MUS M 402 1st Edition Lecture 22 Outline of Last Lecture I Historicism II Brahms vs Wagner Historicists with Different Points of View Outline of Current Lecture I Modernism II Characteristics of Modernist Music Current Lecture I Modernism a Modernism the testing of the limits of aesthetic construction i Modernism was the further development of ideas that had begun in the nineteenth century 1 An emphasis on language 2 This lead to an emphasis on perceiving 3 Reflexivity and irony ii Modernism vs Modernity 1 Modernity the state of being modern a Allowing human beings to experience the world in a completely different way b In Modernism the music of a modernist may provide exquisite pleasure unto those of refined taste who enjoy tone clusters irregular rhythms and bizarre timbres but intolerably shrill and aggressive to those who prefer tonic melodies moving to dominant seventh chords and back again excerpts by music critique and analyst Albright i To define musical modernism in terms of dissonance is to ignore the fact that a composer can be original in dimensions other that harmonic novelty ii Where there is technical aggressiveness there is modernism II Characteristics of Modernist Music a Comprehensiveness and depth b Semantic specificity and density c Extensions and destructions of tonality i in short make it new d A tendency towards maximalism the technique of making everything huge and aggressively large in music e The acknowledgement and acceptance of the fact that not everyone will understand modernist music or enjoy it in the same way i Arnold Schoenberg If it is art it is not for all and if it is for all it is not art
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