The other serial Berg
Daily Comfort ZoneOutside of Denmark and the outer reaches of 12-tone music, the name of Gunnar Berg has all but vanished since his death in 1989.
Next Saturday, May 13, the British pianist Peter Seivewright will perform GAFFKY’S, a very substantial piano work by Berg in Schott’s Music Room, London.
Peter Seivewright tells us why:
Modernism’ is now very much a historical period. Indeed, the underlying Philosophy of Modernism, which is that composers have some sort of absolute duty to expand and develop the so-called ‘language’ of music in some way, now seems quaint, ridiculous, and even slightly pathetic in a childish and attention-seeking sort of way. However, context, as always, is everything. Not all composers from the ‘modernistic’ period of music were guilty of this type of ‘attitudinising’. Far from it. Elliott Carter, for example, composed music which might loosely be described as ‘modernistic’, yet the ‘modernistic’ worship of novelty was utterly repugnant to him. Carter’s thinking about music was naturally quite complex, in an extremely affirmative sort of way, and he composed accordingly.
Gunnar Berg also falls into this category. Berg had absolutely no desire whatsoever to be considered a ‘rebel’, or to be thought of as ‘notorious’ in any way. Quite the reverse. There is absolutely no aggression of any form in Gunnar Berg’s music. On a personal level, Berg was an extremely genial, welcoming and affable individual, a constant pipe-smoker, who was absolutely devoted to his wife, and very appreciative when performers took an interest in his music. Berg’s music exactly expresses his easy-going and pleasant personality. There is no ‘dogma’ of any kind in Berg’s music. Although Berg’s music is certainly essentially atonal, Berg uses consonances, including octaves, in a way which Boulez, for example, would never have contemplated. Berg simply wrote the music he wanted to hear. In my opinion, Berg’s music is extremely beautiful, and I plan on performing Berg’s very substantial body of very pianistic piano music extensively over the coming years.
Generally speaking, the “childish” way to look at art was a definitive hallmark of the 20th century impression, especially after the 60’s. Just think about Yoko Ono, and her screaming interpreted as “innovative”. Art never seemed so lost, to when people give up the pursue of their desired beauty for a pathetic attempt at shocking and disturbing.
The problem with serialism is that, no matter how non-childish, sincere and inspired a work may be, it sounds just as bad as the works that are not.
Serialism and atonalism seem to have persisted far beyond any merit they contained because they enabled university academics, who couldn’t compose a Girl Scout camp fire song if their lives depended on it, to pose as composers.
Composeurs.