Fartein Valen: Symphony No.2 (1944)

[@galas062]

thank you!!!!

[@giuseppedimarco8358]

Wonderful!

[@robertwalker3087]

Valen is that rarity in music, the composer who brings the verticality of harmony into equipoise with the horozontality of countrapuntal voices, and does so with such adroitness one forgets the difficulty of the feat. There is a virtuosity in this one has to go all the way back to Bach to find again in such abundance. Valen abandoned harmony entirely, only to find it again, and is ours--all of ours--thanks to his ministration. His symphonies are fully symphonic without bombast or hubris, small-scaled and modest. Their stature belies their dimentions. Where his music is placed in a reckoning of the Twentieth century is up to us, now. What a poor reflection on us, then, if we continue Valen's obscurity.

[@FleuveAlphee]

All this is well said, but the outcome, let's be honest, is just one more 12-tone piece whose audition has the usual rambling, no-centre, no-direction, no-focus effect of much dodecaphonic tedium. Another pointless 'symphony' that will only convince aficionados who want to believe that ditching everything about tonality was a brilliant, 'revolutionary' idea.... "Tabula rasa" as a substitute motto for imagination. It's a pity that Valen spent his early years in Madagascar and made none of it, instead of adhering to Schoenberg's dictum to the letter (and perhaps more).

[@PaulVinonaama]

I don't think Valen ever used dodecaphonic technique, at least not in the works I have studied. They are "free atonality."

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

@@PaulVinonaama - Anybody for Pantonality ? Anybody for Just Intonation ?

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

PS - "dodecaphonic technique"" makes my blood boil !

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

@@PaulVinonaama - "dodecaphonic technique"" makes my blood boil !

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

This music makes great sense just by listening to it. The theory behind it may be a load of umbrellas. Most composers aren't very clever at theory.

[@johnpcomposer]

This sounds very much like free atonality and it does not exclude the suggestion of tonality...but is a much more musical and spontaneous kind of development than you find in the stilted ramblings of much dodecaphonic music which is all I will say without naming names :😉 .

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

I'm thinking of IB NORHOLM ! Any reason.... I'm not sure.

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

Anybody keen on 11-note music should listen to CARL RUGGLES.

[@johnpcomposer]

As opposed to 12 tone? Not sure what either 13 or 11 note music is?

[@rogerantonybennett5272]

Anybody curious about 13-note music should listen to JULIAN CARRILLO.