You might have had this discussion with a number of friends – if you could transport yourself to a different era, which would you choose? Which would you avoid? It’s all a game, but good party conversation.

I’m drawn to the explosion of musical achievement in the mid-to-late 19th century – the blossoming of German opera, the evolution of the tone poem. I’d stay away from the Enlightenment. And then there’s the 1910’s, leading up to the outbreak of World War I. I wish I could watch the events of that decade from a safe spot – sort of like watching a shark’s feeding frenzy from a steel cage. It’s completely fascinating, and equally scary.

The world had become modern and much more complex. Romantic sensibilities were shunned. The individual as a hero with a purpose was traded for the absurdity of existence in an human insect-hive. Would any of the “old ways” be relevant in the 20th century?

In the same way that militaries were rushing to be technologically one-step ahead of their enemies, artists were pushing boundaries to the extreme. The term avant-garde means just this – the “advance soldiers” who are doing the riskiest work, but with the greatest promise of reward (if they are successful).

The Austrian musical military was the Second Viennese School, who had created a new musical technology which was years ahead of France and Italy (and decades ahead of England, Russia, and the US). To oversimplify, the old tried-and-true approach to tonality was abandoned, and a new system of organization put into place. If you’ve never heard atonal music before, you might find it difficult to listen to – but if you are able to approach it with an open mind, you might find it quite beautiful, but in very different ways from tonal music. (side note – today’s piece is pretty tame as far as atonality goes …)

Alban Berg (arguably the best composer of the Second Viennese School, though not as famous its founder, Arnold Schoenberg) wrote a set of songs for orchestra and voice in 1911 (the same year as the Rite of Spring). When they were premiered, the audience began to riot – but this was fairly normal for this decade (again, see the Rite.) I would love to have been there – but inside inside a steel cage with bullet-proof glass, of course.