[Nick Zwar]

I have to admit, I don’t have a “problem” with dissonance or atonal music per se, I don’t see it just “interesting on an academic level”, but enjoy much of it on a very visceral, deeply engrossing — sometimes even soothing — level. I know most people probably just enjoy “tonal” or “melodic” music and don’t listen to any more abstract music at all, but I was always drawn to these type of compositions. Now if I were to view (or perhaps better “hear”) them as mere “paper music”, music with an “interesting” concept on paper or in (music) theory but just awful to listen to, I would not find much pleasure in listening to it.

One of my favorite works is Pierre Boulez “Sur Incices”. Now this is a composition by one of the most radical and uncompromising composers of “paper music” there is, and I understand why Boulez was a very important but also highly divisive composer. Still, when I hear “Sur Incices”, it’s like bathing in a soothing kaleidoscope of musical shimmers, colors, rhythms, and sounds. I find that music very spiritual, actually, and my mind can deeply relax to these sounds. Why? I don’t know. Then again, I don’t know why I like any piece of music, really. Because I don’t like music for rational reasons, but because some music somehow resonates with me. All the “talk” and “writing” about music is just an attempt to get a grasp on how and what a certain score does and why it speaks to some, and perhaps not to others.

By no means does that mean I like all dissonant (though I don’t find Sur Incises dissonant in any way) or atonal (Sur Incises is certainly not classical “tonal” music though) music, no more than I like all tonal or melodic music. Obviously not.

But perhaps because I already grew up with a lot of “classical” classical music (Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, Schubert, etc.), I found it very interesting when I came across radically different works by composers such as Stravinsky, Schönberg, Webern, Ligeti (this one indeed via 2001), Stockhausen as a teenager. Again, I didn’t like all their music right away, but I found it quite interesting.