Last week, while the regular teacher was rehearsing with the Symphony, I had the opportunity to take the Contemporary Music course over at Maryville. It’s always fun to pinch hit (especially when you’re getting paid) and since this course is right in my comfort zone the prep was relatively straightforward and uneventful. The course population is a mixture of music majors filling a requirement and non-majors looking for liberal arts credit so I knew that I had to keep theory out of the discussion and jargon to a minimum while still providing enough depth to satisfy the musicians. Although it sounds like the perfect blend of elements to have an entertaining class with a minimum of worry there was one big problem.

For most trained musicians, the composers of the Second Viennese School don’t really create much of a stir, but that very first taste of their music is usually a shock for students accustomed to popular music or the common practice era. (Think back, if you will, to your first experience with atonality.) Since I can fairly well predict the reaction to the atonal music of Schoenberg, I almost always feel a little bit of trepidation in the first moments of class, knowing that there will always be one student who just cannot contain their disgust. So when that one student heaves that all too predictable sigh with the overdramatic flail of arms and exclaims “Thank you for stopping that TORTURE!” in full voice when “Der Mondfleck” ends, I just want to strangle them. (Or perhaps a murder and subsequent drowning in a forest pond with a moonbeam pasted on my shoulder would be a better result.)

If you’re sitting there reading this and thinking “Heck yeah! I hate Schoenberg!” let me tell you that I’m fully aware of the challenges posed by listening to sprechstimme about black moths blotting out the sun. In fact, even though I appreciate atonal music and even like some of it (okay, a lot of it), I don’t put on dodecaphonic music when I want to relax. I “get” that part. My problem is that I hate that I am compelled, year after year, to give the lecture about “appreciating art for what it is” and “it’s part of our shared culture” and “we have to be open-minded and mature about this.” It’s part of the job as a teacher, but as a composer, it’s depressing to have to justify any type of music, even if my music is nothing at all like it.

On the bright side, for a few days before and after talking about him, the attendant angst brings me just a little bit closer to Schoenberg.

Now, where’d I put that Fleetwood Mac CD again?