Webern's Search for Harmonic Identity

Rochberg, George

doi:10.2307/843261

Cited by 7 publications

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“…Such psychological abstractions were justified in Rochberg's opinion, for he believed that serial music had "deep roots in the organization of the human mind [as it] correspond[s] to the phenomenal realm." 118 To him, the stasis inherent in Webern's music, which Rochberg understood as resulting from the composer's reliance on a highly self-referential harmonic system, became prescient of the traumatized state of the postwar world-its emotional withdrawal; its sense of increasing claustrophobia; its tightly constructed spaces; and its limitation of "flexibility, extension, [and] variety." 119 The "neo-Webernicks"-as he referred to composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono-seized upon these tendencies in the music, thus propagating a "psychological state … of suspension" in which "the sound is static; it doesn't seem to move; it's hanging there in the air."…”

Section: Modernism and Exclusive Archetypes: 1955-1957mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…118 To him, the stasis inherent in Webern's music, which Rochberg understood as resulting from the composer's reliance on a highly self-referential harmonic system, became prescient of the traumatized state of the postwar world-its emotional withdrawal; its sense of increasing claustrophobia; its tightly constructed spaces; and its limitation of "flexibility, extension, [and] variety." 119 The "neo-Webernicks"-as he referred to composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono-seized upon these tendencies in the music, thus propagating a "psychological state … of suspension" in which "the sound is static; it doesn't seem to move; it's hanging there in the air." 120 The result, as he would write to Roger Sessions, was "a thin world of music, monotonous in its extremely limited images and gestures," that left the listener not just dissatisfied, but numb.…”

Section: Modernism and Exclusive Archetypes: 1955-1957mentioning

confidence: 99%

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George Rochberg's Road toArs Combinatoria, 1943–63

Wlodarski¹

2018

J Soc American Mus

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George Rochberg often attributed his postmodern shift to the death of his son in 1964. Accordingly, the literature has described his practice of ars combinatoria (“art of combination”) as an “abrupt about-face”—a sudden rejection of modernist aesthetics. But the composer's unpublished essays, diaries, correspondence, and musical sketchbooks suggest that the road to ars combinatoria had well-laid roots in two of his least considered biographical periods: his service during World War II and his serial period. During these two decades, Rochberg actively sought positive models for humanistic composition, historical figures who rose to the level of musical heroes in that they served humanity through their art. But as the war had taught him, heroes are necessarily defined by their struggle against nemeses in ethical conflicts. Correspondingly, he constructed the other side of the artistic world as a realm of vain egoists who sought self-promotion and seemed unconcerned with humanistic modes of expression. As his ideas matured, Rochberg assigned different figures to these archetypes, but the guiding ethical criteria remained fairly consistent throughout. I therefore argue that ars combinatoria was less a sudden aesthetic reversal than it was the result of a longer cumulative process of self-assessment and compositional maturation.

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Section: Modernism and Exclusive Archetypes: 1955-1957mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modernism and Exclusive Archetypes: 1955-1957mentioning

confidence: 99%