I have been practicing two pieces over the past week, an old piece by my teacher and a piece by Schoenberg. In terms of the music idiom, the two pieces are quite similar. I would not describe it as atonal. Many composers dislike the term because the prefix a- (for ex. averse, atypical) means "not." Therefore, if atonal means "without tone," it doesn't describe the type of music that is not in a key, per se. These pieces have tones, to me they simply are not comparable to something by Mozart or Bach that is in a key, and has very few non-diatonic tones I have created videos of these two pieces:

Music Videos:

No. 1 from Stemper's "Four Piano Pieces" (1976)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uITDIm6ry4k

No. 2 from Schoenberg's "Six Little Piano Pieces" (1911)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnlpZ3JO_Is&feature=relmfu

Audio Files:

Schoenberg - Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 - No. 2: Langsam (1:10)

The audio files are the same as each video soundtrack.

Enjoy,

Riley

Hi Riley,
First "atonal" does not mean "without tone," rather it means "without tonality," tonality meaning following the hierarchical relationship of the scale degrees and the functional harmony associated with it. These two works are atonal. This is not however the same as saying that they are 12-tone, which the Schoenberg is not (by about 10 years). I'm away from my score of the Schoenberg, so can't be sure but I think you did a good job. I don't know the other at all.

Keep going forward!
Regards,
Eddy

Hi Eddy,

Thanks for listening. Now that I listen back to other recordings of the Schonberg No. 2, I think I have played it too slow (the score says "langsam" but no specific bpm).

In general, I agree with your assessment. The term "tonality" refers to functional harmony, a piece that has a tonic and a key signature. Both of these pieces do not contain any sharps or flats (for a key signature). But to me it is the different between artwork in black and white the same in color. One is not better than the other, right? you don't refer to black and white paintings as acolor paintings

My music history textbook has it as 1923 when Schoenberg first developed the 12-tone method of composing.

I am curious what you think of this type of music?

Regards,

Riley

They sound like well played (nice dynamics in both pieces !) though I can't really judge, not knowing the music. The Schoenberg piece somewhat reminds me of 'Dawn' from Bartok's Easy Pieces. Maybe it's the calm legato way you play it (Andy Lee's recording on the site is far more quirky). I wonder of one of these composers had heard the others' piece. Very good to venture into this kind of repertoire ! These can surely go on the site (Stemper in the Various section).

Riley - thank you for posting these very interesting pieces. I really wish I could get into this sort of music (atonal, etc) more, but I must admit I appreciate it much more than I enjoy it.

It seems to me that you did a great job with both recordings, and I did enjoy them MUCH more with the visuals on YouTube than as audio by themselves. It's probably just like anything else - the more I learn about composers such as Schoenberg and expose myself to their music, the more I'll get from it. Certainly my own shortcomings here I feel, not yours!

Keep up the great work!

Matt

Riley, like liver pâté and escargot, I like it in limited quantities.

@ Chris

I had a listen to your recording of Dawn by Bartok, I can hear the similarity, wonder if he was influenced by Schoenberg, though if my memory serves me weren't the 10 Easy Pieces adapted from folk songs? And I listened to Andy Lee's recording, he does plays the running eighths staccato, and Chiara Bertoglio's recordings is the same. I talked to my teacher today and he was happy to hear my rendition, but said there were a few parts that I played wrong so I would rather that piece not go on the site, if you could put the schoenberg piece on the site I would appreciate it.

@ Matt

I am the same way, some new music I have trouble enjoying, and sometimes for me it takes several listenings for me to really comprehend the work in its entirety. Thanks for listening.

@ Eddy

I don't know what pâté is, but I understand escargot to be snails. Gross! I think the only circumstances I would eat a snail is if someone offered me a million dollars to!

Riley

Hehe, you don't have to eat them raw, you know

Only some of them. Actually I'm not sure if he used original folk material or made up his own (some composers can do that).

Sure, but not before you've done your bit. Please re-upload with correct file names and ID3 tags, as described in this sticky topic:
http://pianosociety.com/new/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5115&p=51530

That would be a cool skill to have



I have found the ID3 tagging feature on Windows Media Player. One interesting thing I noticed in the tag editor is next to genre there are a number of moods you can select for a file: Party, Angry and Sunday Brunch to name a few. What is a sunday brunch mood I left the mood blank

Now to practice and record Evocation, an Invention, a Haydn piece and after that, a work by Mr. Pfaul. It may take till next year to get this all done

Riley

That is good However you also did not fill the all-important Name tag (or rather it is filled with the file name). I would insist that everybody gets this right from now on, as described in the mentioned sticky topic.

Better hurry up then Good luck with Evocation, you "only" have to compete with Francois de Larrard now, as I have withdrawn my version.

I think I have it right now, third time has to be the charm



It will be quite a challenge to compete with Mr. Larrard

Nope, this is not right yet. You left out your name and the year, and did not put the actual title (Six Pieces) in the Name tag, that should be

Schoenberg - Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 - No. 2: Langsam

It seems like getting people to do this right may be more work than fixing the tags ourselves. But it's become a matter of principle now.

Poor Riley....

Sorry, Riley, but Chris is right in that we really need people to make correct tags and titles so as to save us the time from having to do it.
And sorry again for my delay in listening to your recordings here, but now I finally found a bit of time. I don't have really much to say about the first piece, except that your space images are perfect. I always call this kind of music 'space music'. I liked the Schoenberg piece best. I never used to like him before, but then I heard all six pieces from this set and printed them out. They're sitting on my piano, but alas I have no time to play them. Someday.... Anyway, nice playing and nice videos!

Chris,



I have made the changes. Should have all the information this time!

Monica,



I understand, and redoing the ID3 tags is good because now I know exactly what to label for a future recording

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Thanks for the compliment and for listening! I am glad you like the visuals for the video. I think this type of music is more abstract and free floating, what seems to me to be how space is. Of course, I have never been anywhere but earth, just my interpretation

Riley

Schoenberg - Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 - No. 2: Langsam (1:10)