Ragtime#3: Agent of History

Agent of History: exploring the musical and societal ramifications of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method, as well as examining elements which presaged serialism.  With brilliant musical mind and celebrated pianist-composer Peter de Jager.

0’00 - Intro

3’48 - EXCERPT: Schoenberg Erwartung

5’26 - Why was the implementation of the 12-tone method necessary?

12’ -    Dissonance not necessarily subjective 

12’51 - EXCERPT: Bach-Webern Ricercare

19’02 - EXCERPT: Berg Lulu Act.III

21’10 - To what extent might serialism ensure the ‘emancipation of dissonance’?

25’29 - EXCERPT: Schoenberg Der Mondfleck

26’37 - Can one distinguish between 12-tone and atonality?

37’35 - The American influence: Carter

42’45 - Busoni’s 1906 experiment with microtones

50’26 - Plane overhead!

50’47 - Alfred Tennyson versus Bertrand Russell

52’50 - Varese, Pythagoras, and scientific objectivism 

54’40 - EXCERPT: Ionisation

56’54 - Might one distinguish between music and noise?

1:01’05 - ‘Art means new art’ 

1:01’22 - EXCERPT: Haydn Creation

1:07’36 - 12-tone music’s ultimate paradox

1:12’00 - Stravinsky, Hindemith, and WWI

1:13’40 - Adorno and political overtones of tonality 

1:18’45 - What exactly is ‘modernism’?

1:19’20 - EXCERPT: 1918 Dixieland