Serial Composition Today

Extract

I am sure that many composers here today would agree with me that a separate session on serial music is somewhat dangerous. It suggests that it is some other form of composition and that its problems are something apart. In 1960 few would deny the validity and power of music which is not tonal. If one fails to accept the great new forces of our time, one is not actually living in our time. If one seeks to ignore or ridicule such great forces as the struggle for racial equality or communism, or if one fails to acknowledge to oneself that we live in an Atomic age and that much of our thought and life is bound to be conditioned by it, if we by-pass these real issues and developments, then we lose the stimulation of our age. Whether we are in agreement with what has resulted from these forces or how they have been managed is another matter and of less importance than the fact that we should recognise them for what they are. Acceptance of, but not necessarily capitulation to, such great forces implies courage and an open mind. From such an acceptance could follow a possibility that the best results might be encouraged. But in saying that, I presuppose a great many things amongst which open-mindedness and a true enthusiasm for new ideas are not the least important. This panel session deals with just such a great force in the creative musical thought of our century and in this paper I shall deal with what seems to be the crux of the problem of creative musical thought today. I shall deal with no great technicalities or obscurities but try to show you how I personally feel that the great forces set in motion by Schoenberg, and developed by Webern, have done more than anything to face squarely the great dilemma which exists in music today.