# What does “modern” mean?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Listening on the radio to Irving Fine’s Partita for wind quintet on the weekly two-hour program called "Modern Times.". This is evidently considered a “modern” work, written in 1948.

Let’s see…that’s 70 years ago. 70 years before Beethoven’s birth, Bach hadn’t yet written his first significant work. How can something 70 years old today be considered “modern”? And a lot of Schoenberg, etc., is older than that!

Please tell me, what does “modern” mean?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I've heard people describe Debussy as Modern, yes, even as Contemporary......


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The term "modern" is just a mess. 

Capitalized - as in "Modernism" - it refers to the period of music following the Romantic period, however you want to bound it, during which there was a particularly intense awareness, and even an imperative, that traditional aesthetic standards and practices were being superseded. By this usage, "modern" music is now old music, and we ought to specify "Modernist." 

In lower case, it's a synonym for "contemporary," or at least "very recent." 

In casual use, it refers to music that a majority of classical music listeners find dissonant or otherwise difficult or unappealing. But this usage is somewhat excusable given that certain kinds of music that originated in early 20th century Modernism have still not captured the affection of a majority of listeners. What sounded modern (unpleasant or inaccessible) then still sounds modern to many.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

"Modern" is apparently quite a bit older even than that. Isn't Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun considered the first piece of modern music? 1894 if I'm not mistaken. 

I suppose "modern" in the musical context is a catchall for music which abandons the conventions of tonality, either partially or completely. This, I believe, has less to do with how recently or long ago it began than it does with the fact that it's still the idiom composers mostly write in today. Modern medicine existed in the 1940s as well. It has advanced since like any other field, but most if not all of the broad foundations and theories were the same then as they are now, hence "modern" medicine.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Like any interesting word, it means different things in different contexts.

On TC, I'm often guilty of stretching the meaning of it a bit, using it to denote art that prizes innovation above all else, especially if it seems to aspire to provoke the sort of shock that high modernist art hoped to produce. The succès de scandale is the model. Cage achieved it brilliantly with 4'33.

This aspiration has died out since about 1968. Of course a few works since then - the film _The Last Temptation of Christ_, _**** Christ_, _As Nasty As They Wanna Be_ - still seem to have modernist aspirations, but at least since the sexual revolution, the elite of our culture is too well-trained to get worked up about anything plausibly artistic, so, as those examples show, would-be modernist artists of our time have to settle for picking on socioculturally backwards segments of society. Post-modernist art, if it is ever scandalous, is so largely by accidentally offending modernist sensibilities with its indifference to modernist values. Minimalist music is a fine example. Only on obscure corners of the internet, populated by people who've adopted worldviews from sometime between 1890 and 1970, can one still find an impassioned debate pro and con modernist art.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

...............


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There is no clear meaning but often "modern" (or, probably more correctly, "Modern") means post-1910 or post 1920 with the word often not being used any more for some composers (Strauss, Sibelius?). Indeed some works composed after 1910/20 - Elgar, Saint-Saens - were never "modern". "Contemporary" comes in for composers who were young (or not yet born) in the 1960s. 

These names were probably given in the 1960s! The reason, perhaps, that the terminology has remained since then may be that much of the audience for classical music in general has become relatively conservative. Too many works from the 60s remain in the domain of a specialised audience for the "contemporary" or avant garde. Meanwhile, a huge branch of new music is ploughing relatively conservative furrows and is gaining much of the general classical music audience who would, in the days when the tradition was following a fairly linear path, have slowly discovered the 1960s contemporary. 

I think, in a world where there has been such a branching - a diversification - of music styles, we need to use more precise names for genres where we actually need precision: minimalism, spectralism etc. But, in general, "modern" works for music since Stravinsky and Bartok, with "contemporary" being used for music that is still mainly enjoyed only by a specialised audience. Just occasionally a composer moves from one to the other - Ligeti is probably now OK to call "modern" (rather than "contemporary") and, as already noted, if Sibelius was once modern he is probably now "romantic" or maybe "nationalist". And I don't know what you call Elgar and Strauss - both major composers who seem to be very late "Romantics".


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Listening on the radio to Irving Fine's Partita for wind quintet on the weekly two-hour program called "Modern Times.". This is evidently considered a "modern" work, written in 1948.
> 
> Let's see…that's 70 years ago. 70 years before Beethoven's birth, Bach hadn't yet written his first significant work. How can something 70 years old today be considered "modern"? And a lot of Schoenberg, etc., is older than that!
> 
> Please tell me, what does "modern" mean?


I looked at the playlist for that show and saw that subsequently they played Enescu's 3rd violin sonata, written in 1926...

I think at this stage "modern" is just a convenient label for music written after the point at which the general classical audience's interest starts to decline. Which means after the 1910s, and _definitely_ after the 1940s. Some works of course are just considered to be regular classical music without a need for the "modern" label (see my various previous comments about the end of "classical music"), so I guess one could refine it and say "modern" is a convenient label for music written _in an idiom_ in which the general classical audience's interest is lower.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

as I see it, modern is the current cultural style. Baroque lasted couple of hundred years, romantic one hundred years. And modern began after the beginning of the 20th century together with the great epoch breaking cultural shift - the fall of European monarchies, the fall of colonialism, the violent revolutions and world wars. That is when the current epoch began. The sociological changes were followed or reflected in art. So Stravinsky, Hindemith etc are modern. 
Contemporary means living and composing.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

every word has its own history and some of it is related to a different context.
"modern" is a tricky word, should I say "modern English" or "modern French" native English speakers and native French speakers here would instantly understand what modern stands for in that context, even if it is a modernity which in both cases is a few centuries old by now.
Jacck has related "modern" to some historical facts, but when it comes to history what is "modern" has a universal conventional acceptance as meaning "starts at the end of the Middle Ages ends with the Industrial Revolution" - so the events that he has mentioned don't belong to modern history.
In the context of music and generally the arts (checked three dictionaries in three European languages before writing the following) "modern" implies a departure from traditional styles, innovating the language. 
Once you find acceptable painting it this way it seems quite evident what constitutes "modern music" since in the arts a style/technique stays modern until new innovations supersede it.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Anything that is not modern.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> In the context of music and generally the arts..."modern" implies a departure from traditional styles, innovating the language. Once you find acceptable painting it this way *it seems quite evident what constitutes "modern music" since in the arts a style/technique stays modern until new innovations supersede it.*


I wonder: does the criterion of "superseding" apply very well to recent times and to what's considered "modern"? It makes sense to talk about Classical style superseding Baroque style, but if everything from Debussy and Ravel and Schoenberg and Stravinsky through Stockhausen and Varese and Cage to Glass and Reich and Adams and Xenakis and Ferneyhough and Scelsi and Lachenmann etc. etc. etc. is referred to as "modern music" - which it commonly is - is there something that unites all this music and entitles it to be designated by a single word? If so, what might we expect it all to be superseded by? 12-tone music of the Schoenberg sort no longer sounds modern to me; even minimalism has a dated feel to it. Have they been "superseded" yet? How long are we going to go on writing "modern" music?


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

I think we're about to post-post-post-post-modernism now. After the fifth column the whole thing sort of falls apart.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's completely subjective. "Modern" is what you don't like. Unless you're one of _those_ kinds of people, in which case "modern" is the only thing you like.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

MarkW said:


> It's completely subjective. "Modern" is what you don't like. Unless you're one of _those_ kinds of people, in which case "modern" is the only thing you like.


I have been trying to figure our a diplomatic way of saying this myself.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

It seems there’s a continuing battle between the Present and the Past... with no end in sight. ;&)


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I wonder: does the criterion of "superseding" apply very well to recent times and to what's considered "modern"? It makes sense to talk about Classical style superseding Baroque style, but if everything from Debussy and Ravel and Schoenberg and Stravinsky through Stockhausen and Varese and Cage to Glass and Reich and Adams and Xenakis and Ferneyhough and Scelsi and Lachenmann etc. etc. etc. is referred to as "modern music" - which it commonly is - is there something that unites all this music and entitles it to be designated by a single word? If so, what might we expect it all to be superseded by? 12-tone music of the Schoenberg sort no longer sounds modern to me; even minimalism has a dated feel to it. Have they been "superseded" yet? How long are we going to go on writing "modern" music?


Let's quote Leonard Meyer: "...change and variety are not incompatible with stasis. For stasis, as I intend the term, is not an absence of novelty and change--a total quiescence--but rather the absence of ordered sequential change. Like molecules rushing about haphazardly in a Brownian movement, a culture bustling with activity and change may nevertheless be static. Indeed, insofar as an active, conscious search for new techniques, new forms and materials, and new modes of sensibility (such as have marked our time) precludes the gradual accumulation of changes capable of producing a trend or series of connected mutations, it tends to create a steady-state, though perhaps one that is both vigorous and variegated. In short......a multiplicity of styles in each of the arts, coexisting in a balanced, yet competitive, cultural environment is producing a fluctuating stasis in contemporary culture."

Music is no longer evolving, or, alternately, it is evolving in every conceivable direction simultaneously, constantly. Not only is every niche occupied but new niches are being created all the time. What's old is still right here, rubbing shoulders with the eternal new. The universe is expanding. Dark Energy. The New Stasis.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> Let's quote Leonard Meyer: "...change and variety are not incompatible with stasis. For stasis, as I intend the term, is not an absence of novelty and change--a total quiescence--but rather the absence of ordered sequential change. Like molecules rushing about haphazardly in a Brownian movement, a culture bustling with activity and change may nevertheless be static. Indeed, insofar as an active, conscious search for new techniques, new forms and materials, and new modes of sensibility (such as have marked our time) precludes the gradual accumulation of changes capable of producing a trend or series of connected mutations, it tends to create a steady-state, though perhaps one that is both vigorous and variegated. In short......a multiplicity of styles in each of the arts, coexisting in a balanced, yet competitive, cultural environment is producing a fluctuating stasis in contemporary culture."
> 
> Music is no longer evolving, or, alternately, it is evolving in every conceivable direction simultaneously, constantly. Not only is every niche occupied but new niches are being created all the time. What's old is still right here, rubbing shoulders with the eternal new. The universe is expanding. Dark Energy. The New Stasis.


Known in some circles as The End Times.


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## Ivan Smith (Jun 11, 2018)

if its dusty Im not listening


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Modernism always meant to me as new music a step beyond traditional compositional techniques in music. Often gets confused with postmodern, and both get lumped together as anything 20th century that isn't quite traditional. Scriabin, Schoenberg and others developed new organizational techniques in music. Glass, Cage and others didn't, and are considered postmodernists, by presenting music using existing music techniques in a different context, or in the deconstruction of music as in random music and minimalism.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

I don't think one can discuss the appropriateness of the term 'modern' without also touching on the nature of the term 'classical'. Because what does it mean for a piece of music to be both 'modern' and 'classical' at the same time?



Art Rock said:


> I've heard people describe Debussy as Modern, yes, even as Contemporary......


What's that quote of Stravinsky's referring to Beethoven's Grosse Fuge as a "contemporary work which will always be contemporary"? And I mean, why not? One of the hallmarks of post(!!)modernity is the collapse of the narrative distinction between 'past' and 'present'.



Madiel said:


> Jacck has related "modern" to some historical facts, but when it comes to history what is "modern" has a universal conventional acceptance as meaning "starts at the end of the Middle Ages ends with the Industrial Revolution" - so the events that he has mentioned don't belong to modern history.


Well, only in French historiography. In German and anglophone historiography the modern era is generally accepted to date from around 1500 to 1945, being divided between an 'early modern period' and the modern period proper by the French and industrial revolutions. After that everything is 'contemporary history'.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

As a music theorist, I see the term 'modern' as meaning a certain approach to musical materials, a way of thinking musically, and it becomes very specific in meaning. Also, because of the "structural" meaning I give the term, it cannot be chronologically fenced-in, since aspects of modernism began creeping into musical thinking in other eras, and 'blossomed' later.

Basically, the idea is the gradual replacement of the major-minor diatonic system with an increasing chromaticism. This is modernism.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> As a music theorist, I see the term 'modern' as meaning a certain approach to musical materials, a way of thinking musically, and it becomes very specific in meaning. Also, because of the "structural" meaning I give the term, it cannot be chronologically fenced-in, since aspects of modernism began creeping into musical thinking in other eras, and 'blossomed' later.
> 
> Basically, the idea is the gradual replacement of the major-minor diatonic system with an increasing chromaticism. This is modernism.


No it isn't. ..............


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> As a music theorist, I see the term 'modern' as meaning a certain approach to musical materials, a way of thinking musically, and it becomes very specific in meaning. Also, because of the "structural" meaning I give the term, it cannot be chronologically fenced-in, since aspects of modernism began creeping into musical thinking in other eras, and 'blossomed' later.
> 
> Basically, the idea is the gradual replacement of the major-minor diatonic system with an increasing chromaticism. This is modernism.


I tend to agree.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> No it isn't.





Phil loves classical said:


> I tend to agree.


Well, I'm with you fellas.

..............


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

That's just the way I see it. If somebody has an opposing view, it would be much more interesting if they explained it.

I don't see a conflict between modernism and more academic classical music, they're just different ways of thinking, and I understand them both and appreciate each for what they can give me as a listener.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> The term "modern" is just a mess.


 No it isn't.



Woodduck said:


> Capitalized - as in "Modernism" - it refers to the period of music following the Romantic period, however you want to bound it, during which there was a particularly intense awareness, and even an imperative, that traditional aesthetic standards and practices were being superseded.


 No it doesn't.



Woodduck said:


> By this usage, "modern" music is now old music, and we ought to specify "Modernist."


 No we oughtn't.



Woodduck said:


> In lower case, it's a synonym for "contemporary," or at least "very recent."


No it isn't.



Woodduck said:


> In casual use, it refers to music that a majority of classical music listeners find dissonant or otherwise difficult or unappealing.


No it doesn't.



Woodduck said:


> But this usage is somewhat excusable given that certain kinds of music that originated in early 20th century Modernism have still not captured the affection of a majority of listeners.


No it isn't.



Woodduck said:


> What sounded modern (unpleasant or inaccessible) then still sounds modern to many.


No it doesn't.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> No it isn't.
> 
> No it doesn't.
> 
> ...


Cute, million. Arpeggio evidently thinks you're cute too. It must be the horns.

Very well. Modernism in music involves a great deal more than increasing chromaticism. But you know that already, so it makes no sense to have said: "Basically, the idea is the gradual replacement of the major-minor diatonic system with an increasing chromaticism. This is modernism."

Opposition to a Romantic sensibility, an attitude of experimentalism, the free treatment of dissonance and the use of nonfunctional harmony and harmonic progression, the introduction of sounds not previously considered musical, the influence of Jazz and non-Western music resulting in, among other things, a new rhythmic freedom ...

That'll do for the moment.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> I tend to agree.


I tend to disagree


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Modernism in music involves a great deal more than increasing chromaticism. But you know that already, so it makes no sense to have said: "Basically, the idea is the gradual replacement of the major-minor diatonic system with an increasing chromaticism. This is modernism."


I'm just making general statements. That's why I used the term "basically." I stand behind that statement. This demand for all-encompassing definitions is just a debate technique, and I'm not interested in that. I'm simply stating some general facts about modernism and modern musical thought.

Among the many ways of modern musical thinking, here are a few concepts: The use of tritones, dividing the octave at the tritone, use of small intervals such as major and minor 3rds and seconds as root stations, rather than 4ths and fifths, abandonment of scale function in chords, creation of "artificial" harmonic functions using exotic or 'artificial' scales, interval projection to create scales, etc.

But if there's anything the slightest bit incomplete or unsatisfying in my replies, Woodduck, please don't hesitate to amplify it to the Nth degree.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm just making general statements. That's why I used the term "basically." I stand behind that statement. This demand for all-encompassing definitions is just a debate technique, and I'm not interested in that. I'm simply stating some general facts about modernism and modern musical thought.
> 
> Among the many ways of modern musical thinking, here are a few concepts: The use of tritones, dividing the octave at the tritone, use of small intervals such as major and minor 3rds and seconds as root stations, rather than 4ths and fifths, abandonment of scale function in chords, creation of "artificial" harmonic functions using exotic or 'artificial' scales, interval projection to create scales, etc.
> 
> But if there's anything the slightest bit incomplete or unsatisfying in my replies, Woodduck, please don't hesitate to amplify it to the Nth degree.


See? I just _knew_ you knew more than you were pretending to.


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## Weird Heather (Aug 24, 2016)

Warning - long post ahead.

"Modern" is an extremely difficult and vague term. Part of the problem is that it has different meanings depending on the context and on who is discussing it. To the lay person, it generally refers to a time period close to and encompassing the present day. However, within the academic community, the definition is somewhat less vague, as anyone who has had formal education in the arts and humanities (especially regarding the period from the late 1800s to the present day) will be aware. Although I don't have formal music education beyond a couple music appreciation classes and some beginner-level viola lessons, I have studied literature, and my specialization is the modern and postmodern periods. I have observed a number of parallels between literature and music; perhaps a little discussion from the standpoint of literature can help to illuminate the issue, or perhaps more likely, confuse it further and cause pointless arguments to break out.

In literature (at least within the English/American academic tradition), modernism usually refers to the period between the late 1800s and approximately World War II when, as with music, literary conventions that had been established during the 18th and 19th Centuries were called into question, challenged, and torn apart in various ways. This should sound familiar - precisely the same thing happened with music. Additionally, popular literature gradually became divorced from the more difficult avant-garde and academic styles, a trend that continues to this day. Again, this should sound familiar. In literature, as in music, there was no single modernist movement; there was a great deal of variety in style and in the conventions writers chose to question. Some tore words, sentences, and grammar apart (i.e. Gertrude Stein), while others explored new possibilities in modes of narration, such as stream of consciousness (i.e. Virginia Woolf). As with the music, much of this writing can be difficult and inaccessible, while some of it is easy to read and interpret despite its break with the past.

Some of the initial stirrings of modernism in literature have direct contact with the world of music. Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" has been mentioned in this thread as one of these early stirrings of modernism. When I took an introductory class on modernism, one of the first things we read in the class was "L'après-midi d'un faune" by Stéphane Mallarmé, the poem which inspired Debussy's music. (Anyone who likes Debussy's music should read this poem; the original French version and English translations should be easy enough to find online.) As with the music, the poem is seen in the academic community as one of the early stirrings of modernism.

After World War II, things really start to get strange. There seems to be a change in direction, but unfortunately the word "modern" has already been associated with a particular time period that has come to a close and is receding into the past. The term "postmodern" has come into wide use for this period, which continues to the present day. I have never liked that word, but I have a hard time coming up with an alternative. Some people use "contemporary" but that risks the same problem that messed up the word "modern." What happens when things change again? Is the next period going to be called "postcontemporary" or "postpostmodern?" The terminology could become as absurd as some of the works of art that it describes.

Again, the postmodern period in literature seems to show parallels to trends in music. In literature, fragmentation of styles has continued, and pretty much anything goes as long as the right people (i.e. influential professors and editors of academic journals) find it interesting. Deconstruction is a big influence. Also, there are literary parallels to conceptual art such as John Cage's 4'33". Synthesis of different styles and different forms of media is also quite prevalent. A work of literature no longer necessarily has to reside in a printed book, and literature can be merged with other forms of art. I suppose my explorations of this crazy world explain why I find works like Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet to be a completely reasonable form of artistic expression, and the idea of 4'33" makes perfect sense to me. I think we see a similar fragmentation in music, with numerous styles and influences all competing, coexisting, merging, and diverging. Every composer is an individual, and the notion of a single set of rules and conventions governing music has become obsolete.

And meanwhile, popular authors continue writing happily within the 18th/19th Century conventions, with at most modest influence from modernist and postmodern trends, and their works outsell the weird stuff by considerable numbers. I suppose music is a rough parallel too - popular music remains firmly ensconced in the tonal system and appeals to a wide audience, while postmodern classical music is a small niche. I love the craziness and variety of the modern and postmodern periods in both literature and music, but I can certainly understand why some of this material appeals to limited audiences.


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## Ivan Smith (Jun 11, 2018)

Modern in the context of classical, means exciting rather than dry and boring, as old classical is pop music in every way


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Distinguishing "modern" from "postmodern" is problematic. I think it's mainly a matter of ideology. Modernists generally believed in a cause, socially significant and transcending their individual efforts; hence their intense consciousness of being "modern." Postmodernists don't believe in causes, except the cause of discrediting all causes. I suspect that lately they've given up even that.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Distinguishing "modern" from "postmodern" is problematic. I think it's mainly a matter of ideology. Modernists generally believed in a cause, socially significant and transcending their individual efforts; hence their intense consciousness of being "modern." Postmodernists don't believe in causes, except the cause of discrediting all causes. I suspect that lately they've given up even that.


Don't get post-modern politics confused with art, music in particular. Though this is often the case with visual art (galleries in particular, which seem to be a monetary system), I have never been able to see it as the case with 'post-modern' music.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Weird Heather said:


> popular music remains firmly ensconced in the tonal system and appeals to a wide audience, while postmodern classical music is a small niche. I love the craziness and variety of the modern and postmodern periods in both literature and music, but I can certainly understand why some of this material appeals to limited audiences.


I agree with everything you have written in your long post but I'd like to focus on the differences in the two fields (literature and music).
You can see it in this forum, you can see it in real life, a classical music listener will feel entitled to ridicule modern music, in most cases those same persons when it comes to literature even if in their whole life will never read/appreciate a page written by Proust/Wolff/Faulkner they will never dare to ridicule modern literature. This cultural fracture is even more evident in painting, being modern doesn't preclude Van Gogh from being a pop star, maybe the greatest pop star in painting.
So if we look at the general public acceptance of modernism in music, literature and painting we have in order:
- an arrogant and guiltless rejection of modernism
- a humble genuflection in front of its academically sanctioned status
- an enthusiastic acceptance of the new language
so in the end we could say that modern music is the music which the layman feels entitled to ridicule, modern literature is the one that the layman will never disrespect, modern painting is a cupboard full of mugs "reproducing" works by Van Gogh and Picasso :devil:
the way I see it, what is modern in music can be readily identified looking at the general public reaction to it, what could be really interesting is to investigate the reasons that bring the general public to having different reactions toward modernism in the three art fields discussed above.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Madiel said:


> I agree with everything you have written in your long post but I'd like to focus on the differences in the two fields (literature and music).
> You can see it in this forum, you can see it in real life, a classical music listener will feel entitled to ridicule modern music, in most cases those same persons when it comes to literature even if in their whole life will never read/appreciate a page written by Proust/Wolff/Faulkner they will never dare to ridicule modern literature. This cultural fracture is even more evident in painting, being modern doesn't preclude Van Gogh from being a pop star, maybe the greatest pop star in painting.
> So if we look at the general public acceptance of modernism in music, literature and painting we have in order:
> - an arrogant and guiltless rejection of modernism
> ...


This is insightful, but there are still people who look at Picasso and say something like, "My 6-year-old nephew can do that."


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

science said:


> This is insightful, but there are still people who look at Picasso and say something like, "My 6-year-old nephew can do that."


no doubt about that, nonetheless the numbers tell a story of popular success.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Madiel said:


> no doubt about that, nonetheless the numbers tell a story of popular success.


Popular to a point. I think the lowest class you're considering is one that has heard of Proust and Picasso. I know people who will die without ever having heard or read the name Proust or having seen a work by Picasso. There probably should be a 2D analysis of this, like a table, with a column for visual art, one for literature, one for music, and then rows for (in roughly North American terms) the cultural elite, the middle brow, and the low-brow.


visual artliteraturemusiccultural eliteloves modernismloves modernismloves modernismmiddle browloves modernismdares not question modernismhates most modernismlow browlaughs at modernismnever heard of modernismlaughs at modernism


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Modern was a term used for 20th century music composed near the advent of the Second Viennese School. There were plenty of late romantic composers still writing music then -- Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Elgar and Vaughan Williams among them -- and the "modern" tag was meant to differentiate from tradition.

It is sometimes said the first "modern" compositions were Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1919) and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (premiered 1912.)

This period was followed starting about the 1950s by electronic and a series of post-(fill in the blank) forms and later by minimalism. So "modern" classical music is roughly the period 1910-50 or so.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

St Matthew said:


> Don't get post-modern politics confused with art, music in particular. Though this is often the case with visual art (galleries in particular, which seem to be a monetary system), I have never been able to see it as the case with 'post-modern' music.


Modernist composers (Debussy, Schoenberg, Busoni, Satie, Stravinsky, Varese, Boulez, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Cage, etc.) were highly opinionated, acutely conscious of where music had been and where it was going or ought to go, and dedicated to newness. This was at least equally true of visual artists up to about the 1960s, when serialism was de rigeur at the music academies and abstraction was the destiny to which painting aspired. After that it became apparent that art wasn't going anywhere in particular and that there was no reason why it should, and nobody now takes seriously the idea of "a new art for a new era."


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Listening on the radio to Irving Fine's Partita for wind quintet on the weekly two-hour program called "Modern Times.". This is evidently considered a "modern" work, written in 1948.
> 
> Let's see…that's 70 years ago. 70 years before Beethoven's birth, Bach hadn't yet written his first significant work. How can something 70 years old today be considered "modern"? And a lot of Schoenberg, etc., is older than that!
> 
> Please tell me, what does "modern" mean?


Ah, the definition fetish here at TC continues. My approach (as taught to me by one of my early teachers) is, since such definitions are inevitably arbitrary to a significant degree, start with specific time periods. Thus: Baroque = 1675-1750; Classical=1750-1825; Romantic=1825-1900; Modern=1900-1975; Contemporary=1975- . Then, look for the significant common characteristics of most Western music written during those periods. You don't need to worry if you find some music with Romantic period characteristics written during the Modern period or vice versa. The terms can be used flexibly, not necessarily referring to the specific but arbitrary time period but rather to music with some or most, but not necessarily all, of the essential defining characteristics of most music written during that period. That way, the terms can be used as helpful shorthand rather than rigid and confining straitjackets.
One minor flaw with this approach is that "Contemporary" should really mean music written by composers who are still living, i.e., who are our contemporaries. So the 1975 - period could be called "Post-Modern".

Edit: I love Irving Fine's Partita. A great piece to listen to or play.



millionrainbows said:


> Among the many ways of modern musical thinking, here are a few concepts: The use of tritones, dividing the octave at the tritone, use of small intervals such as major and minor 3rds and seconds as root stations, rather than 4ths and fifths, abandonment of scale function in chords, creation of "artificial" harmonic functions using exotic or 'artificial' scales, interval projection to create scales, etc.


Nicely put as usual, Millionrainbows. On could say that one common characteristic of the Modern period is an expansion of concepts of harmony beyond the traditional triad and tonality beyond the traditional diatonic scale, without necessarily abandoning traditional harmony and tonality entirely. But I would say that there are many other characteristics of the Modern period beyond expanding the concepts of harmony and tonality. Rhythm, instrumentation, timbre and macro-structure are all areas that saw distinctive innovations.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

fluteman said:


> Ah, the definition fetish here at TC continues. My approach (as taught to me by one of my early teachers) is, since such definitions are inevitably arbitrary to a significant degree, start with specific time periods. Thus: Baroque = 1675-1750; Classical=1750-1825; Romantic=1825-1900; Modern=1900-1975; Contemporary=1975- . Then, look for the significant common characteristics of most Western music written during those periods. You don't need to worry if you find some music with Romantic period characteristics written during the Modern period or vice versa. The terms can be used flexibly, not necessarily referring to the specific but arbitrary time period but rather to music with some or most, but not necessarily all, of the essential defining characteristics of most music written during that period. That way, the terms can be used as helpful shorthand rather than rigid and confining straitjackets.
> One minor flaw with this approach is that "Contemporary" should really mean music written by composers who are still living, i.e., who are our contemporaries. So the 1975 - period could be called "Post-Modern".
> 
> Edit: I love Irving Fine's Partita. A great piece to listen to or play.


The Baroque era start date is 1600.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

ArsMusica said:


> The Baroque era start date is 1600.


OK. Then we could call 1675-1750 the High Baroque period, and 1600-1675 the Flat Baroque And Living In A Dumpster period. Though that may be a poor analogy.



Madiel said:


> - an arrogant and guiltless rejection of modernism.


Although many people today may not realize how much they have accepted modern and post-modern music. John Williams made extensive use of The Sacrificial Dance from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in his music for Jaws; Part's Spiegel im Spiegel has been used in many movies, including Pixar's Ice Age Collision Course; Toru Takemitsu wrote a lot of music for movies, as has Philip Glass, in addition to music for TV and even video games.


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