By “modern love story”, I don’t mean “Romeo & Juliet retold with contemporary characters” – I mean “a prostitute lures a lecher to be robbed and murdered, but the lecher is magical and won’t die until his lust is fulfilled.”

When Béla Bartók‘s ballet “The Miraculous Mandarin” was premiered in 1926, it was quickly banned for its questionable morals. But it was cool to be intense, politically charged, and controversial back then – after all, this was the era which included the rise of facism and communism, American prohibition and speakeasies, and all kinds of varied fringe arts ranging from elegant, traditional-sounding neoclassicism to clunky, forward-looking futurism. Time has eroded this ballet’s edgy effect – after books like Lolita or movies like Pulp Fiction, the story of the Miraculous Mandarin feels pretty tame:

A woman dances to lures victims into a room where they are robbed by three bandits. Eventually, a Chinese man comes, and he jumps on the woman in lust. The three bandits attack him and stab him, but he won’t bleed. He begins to glow with an eerie light. The woman realizes what is happening, and orders the bandits off the victim. He jumps up and embraces the woman – his lust fulfilled, his wounds begin to bleed and he dies. Ah, love.

Henry Purcell was long considered the greatest English composer, until the early 20th century ushered in a new era of English music (and ushered out an era of fairly poor music). Nowadays he is overshadowed by other baroque composers, but his influence lives on. His church music is still a staple of the Anglican church. His music was electronicfied (yes, that’s a word) in the movie A Clockwork Orange. The Who claims Purcell’s lush baroque harmony as an influence in their song “Pinball Wizard.” And Benjamin Britten (the most important English composer of the mid-20th century) simply adored him – so much so that Britten’s most famous composition is stolen (yes, stolen) directly from some incidental music Purcell wrote for a play. The original composition can be found here:

So you’re having an existential crisis. Naturally, the first thing you do is ask yourself, “what music should I listen to while I ponder the absurdity of my existence?”

This isn’t just melancholia – there’s plenty of music for that. And the catch-all-word “sad” simply doesn’t cover it. Maybe there’s an intense longing in your heart, but your head tells you that your longing will not be satisfied. You tried praying to God, even though Nietzsche told you God was dead. And other people are no help at all.

Don’t settle for second-rate despondent ditties – you’ve tried the rest, now try the best – Anton Webern‘s expressionism.

Webern was a member of the Second Viennese School and a student of its founder, Arnold Schoenberg. They was a group of Germanic composers in the early 20th century who worked valiantly to break away from traditional systems of tonality. Webern stands out among his fellow composers because his compositions were ultra-organized; because of this, Webern, not Schoenberg, became the inspiration for serial music movement. Serialists used mathematical structures to create pieces that left no room for foolish human errors such as emotion. Boulez, one of the champions of serialism, criticized Schoenberg for allowing a little humanity (IE romantic tendencies) into his music, whereas Webern’s is cold, stark, and empty – just like life!

If one-and-a-half minutes isn’t long enough to cover your crisis, the whole six-movement suite can be heard here.