# Was there a single "modernism"?



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Riffing on the discussion in the Schoenberg v. Cage thread....

Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Debussy are all generally called modernists, but they wrote pretty different music from one another.

My question is: were there actually three (or more) different "modernisms" that were lumped together for purely historical reasons? Or are they better understood as different strands or facets of a single "modernism," and if so, what is it that unifies them?

I don't have an answer in mind, and look forward to hearing from better-informed members.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Modernism was a single period, which is the early to around mid 20th century. Art including painting, and poetry/ lterature go through similar movements: Baroque, Romantic, Modern, Postmodern. Debussy was as much a modernist as Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Cage is clearly postmodern from his commentaries, which mirror the ideas of postmodern thought.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I've always found "Modernism" an unfortunate term when it's used to describe music outside of a larger discussion of culture. All the stylistic categories we call musical "periods" are fuzzy around the edges, but by the 20th century musical trends were so diverse that any term that attempts to encompass all the ways in which music departs from the past is hopelessly nonspecific. It's made even worse by the incorporation of the word "modern," given the limited life span of anything actually modern. And then we get "postmodern,""contemporary" as distinct from "modern," and all the "neos"...

I don't think the "modernisms" of Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg have much in common in terms of musical style. But if we take Modernism to be not a stylistic designation but a "Weltanschauung," a sense of the times which included an attitude toward the past and future, we can see major cultural changes that make a variety of artistic innovations, even mutually exclusive ones, understandable. Ultimately, I think, that wider cultural perspective is necessary to understand all of our "period" categories, especially Romanticism. Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg can all be seen as emerging from, and reacting differently to, aspects of Romanticism.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Modernism is a generic term for the cultural movement of the last century valuing novelty above all (hence the name), and rejecting tradition and aesthetic standards. In fact it’s the antithesis of classicism, why discussions on it really don't belong here.


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Improbus said:


> Modernism is a generic term for the cultural movement of the last century valuing novelty above all (hence the name), and rejecting tradition and aesthetic standards. In fact it's the antithesis of classicism, why discussions on it really don't belong here.


Don't belong here? It seems to me that your reactionary remarks really display a rather shallow understanding of how art and culture developed in the early 20th century. I'd really like an explanation and definition of what constitutes "aesthetic standards"; wading through that peat bog will be amusing to watch.

This forum is not concerned with 'classicism'. That term refers to the period of the great Hellenic and Roman cultures. The Neo-classicism of the Enlightenment is a re-imagining of that for post-renaissance Western culture. It refers mostly to art and architecture.

The 'classical' period of music is not the only thing discussed on this forum either. If that were the case Bach would not get a look-in, nor would many others who I assume meet your standards for approval.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Improbus said:


> Modernism is a generic term for the cultural movement of the last century valuing novelty above all (hence the name)


Modernism equates to novelty??!


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The term "modernism," in making an "ism" out of modernity, does carry an implication that innovation is valued, but doesn't imply, as improbus suggests, novelty for its own sake or the valuing of newness above all else.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> Don't belong here? It seems to me that your reactionary remarks really display a rather shallow understanding of how art and culture developed in the early 20th century. I'd really like an explanation and definition of what constitutes "aesthetic standards"; wading through that peat bog will be amusing to watch.


What constitutes aesthetic standards in modernism? nothing (except having such standards, paradoxically). There's simply no room for those when art is ruled only by the whims of the artist.



> This forum is not concerned with 'classicism'. That term refers to the period of the great Hellenic and Roman cultures. The Neo-classicism of the Enlightenment is a re-imagining of that for post-renaissance Western culture. It refers mostly to art and architecture.
> 
> The 'classical' period of music is not the only thing discussed on this forum either. If that were the case Bach would not get a look-in, nor would many others who I assume meet your standards for approval.


Classical ideals heavily influenced not only Viennese Neoclassicism but also the Baroque and Romantic periods; this is known.

Commonly when one refers to classical music one is referring to the music of the common practice period, not that of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, nor to the mess that came after it.



Becca said:


> Modernism equates to novelty??!


Modernism is when novelty is God, the old one being dead.



Woodduck said:


> The term "modernism," in making an "ism" out of modernity, does carry an implication that innovation is valued, but doesn't imply, as improbus suggests, novelty for its own sake or the valuing of newness above all else.


Then what is valued above novelty in modernism? Beauty? Truth? Tradition, perhaps? I would like to know.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

----canceled post----


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Improbus said:


> Modernism is a generic term for the cultural movement of the last century valuing novelty above all (hence the name), and rejecting tradition and aesthetic standards. In fact it's the antithesis of classicism, why discussions on it really don't belong here.


It is more like looking at things in a new way from the traditional. Pound, Picasso, and Prokofiev are all Modernists.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Improbus said:


> What constitutes aesthetic standards in modernism? nothing (except having such standards, paradoxically). There's simply no room for those when art is ruled only by the whims of the artist.
> 
> Then what is valued above novelty in modernism? Beauty? Truth? Tradition, perhaps? I would like to know.


What constitutes aesthetic standards in any art? And who sets them? Are they universal, uniform across composers and cultures, and static?

Does the music of Prokofiev, Bartok, Szymanowski and Britten demonstrate that they all valued "novelty above all," while that of Monteverdi, Beethoven, Wagner and Rimsky-Korsakov proves that they valued "beauty, truth and tradition"?


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Improbus said:


> What constitutes aesthetic standards in modernism? nothing (except having such standards, paradoxically). There's simply no room for those when art is ruled only by the whims of the artist.


Depends on the composer, as it always has.



Improbus said:


> Commonly when one refers to classical music one is referring to the music of the common practice period, not that of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, nor to the mess that came after it.


You are speaking for yourself. The majority of classical music lovers that I have seen express an opinion on this consider this 'mess that came after it,' and the earlier music, to be 'classical music.' You are in the minority.



Improbus said:


> Then what is valued above novelty in modernism? Beauty? Truth? Tradition, perhaps? I would like to know.


Again, it depends on the composer. But, generally: how about the desire to create good music, as always? The desire to explore what is musically possible is common, but subordinate to the primary goal of creating stimulating music.


----------



## Guest (Nov 10, 2017)

isorhythm said:


> Riffing on the discussion in the Schoenberg v. Cage thread....
> 
> Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Debussy are all generally called modernists, but they wrote pretty different music from one another.
> 
> ...


As others have already hinted, the term is problematic, as it has been used to refer to a period in time and a particular set of attitudes or sensibilities, or even a world view which some say began to emerge towards the end of the 19th C, but which others will also say continues to be evident even in the 21stC.

Given the age of the word 'modern', it's no surprise that the battle between traditionalists and moderns has been going on for centuries, and it is true that the essence of 'modern' is a rejection of past orthodoxies - though that is not 'Modernism'.

The word 'novelty' has an unfortunate ring to it, as if modernism is interested in the plastic toys found in Christmas crackers. There is an irony in the argument that the modernists were only interested in change and 'novelty' when one of the strongest arguments for the superiority of top composers is their inventiveness (though I'm never quite sure whether that literally means they invented new things, or they were just more 'playful' than their predecessors).

Modernism was first about embracing the possibilities of looking at the world refracted through a cracked lens (where light is more important than the objects on which it is cast, and then the 'perception' of objects even more important), and the implications of Darwin, Freud, and industrialisation. WWI is regarded as introducing a newer element, a sense of despair and absurdity. If Modernism began in the 1880s, accelerated through the early 20thC, it was abruptly broken and stuck back together by world war and revolution.

Music could hardly avoid being impacted by such developments, and those who like to blame one composer for breaking music need to read more about what was happening in the world between (for example)1880 and 1930. No single composer could be deemed an inevitability, but if Schoenberg and friends hadn't come up with 12-tone, it seems highly likely that someone else would have done. There seems to me an irony in the idea that the rigid ordering of musical structure was itself as much of a straitjacket as the CP tonality that it purportedly rejected, and perhaps a last desperate attempt at creating order in a world where many modernists saw none.


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Improbus said:


> What constitutes aesthetic standards in modernism? nothing (except having such standards, paradoxically). There's simply no room for those when art is ruled only by the whims of the artist.


I take it then that you mean you have nothing except the whim of your own opinion?



Improbus said:


> Classical ideals heavily influenced not only Viennese Neoclassicism but also the Baroque and Romantic periods; this is known.


No, it's not "known". The "neo-classical" cultural-artistic movement eventually informing 'classical music' was a specifically 18thC movement, in contrast to baroque music whose luminaries had reached the end of their lives before neo-classical influences affected music.



Improbus said:


> Commonly when one refers to classical music one is referring to the music of the common practice period, not that of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, nor to the mess that came after it.


Wrong again. Unless one is referring specifically to the classical period the term generally gets used to refer to western art-music even from the late middle-ages/renaissance.
The neo-classical (since the word is used out-of-step in music) works of Stravinsky and others lie outside of your preferred period, so maybe he shouldn't be discussed here?

It's much easier to just express a whimsical, aesthetic bias than to try and find grounds for it which don't even exist.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> What constitutes aesthetic standards in any art? And who sets them? Are they universal, uniform across composers and cultures, and static?


They are set by cultures and define them, no? Even though they might not be perfectly uniform within them and of course changing with them.



> Does the music of Prokofiev, Bartok, Szymanowski and Britten demonstrate that they all valued "novelty above all," while that of Monteverdi, Beethoven, Wagner and Rimsky-Korsakov proves that they valued "beauty, truth and tradition"?


I don't think the work of any particular composer can be used as proof that they valued one thing over another, but what is common among modernists? Is it devotion to beauty, originality, novelty or something else?



Lisztian said:


> Again, it depends on the composer. But, generally: how about the desire to create good music, as always? The desire to explore what is musically possible is common, but subordinate to the primary goal of creating stimulating music.


What is good, then? That is the question.



eugeneonagain said:


> No, it's not "known". The "neo-classical" cultural-artistic movement eventually informing 'classical music' was a specifically 18thC movement, in contrast to baroque music whose luminaries had reached the end of their lives before neo-classical influences affected music.


Neoclassicism in a broader sense was integral to Western culture even before that.



> Wrong again. Unless one is referring specifically to the classical period the term generally gets used to refer to western art-music even from the late middle-ages/renaissance.


I can't recall having heard anyone refer to medieval music as classical. And how far back can we go? Was Cro-magnon music classical too? By then it loses all its meaning. Art-music also sounds quite pleonastic to my ears, as if music weren't an essentially artistic phenomenon. Even modern popular music is art and thus art-music.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Improbus said:


> They are set by cultures and define them, no? Even though they might not be perfectly uniform within them and of course changing with them.


Aesthetic standards are set, provisionally, by composers; They are confirmed by the acceptance of their music.



Improbus said:


> I don't think the work of any particular composer can be used as proof that they valued one thing over another, but *what is common among modernists*? Is it devotion to beauty, originality, novelty or something else?


Nothing much is common among modernists. That's sort of the point of the thread, no? Some value beauty most highly, some value psychological truth, others value expanded vocabulary, others value the exploration of formerly neglected or impoverished parameters like rhythm and texture.



Improbus said:


> I can't recall having heard anyone refer to medieval music as classical. And how far back can we go? Was Cro-magnon music classical too? By then it loses all its meaning. Art-music also sounds quite pleonastic to my ears, as if music weren't an essentially artistic phenomenon. Even modern popular music is art and thus art-music.


Yeah, there is something to this. It sounds strange to use the term classical for music before 1600. "Western art music" makes more sense when one wishes to encompass the whole historical record.


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Improbus said:


> What is good, then? That is the question.


It's only the question because you insist it is. What is 'good' is different depending on who you ask. The fact that many classical (and general) music lovers and musicians find 20-21st century music to often be 'good' is the reason why the stance you take is silly.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> Yeah, there is something to this. It sounds strange to use the term classical for music before 1600. "Western art music" makes more sense when one wishes to encompass the whole historical record.


It sounds a bit strange to call Gregorian chant classical music, but I think it also sounds pretty strange _not_ to call Palestrina classical music - if not classical, what is it?

I'm pretty comfortable using the term to encompass everything going all the way back through Gregorian chant. I don't see where you could sensibly draw a line anywhere along the way.

I'm inclined to agree with Woodduck here: _I don't think the "modernisms" of Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg have much in common in terms of musical style. But if we take Modernism to be not a stylistic designation but a "Weltanschauung," a sense of the times which included an attitude toward the past and future, we can see major cultural changes that make a variety of artistic innovations, even mutually exclusive ones, understandable. Ultimately, I think, that wider cultural perspective is necessary to understand all of our "period" categories, especially Romanticism. Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg can all be seen as emerging from, and reacting differently to, aspects of Romanticism._

I'm trying to get a handle on what exactly that Weltanschauung consists of, and whether it can be said to unify the disparate strands of modernist music in any way.

Also, I would ask that people refrain from responding to comments that don't contribute anything to the topic.


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

It's difficult not to respond to those harping on about how terrible and meaningless post-1900 or "modernist" music is and then dismissing it wholesale. There are so many outrageous and false claims based on what appears to be either: an insufficient knowledge and familiarity with what they are dismissing, or an opinion based upon taste. Perhaps even a bit of both. The bit that irritated most in this thread was the bald statement that discussion of modern art-music ought not to take place on this forum. 

I wouldn't direct that accusation at, among others, Woodduck since although it's clear he's also not a great fan of 'modernist' music, his discussion of it comes with a fully-rounded cultural perspective. It's a pleasurable read even when I disagree with bits.


----------



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

isorhythm said:


> Riffing on the discussion in the Schoenberg v. Cage thread....
> 
> Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Debussy are all generally called modernists, but they wrote pretty different music from one another.
> 
> ...


I believe that, basically, modernism = subjectivism. In previous times there was only one Creator (God) and there was a communal Truth. The artist was not so much of a creator (that would be blasphemous!) as an imitator of nature (God's creation) and praiser of God. But then God died which is the essence of modernity. And like Nietzsche wrote in his parable about the Death of God: mustn't we, the murderers of God, become gods ourselves to be worthy of such a Grand Crime? So the modern man tries to be god himself, determining his own destiny (technology!), and as the modern myth goes: the genius (= the creator) accomplishes the task of becoming a god - a creator - himself and showing us Truth again. But the effect is of course that there came about as many Truths as there are geniuses (like there are as many universums as there are Gods).

So yes, modernism is characterized by a lot of different styles and movements because of this subjectivism. But they are all competitors: they don't tolerate each other very well because they all claim Truth (likewise the modern political ideologies don't tolerate each other well and try to kill the other ideologies - e.g. communism and nazism - to establish it's own Truth as the only One). Precisely because there are a lot of modern Truths which are very different to each other and don't tolerate each other, modernism concludes to postmodernism which gave up on the believe in Truth so it can be very tolerant of all genres and styles (yet all these tolerated and actually re-used genres are emptied of content as their claims to Truth is denied).

So modernism is characterized exactly by a proliferation of different styles and movements!


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> It sounds a bit strange to call Gregorian chant classical music, but I think it also sounds pretty strange _not_ to call Palestrina classical music - if not classical, what is it?
> 
> I'm pretty comfortable using the term to encompass everything going all the way back through Gregorian chant. I don't see where you could sensibly draw a line anywhere along the way.


Palestrina? It would never occur to me to call his music classical except in the generic marketing-category sense. I've never heard a musicologist or theorist do this. How about sacred choral music? If there's a principle involved for what gets called classical I think it once applied to anything in the standard performing repertoire of modern soloists and orchestral and chamber ensembles, and now applies to that plus stuff done by baroque HIP ensembles.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Agamemnon said:


> I believe that, basically, modernism = subjectivism. In previous times there was only one Creator (God) and there was a communal Truth. The artist was not so much of a creator (that would be blasphemous!) as an imitator of nature (God's creation) and praiser of God. But then God died which is the essence of modernity. And like Nietzsche wrote in his parable about the Death of God: mustn't we, the murderers of God, become gods ourselves to be worthy of such a Grand Crime? So the modern man tries to be god himself, determining his own destiny (technology!), and as the modern myth goes: the genius (= the creator) accomplishes the task of becoming a god - a creator - himself and showing us Truth again. But the effect is of course that there came about as many Truths as there are geniuses (like there are as many universums as there are Gods).
> 
> So yes, modernism is characterized by a lot of different styles and movements because of this subjectivism. But they are all competitors: they don't tolerate each other very well because they all claim Truth (likewise the modern political ideologies don't tolerate each other well and try to kill the other ideologies - e.g. communism and nazism - to establish it's own Truth as the only One). Precisely because there are a lot of modern Truths which are very different to each other and don't tolerate each other, modernism concludes to postmodernism which gave up on the believe in Truth so it can be very tolerant of all genres and styles (yet all these tolerated and actually re-used genres are emptied of content as their claims to Truth is denied).
> 
> So modernism is characterized exactly by a proliferation of different styles and movements!


This post contains a lot of generalizations that I don't think apply sweepingly to the creative processes of composers, still I find it quite interesting with some useful insights.

I think there is something that I guess could be termed the zeitgeist that perhaps to a certain extent is not consciously controlled by anyone, but simultaneously also directions art and music are being_ pushed_ (much of it having to do with the indoctrination people receive in schools) but not everyone willingly goes in this direction.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Agamemnon said:


> I believe that, basically, modernism = subjectivism. In previous times there was only one Creator (God) and there was a communal Truth. The artist was not so much of a creator (that would be blasphemous!) as an imitator of nature (God's creation) and praiser of God. But then God died which is the essence of modernity. And like Nietzsche wrote in his parable about the Death of God: mustn't we, the murderers of God, become gods ourselves to be worthy of such a Grand Crime? So the modern man tries to be god himself, determining his own destiny (technology!), and as the modern myth goes: the genius (= the creator) accomplishes the task of becoming a god - a creator - himself and showing us Truth again. But the effect is of course that there came about as many Truths as there are geniuses (like there are as many universums as there are Gods).
> 
> So yes, modernism is characterized by a lot of different styles and movements because of this subjectivism. But they are all competitors: they don't tolerate each other very well because they all claim Truth (likewise the modern political ideologies don't tolerate each other well and try to kill the other ideologies - e.g. communism and nazism - to establish it's own Truth as the only One). Precisely because there are a lot of modern Truths which are very different to each other and don't tolerate each other, modernism concludes to postmodernism which gave up on the believe in Truth so it can be very tolerant of all genres and styles (yet all these tolerated and actually re-used genres are emptied of content as their claims to Truth is denied).
> 
> So modernism is characterized exactly by a proliferation of different styles and movements!


Thanks for putting the question of Modernism in cultural terms. I like your analysis but I'm going to disagree with it in a particular respect.

The secularization of society was not a Modernist phenomenon. Religion lost its grip on political and social life with the rise of science, commerce, and secular philosophy, and that started happening at least as far back as the Renaissance. I'd place the advent of "modernity" - as opposed to "Modernism" - first in the Renaissance and then, even more decisively, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the so-called "Enlightenment," with the conception and creation of democratic governments and the rise of free enterprise and the middle class. The release of human action and free thought resulted, artistically, not in what we're calling Modernism but in Romanticism: it's Romanticism that really fits your description of man determining, and striving to fulfill, his own destiny.

I offer this not to dispute the philosophical trend you describe - which, as a secularist, I'll paraphrase as Western man's gradual realization and acceptance of the full weight of his intellectual and moral responsibility as an autonomous being - but to suggest that Modernism needs some further definition. What differentiates Modernist man - and the Modernist artist - from his Romantic predecessor? Did something happen in the late 19th century to undermine the Romantic view of man, or should we view Modernism as a late phase of Romanticism and place the real rupture in Postmodernism - or anywhere at all?


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> What differentiates Modernist man - and the Modernist artist - from his Romantic predecessor? Did something happen in the late 19th century to undermine the Romantic view of man, or should we view Modernism as a late phase of Romanticism and place the real rupture in Postmodernism - or anywhere at all?


_[I have a lot of time for Agamemnon's post. It captures much of the spirit of what occurred philosophically]_

Well as part of the answer I'd offer two things. The first is an early peak of the industrial revolution, which had done a grand job of sweeping away a good deal of life as it had been throughout the late 18th and much of the 19th century; altering the composition of both the physical landscape and societies. I think this put a bit of a stick in the wheel of romanticism as people felt the beginning of huge uncertainty (it has, in fact, a lot in common with the changes occurring now).

Second, though a little later, the long build-up and the outbreak of the First World War. It is prior to, during and just after that war that artistic movements really seem to fracture. 
I don't find this all that odd; the _fin de siècle_ feeling (and later movement) that closed the 19th and opened the 20th century revolted against one of the major obsessions of the 19th century: degeneration - social, moral, aesthetic, physical (likely an aberrant offshoot of Darwinism), in fact complete world degeneration. The associated generalised pessimism is evident throughout a lot of late 19thC literature and the retreat into things like aestheticism as a feeble and pretentious last stand against industrialisation.

So there is first of all birth of a new century, rejection of the late 19thC pessimism, the new optimism - in science as the key to improvement and freedom and real knowledge - and then the rapid shattering of this 14 years in by the outbreak of the war. After the war those turn-of-the-century movements seem to become even more frenzied with elements scattered everywhere with hyper-politicised art movements alongside those completely abstracted from any sort of rationalism e.g. surrealism.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I believe that, basically, modernism = subjectivism. In previous times there was only one Creator (God) and there was a communal Truth. The artist was not so much of a creator (that would be blasphemous!) as an imitator of nature (God's creation) and praiser of God. But then God died which is the essence of modernity. And like Nietzsche wrote in his parable about the Death of God: mustn't we, the murderers of God, become gods ourselves to be worthy of such a Grand Crime? So the modern man tries to be god himself, determining his own destiny (technology!), and as the modern myth goes: the genius (= the creator) accomplishes the task of becoming a god - a creator - himself and showing us Truth again. But the effect is of course that there came about as many Truths as there are geniuses (like there are as many universums as there are Gods).


Quite right. Quoting myself:



Improbus said:


> Modernism is when novelty is God, the old one being dead.


The death of the great axiom created a vacuum to be filled with relativism and vanity and gave rise to a distrust in all things traditional and held sacred.



Woodduck said:


> Did something happen in the late 19th century to undermine the Romantic view of man, or should we view Modernism as a late phase of Romanticism and place the real rupture in Postmodernism - or anywhere at all?


I like to view modernism as an unbridled romanticism-a romanticism gone mad. When one might have expected some kind of moderating, neoclassical counter-reaction like in the 18th century the whole of Western culture instead derailed and now isn't getting anywhere in particular.



eugeneonagain said:


> I don't find this all that odd; the _fin de siècle_ feeling (and later movement) that closed the 19th and opened the 20th century revolted against one of the major obsessions of the 19th century: degeneration - social, moral, aesthetic, physical (likely an aberrant offshoot of Darwinism), in fact complete world degeneration.


Oh the irony! Of course the degenerates will be the first to reject the idea of degeneration: they don't want to be revealed for what they are.



> So there is first of all birth of a new century, rejection of the late 19thC pessimism, the new optimism - in science as the key to improvement and freedom and real knowledge - and then the rapid shattering of this 14 years in by the outbreak of the war. After the war those turn-of-the-century movements seem to become even more frenzied with elements scattered everywhere with hyper-politicised art movements alongside those completely abstracted from any sort of rationalism e.g. surrealism.


WWI was indeed a coup de grâce of beauty. After that what was already bad got much worse still.


----------



## Guest (Nov 11, 2017)

Improbus said:


> Oh the irony! Of course the degenerates will be the first to reject the idea of degeneration: they don't want to be revealed for what they are..


Not sure who you're directing this at, but if it's anyone here, you might want to keep this a civil discussion.


----------



## Guest (Nov 11, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> But then God died


If he did, it's not the fault of Modernism. It upsets the anti-degenerates to say so, but artists developed a sense that there is more to this life than praising and imitating god, and produced some beautiful works in so doing. I mean, even Beethoven went off the rails in his Ninth when he stopped thinking about Brotherhood and went all mystical.


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Improbus said:


> Quite right. Quoting myself:
> 
> The death of the great axiom created a vacuum to be filled with relativism and vanity and gave rise to a distrust in all things traditional and held sacred.


The great axiom? I take it from this that you rue the passing of Western theocracies keeping everything in ignorant order? Contrary to what you keep rattling on about, the diminishing power of religion in society allowed independent reason to flourish. Unfortunately it also cleared the way for other sorts of earthly grand narratives to fill the power vacuum.

In art, as in general society, the lack of a direct master-servant relationship - as typified by the God-subject relationship - obviously frees the artist to consider the human condition from other perspectives; a variety of perspectives simultaneously. Disruption of 'comfortable 'order' is inevitable; especially for conservative-minded groups of people who prefer to be spoon-fed certainties predicated upon assumed "natural truths".



Improbus said:


> Oh the irony! Of course the degenerates will be the first to reject the idea of degeneration: they don't want to be revealed for what they are.


No, no irony at all. The very point is that they wanted to sweep away the obsession with degeneration which was partially a last, deep sigh against industrial change.[/QUOTE



Improbus said:


> WWI was indeed a coup de grâce of beauty. After that what was already bad got much worse still.


The First World War played a great role in shattering both a lingering class deference and the remnants of blind religious faith. Nothing to do with beauty, there has always been enough ugliness and brutality in the world long before that conflict. The new music and art immediately post-war stands out, to me, as a particularly social and self-conscious sort of art with far more to it than the pretty and largely disinterested music that had accompanied previous eras (with some obvious exceptions of course). The seed of this is actually in Wagner who absorbed a revolutionary view of society, he is not a regular romantic as the term is most commonly understood.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

And yet with all this talk--excellent talk--of the _Zeitgeist_, etc., we must not forget the influence, the force, of any individual's particular psychological make-up: their tendency to be mostly optimistic or mostly pessimistic. If we look at, say, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartók, Poulenc, Martinů, many of the major names of the twentieth century, we see (and hear) an optimism, a feeling of self-actualization robust enough to allow them decades of productive composition--of works with an innate vitality that attracts large numbers of people to listen attentively to their music. Many were just too busy composing to contemplate the State of Things, or, if they did, they said Oh Well, and returned to their work. But the changes in technology that characterize the New Stasis in the arts--the vastness and diversity of audiences now able to sample everything instantly--allows now every sort of approach to art and music, resulting in the plethora of schools, genres, entire musics now extant. This is a profound difference from ages past.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"Modernism" happened at the same time new technologies were coming to be. I see all art as reacting to these technologies. In visual art, cinema and photography (and printing) necessitated the redefinition of the purpose of art. In music, mechanical innovations and recording changed it. Of course, distances shrank as new, faster communication took over.

In musical thinking, this led away from tradition as a consequence; new purpose demanded new means. I think the new influence of science and logic led to 'engineered' music composition. As with the Quadrivium, mathematics came to the fore.

Underlying principles unite disparate composers, like Debussy, Schoenberg, and the rest of the seemingly unrelated composers: they all share the new modernist way of thinking, which uses the 12-notes, symmetry, quantity over identity, relativity, and less reliance on harmonically-derived ideas.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Anyone who hasn't seen "Paris: The Luminous Years" may be missing out on the birth of the modern in the 20th century. Stravinsky's work with Diaghilev was part it and examined in this illuminating documentary.

The super reactionaries who still exist and view the modern as mostly degeneracy need to understand that there's always something positive motivating a new movement or epic in art and music. There's never been a movement in art that's ever lasted based entirely on solely being against something. It's the positive that's always motivating a breakthrough in human understanding, and sometimes the degenerate is part of it but not all of it. It eats up too much energy just to be against something.

The modern liberated an explosion of creative energy, broke up forms in art and tonality in music--there were parallel developments--even if many don't like the end products. For the artists and creators, it was necessary for them to identify with the needs of the present than continue to identify with the past that had mostly exhausted itself by the time the modern was gathering momentum. 20th Century artists and musicians were perhaps the most courageous in history because they were unafraid _ to fail_, to veer into the uncharted territory of the radical, adventurous, and revolutionary unknown.


----------



## Spawnofsatan (Aug 5, 2016)

Yes, the modernism of the 20th century is called that for a reason.....because it's modernism


----------



## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Modernism is a language. That's to say that there are many ways to speak it.


----------



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

tdc said:


> This post contains a lot of generalizations that I don't think apply sweepingly to the creative processes of composers, still I find it quite interesting with some useful insights.
> 
> I think there is something that I guess could be termed the zeitgeist that perhaps to a certain extent is not consciously controlled by anyone, but simultaneously also directions art and music are being_ pushed_ (much of it having to do with the indoctrination people receive in schools) but not everyone willingly goes in this direction.


Yes, of course everybody thinks and works inside his Zeitgeist. Perhaps the great thing about learning history is that this transcends your own time so you can think of alternatives to your own time.

I think the Zeitgeist of the modernist epoch is one of loss of God, loss of certainty, loss of societal cohesion, loss of traditions en looking for new ways to find meaning and purpose in the new (industrialized) world. Perhaps atonality is a good example: from what I understand atonality is not so much the elimination of tonality but looking for new tonalities which are more democratic and suited to the modern world than the older tonality has become. And I think that it succeeded in this respect: atonal music sounds a lot more modern - better suited to our modern, frantic lives - than e.g. Mozarts music. Mozart's music and other old music is perhaps so attractive exactly because it isn't modern and therefore takes us back to older, 'happier' times!

Thinking about it: artists are especially aware of the art of the past in which tradition they work. But instead of transcending their own epoch by studying the music of the past they must work to upgrade the older music so it becomes music of the now. I think characteristic of the modernist epoch is that the feeling was so strong that the modern world has cut the ties with the past completely so there was a lot of experimenting going on, looking for new styles that suited the contemporary 'new' world as experienced by the composer. And even if the world wasn't completely new already there was a feeling - I've already mentioned the political ideologies of communism and fascism - that soon the world would be completely new and all traditions completely destroyed...


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Agamemnon said:


> I think the Zeitgeist of the modernist epoch is one of loss of God, loss of certainty, loss of societal cohesion, loss of traditions en looking for new ways to find meaning and purpose in the new (industrialized) world. Perhaps atonality is a good example: *from what I understand atonality is not so much the elimination of tonality but looking for new tonalities which are more democratic and suited to the modern world than the older tonality has become.* And I think that it succeeded in this respect:* atonal music sounds a lot more modern - better suited to our modern, frantic lives - than e.g. Mozarts music.* Mozart's music and other old music is perhaps so attractive exactly because it isn't modern and therefore takes us back to older, 'happier' times!


Modernism spawned some strange conceits and ideologies. The notion that atonality isn't really atonality but a kind of "democratic" tonality is one of them. I don't recall where that got started, but comparing the equal status of the twelve notes within the octave to political equality, and imagining that this feature makes atonal music a better expression of "modern" life, is just a fantasy.

Unquestionably, Mozart doesn't sound as "modern" as Boulez, but there are a great many options for what modern music can and does sound like. Most music since Schoenberg has been tonal. Are we still perpetuating the infamous Modernist conceit of Boulez that "any composer who doesn't see the necessity of serialism is useless"?

Modern people don't love Mozart's music out of nostalgia. They love it not mainly because of, but regardless of, its period flavor. They love it because it remains meaningful even in our time. Some aesthetic values speak to what is enduring in human nature. The idea that modernity must sweep away the past is one of those Modernist ideologies that we ought to sweep into the past.


----------



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> The idea that modernity must sweep away the past is one of those Modernist ideologies that we ought to sweep into the past.


As with all movements for change, that may have been the feeling at the time, but no 'new movement' ever entirely sweeps away what precedes it. At the the crucial time there is always a hard push to be both heard and to destabilise dominant culture. After the dust settles some parts of the old fall back into place, yet with space created for the new.

I don't think modernism's continued position is to deny all that preceded it. In any case modernism is now approaching its own moment of destabilisation, or already has. As the old song says: 'there's a younger generation knock-knock-knocking at the door..!' (I like the version sung by Al Bowlly).


----------



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for putting the question of Modernism in cultural terms. I like your analysis but I'm going to disagree with it in a particular respect.
> 
> The secularization of society was not a Modernist phenomenon. Religion lost its grip on political and social life with the rise of science, commerce, and secular philosophy, and that started happening at least as far back as the Renaissance. I'd place the advent of "modernity" - as opposed to "Modernism" - first in the Renaissance and then, even more decisively, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the so-called "Enlightenment," with the conception and creation of democratic governments and the rise of free enterprise and the middle class. The release of human action and free thought resulted, artistically, not in what we're calling Modernism but in Romanticism: it's Romanticism that really fits your description of man determining, and striving to fulfill, his own destiny.
> 
> I offer this not to dispute the philosophical trend you describe - which, as a secularist, I'll paraphrase as Western man's gradual realization and acceptance of the full weight of his intellectual and moral responsibility as an autonomous being - but to suggest that Modernism needs some further definition. What differentiates Modernist man - and the Modernist artist - from his Romantic predecessor? Did something happen in the late 19th century to undermine the Romantic view of man, or should we view Modernism as a late phase of Romanticism and place the real rupture in Postmodernism - or anywhere at all?


Good post (as always)! I do believe modernism has it's roots in romanticism, yet things are obvious quite complicated. Perhaps this makes some sense: Enlightenment (thesis) --> Romanticism (antithesis) --> Modernism (synthesis)? Let's see how this works out...

To me Enlightenment is basically God = Reason. As we humans (as created in the image of God, the Bible says) participate in this Reason, we can morally improve ourselves and make the world a better place (hence the political ideologies arose).

Romanticism not only was highly sceptical of the Enlightenment's believe in reason and progress but even hates the modern world the (technological) progress has brought us. The romantic finds the modern man is superficial, egoistic, materialistic and all alone in a 'disenchanted' universe as science got rid of all higher values (e.g. love) and reduces everything to cold mechanics. The romantic longs for the lost community and religion and escapes contemporary times by studying the past; he revives community and religion, albeit by means of modern, secularized ones like nationalism.

Perhaps modernism connects the Enlightenment's utopia and disdain for tradition with the Romanticism's feeling of degeneration: the old world has collapsed and now we must build a new world which gives modernism it's characteristic urgency like we're thrown in the deep water and we must immediately learn to swim. At least in my perception modernism is very serious business; play time is over and no jokes are allowed! Again I would like to make the connection to especially fascism: fascism is romantically antimodern yet I feel that especially expressionism is connected to fascism qua world view. They are both brutal, agressive, eagerly destroying all traditions to 'create by destruction' (and of course fascisme has an origin in the artistic movement of Futurism). Likewise modern art can have a totalitarian feel to it.

Then the World Wars shook everything up but I don't think it ruptured modernism. It destroyed optimism in a certain way: (technological) civilization apparently didn't bring about moral progress but industrial genocides instead. Dada and the idea that we must relearn how to play, that we must find our inner child (so putting away our 'civilization') dominated the post-war scene. Yet I think these still were serious movements because of their political overtones. Artists were still looking for the Truth.

Only in the 60's postmodernism emerged from a kind of new romantic feeling that there is no (singular) truth and that art is simply art: an expression of the artist's state of mind without any content outside the art work (or better: postmodernism is very 'meta', very philosophical and obsessed with art itself: 'if I put an industrial item like a can of soup in a museum, has is then become an art work?').

In a way there is no rupture: since Romanticism it is really all about freedom in the sense that artists strived to become totally free as artists, to realize themselves as truly autonomous beings of which you also spoke in your post. Postmodernism is the result: 'anything goes'.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

eugeneonagain said:


> As with all movements for change, that may have been the feeling at the time, but no 'new movement' ever entirely sweeps away what precedes it. At the the crucial time there is always a hard push to be both heard and to destabilise dominant culture. After the dust settles some parts of the old fall back into place, yet with space created for the new.
> 
> I don't think modernism's continued position is to deny all that preceded it. In any case modernism is now approaching its own moment of destabilisation, or already has. As the old song says: 'there's a younger generation knock-knock-knocking at the door..!' (I like the version sung by Al Bowlly).


Certainly, no movement ever _succeeds_ in sweeping away the past. How could it, if a culture is to continue to exist at all? But rebellion against the "old" was certainly pretty fervent after WW I, and it exerted its force well into the 20th century as a point of pride among artists and critics, generating a lot of now very dated dogma and a dizzying array of fashions in the arts. All I'm saying is that when the touting of radical innovation as a criterion of value outlives its momentary usefulness it becomes just another ideology that we should recognize as such and be careful not to fall into. In my time on the forum I've seen a number of people fall into it.

I think Modernism is pretty much a historical phenomenon by now. I mean, once you're down to empty (sorry, white) canvases and silent music, the writing is on the wall. With Postmodernism came eclecticism, and recent "movements" in art and music make little impression on anyone outside of small groups of devotees.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> The great axiom? I take it from this that you rue the passing of Western theocracies keeping everything in ignorant order? Contrary to what you keep rattling on about, the diminishing power of religion in society allowed independent reason to flourish. Unfortunately it also cleared the way for other sorts of earthly grand narratives to fill the power vacuum.


Your allegations are quite frankly absurd and you're clearly reading too much into what I'm saying. I might as well accuse you of celebrating world war.

It's an unfortunate fact that the fall of tyrants will often result in anarchy. Acknowledging this is not to root for tyranny.



> In art, as in general society, the lack of a direct master-servant relationship - as typified by the God-subject relationship - obviously frees the artist to consider the human condition from other perspectives; a variety of perspectives simultaneously. Disruption of 'comfortable 'order' is inevitable; especially for conservative-minded groups of people who prefer to be spoon-fed certainties predicated upon assumed "natural truths".


That's an amusing characterization of conservatives, but you should know that conservatism isn't simply the rejection of anything that is foreign, but is in moderation a virtue and a necessity for any well-functioning society. Open-mindedness on the other hand is, like anything, a virtue only in moderation.



> No, no irony at all. The very point is that they wanted to sweep away the obsession with degeneration which was partially a last, deep sigh against industrial change.


I happen to think that it was the imminent threat of degeneration that caused the fear thereof, and seeing how it all eventually turned out it doesn't seem to have been entirely unfounded. At least anyone from the mid 19th century would have agreed.



> The First World War played a great role in shattering both a lingering class deference and the remnants of blind religious faith. Nothing to do with beauty, there has always been enough ugliness and brutality in the world long before that conflict.


I for one can discern a diminishment in beauty and taste in those days, which I don't think is coincidental: the war must have been very traumatic even to culture.



> The new music and art immediately post-war stands out, to me, as a particularly social and self-conscious sort of art with far more to it than the pretty and largely disinterested music that had accompanied previous eras (with some obvious exceptions of course).


Quite a few notable exceptions indeed, including that of some conservative composers.



> The seed of this is actually in Wagner who absorbed a revolutionary view of society, he is not a regular romantic as the term is most commonly understood.


Something tells me Wagner would not have been entirely pleased if he knew what would become of his legacy. In fact I'm sure he is spinning in his grave right now along with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

^Your conclusions are extremely subjective and support only your biases. Your posts make no sense as long as there are ardent devotees of 20th century music, of which there are many. You have and continue to imply that anyone who likes the music you don't either has inferior taste or doesn't actually like it but is putting up a front. Your stance both doesn't make sense and is very harmful.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"Your conclusions are extremely subjective and support only your biases. Justify your bigotry all you want, but it's still bigotry."

Bigotry, in my experience, is any system of prejudices differing from my own.


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

KenOC said:


> "Your conclusions are extremely subjective and support only your biases. Justify your bigotry all you want, but it's still bigotry."
> 
> Bigotry, in my experience, is any system of prejudices differing from my own.


I deleted that part of my post because it was a misuse of terms.

The poster in question, when I asked him if what I said about "others having inferior taste because they like modern music" is true, implied that it was but basically said he wouldn't state it outright. I don't know why anyone would defend this idea (or the poster as he continually espouses it), the idea that is behind all his posts in this thread.


----------



## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Lisztian said:


> ^Your conclusions are extremely subjective and support only your biases. Your posts make no sense as long as there are ardent devotees of 20th century music, of which there are many. You have and continue to imply that anyone who likes the music you don't either has inferior taste or doesn't actually like it but is putting up a front. Your stance both doesn't make sense and is very harmful.


Harmful to whom? I think that in the midst of the regular bashing of Mozart and Brahms there should be some room even for reactionary bigotry, unless I should censor myself.


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Improbus said:


> Harmful to whom? I think that in the midst of the regular bashing of Mozart and Brahms there should be some room even for reactionary bigotry, unless I should censor myself.


I won't deny that what you mention occurs, but your crusade is by far the most persistent that I have seen. As for who it's harmful to? Well, the forum mainly: some of our best posters have left this forum because of that sort of thing. If these people are overly sensitive, which people always claim when I bring this up, I'd much rather defend that character flaw than the kind that needlessly sets it off...

Ironically I don't want you to censor yourself: I just don't understand how someone who is clearly intelligent cannot see the obvious flaw in what you say, and why you feel the need to consistently partake. How do you justify your arguments in the face of ardent devotees of 20th century music? I'm talking about people who love and 'understand' composers from earlier eras too and find those in the 20th (and 21st) to be just as good.


----------



## Guest (Nov 13, 2017)

Improbus said:


> unless I should censor myself.


Well, why not? We all have the choice of keeping our thinking to ourselves and not sharing.


----------



## Guest (Nov 29, 2017)

wrong place............


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

"Modernism" is a collection of styles and differences. Differences are key in making modernism modern, if that makes sense. If the styles are similar, then the critics would not regard it as modern.


----------

