What really bothers me about Holland’s bashing of serialism (and you’re right, it is about ego more than anything else) is that he stands in the way of his readers’ ability to enjoy this music. Of course not everyone will like it, and that’s fine — but for critics like Holland to prejudice people against the music before it even has a chance, with phrases like “breathe a collective sigh of relief” and “dark ages of post-war atonality” (which war does he mean, anyway? I’m actually kind of confused about that) is terribly unfair and in a way even immoral. Especially since newspaper criticism is such a one-sided conversation — at least on a blog, the reader can talk back to the critic if he disagrees or feels that another point of view isn’t being represented, but in Holland’s articles Holland has the first and last word on the matter.

Of course some of the polemics of the likes of Schoenberg and Boulez probably weren’t exactly helpful either, and probably did more harm than good in increasing people’s ability/willingness to like serialist music. But that doesn’t justify an equally negative reaction. If Holland & others just wanted to point out all the good tonal music being written, that would be fine — no need to condemn atonality/pantonality/serialism in order to bring tonal music to light. (An either/or mindset that probably *was* reinforced by aforementioned serialist polemics, to the detriment of the contemporary music scene.)

Also annoying to me is that people sometimes conflate Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, whose musical styles are incredibly different, and so if someone doesn’t like (for example) Schoenberg, they might not expect to like Webern or Berg either. But serialism is IMO a technique more than a musical genre, and one need look no further than these three to see the diversity of expressive possibilities within that technique. People do a similar thing with minimalism (a musical area I am just beginning to try to explore, after realizing that was holding a prejudiced attitude towards minimalism similar to that I decry in other’s views of serialism) and it’s really unfortunate.

You know what I would love to see? Something combining serialism & minimalism. It seems difficult but possible….maybe it has been done and I’m just not aware of it.

Okay, I’m done with my obsessive ramblings on serialism. It’s just something I feel very passionately about :).

Particularly the charge that the music is too difficult. I mean, has anyone tried to play Liszt recently, or Ravel? Serialist music–as it came to be defined–was difficult in many new ways, yes, but, composers have always had a penchant for complexity. Christ, even take Bach fugues!

In the end, it really does just come down to aesthetics. People don’t have to like atonality and serialism, but they should respect the valor of the ideas and expressions behind these kinds of music, not derride them for the sake of their own ego, which is what Holland does. But he’s a critic, so, that’s kind of part of the game.

I also hate, HATE, the following turn of phrase in Holland’s article: “I may have been imagining a collective sigh of relief.” It would be one thing if Holland were breathing a personal sigh of relief, but here he’s practically telling us to do so as well with the word “collective.” Maybe he thought he was just being descriptive of the general public’s feelings about serialism, but this sort of pronouncement can easily turn into the worst kind of prescriptive criticism.

Ugh, I fear that that article has raised my blood pressure a few notches. I should just go to sleep and forget about it….

3 Frequently heard claims about serialist music that really annoy me:
1) The claim that serialist works are “difficult.” It is certainly challenging in that it asks the listener to step outside the tonal idiom, but it is not necessarily difficult to listen to. One of my friends, hearing serialist music for the first time (in the form of Schoenberg’s Op25 Piano Suite), actually described the music as being “rich, different, and kind of relaxing.” She knew nothing of the musical history or technical process behind the music, but still enjoyed it on its own terms. Ten years ago, I had a similar experience (listening to classical radio at 3 am, when they play all the stuff no one wants to listen to) in which I heard Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra (Op31) and fell in love without knowing quite what I was falling in love with. Perhaps the listener best suited to appreciating serialist music is *not* the listener who approaches the music prepared to deal with and understand “difficult” art; perhaps it is the listener who comes in unprepared, un”warned,” willing to just hear the music.

2) The claim that serialism can only express dark, chaotic ideas. This is IMO quite plainly contradicted by pieces like the first movement of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto (Op42) or the Dance Scene from the Serenade for Orchestra (Op24).

3) The claim that the serialist technique is “too mathematical”/”a computer could do it.” Why “mathematical” should be an insult to art is really beyond me (listen to a mathematician speak about the beauty of numbers!). The people making these claims also seem not to realize that a computer could create tonal music too. People who criticize the systematic nature of twelve tone works all too often ignore the systematic nature of tonality. Of course it is a different sort of system — hierarchy in tonality vs equality in serialism (more or less — many serialist works still gravitate towards a central pitch, but in a different manner from that used in tonal works).

Okay, rant over. But these things really get on my nerves.