# What makes a classical piece postmodern or "postmodern"?



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

After some consideration, I have decided that the poll format didn't fit what I am trying to achieve in a reflective state lately.

I have been contemplating the nature of postmodernism within classical composition so I am going to see if I can garner some good feedback from the musicologically minded folks here on TC.

Simple but deceptively so here is the question.

What makes a classical piece postmodern or "postmodern"?... this huge overarching riddle is incorporated in a few posed questions to break down into components.

1) Is a piece postmodern strictly due to the time frame or historical period that the composer executed the composition?

2) Is a piece created into a postmodern fashion due to a conductor's/performer's approach to the piece? Or a critic's interpretation of a piece? For example, can a Mozart composition be "postmodern" even though Mozart obviously didn't live during the postmodern era, which for me was after 1950.

Another example has been the deconstruction of Schubert's pieces based on signifiers of the composer's sexual identity. Having studied deconstruction (Derrida, Barthes, etc.), I am curious on the application of those methodologies into music criticism.

3) Is a piece postmodern due to a composer's intent? Or can a composer who isn't postmodern willfully become postmodern due to the listener's philosophical framework while perceiving the piece?

All food for thought but wanted to get some springboard for some actual discussion regarding an issue that has been weighing on my mind during my vacation time.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

It's not #1. Postmodern and Modern are stylistic descriptors. You can compose a piece today that is neither.
I don't know about #2.
I don't think composer's intent entirely determines it either. It isn't for him to say.

I don't want to type up a whole post on what postmodern means (or what I think it means), but it implies certain traits. E.g., appropriation, blurring on genres, self-reference, etc.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It's a mix of #1 and #2. 

Perhaps the most essential feature of modernism is conscious opposition between popular/populist forms of art and elite forms of art. If so, anything that does not posit that dichotomy is either pre-modernist or postmodernist, depending on the date.

The question is how much or even whether any art of the past 100ish years has actually been postmodern and not at all modern. It may turn out that attempts to be postmodern imply modernism, so that despite the apparent opposition between modernism and postmodernism, postmodernism turns out to be simply another variety of modernism. Modernism itself is in many ways just another variety of romanticism (with the popular/elite dichotomy of modernism simply a widening, a generalization, or a reinterpretation of the bourgeois/aristocratic dichotomy of romanticism), so postmodernism would be a variety of romantic modernism.

I suspect we'll agree about this in 40 years.


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## TradeMark (Mar 12, 2015)

I don't really get what postmodernism is. I have heard it applied to minimalist composers and Darmstadt School composers, both of which have nothing in common.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

TradeMark said:


> I don't really get what postmodernism is. I have heard it applied to minimalist composers and Darmstadt School composers, both of which have nothing in common.


In that case, I suspect that people are just throwing the term loosely to mean music composed after World War II. However, postmodern as a term isn't being used philosophically but as a term of historical classification.


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2015)

science said:


> *Perhaps the most essential feature of modernism is conscious opposition between popular/populist forms of art and elite forms of art.* If so, anything that does not posit that dichotomy is either pre-modernist or postmodernist, depending on the date.


That sounds interesting; care to elucidate a little? :tiphat:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

dogen said:


> That sounds interesting; care to elucidate a little? :tiphat:


Sorry, not very much!

The terms are contested and it could be a fight. Just in case you're looking for a fight, I'd like to disappoint you! But if you're just looking for more information, wikipedia has several decent articles on modernism: one on modernist art and philosophy generally, one on modern painting and sculpture, one on literary modernism, and one on modernist music.

I'm not thrilled with any of those, but (especially together) they're better than nothing!

In case you're very highly motivated to get into this stuff.... My view on such things has probably been most influenced by Hobsbawm (especially _The Age of Empire_ and _The Age of Extremes_, but all 4 volumes in that series are great, and I hope no one would limit themselves to his chapters on the arts!). Watson's _The Modern Mind_ is very good too. Any book, really, that covers the late 19th and early 20th centuries should have a very good account of modernism.

The one thing I'd want to emphasize is that I'm unwilling to consider modernism in music in isolation from the other arts; and I'm unwilling to consider modernism in the arts in isolation from the social, political, intellectual, technological, and economic conditions of the societies that it existed in. (That is why I'm not thrilled with the wikipedia articles above.) It's perfectly possible to try to define and understand "modernism" while strictly limiting our discussion to music theory: very interesting insights have come out of projects like that. But I'm only really interested in those insights when they've been integrated into a more comprehensive story. (I'd have the same biases in the discussion of the definition of postmodern, which is a much messier problem!)

That's my own personality and biases at work, and other people here will have different preferences!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

TradeMark said:


> I don't really get what postmodernism is. I have heard it applied to minimalist composers and Darmstadt School composers, both of which have nothing in common.


Both the post-war serialists and the early minimalists do have in common an interest in music as gradually transforming process. This was softened to some degree by later generations of minimalists and later compositions by the early generation (just as it was for later compositions of the Darmstadt School), but it's still one of the guiding features of modern music.


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2015)

@science.
Thanks for this; I'll follow it up. That may be cursory or more in-depth; depends on how it takes me. I'm also one for the connected view; an isolation won't give the fullest picture I think.

Could you give a couple of examples regarding the populist / elitist notion (from any fields; music, visual...)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

dogen said:


> @science.
> Thanks for this; I'll follow it up. That may be cursory or more in-depth; depends on how it takes me. I'm also one for the connected view; an isolation won't give the fullest picture I think.
> 
> Could you give a couple of examples regarding the populist / elitist notion (from any fields; music, visual...)


Of course!

Popular: Warner Sallman, Thomas Kinkade, lawn art, Nora Roberts novels, _My Heart Will Go On_, Joyce Killmer's _Trees_, Hallmark card poetry, _Butterfly Kisses_, _All I Want for Christmas is You_, Disneyland...

Modernist: Picasso, Pollock, _Ulysses_, Eliot, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Babbitt, Boulez...


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2015)

Sorry, I didn't mean examples of populist and elitist; I meant examples (if possible) to illustrate "...the most essential feature of modernism is *conscious* *opposition* between popular/populist forms of art and elite forms of art. "


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

dogen said:


> Sorry, I didn't mean examples of populist and elitist; I meant examples (if possible) to illustrate "...the most essential feature of modernism is *conscious* *opposition* between popular/populist forms of art and elite forms of art. "


I don't have any handy, but we see it all around us so readily that I'm not sure why it's necessary.

Sometime in the 19th century, as the urban working classes got more purchasing power and the market began began to respond to their tastes, some people started worrying about the "popular culture" of "the masses." At that time the word "art" itself (along with "society" and "culture") was understood in opposition to that, replacing romanticism's opposition to bourgeois values.


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2015)

Ok, I see what you meant now. Thanks.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

One of the primary signs of a postmodern piece for me has been the combination of high and low cultures within the work itself. And self-referential aspects too.

Any notable pieces which are self-referential should be listed here.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

I try to simplify things. So, for me, a post-modern piece is a composition that consider as post-modern when I contemplate myself listening to a post-modern piece.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I don't think these terms are applicable to works composed today anymore because of the large variety, and avant-agarde by definition does not necessarily allow pieces to be nicely slotted into defined and recognizable categories. Variety and difference are what defines the avant-garde.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Albert7 said:


> One of the primary signs of a postmodern piece for me has been the combination of high and low cultures within the work itself. And self-referential aspects too.
> 
> Any notable pieces which are self-referential should be listed here.


If this were literature or film, I could think of many examples. This is difficult in music.

For the low and high culture aspects, look at Michael Daugherty's works inspired by pop culture (e.g., Dead Elvis).


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The term "postmodern" itself is absurd.

We are currently living in the "modern" age, not in the future. The ancient Egyptians were doing it, too, and people in every age.

What comes after postmodernism? Post-postmodernism?


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## Saintbert (Mar 12, 2015)

Today I read somewhere someone describing the Bible as a great postmodern piece of literature. I think the description here has more (all) to do with interpretation than intent, and I suspect that is often the case.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Celloman said:


> The term "postmodern" itself is absurd.
> 
> We are currently living in the "modern" age, not in the future. The ancient Egyptians were doing it, too, and people in every age.
> 
> What comes after postmodernism? Post-postmodernism?


Bingo, post-postmodernism does exist 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism

Basically it's a reaction to postmodernism.

If anyone can provide an example of post-postmodernist pieces then I would award some fortune cookies.

In cinema we have Dogme 95 as a primary example of post-postmodernism. What is the musical equivalent of Dogme 95 here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95


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## TradeMark (Mar 12, 2015)

Albert7 said:


> In cinema we have Dogme 95 as a primary example of post-postmodernism. What is the musical equivalent of Dogme 95 here?
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95


I looked at that and it looks like to many rules, but it is a great way of cutting out all of the excess junk that goes into films.

I'm not sure what post-postmodern music would be. Maybe post minimalism. I don't know much about post minimalism but apparently it's this.


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## TradeMark (Mar 12, 2015)

I think there might be a connection between postmodernism and neo romanticism, just as there is a connection between neo classicism and modernism. It might just be the fact that minimalist composers sound neo romantic to me. But they seem to fit together from an ideological point of view.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

TradeMark said:


> I think there might be a connection between postmodernism and neo romanticism, just as there is a connection between neo classicism and modernism. It might just be the fact that minimalist composers sound neo romantic to me. But they seem to fit together from an ideological point of view.


Indeed... and it's interesting that many are quick to judge post-modernism as a form of radicalism when it is not necessarily the case. In fact, post-modernism often respects tradition while breaking into new boundaries to explore. And post-modernism can incorporate neo-classicism and neo-romanticism as well.


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