addition of the third is quite deficient and incomplete, yea, even lifeless." (Andreas Werckmeister, Musicalishe Paradoxal-Discourse, trans. Dietrich Bartel, p. 83. orig. pub. 1707)

I believe he is substantially correct. The Greeks did not have the Biblical symbolism around the numbers 3, 4, 7, and 12, as well as the 7 to 8 and 12 to 13 progression that is found in various places in the Bible. They became distracted with high ratios, which would translate to micro-tones, but did not necessarily have much to do with actual music. Church musicians were so busy incorporating symbolism that the whole first generation of rhythmic notation was based around triple patterns.

The other thing to consider is that the numerical stuff is in some sense there in the created order in the harmonic series, as various scientific theorists demonstrated after the French Enlightenment. It is simply an order that was there to be discovered. Personally, I think there is something to the fact that we also live in a solar system with 8 planets, 1 which we live on, 6 of which are visible to the naked eye, and 1 which is not. There is a real tangible connection between astronomy and sound as created and the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 series used by music theorists like Werckmeister.

 

[TheInquirer]

Neat. Is it possible to learn music theory if one is tone deaf? I would like to learn something of music. Or at least the making of music.

Absolutely you can. Music theory is like learning a language. You start with scales, keys, chords and then proceed from there. Music history might be more interesting as you study the styles and major contributors through the ages. Depends what you are looking for.

You can train your ear over time. If you can’t sing anything on pitch no matter how hard you have tried over a long period of time, it might be a lost cause or you might be able to develop skill with training. Messing around on a piano or keyboard can go a long way in conjunction with learning basic music theory. There is enough free material on YouTube to last a lifetime.

My recommendation to people is simply start with what most interests you. You can easily burn out on music if you aren’t studying styles or instruments you don’t enjoy.

Post automatically merged: Jan 3, 2025

On Pythagoras, math, and music, I always thought the old Donald Duck in Math Magic Land cartoon was a fun basic introduction:

Here is a channel that has quite a bit of distilled videos and playlists on the basics of music and even has a group on music and the Protestant Reformation:

Two Minute Music Theory

Music Theory is a valuable and practical artform for all musicians throughout their lifetime. Free video resources in music theory and analysis for Music educators, students, and enthusiasts. Studies have shown this YouTube channel has very little effect on International Diplomacy, Space...

www.youtube.com

 

[cmiersma]

Absolutely you can. Music theory is like learning a language. You start with scales, keys, chords and then proceed from there. Music history might be more interesting as you study the styles and major contributors through the ages. Depends what you are looking for.

You can train your ear over time. If you can’t sing anything on pitch no matter how hard you have tried over a long period of time, it might be a lost cause or you might be able to develop skill with training. Messing around on a piano or keyboard can go a long way in conjunction with learning basic music theory. There is enough free material on YouTube to last a lifetime.

My recommendation to people is simply start with what most interests you. You can easily burn out on music if you aren’t studying styles or instruments you don’t enjoy.

Post automatically merged: Jan 3, 2025

On Pythagoras, math, and music, I always thought the old Donald Duck in Math Magic Land cartoon was a fun basic introduction:

Here is a channel that has quite a bit of distilled videos and playlists on the basics of music and even has a group on music and the Protestant Reformation:

Two Minute Music Theory

Music Theory is a valuable and practical artform for all musicians throughout their lifetime. Free video resources in music theory and analysis for Music educators, students, and enthusiasts. Studies have shown this YouTube channel has very little effect on International Diplomacy, Space...

www.youtube.com

It is a fun introduction. As far as historical accuracy is concerned, however, they make a small jump by including the triad. The Ancient Greeks and early Middle Ages only used the octave, fourth, and fifth as consonances, and spent a good deal of time of the ratios of tones and semitones. The triad, and the symbolism associated with it should show some late Medieval monks in Belgium having to use Trinitarian symbolism to explain why the triads in English music sound so much better than the French style of perfect consonances only. They would probably use the line that Werckmeister does, which is to see both the octave/fourth/fifth set and the triad as Trinitarian symbols in music.

 

[Ploutos]

I wouldn't say that's what Schoenberg meant by the 'emancipation of dissonance'. There is of course a difference between dissonance and consonance, but he merely meant to point out that it is a difference of degree and not kind, which from a technical standpoint is true. I don't know of any musicologist who would hold to the assessment that Schoenberg was a radical revolutionary who marked a decisive break with the entire western music tradition, anymore than someone like Beethoven or Wagner. People have said that about Schoenberg, but it's largely believed to be a caricature, and I think listening to his music alongside the music of his day would prove that to be the case. 'The tension and release of moving from discordant sounds to consonant sounds' is quite broad and I don't think it sums up the core principles of the Western tradition. Firstly, it doesn't make sense in an early music context, with something like Gregorian Chant, which is 1) purely homophonic and 2) modal rather than relying on the major chord. Lots of modern music draws upon this earlier modal tradition, as well as music from other cultures to which our tonal framework doesn't apply. Secondly, as Schoenberg has pointed out, and which is accepted by the vast majority of musicologists, the sounds which are consonant and dissonant rely entirely on the surrounding context of the music itself (especially in its relation to the tonic, which is what we really mean by 'tonality' in the Western tradition).

Schoenberg certainly wrote in a new style, which discarded much of what previous musicians were doing, just as Beethoven did, but it didn't throw out some necessary aspect of the tradition which everyone else kept to. It certainly was not his intention, and I don't know of any musician who would make a serious case for that. He was reacting to the fact that the music of his day was using 'tonality' without even understanding how it was supposed to be used, which led to some pretty awful late romantic music. Tonality really had completely lost its way after Wagner, and I don't envy Schoenberg's position (or Stravinsky's for that matter), because music had genuinely gotten itself stuck in a cliched rut. If you listen to Schoenberg's total output (he himself started as a romantic composer), you will hear how subtle the transformation actually was between late romantic tonality and his new 'atonal' style. In any case, it certainly was not a 'deliberate' break with tradition, as you claim. He saw himself as continuing on the work of Bach, Beethoven etc., but just in the logical next step, and most of his interpreters from what I can see would agree on this point. A good place to start would be his book on harmony (which is remains probably the greatest book on Western harmony ever written, and still used in universities today - it is anything but radical). Or you could read his essays where he talks about this stuff (I think it's in Opinion or Insight? where he talks about emancipation of the dissonance, and from memory I'm pretty sure he should lay out the idea there that dissonance and consonance are not opposites but must belong together, which is not a very radical concept). I would also recommend watching Glenn Gould's stuff on Youtube about him, as well as Leonard Bernstein's lectures on 'The Unanswered Question', which talks about Schoenberg in detail towards the end, and explains how music arrived there quite logically.



I agree with you about technical conversation, and I apologise for my long responses. But in a way, that is the point that I'm trying to make. This conversation should make it clear that any discussion about beauty in music has to rely on actual musical arguments, not just broad generalisations. So it has to be technical in order to be actually accurate. As a musician (though a very amateur one), I find that what is sometimes claimed by Christians about art in sweeping statements is just not true, musically speaking. If you want to argue against Schoenberg's music, then that's fine, but you'll have to give references to actual scores, and his works, and scholarship about him - and most importantly, try to understand as best as possible before you critique, like you would with a book, which would involve listening attentively and charitably to lots of his music. My point in all this is to highlight just how far removed all this is from theological concerns. I don't see how you could label Schoenberg's music as 'un-Christian'. What has one's opinion on western tonality got to do with Christian faith and practice? I don't know where you would even start to make such an argument, seeing as it is concerned so much with music theory, and the music in question has no lyrics. You rightly point out that western music was heading in Schoenberg's direction since Beethoven, but argue that earlier composers like Wagner still had a measure of tonal restraint which Schoenberg didn't have. Am I right in understanding you to say that this is the point in music which can be considered no longer 'Christian', because it has embraced some sort of relativism? To say that something isn't in accord with Christian values is quite a strong claim, and implies that it's something to be avoided and detested, something sinful. You can make a case that it is ugly if you want, but such a case relies on complex musical arguments, as well as the judgment of human reasoning, which is fallen and unreliable. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, it seems that from a Christian standpoint you are saying:

1) The Bible makes the claim that beauty is Christian (e.g. Phil.4:8-9);
2) Schoenberg's music is not beautiful;
3) Schoenberg's music is un-Christian.

I understand that this is laying it out very simply, but notice that all the argument is surrounding the second premise, not the first. That's what I'm disputing, and it's a completely musical subject which the Bible says nothing about. I know that Turretin allowed for the whole argument to be Biblical/theological if the minor premise was philosophical, but if this was the sort of thing he was talking about, then I don't see how he could justify it within the limits of Sola Scriptura, seeing as the entire argument is now hinging on the truth of a completely non-biblical and purely philosophical premise.

I don't have the time or the background to devote to the sort of study of Schoenberg that would be necessary to give you a really adequate answer. I have listened to a lot of Schoenberg, but not in a long time, and I maintained at the time (and still maintain) that there is a real and significant difference between Wagner/Debussy/Stravinsky and Schoenberg/Webern. I also think there's a significant difference between early and late Schoenberg; I rather enjoy some of his early works (and Berg's even more so). For the record, I also think Beethoven and Wagner were revolutionaries who in some way broke with what came before.

When I talked about tension and release, I should have specified that I was primarily talking about the classical music tradition - choose your desired start date (1500?), but I wasn't intending to include medieval chant. I do realize I was painting with broad brush strokes, and that one has to account for the influence of non-western traditions on us from the 20th century onward - but I still think the idea of tension and release is integral to a lot of our music. The idea of building and relieving tension through the use of dissonance and through harmonic progressions and melodic movement is still part and parcel, albeit in different forms, of a lot of jazz, rock and roll, and soundtracks. Even the use of non-western concepts is in some ways used to achieve dramatic effect and is thus an appropriation of sorts.

What I continue to maintain, is that the philosophy underneath Schoenberg's music is non-Christian. I also maintain that the philosohpy underneath the music of Beethoven and Wagner is non-Christian. You are not correct in understanding that I consider music to be Christian up to Schoenberg and then non-Christian afterward; I have more nuance and more sense than that. But I do think Schoenberg introduced a break with what came before, and that he more fully realized the non-Christian elements that might have already been latent earlier. I also think that atonal music is objectively uglier and more discordant to the ear than what came before. Make of that what you will; I know some will disagree, including many with more musical education than I have.

 

[Neil]

I don't have the time or the background to devote to the sort of study of Schoenberg that would be necessary to give you a really adequate answer. I have listened to a lot of Schoenberg, but not in a long time, and I maintained at the time (and still maintain) that there is a real and significant difference between Wagner/Debussy/Stravinsky and Schoenberg/Webern. I also think there's a significant difference between early and late Schoenberg; I rather enjoy some of his early works (and Berg's even more so). For the record, I also think Beethoven and Wagner were revolutionaries who in some way broke with what came before.

When I talked about tension and release, I should have specified that I was primarily talking about the classical music tradition - choose your desired start date (1500?), but I wasn't intending to include medieval chant. I do realize I was painting with broad brush strokes, and that one has to account for the influence of non-western traditions on us from the 20th century onward - but I still think the idea of tension and release is integral to a lot of our music. The idea of building and relieving tension through the use of dissonance and through harmonic progressions and melodic movement is still part and parcel, albeit in different forms, of a lot of jazz, rock and roll, and soundtracks. Even the use of non-western concepts is in some ways used to achieve dramatic effect and is thus an appropriation of sorts.

What I continue to maintain, is that the philosophy underneath Schoenberg's music is non-Christian. I also maintain that the philosohpy underneath the music of Beethoven and Wagner is non-Christian. You are not correct in understanding that I consider music to be Christian up to Schoenberg and then non-Christian afterward; I have more nuance and more sense than that. But I do think Schoenberg introduced a break with what came before, and that he more fully realized the non-Christian elements that might have already been latent earlier. I also think that atonal music is objectively uglier and more discordant to the ear than what came before. Make of that what you will; I know some will disagree, including many with more musical education than I have.

I understand why you don't like his music, and that's completely fair enough. He did do some radical things which you could make good arguments against doing. But you called him a postmodern relativist, which isn't an accusation which I think really makes sense for Schoenberg, and you compared his music with the sexual revolution and called it un-Christian. That's quite a claim, and you still haven't made any arguments for it. It also does mark out Schoenberg's (late) music as distinctly un-Christian in a way that Beethoven wouldn't be. What is specifically un-Christian about it? The main point I'm trying to make is that it's impossible to actually substantiate that claim, because we're talking about abstract music, and on that basis alone I don't think you could label it un-Christian. You would have to give biblical support for your argument. Is it something to do with his philosophy of music? You have referenced the philosophies underlying different types of music - by that do you mean specific principles of composition? When it comes to music with no text, there is nothing that could make it 'more Christian' or 'less Christian'. It's just music. Philosophies behind the writing of the music, like Trinitarian symbolism, mean nothing in terms of the actual musical result, and make such pieces no more 'Christian' than Mozart's own pseudo-Pythagorean superstitions make The Magic Flute inherently masonic.

Any attempt to vindicate one's own views about music in a biblical way just boils down to claiming that it's in accord with the natural order, but this kind of argument always breaks down at a certain point. There is definitely a relationship between music and nature in the harmonic series, but it is not a hard and fast rule. The history of western music is basically the history of humans constantly trying to warp and fix nature into something beautiful, finding themselves constantly frustrated with it, but managing to produce good results by deliberately breaking the natural rules. To me, this isn't un-Christian, and it's very unclear at what point such a re-fashioning of the natural rules would become no longer Christian, or which rules we choose to re-fashion. I know you acknowledged that Beethoven was un-Christian by your definition, but you are still claiming that this lay somehow dormant in his music so that it's still beautiful (I'm honestly not sure about this with regard to his late music like the Grosse Fuge, which may as well be written by Schoenberg). Yet this tendency was fully revealed in Schoenberg in such a way which makes it some sort of a malicious attack on God's creation. I find it very interesting that you placed Stravinsky on the other side of this divide, who was arguably far more radical than Schoenberg, even in his early non-serial works, and whose music was anything but consonant.

Furthermore, I still find the resolution of dissonance into consonance to be inadequate as the core principle of western music. If you want to limit the scope of discussion to classical music, rather than early music (so is it fine for early music to ignore this principle, but not for Schoenberg?), then it's certainly one important principle, but it is only one of many. Consonance and dissonance is one aspect of music which you have selected because that's what is most radical about Schoenberg (although his late music is full of consonance and dissonance just in a different way - he wasn't completely unmusical or something). But there are lots of other aspects which form the backbone of western music, like the repetition of rhythmic patters (which Schoenberg did not dispense with) and tonality related to a key-centre (which was dispensed with long before Schoenberg). If you think that the issue of resolving dissonance is more important than these, then fair enough, but how is it more rooted in nature or more Christian than the others? The natural harmonic series, after a certain point very early on, is full of horribly dissonant notes, since it includes basically everything. Again, arguments from the harmonic series for the vindication of natural laws for music-making, beyond very simple ones, is an idea which has been basically discredited for a long time. And I think that making it a Christian issue is questionable.

I'm not so much interested in having a debate about Schoenberg in particular - I'm just using him here as an example, and I don't mean to imply that you ought to agree with me - it's perfectly understandable why someone would hate his music, and I did so with a passion until relatively recently (he's far from my favourite composer, and if I listened to too much of it I think I'd go mad). I'm more concerned to see how one would go about arguing that a type of music is fundamentally un-Christian in some way.

 

[Ploutos]

I absolutely disagree that one can't evaluate abstract music for its philosophical content. You absolutely can, and just like one can point out the godless philosophies behind the work of Picasso, Dali, Kandinsky, Warhol, etc... one can absolutely do the same with music.

I appreciate your insight and the evident musical training you bring to bear on the topic, but I'm not really interested in further discussing the merits of Schoenberg. Anybody who wants to can go to YouTube and listen to Schoenberg's or Webern's orchestral works and decide for themselves. I stand by my opinion and I think most people would agree with me, which is why the Second Viennese school has been a fast-track to obscurity and esotericism for the classical music tradition. Here's a link for those who want to listen to an orchestra tuning for 9 minutes before getting on with the actual show.

 

[cmiersma]

I absolutely disagree that one can't evaluate abstract music for its philosophical content. You absolutely can, and just like one can point out the godless philosophies behind the work of Picasso, Dali, Kandinsky, Warhol, etc... one can absolutely do the same with music.

I appreciate your insight and the evident musical training you bring to bear on the topic, but I'm not really interested in further discussing the merits of Schoenberg. Anybody who wants to can go to YouTube and listen to Schoenberg's or Webern's orchestral works and decide for themselves. I stand by my opinion and I think most people would agree with me, which is why the Second Viennese school has been a fast-track to obscurity and esotericism for the classical music tradition. Here's a link for those who want to listen to an orchestra tuning for 9 minutes before getting on with the actual show.

I think I can say from the experience of getting a couple music degrees at secular universities, that there are ideological and philosophical elements as you say. There's quite a bit of complexity to it, though, as there is ongoing debate between modernists and post-modernists in academia. As far as style is concerned, Schoenberg is actually more of a modernist, though both modernists and post-modernists aim to resist traditional tonal music, though one group does so on the principle that progress is improvement, and the other on the principle of deconstructing systems of power. Academia is actually very conscious of the Christian symbolism I have mentioned. I personally don't maintain the Classical music is always better than popular music, but I think there's enough grounds to say that the musical style associated with Church music, particularly Psalters, hymns, and chorales, up until the 20th century does generally achieve it's intended goal of reflecting God's order in the creation as clearly as possible, while other styles variously detract from that order by emphasis on the performer, on musical complexity, or by attacking the musical order itself.

 

[Ploutos]

Thank you for that input. It's possible that I haven't been using my terms correctly. What you're saying about Schoenberg being a modernist sounds more correct than what I was saying earlier, and it would be very much within the realm of possibility for me to make so basic a blunder as to misuse the terms "modern" and "postmodern". I guess Schoenberg wasn't so much deconstructing as reconstructing.

I appreciate your comments about ways in which a musical style can detract from God's created order. That was helpfully worded.

 

[Frisian Gardener]

I still think my High School orchestra director put it best: Schoenberg invented "a really nerdy way of writing music".

Fun fact: Scott Bradley, MGM's animation composer, incorporated tone rows as "sneaking" music in Tom and Jerry cartoons. The 0:51 timestamp in the clip below is an example.

Said Bradley: "I hope Dr. Schoenberg will forgive me for using his system to produce funny music, but even the boys in the orchestra laughed when we were recording it."

 

[Neil]

I absolutely disagree that one can't evaluate abstract music for its philosophical content. You absolutely can, and just like one can point out the godless philosophies behind the work of Picasso, Dali, Kandinsky, Warhol, etc... one can absolutely do the same with music.

There's a difference between a 'godless philosophy behind' the music and one in the music (music's 'philosophical content'). There's no question that various worldviews and philosophies directly influence the way that music is composed. But how much this becomes inherent in the music itself is very questionable. People who like listening to lots of classical music tend to be the kind of people who are very interested in learning about its history and the ideas influencing it, which is a good thing, but at the end of the day it's debatable how much this allows one to actually understand and appreciate the music. Obviously music theory helps, but abstract philosophy about the world and metaphysics (relativism, whether one believes in God etc.) really has little to do with it. You can listen to Bach knowing that his music was influenced by Christian thinking, and appreciate it for that, and how much it reflects the Christian natural order. But someone who listens to Bach with no knowledge of that at all can still appreciate and understand it fully. It's not inherent in the music. Or even if it was, you can still disagree with the composer about whether their music accomplishes what they think it does.

I appreciate your insight and the evident musical training you bring to bear on the topic, but I'm not really interested in further discussing the merits of Schoenberg. Anybody who wants to can go to YouTube and listen to Schoenberg's or Webern's orchestral works and decide for themselves. I stand by my opinion and I think most people would agree with me, which is why the Second Viennese school has been a fast-track to obscurity and esotericism for the classical music tradition. Here's a link for those who want to listen to an orchestra tuning for 9 minutes before getting on with the actual show.

Nor am I. I apologise if I derailed the conversation, I was only meaning to use him as an example. For the record, I'm not advocating some sort of musical relativism where we appreciate every kind of music. For example, I'm not disputing that the objective high-point of western music was from something like 1685-1827. And personally I think that the postwar serialists like Boulez write the kind of pointless and destructive music with which you associate Schoenberg (although I think that can be argued on musical grounds with resorting to philosophy). I was more interested in whether you think that textless music can be inherently Christian. I've pointed out some reasons why I don't think resorting to natural laws about music helps. I also don't think popularity is a good measure of something's value. Classical music is 'obscure' to begin with (much more-so than people who enjoy it usually realise, since they tend to know like-minded people), and most popular music today is vulgar and musically insignificant. So as for serial music, it's really not much more obscure than something like Wagner in the grand scheme of things, and while it obviously will never be 'popular' (it was never supposed to be, and that's ok), it still has a fairly sizeable base of listeners.

I personally don't maintain the Classical music is always better than popular music, but I think there's enough grounds to say that the musical style associated with Church music, particularly Psalters, hymns, and chorales, up until the 20th century does generally achieve it's intended goal of reflecting God's order in the creation as clearly as possible, while other styles variously detract from that order by emphasis on the performer, on musical complexity, or by attacking the musical order itself.

The problem with this kind of argument is in actually applying it to anything. 'Attacking the musical order itself' is very ambiguous. When would this occur? When is it fine to subvert scientific laws of music for our purposes? While it might seem obvious what kind of music does this to us, a glance at music history (or a conversation with people who think very differently) would show that it's not so clear. Of course there is good music and there is bad music, and good music must follow some sort of basic principles and rules, but the scope within that is massive. Part of my concern is the fact that this exact argument has been used to deride pretty much every innovation in music history, whether it be Beethoven, Wagner, or even polyphony. Furthermore, it's usually very conservative Christians who are the culprits, which is interesting. We tend to dismiss this today because we find it so obviously wrong, but it's difficult to overstate just how much people have always felt new music to be overturning the very laws of musical nature, and an affront against God. At some point I think it becomes clear that this isn't a very good line of criticism. I'm not saying that therefore there are no rules, but we need to recognise that we can't pretend that the specific kind of music we like is somehow better than others, on the basis that it is more in line with nature (which is difficult to prove). I think the obvious reason for this historical phenomenon of criticism is that Christians tend to be more dogmatic about things. But music isn't a dogmatic subject. It's possible to create beautiful art in all sorts of ways, and in ways which subvert natural laws in one way or another.

Music also isn't a zero-sum game. Different kinds of music have their place. This is a problem with conceiving styles of music as competing 'philosophies', where one can be more true than another. There's nothing which makes the complexity of Bach more beautiful than the simplicity of Haydn. They both did something entirely different but equally successfully. You could attack Haydn's music for being a bunch of popular tunes with too much humour, like conservative clergymen of his day, and so not being fit for states of serene godly contemplation. This is the kind of situation where more information about the philosophy behind the music is actually getting in the way of appreciating it, rather than helping. At the end of the day, with the benefit of hindsight and more sober judgment, we can easily say that there is nothing more Christian about Bach's music than Haydn, even if the philosophy behind Bach's was much more Christian.

My main question is, do you think it's valid to argue that something is Christian based on natural reason alone, and not Scripture?

 

[Ploutos]

There's a difference between a 'godless philosophy behind' the music and one in the music (music's 'philosophical content'). There's no question that various worldviews and philosophies directly influence the way that music is composed. But how much this becomes inherent in the music itself is very questionable. People who like listening to lots of classical music tend to be the kind of people who are very interested in learning about its history and the ideas influencing it, which is a good thing, but at the end of the day it's debatable how much this allows one to actually understand and appreciate the music. Obviously music theory helps, but abstract philosophy about the world and metaphysics (relativism, whether one believes in God etc.) really has little to do with it. You can listen to Bach knowing that his music was influenced by Christian thinking, and appreciate it for that, and how much it reflects the Christian natural order. But someone who listens to Bach with no knowledge of that at all can still appreciate and understand it fully. It's not inherent in the music. Or even if it was, you can still disagree with the composer about whether their music accomplishes what they think it does.

I don't think you can fully separate the philosophy behind something and the philosophy in something. This is clearly true in art, literature, and television. Music sometimes gets a pass because, as a non-verbal medium, it's more abstract; but I do think there's a connection between the philosophy behind music and the philosophical content of the musical itself. There might be tension between competing philosophical threads - as, for instance, in the conflict between Beethoven's individualistic ideals and the rigidly conformist musical aesthetic of the time. The same might be said of something like The Dick Van Dyke Show, which while clearly not a Christian show in any sense of the word, still shows the Judeo-Christian influence common to the era and can thus be said to be less objectionable than "Friends" or "The Office" in terms of its content.

Nor am I. I apologise if I derailed the conversation, I was only meaning to use him as an example. For the record, I'm not advocating some sort of musical relativism where we appreciate every kind of music. For example, I'm not disputing that the objective high-point of western music was from something like 1685-1827. And personally I think that the postwar serialists like Boulez write the kind of pointless and destructive music with which you associate Schoenberg (although I think that can be argued on musical grounds with resorting to philosophy). I was more interested in whether you think that textless music can be inherently Christian. I've pointed out some reasons why I don't think resorting to natural laws about music helps. I also don't think popularity is a good measure of something's value. Classical music is 'obscure' to begin with (much more-so than people who enjoy it usually realise, since they tend to know like-minded people), and most popular music today is vulgar and musically insignificant. So as for serial music, it's really not much more obscure than something like Wagner in the grand scheme of things, and while it obviously will never be 'popular' (it was never supposed to be, and that's ok), it still has a fairly sizeable base of listeners.

The destructive music that you attribute to Boulez has its origins in the musical approach of Schoenberg; it was the logical conclusion of Schoenberg's approach, and I consider it a form of anti-music.

I still maintain that there is a fundamental difference between the music of Schoenberg and the music of Wagner and Stravinsky. I also think that your comment about serial music having a fairly sizable listening base is, ironically, reflective of the lack of awareness common to many lovers of classical music. I think it's a very niche field within the already niche field of classical music, though I am happy to be proven wrong if you can provide some statistics to counter my anecdotal observations.

The problem with this kind of argument is in actually applying it to anything. 'Attacking the musical order itself' is very ambiguous. When would this occur? When is it fine to subvert scientific laws of music for our purposes? While it might seem obvious what kind of music does this to us, a glance at music history (or a conversation with people who think very differently) would show that it's not so clear. Of course there is good music and there is bad music, and good music must follow some sort of basic principles and rules, but the scope within that is massive. Part of my concern is the fact that this exact argument has been used to deride pretty much every innovation in music history, whether it be Beethoven, Wagner, or even polyphony. Furthermore, it's usually very conservative Christians who are the culprits, which is interesting. We tend to dismiss this today because we find it so obviously wrong, but it's difficult to overstate just how much people have always felt new music to be overturning the very laws of musical nature, and an affront against God. At some point I think it becomes clear that this isn't a very good line of criticism. I'm not saying that therefore there are no rules, but we need to recognise that we can't pretend that the specific kind of music we like is somehow better than others, on the basis that it is more in line with nature (which is difficult to prove). I think the obvious reason for this historical phenomenon of criticism is that Christians tend to be more dogmatic about things. But music isn't a dogmatic subject. It's possible to create beautiful art in all sorts of ways, and in ways which subvert natural laws in one way or another.

Music also isn't a zero-sum game. Different kinds of music have their place. This is a problem with conceiving styles of music as competing 'philosophies', where one can be more true than another. There's nothing which makes the complexity of Bach more beautiful than the simplicity of Haydn. They both did something entirely different but equally successfully. You could attack Haydn's music for being a bunch of popular tunes with too much humour, like conservative clergymen of his day, and so not being fit for states of serene godly contemplation. This is the kind of situation where more information about the philosophy behind the music is actually getting in the way of appreciating it, rather than helping. At the end of the day, with the benefit of hindsight and more sober judgment, we can easily say that there is nothing more Christian about Bach's music than Haydn, even if the philosophy behind Bach's was much more Christian.

My main question is, do you think it's valid to argue that something is Christian based on natural reason alone, and not Scripture?

While I can't speak for how clear / successful I've been in communicating my thoughts and questions in this thread, I have tried to submit, for discussion, the following two thoughts: first, that there is an objective standard of beauty, order, and consonance in music, such that one can credibly point to music that is beautiful and music that is ugly; second, that this objective standard is NOT totally or even primarily co-terminous with the genre of classical music.

In that regard, I have not tried to argue that Bach's music is not more Christian than Haydn's. In fact, I have not really been concerned with the question of what music is more or less "Christian" at all. It has been primarily a "natural reason" conversation, though with the idea that orderliness and beauty in music does reflect the harmony of creation more than the opposite.

Now I think most would agree that Bach's music is, in some sense, "better" or more complex and intellectually developed than Haydn's - perhaps in the way that one might argue that Turretin was a "better" theologian than Matthew Henry.

 

[Neil]

I don't think you can fully separate the philosophy behind something and the philosophy in something. This is clearly true in art, literature, and television. Music sometimes gets a pass because, as a non-verbal medium, it's more abstract; but I do think there's a connection between the philosophy behind music and the philosophical content of the musical itself. There might be tension between competing philosophical threads - as, for instance, in the conflict between Beethoven's individualistic ideals and the rigidly conformist musical aesthetic of the time. The same might be said of something like The Dick Van Dyke Show, which while clearly not a Christian show in any sense of the word, still shows the Judeo-Christian influence common to the era and can thus be said to be less objectionable than "Friends" or "The Office" in terms of its content.

You'd have to show in what way the philosophy carries over into the music and becomes inherent in the final product. At which point we're now discussing the musical content. Which is only to say that, when criticising music, you should criticise the music, and not the philosophy inspiring it. Again, connections like this are notoriously difficult to establish. And if we're going to be consistent with this approach, Schoenberg appears like a Christian saint compared with Wagner, whose stated musical aim in his writings was literally to replace Germany's religion (Christianity) with art. There is some of that too in Beethoven, although in a less intellectual and more personal way. Is that inherent in the music? If so, it's far more godless than anything Schoenberg wrote. The fact that music is 'more abstract' than textual art is not a small detail, it's the basic premise of aesthetically assessing music. It's not just more abstract, it's completely abstract. Obviously basic connections with real-world objects can be used (although it's difficult to do and rare) like with the mimic-birdsong in the woodwinds in Beethoven 6. But ideas and philosophies are impossible to express in purely musical form. People have really tried (Mahler to some extent) but the wildly different reactions of the audience to what they thought the music expressed has basically proven that these connections exist only inside the composer's head.

The destructive music that you attribute to Boulez has its origins in the musical approach of Schoenberg; it was the logical conclusion of Schoenberg's approach, and I consider it a form of anti-music.

I disagree. You have to show why this is the case. Boulez builds on Schoenberg's music, and he was one of his disciples, but like Schoenberg himself I find that Boulez' approach of total serialisation misses the actual point of serial composition, which is to use the method as a tool for compositions with some semblance of order. For example, in Schoenberg this is usually achieved in the rhythm, and Boulez has totally destroyed this vital aspect. In any case, I think this kind of 'logical conclusion' approach to music is questionable to begin with. Again, if we're taking this approach, I find your drawing of the line at Schoenberg rather arbitrary.

I still maintain that there is a fundamental difference between the music of Schoenberg and the music of Wagner and Stravinsky. I also think that your comment about serial music having a fairly sizable listening base is, ironically, reflective of the lack of awareness common to many lovers of classical music. I think it's a very niche field within the already niche field of classical music, though I am happy to be proven wrong if you can provide some statistics to counter my anecdotal observations.

I've argued that, compared to the small size of classical music to begin with, atonal music really isn't that small in comparison. It's difficult to overstate just how much people don't listen to classical music. I'm assuming we're looking for people who listen to it seriously (e.g. listen to whole pieces and pay some kind of attention, rather than just putting on a youtube playlist of Mozart to help them go to sleep or something, which is what 90% of it is used for). If we use YouTube as an example, the most that a full-length symphony or string quartet by someone like Beethoven can hope to get is a few million views. The Webern video which you linked to demonstrate how unpopular it is (which you likened to an orchestra tuning up, which isn't exactly a very engaged critique of serial music), is one of Webern's most difficult pieces, and from the 2nd Viennese school's most difficult, unpopular composer. It still has 420k views. That's really not small for classical music. I grant that it's difficult to prove this kind of thing without anecdotes. My local orchestra very frequently plays avant garde 20th century music, which isn't unusual for an orchestra - and the musicians certainly enjoy playing it, and from what I can gather from talking to people it usually goes down well. General consensus is that serial music is cool (particularly with good orchestration), so long as it doesn't go on too long. Some of it less popular than others. Twelve tone music is obviously never going to be very popular because it's very difficult. On the other hand, Shostakovich, whose music philosophy is just as 'modern', is basically just as popular among classical music lovers as Beethoven, and his dissonant, soviet style symphonies are basically the most popular thing an orchestra can play.

While I can't speak for how clear / successful I've been in communicating my thoughts and questions in this thread, I have tried to submit, for discussion, the following two thoughts: first, that there is an objective standard of beauty, order, and consonance in music, such that one can credibly point to music that is beautiful and music that is ugly; second, that this objective standard is NOT totally or even primarily co-terminous with the genre of classical music.

In that regard, I have not tried to argue that Bach's music is not more Christian than Haydn's. In fact, I have not really been concerned with the question of what music is more or less "Christian" at all. It has been primarily a "natural reason" conversation, though with the idea that orderliness and beauty in music does reflect the harmony of creation more than the opposite.

Ok, but in your original comment about Schoenberg, you said that his musical style was reflective of the worldwide emancipation of humanity from God's natural order, like the sexual revolution, which to say the least is a bold moral statement about his art in relation to Christian values. This is related to your original post about realising that most of classical music is 'pagan'. My main concern is that, if you follow your logic, and what seems to be popular in lots of Christian circles (everything modern is evil), Schoenberg will be the first to go, and next will be Wagner and his lot, and then Beethoven will be soon to follow. I already know some Christians who will not listen to Beethoven because it is 'enlightenment nonsense'. It would be a shame if the Church lost appreciation for modern art because we can't separate the merits of the artistic result from the anti-Christian philosophies of the composers.

Now I think most would agree that Bach's music is, in some sense, "better" or more complex and intellectually developed than Haydn's - perhaps in the way that one might argue that Turretin was a "better" theologian than Matthew Henry.

This is just proof of my concern. First of all, it is just not true in the slightest that most people would agree that Bach is better than Haydn because it's more complex (and it would follow better than Mozart and Beethoven too). It isn't even close. This is a very narrow way to think about beauty. And anyways, I haven't read enough of Henry to say, but Calvin was certainly a better theologian than Turretin. Not that the analogy is perfect, because we're discussing complexity as an aesthetic merit.

 

[Logan]

The answer to the thread's question is "yes".

Glad I could help out. Y'all can stop posting now.

 

[Ploutos]

@Neil - I'm not really approaching this thread from the perspective of a reaction to fundamentalist views of classical music. I'm approaching it from the perspective of a reaction to views of classical music that improperly attempt to "Christianize" it, so I'm coming at it from the other end.