Ryan Chane
Professor Masiello
Discussion 101
The Impressionist works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not to be held lightly by composers worldwide. Paving the way for the development of new music theory, this era was led by people who had begun to experiment with traditional forms. While predominantly adhering to the previous era’s romantic characteristics, the few concepts that began to bubble to the surface popped with the explosion of modernism that rocked the world.
The transition to the “Modern/20th Century” period of music was, as Martin Kauble put, “as violent an upheaval as was the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque.” With science, art, and society undergoing major evolution with modernism, classical composers did not desire to merely take a back seat and observe. The man credited with spearheading this movement was Arnold Schoenberg.
Arnold Schoenberg
The search for originality and identity in music had reached an all-time high. By some stroke of genius (or insanity, as others may have believed), Schoenberg decided to cast off one of the fundamental basics of traditional composition: tonal harmony. Discarding the hierarchical system that had guided music composition for the past century and a half, Schoenberg came up with the concept of the twelve tone row. This method of musical composition entailed that all tones would be used, seemingly ignoring the major and harmonic or melodic minor scales of the past. The atonality of his original works were unheard of, many not knowing how to perceive or accept it. Even so, time would quickly tell of his influence.
Serialism rose to the stage as more composers shook off the chains of the past to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Complex rhythms emerged to accompany dissonant harmonies. There were fewer lyrical melodies than the music of former periods, with some composers like Moritz Moszkowski employing even chromatic scales for major themes or motifs in their works (see video clip below). Later in the century, attempts with electronically amplified instruments that included jazz and rock elements would also be made.
While the composers themselves may not have utilized their own voices to speak up about their emotions or inner thoughts, their compositions sang in their stead through the instruments. Just as avidly as the modern creators of paintings, poems, or songs, these people broke through their previous boundaries and were rejuvenated to discover new life in what was hidden beyond. One could say that many of their works were cacophonous or disorderly in comparison to the pieces in the time of Beethoven or Mozart, but even rough voices can have their own mellifluous messages to tell.
Questions/Concepts to Consider:
1) While undeniably innovative, composers like Schoenberg still composed tonal works in their career. In addition, others mixed both traditional and modern techniques. This is an example of how Modernist art can be related to past tradition. Do any of the characters in The 42nd Parallel show a similar “modern” edge while adhering to any past stereotypes, beliefs, etc.?
2) How do you think the global community at large accepted these works in comparison to other leaps in areas like painting or the blues? Would you say that any singular movement had more impact than the others? Is the lack of a literal voice to express oneself a handicap?
Works Cited
Johnson, Julie. Basics of Keyboard Theory (Advanced Level) Second Edition. Yorba Linda,
J. Johnson Music Publications, 2011. Print.
Kauble, Martin E. "The Modern or Twentieth Century." Music History. Kauble Piano
Studio, 2003. Web. 18 Sept. 2016
Kuiper, Kathleen. "Arnold Schoenberg." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia
Britannica, 14 July 2015. Web. 18 Sept. 2016
It's exciting to know about the breakthroughs that composers have achieved during the modernist period. I appreciate your specific descriptions of how atonality and accompaniment have been drastically changed in this period. As one of the best representation of art, the modern music offers us tremendous implications about the message of unconventionality.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your take on Schoenberg's atonality and I also connected the idea with how certain characters speak in 'Melanctha' and 'The 42nd Parallel'; their manner of speaking seems strange to readers of classical fiction at first.
ReplyDeleteI find the phrasing of the second question to be quite interesting. If music can be described in terms of not explicitly expressing controversial thoughts, opinions, etc. then the lack of voice I think is a handicap in terms of what, at least socially, what some scholars are interested in. There is certainly a conversation to be had about the politics of form (who listens to a certain kind of music and what tradition does it grow out of and how this effects modern, or modernist taste) however I do not think that this reveals itself through the music in the same way that, say, Ulysses discusses the role of a Jewish protagonist in predominantly Catholic Ireland.
ReplyDeleteHi, your post was excellent and really points towards a new direction about music and compositions and how such compositions also contributed to modernism. Especially, what you mentioned about twelve tone row and how compositions were breaking from old traditional forms of music is interesting as it portrays that modernism spread in multiple fields of the arts whether it was film, art, writing, and even music. Moreover, in my opinion,the new experiments done with compositions allowed for further advancement of new techniques of producing composition, thus, making an important contribution to modernistic music.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you decided to cover a composer for your post instead of a literary figure. We've mostly been focused in class and in discussion over the written word, but the modernist movement was just as prevalent in the world of music as your post highlighted. Composers like Schoenberg should be recognized just as widely as other modernists as their experimentation with form had much of the same effect on tradition in their respective fields.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it is very interesting to choose another form of art to describe the breakthrough that was Modernism in all aesthetical forms.
ReplyDeleteConcerning the second question, although I do not have a definite answer, I think it is very interesting to replace the movement we are studying into context: yes, the world is changing, and the artist are trying to translate these changes into their chosen form of art. However, how is the rest of society reacting to this change? Do they relate to this aesthetic movement, or does it go beyond what society is going through at the time?
Your post brought new light to a piece of modernism that I was previously dark to, so thank you for that. It is interesting to see how the removal of the twelve tone dramatically changed the flow of the music but still allowing it to resonate with a classical feel. Schoenberg created a technique that followed the flow of literary form used for Camera Eye in Dos Passos' 42nd Parallel - giving an almost stream of constant thought feeling as the music quickly plays around the listener.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you chose to focus on music rather than literature, because I find it fascinating that so many different modernists were abandoning tradition and rejecting orthodoxy in so many different artistic mediums. We have focused on modernism in literature in our readings, but through lecture and these presentations we have also learned about modernism in poetry, music, and visual art. I, for one, am amazed that so many common themes can be found in such a wide variety of works.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you chose to focus on music rather than literature, because I find it fascinating that so many different modernists were abandoning tradition and rejecting orthodoxy in so many different artistic mediums. We have focused on modernism in literature in our readings, but through lecture and these presentations we have also learned about modernism in poetry, music, and visual art. I, for one, am amazed that so many common themes can be found in such a wide variety of works.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Angela. I really appreciate that you managed to expose modernist themes in music as well. I also really liked that you went on to explain how the modernist movement in music broke through barriers that allowed for the development and advancement of other musical movements, such as serialism and later jazz and rock.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad someone wrote a post about music, since we've been talking so much about sound in class. The idea of dissonant or cacophonous music as a modernist breakthrough reminds me of the sound poetry that Professor Masiello played for us earlier in the course. The emphasis on nonsensical sound seems to be a common theme among modernist artists in the medium of sound across the board.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not a very musically talented person, so I thought it was interesting to learn something new about trends and themes in music! From your post, I found the rise of atonality and dissonance to be a sort of parallel concept to the trends of modernist literature, especially since both seem to be about breaking form to make potentially displeasing combinations of sounds or words. Both genres definitely play with sound and voice in a way that could be off-putting in order to showcase the uncertainty and upheaval of the era.
ReplyDeleteSince people pay the most attention to what they see, changes and movements in the visual arts like painting may be noticed first and more frequently. On the other hand, music especially without lyrics that need to be translated still has voice like we've talked about in class and can move all types of people in the international community.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your second discussion question about the acceptance of these works, I would say that this movement had a far larger impact on the upper class than anything else. Classical music is typically a form of entertainment primarily enjoyed by the upper class and those of high society. As such, a disruption in this area would only affect those who were even exposed to it in the first place. This is probably why this movement is relatively unheard of among lower social classes, in comparison to similar movements in painting such as cubism (painting being an area much more accessible to the lower social classes, as such cubism is more well known).
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me how directly analogous this movement in classical music is to the modernist movement as a whole--the rejection of traditional forms that were deeply ingrained in the canon, as well as a more romantic version of the medium, in favor of something new and bold that left no stone unturned (or in this case left no notes off-limits), even if it came across as startling or even ugly to some.
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