Talk:Sonorism

Confusing

Why and where is this article confusing? How should it be improved? Hyacinth (talk) 06:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I certainly found the opening paragraph confusing, and there are some sentences later on that sound like they were machine-translated from Polish. I've made a stab at fixing that lede, and there is now at least one cited source. See what you think—is it enough improved to warrant removing the banner?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I notice the following sentence fragment at the end, which is certainly confusing and unencyclopedic in tone: "In fact, arose during the period, which you later composers as "experimental"."136.181.195.29 (talk) 02:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be helpful to be able to consult the original (Polish?) text from which this was translated. Even though I have no knowledge of Polish myself, I could still manage to work my what through single sentences like this one. With some adjustments to word order and a few other minor adjustments, this might well be a complete sentence, for example: "In fact, at this time composers came to prominence who later would have been described as 'experimental'". However, as this claim is unsourced, it is hard to know what is intended, and it probably should just be removed on grounds it is gibberish.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:29, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Polish?

Okay, here's a whole article that seems to stem from one single source. I haven't seen that source, but my recent addition of composers Ligeti and Xenakis to the list was removed, with the claim that all examples have to be Polish. Why? Is that a mere inference from the way this article happens to have evolved, or is that something which is actually stated in the one reference book listed here? Besides "nationality," what would rule out the inclusion of Ligeti and Xenakis within the list of associated composers? From my own hearing of their music, they did a ton of stuff in this style! 136.181.195.29 (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

At last! Yes, the article as presently constituted does appear to define Sonorism in national terms and, yes, there is only one cited source (although a number of "Further reading" items). All that is needed to overturn this situation is to find one reliable source that identifies a non-Polish composer with the term "sonorism" (what you believe you hear, and what I believe I hear, counts for nothing on Wikipedia). If such a source is found, there is not anything to rule out the inclusion of Ligeti or Xenakis (or Mozart or Palestrina or Petula Clark) from this list. It may be a bit difficult to find such a source, however, since the term seems to be used mainly by Polish writers, or writers describing Polish composers. Best of luck!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Not sure whether this link will work, but this text (on Google Books) https://books.google.com/books?id=heMqLmSvgtcC&pg=PA375&lpg=PA375&dq=ligeti+xenakis+sonorism&source=bl&ots=0ybe1Zp4lQ&sig=2O1JL7RX6XfEHv3u7uBFFElW0I4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwingPGvw97SAhUn44MKHXmhAA4Q6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=ligeti%20xenakis%20sonorism&f=false presents a slightly broader view than the Polish-only perspective. It's page 375 of Larry Sitsky's "Music of the 20th Century's Avant Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook." I think that many of the published articles involve Polish authors trying to build a case for Poland's distinctive place in post-war music, and therefore emphasized the supposedly distinct aspects of Polish compositions within what is probably better characterized as a wider trend whose most prominent early adherents were from Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Greece), before becoming mainstreamed through the West (i.e. spun-off from the appearance of Ligeti in "2001: A Space Odyssey" - even John Williams includes a textural piece in his 1977 soundtrack to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and the influence upon "New Age" electronic music seems rather clear). 136.181.195.29 (talk) 22:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC) Hee hee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBhcvLHFwIE :-) 136.181.195.29 (talk) 22:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Sitsky presents a good contrary point of view, but the very first problem has to do with who influenced who? The usual "touchstone" piece for "Polish sonorism" is Penderecki's Anaklasis, which was written in 1960. The Xenakis piece Sitsky refers to, Metastasis, was written in 1955, while Ligeti's Apparitions was completed in 1959. Sitsky clearly is implying that Penderecki got his ideas from either Xenakis or Ligeti (or both), but the Polish hypothesis that it all came from Szymanowski puts the boot on the other foot (and is meant to). Personally, I find it problematic that Szymanowski's supposed influence slumbered until after the Warsaw Autumn of 1958 (where works by Cage, Stockhausen, and Boulez were featured, amongst others). In addition to this, Anaklasis is not necessarily the earliest work by a Polish composer to exhibit those qualities, even if it has the highest profile. Then there is the fact that the Polish Composers' Union sent a sizable delegation to Darmstadt in 1956, led by Andrzej Dobrowolski and including Włodzimierz Kotoński, Kazimierz Serocki, and Wojciech Kilar, all of whom are on our list of sonorists here. Did they go to Darmstadt to promote their newly found style? Somehow I doubt it, since none of them began using this style until after 1958. On the other hand, they would have heard a lot of the latest avant-garde works from the West, including especially Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge, which was all the rage at Darmstadt that year, and they all attended Stockhausen's seminars on Zeitmaße and Klavierstück XI. (You can read all about this on pp. 125–28 of my recently published book on Zeitmaße.) There is obviously a political dimension to all of this (since no self-respecting avant-garde composer can admit to getting ideas from any of his contemporaries), and it is surprising that nobody has brought Varèse into the equation, since his ideas about "organized sound" predate all the rest by at least a decade. Perhaps he was influenced by Szymanowski ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I was unfamiliar with Stockhausen and Varese works as precedents, which seems very useful to check into. At the very least, I'm thinking that the Sitsky reference (actually from a chapter authored by a Penderecki expert) should at least be used as a basis for a passage in the article that expresses skepticism about sonorism being a purely national style... 136.181.195.29 (talk) 20:34, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

As often is the case, it depends on the way the term is defined, and a section on definition indeed would be the place to express doubt about whether the idea is somehow exclusively Polish, or if the term is actually a Polish subset of some broader field. From most of what I have read (admittedly not a huge amount, since my ability to read Polish is minimal), the creator of these words, Józef Chomiński, intended "sonoristics" as a broader term, meant to describe anyone's interest in exploring purely sonic phenomena in composition, whereas the derived term "sonorism" refers specifically to a Polish national music style of the 1960s that focused on timbre. This is what the article currently states. I am not aware myself of any more widespread use of the term as such, though certainly Chomiński's more generalised concept of sonoristics has its counterpart in many other terms, techniques, and styles—"composition with sound" and "organised sound" are two I have already mentioned, other related terms include the German Klangkomposition, "sound-mass composition", Xenakis's French term "nuages de son" (sound clouds), and Stockhausen's Tonscharen (showers of sound) and "statistical composition", not to mention Meyer-Eppler's famous aleatory music. A conservative view would certainly trace the musial equivalent of "colouristics" back at least as far as Debussy, though I am not accustomed to hearing him described as a "sonorist". I believe it is fairly clear (though I do not have a reliable source handy at the moment) that the advent of musique concrète and electronic music had a huge influence on Polish composers in the mid-1950s, and in particular the work done at the Studio for Electronic Music (WDR). If I remember correctly, at least one Polish composer (perhaps it was Włodzimierz Kotoński?) spent some time in the WDR studio in the mid-1950s, but certainly Pierre Schaeffer's Paris studio and the WDR studio had a huge influence on the way the Warsaw Radio studio was organised in 1957.

It seems important in the present case not to confuse terms (which may be more specific) with concepts (which may be more general). If, for example, "sonorism" is not a speciically Polish compositional movement of the 1960s, but rather merely a less-familiar synonym for other terms, then we should not be trying to attach the word "sonorism" to composers more usually described with expressions like timbre-centered composition or aleatory music, but instead seeking to merge this article with one of those others. Personally, I would be against such a merge, because I believe that both "sonorism" and (perhaps against Chomiński's original intentiom) "sonoristics" have come to be particularly associated with a national Polish schooll of composition that flourished in the 1960s.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:31, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Citation format

This article/page uses non-standard citation formatting and uses (source) instead of [citation number] with the citation in the citation section. May want to clean it up for consistency with other parts of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:A994:9500:A53E:D4C4:39E3:4BAB (talk) 04:57, 5 December 2021 (UTC)