20th Century/ContemporaryJul 28 '00 Write an essay on this topic.The two great world wars of this century caused a great deal of change in everything from technology and warfare to philosophy and art. In music, composers began to break away from romanticism by returning to the rigid form and structure of earlier periods without also regressing to typical forms of harmonics. Neo-classicism was born. Three important terms are necessary to understand the transition from the beautiful music of the romantics to the often painful music of contemporary composers. First, homophony, which means that the piece of music is written with one tonal center, that is, in one key. All parts of the music are in the key of, let us say, C Major. If it modulates to G Major, all parts of the music modulate as well. The second term is polyphony, which means that the piece is in multiple keys. Instead of the piece of music mentioned above modulating to G Major, only one half of it modulates to a minor. If this were a piano composition, it can be viewed as the treble being in a minor while the bass is in C Major. Serialism, or dodecaphony, is the third term, and refers to the use of chromaticism, or the 12-tone scale. Everyone knows the typical diatonic scale (major or minor) has 7 distinct tones. However, between an octave, there are actually 12 half-steps. Dodecaphonics therefore has no real tonal center. Serialism adds real structure to this concept by requiring that no tone be repeated until the other 11 have all been played. The Neo-classicists used these forms of harmonics with the classical forms of music: the sonata, fugue, concerto, etc. One may be thinking, why would composers wish to write music that seemingly would clash so much? Music is defined as that which is pleasant to the ear, noise as that which is painful. This is bordering on the painful. There is a method to their madness, however. The industrial revolution and the grueling wars that occurred left many people with an overt feeling of over-mechanization of society, so some music is mechanical, mimicking factories or the sounds of war. Also, the disgruntled attitudes that pervaded through a lot of philosophy (existentialism, for one) did not make people feel like listening to happy, sonorous music. Disonances were more condusive to the moods that were trying to be conveyed. Also, artists always want to amaze and shock their audiences; how else will they gain attention? A tritone will shock just about any audience if used constantly throughout a piece (it is usually symbolic of the devil's chord, and is not very pleasant to listen to (it is a diminished 5th)). However, this concept of audacity was taken to far to the extreme, I feel. When John Cage publishes blank pages to be turned at certain timings as music, that is bordering on the farsical, I feel. But there is a great deal of wonderful contemporary music, it just needs to be appreciated in a way different than other types of music. My personal favorite for contemporary music is Prokofiev. His piano sonatas are magnificent works of imagination, as is everything else he wrote (including "Peter and the Wolf"). Other notable composers of this century include Stravisky, Bartok, Copland, Barber, Kabalevsky, Schoenberg, Webern, and Shostakovitch. 20th Century music is way under-appreciated I feel, and probably underplayed, as well. If people would look past the aural features of the music, or perhaps just a little further into them, they would begin to see the music behind the noise. **I couldn't choose just one period to write about, so I'm doing a series of these. Check them out!**  |
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