This is why in college we joked that his biography should be called "Bach, Schoenberg, and Cigarettes."

I like it :)

My bet was that Verklarte Nacht would last the test of time and that his tough-listenin' serial works would not be performed very often in the future, except as curiosities. But I've been wrong before.

I guess that criteria would include Stravinsky. No shot

GG also preferred Petula Clark to the Beatles.

Harsh but fair

Stravinsky did not use 12-tone in his early career. Only later in his life did he "realize" how 12-tone operates, and he began to use it. Arnold Schoenberg was the person who *invented* 12-tone.

Josef Matthias Hauer was the person who invented 12-tone compositions actually. Schoenberg refined it though.

Actually Mozart created the tone row in the last movement of his 40th symphony. Gould claimed this was one of the few pieces of Mozart he thought was any good lol

There was supposedly someone else who claimed to be the originator of 12-tone technique. He had a rubber stamp containing his name and this claim and used it on written correspondence. I read about this a long time ago (80s). I think it was in *Fanfare* or *The Absolute Sound:* not an academic publication but not aimed at the general public either. I don't remember his name, other than I think it had a 'z' in the last name.

Uh huh

Meanwhile, I don’t know what you guys are talking about

[Twelve-tone technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique).

Thanks! You forced me to read about it and listen to a few relevant pieces.

:)

Gould was a character. Curiously old-fashioned in some ways -- the formality of speech and the concern with things like "immortality". Somewhat apart from that, Schoenberg was good and his music is worth getting to know! We don't have to frame it in competitive terms.

i love gould’s way of communicating. the man has me hooked on every word, believing it with every part of me, and then the video ends and i think to myself, wow, i disagree with every single thing he just said

I mean he was born in the 30s and he was very well educated. I dont see his way of speaking veering very far away from others born in that era.

Schoenberg has been one of my best 'discoveries', ever.

I should admit that I do find a lot of the serial work dry. But not all of it! And there's lots of other work.

Pierrot Lunaire and Verklarte Nacht 💖💖💖💖

Everybody likes VN of course! I would add \- Chamber Symphony #1 \- Five Pieces for Orchestra \- Variations for Orchestra op. 31 \- String Trio

Not to mention, Gurrelieder. Schoenberg IMHO definitely proved he knew the "rules" before breaking them! Fav performances are Chailly and Gielen.

Same :)

The Facebook comment I’ll always be proudest of was when someone asked what Tolstoy’s novella “The Kreutzer Sonata” was about. I explained it expressed Tolstoy’s dislike of both middle period Beethoven and physical love “kinda like Glenn Gould”

Schoenberg can’t be forgotten as a composer. His ideas were too important to be overlooked. But never was there a composer before and since who has had such a division within people consisting of lovers, haters, and those who are simply indifferent. Schoenberg could possibly be responsible for why the saying “hey! That sounds like a cat running across the piano!” exists…he was revolutionary, bold, and brave which I like in an artist.

Agree 100%. I think I might be attracted to divisive artists :)

He seems like he would’ve been a likable “father figure”. Very mature, well dressed, educated and experienced with life (I’m referring to him in his later years). Remember, this was a man who had to escape Austria due to anti-semitism. Just like Rachmaninoff, he too was an expat who had settled in America on the Western coast in California. Rach I believe was living in California as well. Schoenberg was escaping fascism/Nazism and Rachmaninoff was escaping communism.

He was also a [painter](https://benopus111.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/schoenberg_blick-gaze-may-1910.jpg), and I love this picture of [him playing ping-pong](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NZPzGl-b51c/maxresdefault.jpg).

Geniuses usually have multiple interests or skills. Einstein was fond of playing violin and sailing on boats, apparently. Oppenheimer was into Hinduism in addition to physics and the study of the atomic bomb.

conductor: and our next piece is by Arnold Schoenberg... audience: conductor: Verklärte Nacht audience:

How do you people manage to enjoy his music? I've tried frankly for some time, but I just can't get it for most of his pieces, such as his piano suite.. Any keys to understanding would be greatly appreciated

Because it is awesome. Start with the Karajan/BPO recordings of Verklaerte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande (two early late-Romantic orchestral pieces) and work your way forward, chronologically.

Love these pieces but -- if one is coming off, say, Mahler's 8th or Wagner's Tristain -- Gurrelieder yields it's ecstatic secrets more readily.

You listen to the music. You give a piece several hearings. At the end, if you don't like it, then you just don't like it. Nothing wrong with that. But if you don't give it a chance, then you have failed, not the composer. I spent my formative years disliking Schoenberg, but later on he became one of my favorites.

Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjg88bCsri8

i found the vocal and orchestral works to be more engaging getting into it. the weird vocal style and orchestration made it easier to deal with the lack of tonality. the piano works eventually become more understandable once you’re prepred

I just want to say, it's real achievement how this thread collectively managed to misinterpret nearly every single word of this quote! Bravo!

Seriously

Right?

OMG yes.

Glenn Gould is such an artist of his time. I suspect he was kind of a cultural retort to rock and roll. He writes voluminous liner notes to many of his records, and even makes up -- makes up! -- a letter from Beethoven "explaining" his work to a "friend." It's a bit unfair because it is only at the end of the "letter" that Gould says, "That is what I imagine Beethoven saying." This clip alone proves he as certainly part of an "intellectual blitzkrieg" of pop culture at the time. I love his verbosity, but, in what musical matters has Gould proven correct? I have his entire discography inherited from an uncle. I simply cannot abide any of it. It's neurotic and affected. A man of his time. He did get Bach back in his rightful place though.

Well said. I find Gould's modus operandi to not correspond to the interpreter's task, which is to view and understand all of the markings on the page, and make an honest effort to realize what the composer was getting at. Gould's approach has none of that - his objective is to play it radically differently from the way others play it. He hoped that that difference would set him apart as having a special view into what he played, but it only set him apart as committing the ultimate performer's sin, which is to willfully disregard the composer's intention.

The more I learn about Glenn Gould, the more I’m convinced he was an insufferable pile of bullshit.

Why? Because he had a dry sense of humor and loved Schoenberg? THE HORROR!!!

That’s an impolite way to describe complete and utter autism

You said it!

Huh. I haven't noticed that, although maybe I just have not read enough about him. But nothing in the quote above hints toward that afaics.

It’s amazing how wrong some people were about Schoenberg. If the people can’t get down with it, it won’t be popular

I don't think artistic achievement and general popularity are necessarily all that correlated. Because Schoenberg is generally regarded as 'inaccessible' he will never be capital-p "Popular". But Gould isn't talking about popularity. At least, that is how I interpreted it. In any event, I agree with Gould: Schoenberg (and compatriots) are at the top of my list.

Yah that’s a fair point. But I think if you are talking about immortality, you have to talk about popularity in the sense that it must connect and move many people. I love Schoenberg but realize many many people do not like him. People have to connect to art for immortality and for me, too many do not for him to be considered immortal. I also tend to think Schoenberg was weirdly dogmatic about his process in a way other composers of his ilk were not.

>Schoenberg was weirdly dogmatic about his process in a way other composers of his ilk were not. During a class in 20th century music we analyzed a section of his *Variations for Orchestra.* We found a note that could not be explained by any manipulation of the tone row or other aspects of his technique (to the extent that we understood it, this was an undergrad class). The consensus was that he put that note in because it sounded good. That completely changed my approach to Schoenberg.

"That completely changed my approach to Schoenberg." One note changed your approach??

Yes, because that one note indicated that he wasn't just working through his process mechanically. He was willing to break the rules to make something sound better. Until then I had thought that his music was cool on paper (counterpoint on steroids) but I couldn't connect to it when listening. That one note told me that there was an actual human sensibility behind the music and it changed how I listened. People more versed in 20th century music probably already knew that Schoenberg broke his own rules, but it was a major discovery to me 40+ years ago.

I see your point. I interpreted the quote as pertaining to musical scholars like himself: so, to that 0.000001% of the population, Schoneberg is _immortal_ :)

>pertaining to musical scholars like himself Gould was a performer of genius, but he wasn't a "musical scholar". His formal education was very limited (he didn't graduate high school) and never undertook a systematic study or writing as scholars do. In fact, he neither spoke nor read German, which is pretty much sine qua non for a scholar who specializes in the two composers Gould admired most, Bach and Schoenberg.

Welp I think the Royal Conservatory of Music counts as a scholarly institution. Not confined to performance, Gould learned music history, theory, and was exposed to a wide breadth of music, and spent the remainder of his life immersed in music. If you hold that "scholars" must hold a PhD in their field, then I suppose Gould doesn't qualify. \[I have a PhD in my field, but do not regard it essential in others to recognize them as "scholars"\]. Nevertheless, I would think Gould's breadth of knowledge and mastery of theory affords him *some* qualified insight into the various qualities of "great music".

>I think the Royal Conservatory of Music counts as a scholarly institution In those days, it was the "Toronto Conservatory of Music", and, according to Bazzana, "Though incorporated in 1886, it still did not offer the highest level of professional training; most of the pupils were children and amateurs." (And Gould *was* a child when enrolled there.) Gould was awarded the ATCM (Associate, Toronto Conservatory of Music) diploma in 1946, at age 14. This was certainly remarkable, but it didn't make him a scholar. Gould was 13 when he was enrolled in Grade 9 at the Malvern Collegiate Institute, a high school in the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto, and, according to one of its graduates, "a notoriously mediocre school". Gould attended Malvern until 1951, finishing Grade 13 without graduating (because, supposedly, he refused to take Phys Ed). >exposed to a wide breadth of music, and spent the remainder of his life immersed in music None of those make one a scholar. >I would think Gould's breadth of knowledge and mastery of theory affords him some qualified insight into the various qualities of "great music". To be sure. But does that make him a scholar? Perhaps we hold different understandings of the word. It is perfectly possible to be a scholar without a formal degree -- but not without engaging in systematic study, writing, and exchange with other scholars, and that Gould never did. In which he was no different from other great pianists of the time, such as Richter, Gilels or Lupu.

Jfc then "music professional". The original comment was meant as a joke (notice the humorously ridiculous small percentage given and the smiley face emoticon): only a slim proportion of a proportion of people (_in the know_) regard Schoenberg as 'immortal'. Like, I acknowledge the person above me was right, just allow there is the tiniest group (tiny in regards to the entire population) out there that agrees with Gould.

>Gould was a performer of genius What makes you say that?

My ears.

To each, his own.

Artistic achievement is just popularity among a narrow subset of listeners whom the artist happens to be pandering to in particular.

Hrm. I disagree. There are plenty of art, artists, and even genres (not restricted to music) that I can recognize as brilliant and respect but just do not participate in because they are outside my main passions that I'd rather put my time into. It is quite easy to say "X is a genius at Y, a master of their craft, and I respect their achievements, but I'm just not _into_ Y". It's also interesting that you imply _all_ artists 'pander'. I think I disagree just as strongly to this. The best artists (across fields) that I can think of simply didn't give a fuck.

So what you're saying is that quality in art is purely subjective. That would be wrong.

So what is your counter argument?

If we agree that art is communication, then its quality is proportional to the quality and quantity of information that is communicated to the perceiver. Both of these factors can to a large extent be measured, in music at least, via fairly standard modes of analysis.

I would disagree. The information that is communicated only holds value in so far as it commands our emotional centres which is a subjective process. Otherwise it’s literally just noise with arbitrary organization. It’s not like a mathematical theorem that holds valuable truth outside of our perception of it. It’s just noise.

Ever hear of, say, the overtone series?

Yes I am familiar with the overtone series, which, while perhaps codifying what sounds consonant or dissonant to the ear, has little to no bearing on form, rhythm, broad sequencing of harmonic progressions, orchestration, lyrical expression, and countless other aspects that subjectively differentiate good music from being a static drone.

But you said without subjectivity music is just noise. Noise does not focus on individual members of the overtone series as melody. Noise does not utilize members of the overtone series as simultaneities we call "chords", a series of which we call "harmony". When a child sings "the wheels on the bus", he does so intuitively and easily upon hearing it once of twice because it is built on the overtone series. So either you believe that that is all coincidence, or your equation of music without subjectivity to noise is wrong. Something similar can be shown with rhythm. Rhythm is usually the division of time into perceptible units related to a pulse. Noise does not usually refer to a pulse, nor to divide a sequence of pulses into pereptible units called "measures", nor to divide individual pulses into logical divisions based on 2 or 3. The objectivity of quality in music of course goes far beyond these primitive examples, but I don't have time to go deeper.

It depends what you mean by "general popularity". If you're just talking numbers, then yes, Justin Bieber is not a great artist. However, if you're talking, in the case of music, educated classical music lovers, then numbers have done an excellent job of indicating artistry. Beethoven was a much greater artist than Hummel, Brahms than Zemlinski, Bach than Telemann, and that is borne out by their relative popularity amongst music lovers.

The comment above ("the people") implied the general population, so that is what I was replying to. I agree that, amongst the informed, numbers are a good barometer.

Well he was fuckin wrong wasnt he? Schoenberg, thank god, has been forgotten by the masses and has since been overshadowed by Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky.

IMHO a bit of a "newby-trying-to-gain-password-to-the-cool-club-in-town" attitude. Schoenberg, like anyone, is more complex and multi-dimensional than some make him out to be. I'm sad to see the upvotes.

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The point is, Schoenberg's output is far more varied in style and "accessibility" than many seem to think. And newbies seem to obsess over his most thorny works, though to be fair, those works get the most attention and cause the most fuss. "Schoenberg is unlistenable" is right up there with "Vivaldi wrote the same work 500 times, "Mahler's 7th is a near miss," and "The Karajan sound is too smooth." : ) Surely a little discrimination and nuance is in order?

Schoenberg does have some interesting works, most notably imo Verklarte Nacht. The themes and melodies of that work are incredibly emotional and I rlly enjoy them. And then it’s just a fall off. By all means give some examples of less thorny works by Schoenberg, I’m all ears.

Gurrelieder, (and better bring \*two\* ears for that one). : ) Just off the top of my head I'd add his piano pieces, (which I didn't care for until I got them under my fingers), and 5 Orchestral pieces, Op 16. Colorfully-scored if slightly "thorny" but should be easily digested. The shifting colors and stillness of "Summermorgan" is a real treat. I imprinted on famous Mercury Lp with Dorati/LSO which also contains Berg's incredible "3 Pieces for Orchestra," which I enjoy immensely, and not in the least as an "academic exercise." ( I just updated that recording with MTT's fantastically-recorded SF Media Berg release which includes the Violin Concerto.) FWIW, I'd incidentally familiarized myself, (and fell in love) with Strauss' Salome and Elektra before sitting down and actively listening to the so-called Second Viennese School out of genuine curiosity and with impartiality, (not to mention a few Straussian battle scars to ease the blows. : ) My humble issue at the outset was with your blanket dismissal, not when or how a composer "fell-off," whatever that means. You may have the last word. PS: in retrospect, had I not familiarized myself with Schoenberg's "falling off" period, : ) I don't think I would have warmed up -- as quickly as I did -- to the fantastic sound worlds of, say, Gesualdo or Machaut. Wild stuff!

Tchaikovsky was dead as hell my dude

Yes?

Yes indeed

Ok bud

The masses don't control music, they simply consume it like a commodity. Musicians have not forgotten Schoenberg, for better or for worse, and from the sounds of it you would appreciate the *reaction* to Schoenberg and modernism/postmodernism. People still study Schoenberg, hyper experimentalism is just seen as a little indulgent nowadays (thankfully). Still, an important step to get where we are now and that's something to appreciate in itself. Basically, Schoenberg is immortal even if listening to music to pretend you're 2deep4u went out of fashion.

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What you're describing is explicitly what I meant by "indulgent." Bertolt Brecht's aesthetic is the answer here, true elitist classism is writing above your audience, excluding your audience, insulting your audience when what they really appreciate is a simple, but clever, message where simple/clever are never mutually exclusive. Pretending to be smart is a bad reason to create art.

I mean yeah, I agree lol

Plenty of extremely accomplished musicians hate Schoenberg or are unaware of his existence

Are you sure? His text books are amazing?

Yes, if you want to write like Schoenberg, which not many people do

Oh serialism? No, his admirers missed the point, Schoenberg was conducting a sort of experiment to do with the limits of the evolution of dissonance. It was music that necessarily had to be written. Consider the following, being a literal academic of true worth do you think maybe the results wasn't "let's go" like an ideologue but rather, hmm yes, I think this *is* too far but it's music so that's okay. The scientific method allows for failure. To me, it kind of leaves no where for academic music to go? Not really a bookend to close off history but definitely worthy of a very gratuitous unit in any uni. Honestly, I'm just jelly I didn't choose music composition. Let me seethe in bitterness and imagine all the lunacy I could have created.

right on!

And Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, in turn, have been forgotten by the masses and since been overshadowed by Taylor Swift.

I think we need to wait until Swift is as old as Schoenberg to make this comparison

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Ooh, trending on tiktok!

Yeah that’s the elitism talking. Unfortunately the older generations can’t seem to rap their heads around how instrumental tiktok has been in getting different pieces of music into the spotlight, classical / orchestral music especially. Your undermining of this just shows ur own ignorance unfortunately, but it’s ok maybe you’ll understand eventually 😁

it’s not elitism. Try deleting all your cookies, reset your browser, start a new account and see if Rachmaninoff is still ‘trending’ on Tiktok for you.

Still seeing videos with thousands of views and likes with rachmaninoff music. Hmmmmm 🤔🤔

Anything trending on your social media is clearly reflecting your online history. I listened to a bunch of Steely Dan albums youtube about a month ago and, voila, Steely Dan was suddenly trending on my twitter feed. It is meaningless as a barometer. Rachmaninoff is a popular composer for pianists so, of course, there will be videos of people showing off their ability to play Rachmaninoff. It doesn’t mean he’s getting more popular or he’s the ‘voice of gen z’ or he was ‘ahead of his time’ some such nonsense. It’s all a funhouse mirror reflecting (and distorted by) your media online diet.

Thank you for telling me how the algorithm works! I had no idea! But Rachmaninoff second piano concerto WAS trending on tiktok, becoming a very popular sound, especially the climax of the adagio. So I see that as a marker of the tastes of Gen z, as well as prominent artists like Tyler the creator, Kanye, or Rex Orange County using orchestras and strings to enhance their music. All of them are very lyrical, which Rachmaninoff was an expert in. Modern day audiences are drawn to that more than anything Schoenberg composed. So yeah... kinda the whole point of my argument

You’re kinda delusional, but have fun!

"Our era", so Tchaikovsky is irrelevant. And Rachmaninoff was a holdover from the romantic era. Regardless, I personally prefer Schoenberg to either of them, and by a wide margin.

I can't agree, but nevertheless Schoenberg was immensely impactful, so I think Gould is right in this instance.

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By holdover I meant no slight, but instead that he was "one of the last great representatives of Romanticism". I do not deny his genius in any way. But while Rachmaninoff flourished in a waning genre, Schoenberg in large part brought about a new era, like it or not. At least, that is how I glean things (and I make no claims to being categorically correct). If your reaction to Schoenberg is "yeah, we _get_ it" then more power to you, but he (and his ilk) resonate especially with me.

You have no idea what you are talking about here. Rachmaninoff, whether you love him or not, was objectively a retrograde figure and was not “ahead of his time” in any fashion. His exact contemporaries were Scriabin, Ravel and Schoenberg, himself. That’s not a value judgment, and he wrote a lot of lovely music, but if Rach was ahead of his time, then who WASN’T ahead of their time? As for Schoenberg, I doubt you’ve listened to any of his music for more than 3 minutes (hint, he wrote a large amount of tonal music comprising about 1/3 of his output; I suggest you start there if you actually want to be informed).

“I doubt you’ve listened to any of his music for more than 3 minutes” omg the snark. Verklarte nacht in full is a masterpiece, plz save it for someone else 🥱🥱

If you think Rachmaninoff was ahead of his time then you are misinformed or uninformed about classical music of the past 120 years. If you like Verklaerte Nacht, than why are you taking ignorant-sounding potshots at Schoenberg?

I love this video. Gould gesticulating all over the place and poor Yehudi trying his best to keep up, not able to make head or tail of the stuff he's playing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AABQYAPK\_Ek&t=761s

Yehudi: "I've always had the motto in my life that anyone who liked something knew more about it than one who didn't." Very provocative. I'm skeptical it always holds true, but I feel like the world would be a far better place if we defaulted to this position.

I can't agree and to a large extent, at least regarding the arts, it's why we have Glass after having had Bach and Rothko after Monet.

I don't understand how the second half of your response is relevant to the quote at all. What does forging new paths have to say about enjoyment requiring understanding?

A culture has developed in the arts in recent decades that suggests that an art consumer should not try to understand art, since he is by definition incapable of it. The art consumer who "got" Bach or Monet with little or no effort was confronted in recent decades with stuff that made little or no sense to him. He is told by the art establishment that that is his fault, that he lacks elements necessary to perceive its value, but the truth is that it is the fault of the art. In Schoenberg's atonal and serial music, e.g., the pitches make \*no aural sense\* and no amount of "trying" will change that fact. Comprehension is unachievable with the objectively incomprehensible.

Still don't see how it is relevant. Yehudi is saying that when he doesn't like something, he tries to see it through the eyes of someone who loves it to understand what qualities it *might* possess. The fact that some works are "incomprehensible" in that they *break the rules* is almost completely irrelevant. A classical connoisseur may disregard punk as simplistic cacophonic dreck, and they'd be correct from a music theory perspective, but they are still missing the point entirely. I'm not saying that Schoenberg's appeal is a punk/avant-garde aesthetic (although I do not dispute it, either); his 'musical worth' *can* be explained (and hence understood) by someone with a better musical vocabulary than myself. Finally, *even if* the quote breaks down in the face of the "incomprehensible", my original comment was that the notion of trying to understand the love of others for things you yourself might disapprove of might be a good *general* position. This *might* involve music, or maybe it is paintings, or maybe it is diet, or running, or board games, or programming languages, or religion, or whatever. I just think rather than defaulting to an attitude of "welp, they're idiots for liking X" which seems so prevalent today, asking the question of "what is it about X that makes you love it so much?" seems a more worthwhile pursuit; you might even find something you love that you initially rejected! Tried to understand the qualities of something and failed? Well, then you can be sure the thing is not for you.

>my original comment was that the notion of trying to understand the love of others for things you yourself might disapprove of might be a good general position. You originally said that the world might be a better place if we defaulted to Yehudi's position, and his position was \*not\* what you say above. He said that those who like something by definition know more about it than those who don't. I hate the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but know more about it than Russians who like it. I'm fairly certain I, who despise everything that Schoenberg wrote (yes, including Gurrelieder) know more about his music (at least more of what I believe music is about) than those who claim to like it.

Here is the full quote (my emphasis): >I was very anxious to take you up on the invitation to play it because I admire you and know that **you know more about Schoenberg and have a genuine understanding of Schoenberg perhaps than anyone else and I'm always interested in learning about something through the eyes of someone who understands it and loves** it because I've always had the motto in my life that anyone who liked something knew more about than one who didn't. I don't see where you think I misrepresented Yehudi. Yehudi's position is *not* "if you understand something (more) you necessarily love it (more)" like your bad-faith Ukraine example. Why would you pick an example where one side is bombarded with mistruths?!? It is quite possible (and commonplace) to deeply understand terrible things: cancer doctors do not love cancer, for example. Neither Yehudi nor I implied such a ridiculously ubiquitous notion. He was talking about art, I was talking about social interactions. And you don't *have* to love something just by coming to an understanding of it; that would be stupid. No one, anywhere, stated such a thing. If that is what you thought he implied, then I understand why you reject it, but your rejection would be based on a misinterpretation. What I wrote above is what I imagine it would be like if we extrapolated Yehudi's sentiment to every day social life. Just a very simple "try to understand the other position rather than dismissing out of hand." You know, empathy. That's what you have been arguing against for *far* too many comments: empathy. I'm sure you know more about Schoenberg than I ever will, so please sit content in your authoritative contempt for him while I attempt to remain content "claiming to like him". Have a great day!

>"I've always had the motto in my life that anyone who liked something knew more about it than one who didn't." ... I feel like the world would be a far better place if we defaulted to this position. This was your original post. Your second post was "the notion of trying to understand the love of others for things you yourself might disapprove of might be a good general position." Do you really think the second is just a rephrase of the first? The first says that liking something = knowing more about it than one who doesn't like it. The second just says it might be nice to try to understand why some may love things you don't.

The full quote above contains both sentiments. Yeesh.

On a recent Reddit thread, somebody called me an elitist because I complained about audiences clapping between movements. While I respect and admire Schoenberg, I think it safe to say that posterity will honor many other 20th Century composers - such as Stravinsky, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Copland, Barber, Hindemith, Villa-Lobos, Part, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Gorecki, and even Berg - and when I say “honor” I mean they will more frequently perform their music - than that sublime but obscure serial serialist…..and maybe I’m wrong, but that kinda sorta makes me a very plebeian sort of elitist……

I wish Ligeti and Babbitt were on that list.

And Webern

I am amazed how much Gould cited his « northern « inheritance as if provided him with positive traits. When I watched his « idea of the North «  program I could understand how that thinking became some kind of hidden prejudices. Like this one against Schoenberg or his dislike for all French composers. I see it as a kind of limiting himself.

"Upper Canada" doesn't refer to the north here. Rather, it's basically an antiquated term for what later became known as Ontario. Upper Canada was ruled over by the Family Compact and had famously Protestant values that still live on in some of Ontario's rules around, say, liquor consumption. Gould is poking fun at this idea, not taking pride in being from the north.

I get your general point (I come from the same "Canadian Puritanical" upbringing), but I don't know what you mean by "*against* Schoenberg".

Gould was very much pro-Schoenberg.

This reads to me like he's just being tongue in cheek and saying that he bets Schoenberg will outlive us all. Not that he's tooting his own horn about not gambling.

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I agree with him ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

Some of his pieces are unbelievable masterpieces (I'm a big fan of Verklarte Nacht, String Quartet No.2, the Piano and Violin Concerti and a few other pieces), but they are not easy and will require quite a few hearings to really appreciate. It seems to me that Schoenberg is to early 20th century music what Kant is to late 18th century literature. Both are great and occupy a major place in the history of their genre, but it will probably always be the case that very few people will really engage with their work.

That seems like a fair take.

Could yall recommend any pieces by Schoenberg you like? I haven't listened to his music but I'm curious and idk where to start.