Music: Composition and Philosophy
In which ways does the Modern/Post-modern perspective provide a revealing analysis of Twentieth Century music?
To answer such a question, we would first need a thorough understanding of both Modern and Post-modern perspectives#. With this information, we can assess the influence that the two perspectives have had on the development of Twentieth Century music.
‘Old music has to do with concept and communication; the new with perception’
John Cage
It is generally accepted that Modernism began with the advent of Serialism within the first two decades of the twentieth century. It was a concept in music that the twelve notes of the scale could be serialised. It did not stop there however; Total Serialism was not far behind. The concept of serialisation was extended to include other musical parameters such as rhythm, dynamic, timbre and texture. The combination of the various series could be independent of each other or derived from a single source or system resulting in unpredictable and seemingly random points of music. Serialism became elitist due to its highly complex nature and inaccessibility, this inaccessibility caused a reaction because not every composer wanted to write such complex music. One of the more obvious reactions was Neo-classicism. The arrival of Neo-classicism couldn’t have come at a more politically interesting time in the Franco-German polemic. In the midst of World War I, the French group of composers, ‘Les Six’, used ideas from the Age of Enlightenment in their music. This went directly against German theory of the means of musical expression being adequate to the unique and radical character of the age. Harking back to the Enlightenment was not ‘of the age’ but of a different one. The use of Harpsichord in Poulenc’s Concert Champetre (1928) is Neo-classical in the style of Rameau of Domenico Scarlatti. Serialism and Neo-classicism were the two streams of musical thought which were to be a foundation for the rest of Twentieth Century music.
The nature of Western Art Music’s diversification at the beginning of the Twentieth Century was probably not unrelated to the increased availability of other cultures. The Far East became a popular influence and their philosophies had penetrated the Western world by the middle of the century. Composers like Messiaen and John Cage are testament to this. Messiaen used Greek metre and India ’Deci-talas’ in his music, his Turangalila Symphony (1948) uses the Turangalila Deci-tala. John Cage was deeply influenced by and believed in Zen Buddhism and the Chinese art of I-Ching. John Cage (1912-1992), an American composer interested in the possibilities of composer indeterminacy was to become possibly the most influential musician since Wagner. His invention of the Prepare Piano- a piano which was prepared by having objects, such as rubber, nails and wood, placed between its strings opened a doorway into a world of new timbres and timbral elasticity. New techniques were developed for instruments to get the new sounds imagined by composers. Berio’s Sequenze (an on going work begun in 1958) made full use of these techniques in a number of movements each written for a different virtuoso and each focusing on the abilities of their instrument. For example, Sequenza VI requires frenetic bowing on the viola, while Sequenza IV demands a pianist of extreme ability in both fingers and feet! The creation of new technique presented a problem in the form of notation.
The monastic people for hundreds of years struggled to notate their plainsong. Eventually, an Italian called Guido of Arezzo formulated a way of writing a C major scale in the late Twelfth Century. This consisted of a primitive form of the traditional five line staff. More patience was needed before melody could be transformed from just a few squiggly lines depicting its contours into what we know today. Modernism brought forward a similar ‘new’ kind of notation. This notation would be graphic, depicting the melodic contours. Little had they realised that this was not ‘adequate to the unique and radical character of the age’ and if it was, then the character of the age was not unique and radical. Musicians had felt compelled to write their music down in the Twelfth Century as they did in the mid-twentieth century, but Modernist music had outgrown the traditional notation of the early Twentieth Century and resorted to the primitive gestures of graphic notation. Examples of such works are; Ligeti’s Artikulation; Feldman’s Projection II and John Cage’s bizarre score for his Fontana Mix. This type of score represents a new concept of Modernism that was born of chance experiments. It was called ‘Indeterminacy’. Indeterminacy was a true revolution in musical terms; it changed the face of composer-performer relationship. Indeterminacy left the performer to interpret the graphic scores written by the composer. Performer became composer. What possible use could a composer find in doing himself out of a job? His music would just become something that the composer had made. That is truly art. Art is after all something that is made. Artificial. Nowhere is it written that art has to express something. This is an extreme aesthetic for the unique and radical character of the age. The Mid-twentieth Century saw the arrival of two more opposed generations of musicians. Boulez, Nono and Babbitt were steeped in the concept of never rewriting what has already been written. It seems silly to say such a thing but it had already been done in the Neo-classicist movement. Originality was the only way forward as far as Boulez was concerned. The other emergence was from America; Minimalism.
Minimalism was a reaction to Modernism. It was the dawn of a new ideal. Modernists in Europe were taking the simplest elements of music and processing them by using mind-blowingly complex systems. Minimalists would take these same simple elements and keep them simple. They believed that in repeating small cells of music and changing them almost imperceptibly slowly that their music would entrance the listener and reveal the music’s true meaning or relevance.
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