Modernism (music)

Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with tradition or common practice. Ezra Pound's modernist slogan, "Make it new," in music. Modern music is often thought to begin with, or just after, Debussy's impressionism, rising to rhetorical, if not commercial, dominance after World War Two, and then being gradually superseded by post-modern music.

Alternative categorizations

Despite Albright's definitions he points out examples of his three traits of modernism long before 1894. Orlando Gibbons' The Cries of Love, Haydn's The Creation, and many romantic works attempt maximal comprehensiveness and depth, such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Semantic specificity has always existed, such as in Clement Janequin's Le chant des oyseaulx (birds), Alessandro Poglietti's Rossignolo (nightingale), Vivaldi's Four Seasons (barking dog), Beethoven's Sixth (birds), or Haydn's The Seasons (frog croaks). Composers have long used semantic density to indicate disorder, while Nicolas Gombert has used four voices singing four simultaneous different antiphons to the Virgin Mary, as would be heard by the omniscient Mary. Chromaticism has existed since the Greeks in some conception or another, such as Carlo Gesualdo's Tristis est anima mea. Nicola Vicentino built an archicembalo, a microtonal keyboard.

Related Topics:
Orlando Gibbons - Haydn - The Creation - Beethoven - Clement Janequin - Alessandro Poglietti - Vivaldi - The Seasons - Nicolas Gombert - Antiphon - Carlo Gesualdo - Nicola Vicentino

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Albright also points out that there are few traits of postmodernism not present in modernism. Erik Satie and the neoclassicism of Stravinsky is sometimes near indistinguishable with bricolage and polystylism. Surrealist Marcel Duchamp wrote chance music while Cage was still into percussion.

Related Topics:
Erik Satie - Bricolage - Polystylism - Marcel Duchamp - Chance music

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