# What is a Modernist? ~ and ~ What is "The Modernist Agenda?"



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I keep hearing and seeing the use of *"A / The Modernist Agenda"* and talk about those who are its proponents and practitioners having some particular ideology, i.e. *The Modernists.*

That sometimes seems quite wrapped up in history, sociopolitical history, or revisionist history (take your pick) and / or conversely is less contextual and merely about music, maybe there too an ideology purely about music. Confused? I don't understand any of it or where it comes from.

Having seen so many threads go their own way regardless of the topic stated in the OP, welcome all to whom the subject is of interest or importance, and have at it.


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## Fagotterdammerung (Jan 15, 2015)

Modernism is too big an umbrella. Are Saariaho, Jolivet, and Ferneyhough really in the same family of sound?

I sometimes think a portion of Minimalism's success was that it got its own -ism attached to it. I think we need more recognizable categories.

To be fair, "classicism" has a similar ailment in language.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Just look at the word "modernism." It contains the word "modern," which means, variously, "contemporary," "up-to-date," "fashionable," or "leading-edge." It is commonly used with the suggestion that what is up-to-date or leading-edge is desirable or valuable for that very reason, and preferable to what is old-fashioned, traditional, and outmoded.

"Modernism" also contains "ism," a suffix which implies a belief or set of beliefs or doctrines - an ideology - or a movement based on or motivated by such doctrines.

It seems sensible at the outset to view "Modernism" as, minimally, a set of beliefs or doctrines concerned with, and affirming the value of, that which is contemporary and up-to-date, as opposed to that which is traditional and outmoded. Whatever else we say about the specific applications of the word, I would say that it must at least imply a tendency to value the new over the old, whether or not that valuing takes the form of an "agenda," or of a movement to advance or privilege that which is modern and to devalue, suppress or proscribe that which is not.

If we start from that premise, I suppose the logical next step is to look at the presence of that tendency in the practice, development, theory, and discussion of music. In its trajectory through the history of culture, and of music and art in particular, I think the ideology of Modernism has been expressed in a variety of ways which only a well-informed historical perspective can illuminate. I don't feel like the best person to do that, but I've seen plenty of discussion on TC touching upon this or that aspect of the subject. I've also seen the term used loosely as a value-judgment, which may be a convenient shorthand in casual conversation for identifying those with whom we agree or disagree, but which will get us nowhere in understanding the subject. I think this is an unusually worthwhile thread and I hope to learn something from those who have knowledge to contribute.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2015)

PetrB said:


> I keep hearing and seeing the use of *"A / The Modernist Agenda"* and talk about those who are its proponents and practitioners having some particular ideology, i.e. *The Modernists.*
> 
> That sometimes seems quite wrapped up in history, sociopolitical history, or revisionist history (take your pick) and / or conversely is less contextual and merely about music, maybe there too an ideology purely about music. Confused? I don't understand any of it or where it comes from.
> 
> Having seen so many threads go their own way regardless of the topic stated in the OP, welcome all to whom the subject is of interest or importance, and have at it.


I suspect 'Modernist' composers fall into two camps: those who would assert that they are; and those who are labelled so by others. Plenty of opportunity there for disagreement amongst those composers who are sufficiently contemporary to argue. Did Boulez and Shostakovich fall out about what one said about the other, I wonder? (I know the comment that prompted Mahlerian's thread on the subject was made after DSC died, but did they know what the other thought when both were alive?)

As for proponents, I'm not sure - I've not read much musical criticism to be aware of the published opinions. Of course, if you're referring to 'modernists' on TC, that's a much less interesting matter. Even so, the divide will be the same - those who claim to be a modernist; and those about whom is claimed. I'll just speak for myself. I listen to the music that interests me. Sometimes it's music that has been recommended to me by someone who is an enthusiast about (a 'proponent', perhaps?) music that is often described as 'modern' - that is, departing from what is typical of the common practice period, sometimes violently so. Sometimes it's music recommended by a fan of music from the CPP. I might end up liking both, but if it doesn't strike a chord with me, I'll not pursue it. If being adventurous - listening to anything and everything, and, perhaps more importantly, loving much that comes from different traditions (Mozart to Merzbow) - is a virtue, then I'm not a virtuous listener. If it is also an attribute of a modernist, I'm not a modernist.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Whatever else we say about the specific applications of the word, I would say that it must at least imply a tendency to value the new over the old


I like your post. On this point, however (and I'm sure I'm not saying something you're unaware of) you could be talking about _any _composer who valued exploring current form and doing something different with it, never mind one who valued trying to create the new without reference to the old. I doubt that PetrB had Beethoven or his fans in mind when he asked his OP!


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

Unfortunately all I know about the definition of modernism is related to art history and painting....and even then it's not one definite thing. I tend to think of modernism in connection with autonomy - all forms of art were supposed to define the specificity of their medium (in painting: two-dimensionality, paint on a surface) and not cross over or borrow from other genres (as became the case with postmodernism). I don't know how music was defined in this period though - meaning high modernism as defined by Clement Greenberg and not modernism as a broader term where you go as a far back as Manet.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Just look at the word "modernism." It contains the word "modern," which means, variously, "contemporary," "up-to-date," "fashionable," or "leading-edge." It is commonly used with the suggestion that what is up-to-date or leading-edge is desirable or valuable for that very reason, and preferable to what is old-fashioned, traditional, and outmoded.
> 
> "Modernism" also contains "ism," a suffix which implies a belief or set of beliefs or doctrines - an ideology - or a movement based on or motivated by such doctrines.
> 
> ...


That's a good point: Modern-_ism_ being the belief that the _au courant _is necessarily the best.

I think this is as naive an ideology as the Whig Theory of History, which was: "Whatever is 'current,' is 'right.'"

Quality and excellence _per se_ matter, irrespective of the time period the work of art was was created in.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2015)

In music, the idea that new is better was the ordinary idea up to about 1810 (that is all through the so-called Baroque and Classical eras), at which time it started being replaced by the then new idea that old is better. That idea was pretty much the norm by around 1870, and, in music anyway, has been the ordinary idea ever since.

The funny thing is that a lot of the old music now worshipped as exemplum of quality and excellence was written when the assumption was that new is better (and without the benefit of either "baroque" or "classical" as terms to guide one's thought).


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## Bruce (Jan 2, 2013)

I think Karenpat has come up with the best take on the subject. I've read numerous books on modernism, and each one has its own particular conception of the subject. Using it as a term to describe a certain artistic movement has value at the level of in introduction to a subject, but as soon as one digs a little deeper, one finds so many differences as to make the term almost meaningless. A good place to start, in my opinion, is with Stephen Toulmin's book _Cosmopolis_, which takes a really broad view of the topic and places the movement, such as it is, in a context of world history.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> In music, the idea that new is better was the ordinary idea up to about 1810 (that is all through the so-called Baroque and Classical eras), at which time it started being replaced by the then new idea that old is better. That idea was pretty much the norm by around 1870, and, in music anyway, has been the ordinary idea ever since.
> 
> The funny thing is that a lot of the old music now worshipped as exemplum of quality and excellence was written when the assumption was that new is better (and without the benefit of either "baroque" or "classical" as terms to guide one's thought).


I am uneducated enough to hold the opinion that rampant labeling is the problem, and that dicking around trying on definitions for the labels ain't going to fix the problem. Hell, the label "classical" is sloppy enough.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

The modernists are the bada$$es. Everyone knows that.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> That's a good point: Modern-_ism_ being the belief that the _au courant _is necessarily the best.
> 
> I think this is as naive an ideology as the Whig Theory of History, which was: "Whatever is 'current,' is 'right.'"
> 
> Quality and excellence _per se_ matter, irrespective of the time period the work of art was was created in.


Why must it necessarily mean the modern is "the best?" Why can't it simply mean that one is an enthusiastic supporter of musical exploration without necessarily condemning more conservative composers and musicians? Do you really think the category of people who call themselves modernists includes only those devoid of reason and tolerance, or are you just distracted by the public tantrums of a few belligerent sods? Why does it always have to be a zero-sum game?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

_-ism_ in this case does not denote an ideology, but an aesthetic or group of aesthetics, as in the similar Romanticism, Classicism, etc. As in those cases, it is both something that was applied after the fact (at the time the terms were "ultra-modern", "cubist", "futurist", etc.) and that was applied by critics rather than the composers themselves.

It is surely notable that the major composers called "modernist" (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok) made, at one time or another, statements to the effect that they had no interest in being modern for the sake of being modern.

In any event, modernism in music includes anything that goes past the styles of romanticism and common practice tonality, from Debussy to Ravel to Vaughan Williams to Shostakovich to Messiaen to Britten and so forth.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> In music, the idea that new is better was the ordinary idea up to about 1810 (that is all through the so-called Baroque and Classical eras), at which time it started being replaced by the then new idea that old is better


and both ideas are clearly wrong.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Why must it necessarily mean the modern is "the best?" Why can't it simply mean that one is an enthusiastic supporter of musical exploration without necessarily condemning more conservative composers and musicians? Do you really think the category of people who call themselves modernists includes only those devoid of reason and tolerance, or are you just distracted by the public tantrums of a few belligerent sods? Why does it always have to be a zero-sum game?


It absolutely does_ not_ have to be a zero-sum game, Hobson's choice. People are entitled to listen to whatever music they like.

But then, if one is openly disposed to _all forms of tonal expression_, why use the term 'Modernism' to begin with?-- Because then the music twenty-five years from now will have to be called 'Post-Modernism,' and the music twenty-five years after that 'Post-Post-Modernism'-- and so on. Which I find rather silly.

I was merely addressing Wooduck's talking point when he said _supra_ at Post # 4 that:

". . . I would say that it *[Modernism] must at least imply a tendency to value the new over the old, whether or not that valuing takes the form of an "agenda," or of a movement to advance or privilege that which is modern and to devalue, suppress or proscribe that which is not." 
*
Mahlerian and his catholicity of tastes is a perfect example of a 'modernist' (small 'm') who won't begrudge other composers who write in a more traditionally tonal idiom the right to exist.

I certainly believe in peaceful co-existence, but when Modernists (large 'M') consider whether or not to spit on John Adams' music or to burn down opera houses, I certainly call their zealotry-- not to mention their spleen-- into question.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It seems sensible at the outset to view "Modernism" as, minimally, a set of beliefs or doctrines concerned with, and affirming the value of, that which is contemporary and up-to-date, as opposed to that which is traditional and outmoded.
> 
> If we start from that premise, I suppose the logical next step is to look at the presence of that tendency in the practice, development, theory, and discussion of music.


I have no argument with your definition, Woodduck. I also feel that the tendency to value the new over the old is in evidence. Contrary to what some guy says, that

"the idea that new is better was the ordinary idea up to about 1810 (that is all through the so-called Baroque and Classical eras), at which time it started being replaced by the then new idea that old is better. That idea was pretty much the norm by around 1870, and, in music anyway, has been the ordinary idea ever since,"

I believe that the new is better meme still exists. There are countless 'erudites' on TC that value contemporary music over older music and openly lament the fact that audiences don't see it that way. There is an expectation that music must say something new, that it must 'further' music in some way, whatever furtherance is, in order to be valid, while majority audiences are more comfortable with beauty and entertainment.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> _-ism_ in this case does not denote an ideology, but an aesthetic or group of aesthetics, as in the similar Romanticism, Classicism, etc. As in those cases, it is both something that was applied after the fact (at the time the terms were "ultra-modern", "cubist", "futurist", etc.) and that was applied by critics rather than the composers themselves.
> 
> It is surely notable that the major composers called "modernist" (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok) made, at one time or another, statements to the effect that they had no interest in being modern for the sake of being modern.
> 
> In any event, modernism in music includes anything that goes past the styles of romanticism and common practice tonality, from Debussy to Ravel to Vaughan Williams to Shostakovich to Messiaen to Britten and so forth.


I like what you have to say, but is this entirely true? If so, then why would a Modernist like Boulez, for instance, say, "Schoenberg is dead"?-- Isn't he too part of Modernism? Or is that for Modernist ideologues to decide?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

<Deleted post. The script isn't working.>


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I forgot to add what I was leading up to 

In a sense, I see the preference for the old as a general trend in society to lament the loss of our culture and greatness. Western culture has been in decline since the earlier part of the 20th Century. Our culture, values, morals and ethics have been sloughed off and replaced by nothing but the 'anything goes' adage. In a very real sense, Western art was at it's peak at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th Centuries.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

brotagonist said:


> I forgot to add what I was leading up to
> 
> In a sense, I see the preference for the old as a general trend in society to lament the loss of our culture and greatness. Western culture has been in decline since the earlier part of the 20th Century. Our culture, values, morals and ethics have been sloughed off and replaced by nothing but the 'anything goes' adage. In a very real sense, Western art was at it's peak at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th Centuries.


It's a contentious statement and it's not to say there isn't still some good and interesting works being composed - But I have to agree with you.
Our culture is most certainly in decline. The Jazz genre has greatly declined since it's 50's hayday.
The Pop world has offered us nothing really new and groundbreaking in this century. 
Our Movie industry is rehashing old ideas and making remakes left, right and centre.

There is perhaps literally nowhere to go... Or rather so little new ground to be discovered - that it takes longer to rear it's head. A bit like Peak Oil - there is new stuff to be found but the chances grow slimmer all the time.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I like what you have to say, but is this entirely true? If so, then why would a Modernist like Boulez, for instance, say, "Schoenberg is dead"?




Because he believed in his own ideas about musical progress and had strong opinions (from which he has retreated to some degree). Because he was reacting against the severe pro-Schoenberg dogmatism of Rene Leibowitz, his erstwhile teacher.

If there exists a specific "modernist" party line which composers must toe or be ostracized, why did many of his colleagues at Darmstadt (Nono not the least of them) disagree and continue to show the direct influence of Schoenberg as much as if not more than Webern?

I find that many composers today still believe in musical/stylistic progress; witness those who feel that they are going "beyond" modernism in one way or another.

I've always appreciated Steve Reich's comment on Boulez for his 80th birthday (the same time when Adams made his catty comments about his being "a master with a small hammer"):



Steve Reich said:


> Clearly my music and Pierre Boulez's music occupy completely different stylistic worlds. That is not the point. *For me, what is important is not the style but the quality and integrity of any composer's music.* Back in 1962 I learned from my teacher Luciano Berio a bit about Boulez's Structures for two pianos and that made it clear how thoroughly Boulez had worked to come up with a new, highly integrated musical language based on earlier music by Schoenberg, Webern and Messiaen.
> 
> I am also grateful or the way he invigorated musical life in New York while he was music director of the New York Philharmonic as well as for the superb performances of my music by his Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Peter Eotvos and David Robertson. I salute him for helping to create Cité de la Musique in Paris and for his work integrating the computer into live performance, work largely done through another of his contributions to musical life, Ircam. Finally, I have derived enormous pleasure from his recording of The Rite of Spring with the Cleveland Orchestra. He is an amazing and superb conductor. I wish Pierre Boulez a very happy 80th birthday and many more.


http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/mar/25/classicalmusicandopera2


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

MagneticGhost said:


> It's a contentious statement and it's not to say there isn't still some good and interesting works being composed - But I have to agree with you. Our culture is most certainly in decline.
> 
> There is perhaps literally nowhere to go... Or rather so little new ground to be discovered - that it takes longer to rear it's head. A bit like Peak Oil - there is new stuff to be found but the chances grow slimmer all the time.


No argument there: I love modern music :tiphat: I am not an artist, but as a longtime listener, it does appear that newer ideas are harder to come by, and this does not just apply to art, but to science, everything. Many writers and thinkers, such as Spengler and Niall Ferguson, agree that the West is in decline.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> If there exists a specific "modernist" party line which composers must toe or be ostracized, why did many of his colleagues at Darmstadt (Nono not the least of them) disagree and continue to show the direct influence of Schoenberg as much as if not more than Webern?


To placate one's father-in-law, perhaps? I know what that's like...


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2015)

Culture is in decline is an old trope. One of the oldest. The golden age was in the distant past, followed by silver age, the bronze age, the heroic age, and the iron age. From Hesiod's "Ages of Man" c. 700BCE.

An old trope.

It coexists, humorously enough, with another old trope, that the present is an advancement over the past. This got quite a bit of traction a bit more recently, but it's still pretty old. How old, I don't know. It's not tied to colorful image like "the golden age."

It appears frequently as "people used to think that..., but now we know that...."

But that's as may be. Apparently "the West" has been in decline since long before 700BCE.

That's a long time to have been in decline. 

Fortunately, there's science and technology, which have improved things immeasurably.

It is the best of times; it is the worst of times--:tiphat: to Mr. Dickens.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

^^^^^^

I sincerely hope you are right - It might be an old trope - but at some point it must become true as no civilisation lasts forever. Not even the one from 700BCE.


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Just look at the word "modernism." It contains the word "modern," which means, *variously*, "contemporary," "up-to-date," "fashionable," or "leading-edge."


Ay, there's the rub. It can be used and mis-used to mean a number of things, making it difficult to pin-down if you want it to keep still and look at it closely.

In literature, Modernism was a period - presumably in other arts too (?) though not necessarily contemporaneous with each other, or containing the same attributes. One of its defining features, something you can also see in art and hear in music, was the tendency to pay attention to form rather than content, to the mode of seeing and listening rather than to what is being seen and listened to (harder with music). Therefore, I would presume that one of the things that is appealing for those who like the output of Modernists is not so much 'the new' (and certainly not for the sake of novelty), but a transformation of thinking. Not just a movement from the known to the less well-known, but to a complete 'rejection' of the thinking that had gone before. In particular, the idea that life was not some civilised and ordered experience, with rules and conventions, but that it was disordered, brutal, random, fractured. The sub-conscious and what it revealed was more important than the conscious and what it kept hidden. Darwin and Freud are often cited as monumental contributors to the undermining of the established order of the rational and the established.

I've linked to this book before, but I like it...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modernism-European-Literature-1890-1930-Criticism/dp/0140138323

What this might say about what happens here at TC is even less clear than the definition of the term. However, where I previously divided into two - those who claim to be, and those about whom it is claimed - I would offer an alternative division (very crude, I realise): those who prefer the orthodox, the rational, the conscious, the ordered...; and those who enjoy the unorthodox, the irrational, the sub/unconscious, the disordered. ('Old' and 'new' are inadequate labels, as are 'familiar' and 'unfamiliar' but I can see how they connect. Try Apollo and Dionysus instead!)

It's not surprising that there is a frequent clash between the the two. The very nature of the divide makes it impossible to reconcile - the very being is different.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> In music, the idea that new is better was the ordinary idea up to about 1810 (that is all through the so-called Baroque and Classical eras), at which time it started being replaced by the then new idea that old is better. That idea was pretty much the norm by around 1870, and, in music anyway, has been the ordinary idea ever since.
> 
> The funny thing is that a lot of the old music now worshipped as exemplum of quality and excellence was written when the assumption was that new is better (and without the benefit of either "baroque" or "classical" as terms to guide one's thought).


Not true, at all. People demanded new operas in the theater, concert halls were still filled with new symphonies, concertos, recitals alike. 1810? Beethoven was still writing new and performing new, to use the giant of the day at 1810. As were Rossini, Louis Spohr, Haydn in old age a few years before 1810, you name it, you got a composer contradicting you.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I keep hearing and seeing the use of *"A / The Modernist Agenda"* and talk about those who are its proponents and practitioners having some particular ideology, i.e. *The Modernists.*
> 
> That sometimes seems quite wrapped up in history, sociopolitical history, or revisionist history (take your pick) and / or conversely is less contextual and merely about music, maybe there too an ideology purely about music. Confused? I don't understand any of it or where it comes from.
> 
> Having seen so many threads go their own way regardless of the topic stated in the OP, welcome all to whom the subject is of interest or importance, and have at it.


In my opinion, reading the threads that have a significant input from that angle, it usually a few things,

(1) You must not question avant-garde music, just listen, and if you dislike it, the fault is never the music, but that of you, the listener. (My thoughts: this is far from being a good diplomat's encouragement at all).

(2) If it isn't extreme enough to shock for the sake of shocking, then it is not new enough. (My thoughts: hence all the problem accepting composers like Alma Deustcher as contemporary composers, which I do not have personally at problems with).

(3) If you do not know enough about the avant-agarde music, then you really are a nobody/not knowledgeable enough to discuss. (My thoughts: it is exactly this elitist mentality that ring-fences the apparent avant-garde supporter from the broader classical music community at large).

This is all my own humble opinion, nothing more, nothing less.


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Not true, at all. People demanded new operas in the theater, concert halls were still filled with new symphonies, concertos, recitals alike. 1810? Beethoven was still writing new and performing new, to use the giant of the day at 1810. As were Rossini, Louis Spohr, Haydn in old age a few years before 1810, you name it, you got a composer contradicting you.


Art, I was referring to a trend, to the trend of an idea. Of a gradual transformation of thinking from one idea to another. Of course the trend did not start up, suddenly, in 1810. One can see glimpses of it long before that. And there was resistance to it for most of the nineteenth century. And there has been continued resistance to it since then, too. All that is true. But generally speaking, the idea in the eighteenth century was that new is better. People went to concerts _in order to_ listen to new music. In the great ideological struggle of the nineteenth century, taking up the bulk of the decades of that century, the idea that old is better became stronger and stronger, until by 1870 the ratio of old pieces to new in concerts is nine to one. Or more. Plenty of concerts with only old music, too.

This is not something that's hard to document either. It's right there in the printed programs. Haydn and Mozart's time, the ratio of old to new is one to nine. In Tchaikovsky's time, the ratio is nine to one. When the anti-modernist sentiment reached a peak, around 1866, there was of course some push-back, enough so that in 1900, there was anti-modernist counter push-back of epic proportions. Note that all of this is still _before_ the "modernist" works that are commonly portrayed as having started the anti-modernist reaction. Hahaha. Started? That thing was quite old already. That thing had cut its teeth on Mozart already and had Beethoven and Chopin for breakfast and grew strong on a steady diet of Berlioz and Schumann and Bizet. You remember Bizet? The guy who wrote the tuneless _Carmen_ opera. Stravinsky and Schoenberg were practically the dessert course for this monster.

(The dates and such are all from William Weber's The Great Transformation of Musical Taste, which I have recommended many times here. In fact, this post so far is mostly stuff I've already said in other posts. Can't I come up with something new?)



ArtMusic said:


> (1) You must not question avant-garde music, just listen, and if you dislike it, the fault is never the music, but that of you, the listener. (My thoughts: this is far from being a good diplomat's encouragement at all).


You can question anything you want, including other members' posts. Posts that ignorantly bash contemporary music (you can tell the ignorant ones by the blanket condemnations) are going to be responded to. Of course. You think that means the there is some stricture? I disagree. Consequences, sure. And what I see is that a lot of people want to say anything they want without any consequences. That's just not gonna happen.

And it's not, as has been pointed out many times, about fault. Fault is strictly a weapon anti-modernists use to bash modernists. It's about perception. (Well, it's about logic.) If person A hears Karkowski's _One and Many_ and likes it and person B hears Karkowski's _One and Many_ and hates it, the difference is not in the music, which is identical in both cases. The difference is in the perceivers. How do you propose we go about talking about the difference without mentioning the perceivers?



ArtMusic said:


> (2) If it isn't extreme enough to shock for the sake of shocking, then it is not new enough. (My thoughts: hence all the problem accepting composers like Alma Deustcher as contemporary composers, which I do not have personally at problems with).


Shock for the sake of shocking. Outside of some high school rebelliousness, "shock for the sake of shocking" is pretty much like the "fault" thing above, a weapon of anti-modernists. It doesn't point to anything real. It's just another club to bash with. The problems with "accepting" Alma Deutscher as a contemporary composer have been thoroughly expressed elsewhere, and none of them have anything to do with her failing to shock for the sake of shocking. You've read those posts. You know this.



ArtMusic said:


> (3) If you do not know enough about the avant-agarde music, then you really are a nobody/not knowledgeable enough to discuss. (My thoughts: it is exactly this elitist mentality that ring-fences the apparent avant-garde supporter from the broader classical music community at large).


Not that you're a nobody. That's just silly. As for knowledge, yeah, a knowledgable post is not going to be a blanket condemnation. A knowledgable post is not going to be simply an expression of prejudice. Easy. But yeah, a position of little knowledge is not a strong position. Nothing to do with "elitism."

In any conversation, your contributions should either be knowledgable or be requests for information. If your assertions have no basis in fact, then you're going to be held accountable. What I see, to echo a previous remark, is that a lot of people want to be able to assert without being held accountable. And that is not at all the same as persecution, by the way. That seems to have been a thing recently. And transforming "being held accountable" into persecution is definitely not cool.



ArtMusic said:


> This is all my own humble opinion, nothing more, nothing less.


I wish it were more, then. Anyone can _have_ opinions. That's easy. What validates an opinion is support. Facts, explanations, rationales, arguments. Exactly the something more that any reasonable person would ask for.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> ....
> I wish it were more, then. Anyone can _have_ opinions. That's easy. What validates an opinion is support. Facts, explanations, rationales, arguments. Exactly the something more that any reasonable person would ask for.


Thanks for your lengthy reply, but I cared to read only the final sentence that which I quoted above. Your conclusion is exemplary of my point number three, more or less.  What more need I say? Q.E.D. (as my sister would say, she's a mathematician).


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Thanks for your lengthy reply, but *I cared to read only the final sentence* that which I quoted above. Your conclusion is exemplary of my point number three, more or less.  What more need I say? Q.E.D. (as my sister would say, she's a mathematician).


This is interesting to me because I was going to comment on your previous response to some guy that you can't have read the very words you were quoting.

Then I thought: no, people will tell me I'm being mean and unfair.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"Modernist," was a term I first ran across on TC, and completely new to me, I looked it up... in good ole basic and general Wiki. There, under Modernist / music category, I found it referred to that group of composers from the late late 19th and early 20th century, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc. My last round of upper level edu, ten years after my first round, was completed ca. 1982. Then, all those composers were simply Modern, not modern_ISTs._ The era now called contemporary had barely been officially decided upon, though that was already in general circulation, at least among the people I studied with. I already knew the early modern composers were a group who 'broke away' from older ways of writing music; there was something 'revolutionary' about their work while I also knew the development toward that, i.e. they all started out with the more 'average' contemporary mode of their times and developed into the new generation of even more modern composers. Too, the wiki article puts it in such a way that it leaves the impression these composers were more agitprop avant-gardistes, and they were deliberately setting out to aggressively dump the old ways, which is merely a spin on what they did do, but I thought a rather exaggerated one. So, O.K. that group of turn of the century composers formerly known as 'Modern' are now modernists... which is interesting if you want to think about shifts of retrospect views of opinion and how those get imposed upon the past.


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2015)

That reminds me, Petr. Berlioz self-identified as a modern composer.

I don't know if he was the first or not, but he was an early user of the term "modern" to describe his music and the music he favored.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Thanks for your lengthy reply, but I cared to read only the final sentence that which I quoted above. Your conclusion is exemplary of my point number three, more or less.  What more need I say? Q.E.D. (as my sister would say, she's a mathematician).


Come on, you don't really think this. If someone who'd heard a few minutes of Mozart on the radio said to you, "Mozart is boring and all sounds the same," you'd dismiss it as ignorance, and rightly so. You do need to know something about a subject for your opinion to have any weight.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

But what if the person giving the opinion doesn't care whether other people think the opinion has weight?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> But what if the person giving the opinion doesn't care whether other people think the opinion has weight?


That would be his right! But here's something such a person would _not_ do: write aggrieved posts on internet forums about his opinions not being taken seriously by mean elitists.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> But what if the person giving the opinion doesn't care whether other people think the opinion has weight?


Then they don't need to know beans other than what their opinion is, man. And that is here -- uh, well -- _apposite._


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I see "modernism" as an approach which uses geometric and mathematical considerations in addition to, but not always exclusive of, tonal/harmonic approaches, which are based on ratios.

Since a ratio is always a relationship, not a fixed quantity (*half* of a million or* half* of a dollar), then it is always a fractional reference to a "1", which implies tonality. Pythagoras used the fifth (3:2) as the basis for dividing the octave (2:1), and gave us the 12 tones.

But this twelve tone octave was not perfect; 3:2's sounded OK, and the 2:1 octave was preserved, but the other intervals, like thirds, suffered.

Thus, the 12 tone division became the basis for generating ideas; it could be divided geometrically and symmetrically, at the tritone (6, unlike the harmonic division of 7 and 5) and the smaller recursive intervals, m3/M3, and m2/M2 (those which cycled and repeated within octaves) became the basis.

So we see in Bartok and Debussy a synthesis of the two approaches; this is structural, and at the same time "stylistic," since the sound of the intervals is what we perceive as the harmonic "identity" or style of the music.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Anyone who talks about another group's "agenda," has an agenda.


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2015)

Uh oh. What about talking about the agenda of people who talk about another group's agenda?


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## Fagotterdammerung (Jan 15, 2015)

Modernist Agenda:
8:15 Light Breakfast
8:20 Destroy Tonality


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Fagotterdammerung said:


> Modernist Agenda:
> 8:15 Light Breakfast
> 8:20 Destroy Tonality


Not True; Truly Funny! :tiphat:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

In a sense, I see the preference for the old as a general trend in society to lament the loss of our culture and greatness. Western culture has been in decline since the earlier part of the 20th Century. Our culture, values, morals and ethics have been sloughed off and replaced by nothing but the 'anything goes' adage. In a very real sense, Western art was at it's peak at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th Centuries.

There was a shift toward an appreciation of the historical that came with Romanticism. This was accompanied by the writings of the first "modern" historians, art historians, and archaeologists. It happened in tandem with such archaeological discoveries as the ruins of Pergamon, Herculeneum and Pompeii, and the sites of Egypt, culminating in King Tut's tomb in 1923.

At the height of the Neo-Classical period, during the reign of Napoleon, there was so little respect... let alone admiration for the historical past that the interior of the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris had been converted into a Neo-Classical style church/temple:










The very terms for past art styles were derogatory. "Gothic" meant "Goth-like" or "barbaric". Victor Hugo was among the first to challenge these views in his novel, _Notre-Dame de Paris_ (known as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in English). A lot of the "Gothic" literature which followed continued to embrace the historical. This reached a peak with late Romanticism and the "medievalism" of Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In architecture we have the examples of historical revivalism ranging from "Big Ben" and the British Houses of Parliament to the Neo-Classical facades of banks and government buildings to neo-Gothic/Romanesque churches to endless neo-Tudor (and other historical style) homes.

Not surprisingly, this increasing awareness and valuing of the greatest artistic achievements of the past occurred in companion with the development of a majority of the great museums of the West... as well as many of the great opera houses and theaters.

I think it is rather ingenuous to portray this shift as on onset of conservatism. As all this was taking place there was also the increase in influence and accessibility of the "popular arts" due to technological developments. Whether we like it or not, the popular arts became far more influential and amounted to a far greater share of the art market than the "classics"... new or old. Film, popular novels, photography, jazz, rock, bluegrass, and other forms of popular music, TV, comic books, etc... are far more the arts of our time than Schoenberg, Ligeti, Stockhausen, or Glass.

Even so... while the audience might have devoured less of the latest or "new" products of the "high arts"... and this is debatable... this does not mean the actual number of new works being consumed decreased. While the percentage of "New" to "Old" music and art being consumed/performed/exhibited may have changed, it does not seem that the actual numbers have decreased. More people are aware of John Cage and have experienced his music through CDs, DVDs, radio, and YouTube than ever experienced Mozart's music during his life-time.

Honestly, I don't see a love for the arts of earlier eras as indicative of the decline of Western Civilization and Western Culture. Rather I see it as an embrace of a broader view of the arts. As visual artist... and a lover of the visual arts... I have a greater access to the whole of art across the centuries and across cultures than did any of the "old masters". As such, I am just as likely to find inspiration (as an artist) and take pleasure in the Gothic Cathedrals, the sculpture of Bernini, and the paintings of Michelangelo, Titian, Ingres, and Degas, as I am to find inspiration and take pleasure in the Modern/Contemporary works of Matisse, Bonnard, Beckmann, Rothko, James Rosenquist, Rubert Kushner, Anselm Kiefer, Bo Bartlett, Will Cotton, or Aron Wiesenfeld. If I spend more time with the work of older artists, it is largely because the body of work of the older masters is far more impressive... being the product of hundreds... and in the case of the visual arts... thousands of years.

There is also the fact that when dealing with the art of the past we are usually looking at a body of work that has already been "cherry picked"... generations of art/music lovers, "experts" and subsequent artists having picked and chosen the finest works. When dealing with the art of here and now we are facing the fact that 95%+ of all art is... and was... mediocre at best. Most of the mediocre art of the past has been thankfully relegated to museum basements and storerooms of musicology departments. Confronting the art of today required digging through a lot of middling stuff... and sheer crap... to find that which is truly fine... or speaks to us.

Honestly, I'm with our Marschallin here. I don't care new or old. I'm only interested in that which speaks to me... which stuns me with its brilliance... moves me... thrills me. There are contemporary works which do so. Peter Lieberson's _Neruda Songs_ move me on a level not far removed from Strauss _Four Last Songs_ and Mahlers _Song of the Earth_. But a great deal of Contemporary art/music does little for me... whether the work is audaciously avante garde... or quite conservative. Again, this only reinforces my belief about 95%+ of all art.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Honestly, I'm with our Marschallin here. I don't care new or old. I'm only interested in that which speaks to me... which stuns me with its brilliance... moves me... thrills me. .....


Exactly right, that which speaks to me. (Oh by the way, it just so happens they are old, which is incidental. Hence the parentheses to denote lesser importance. New or old *per se*, it don't really matter).


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I sincerely hope you are right - It might be an old trope - but at some point it must become true as no civilisation lasts forever. Not even the one from 700BCE.

Western Civilization is a rather broad concept. Yes; civilizations rise and fall. Rome fell. Or rather the Western Roman Empire fell... while the Eastern Empire (Byzantium), Persia, Islamic Spain, etc... rose. The British Empire declined... and the American Empire rose. But the whole of Western Civilization..?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Modernist," was a term I first ran across on TC, and completely new to me, I looked it up... in good ole basic and general Wiki. There, under Modernist / music category, I found it referred to that group of composers from the late late 19th and early 20th century, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc.

In the visual arts, "Modernism" defines a historical period in the same manner as the terms "Renaissance" or "Baroque". Generally, the period is dated c. 1870- 1960... although some would date it later... c. 1900 or even link it with what they define as the first "true" Modern work of art... perhaps Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The period is defined as exemplified by certain artistic elements... but as with any period in art history, there are those that don't fit the stereotypes. One need only look at William Blake in his time. In the visual arts, Pop Art is seen as having driven the nail into the coffin of late Modernism, and some would define this as the birth of Post-Modernism. Of all the periods, Modernism was most accompanied by critics and theorists with rather limiting agendas or concepts of what art today could and should be. There are still tied-in-the-wool Modernists who rail against Pop Art and all that followed as some great reactionary anomaly.

Of course as used on TC "Modernist" is often used in a derogatory manner... but no less than the terms "dinosaurs", "Whigs", "Conservatives", "Wigs", etc... Again, I don't care new or old. I'm only interested in that which speaks to me... which stuns me with its brilliance... moves me... thrills me. ..... A great deal of the art I look at and the music I listen to has been created in my lifetime. A great deal was created before my lifetime.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> StlukesguildOhio: There is also the fact that when dealing with the art of the past we are usually looking at a body of work that has already been "cherry picked"... generations of art/music lovers, "experts" and subsequent artists having picked and chosen the finest works. When dealing with the art of here and now we are facing the fact that 95%+ of all art is... and was... mediocre at best. Most of the mediocre art of the past has been thankfully relegated to museum basements and storerooms of musicology departments. Confronting the art of today required digging through a lot of middling stuff... and sheer crap... to find that which is truly fine... or speaks to us.


Greatness implies rarity. It also implies hierarchy. It doesn't necessarily imply 'novelty.'

The thin end of the bell curve is the exceptional, the 'aesthetic.' The large end of the bell curve is the more common and less beautiful, the 'anaesthetic.'

I'm always amazed at the amount of bluff and posture I hear on the "greatness" of some modern music. The scoring may have a technical ingenuity to it but at the same time is utterly uncivilized and uncharming-- and more still, instead of instilling a sense of pride and joy in existence, actively strives to undermine it.

Perhaps that's why some people like it so much. It confirms their view of themselves and of the world around them (just not 'my world.')

Instead of the hackneyed _ad hominem_ response defending the undefendable, for once I'd like to see a convincing argument _ad rem_.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Exactly right, that which speaks to me. (Oh by the way, it just so happens they are old, which is incidental. Hence the parentheses to denote lesser importance. New or old *per se*, it don't really matter).


Excellence.

Excellence.

_Excellence. _


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I always thought a modernist was someone who produces modern art in whatever form. Apparently on here it means someone who loves modern classical music and wants it performed with regularity (possibly more than non-modern classical). But if its opposite is "anti-modernist" does that mean that they are two sides of the same coin (i.e. an anti-modernist is a "traditionalist" and modernists are "anti-traditionalists"?) Personally I'm starting (well, okay, not _starting_) to find the whole thing a bit ridiculous.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Modernist," was a term I first ran across on TC, and completely new to me, I looked it up... in good ole basic and general Wiki. There, under Modernist / music category, I found it referred to that group of composers from the late late 19th and early 20th century, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc.
> 
> In the visual arts, "Modernism" defines a historical period in the same manner as the terms "Renaissance" or "Baroque". Generally, the period is dated c. 1870- 1960... although some would date it later... c. 1900 or even link it with what they define as the first "true" Modern work of art... perhaps Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The period is defined as exemplified by certain artistic elements... but as with any period in art history, there are those that don't fit the stereotypes. One need only look at William Blake in his time. In the visual arts, Pop Art is seen as having driven the nail into the coffin of late Modernism, and some would define this as the birth of Post-Modernism. Of all the periods, Modernism was most accompanied by critics and theorists with rather limiting agendas or concepts of what art today could and should be. There are still tied-in-the-wool Modernists who rail against Pop Art and all that followed as some great reactionary anomaly.
> 
> Of course as used on TC "Modernist" is often used in a derogatory manner... but no less than the terms "dinosaurs", "Whigs", "Conservatives", "Wigs", etc... Again, I don't care new or old. I'm only interested in that which speaks to me... which stuns me with its brilliance... moves me... thrills me. ..... A great deal of the art I look at and the music I listen to has been created in my lifetime. A great deal was created before my lifetime.


Yeah, the imagination and the craftsmanship of some of the CGI artists at Industrial Light and Magic far exceed anything modernist art critic Clement Greenberg ever championed.

I'll take the tracking shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer flying over the viewer's head at the opening of _Star Wars_ over a Jasper John's painting any day.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Yeah, the imagination and the craftsmanship of some of the CGI artists at Industrial Light and Magic far exceed anything modernist art critic Clement Greenberg ever championed.
> 
> I'll take the tracking shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer flying over the viewer's head at the opening of _Star Wars_ over a Jasper John's painting any day.


I must say I find it easier to accept modern classical music over modern visual art. Since music music are sound combinations anyway while I expect visual art to depict something.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If "Modernism" meant nothing more than a "period" or a chronologically bounded group of aesthetic approaches, the term would be rather empty (particularly since Modernism is no longer modern), and there would be little point in discussing it, except to catalogue the styles and schools of artistic practice within that period. That view of Modernism may the preferred one for some people, perhaps for those who want to deny or downplay the importance of certain ideological stances taken by "critics and theorists with rather limiting agendas or concepts of what art today could and should be," as StlukesguildOhio puts it very succinctly. I have to say that unless we're prepared to talk about what those agendas and concepts were in the history of music, and what remains of them or replaces them today, we are not seriously addressing the questions posed by this thread at all.

I'm not particularly a student of "Modern" art and music. But I've viewed, listened to, and read enough to think that the period from the late 19th to the mid-to-later 20th centuries was characterized by more radical changes in the forms of art, and more theoretical talk about art and its philosophical meaning and cultural (including political) functions and implications, than any prior era. "Modern" artists and theorists about art didn't invent these concerns, but they raised them to a level at which they seemed at times to be as important as the art itself, and were often presented as justifications of and prescriptions for artistic practice. I suppose this shouldn't surprise us, given the accelerating and world-changing developments in science, technology, communications, medicine, psychology, philosophy and politics of the period, and the outpouring of theory in all those fields. Philosophers had long questioned the meaning and value of art, but the "Modernist" period appears to me to be the first time in history when artists themselves were questioning the fundamental nature - the meaning and structure - of what they were doing, and verbalizing their ideas sufficiently to engender an expectation, even among themselves, that such questioning was an essential part of their job. And how better to do that job, and to feel that they were taking it seriously, than to reject and redefine many long-taken-for-granted notions of aesthetic value? 

I think that this questioning and overturning of traditional concepts and values, sometimes entailing the conviction that innovation and even revolution was in itself a basic value (there was an affinity here, and sometimes an explicit association, with Marxism and communist/socialist ideology) and that its absence was an artistic offense or betrayal and a failure to embrace the spirit of the age, has to be central to any discussion of Modernism. It's not as simple as saying that composers did or did not seek newness "for its own sake." I think there was a deeply felt need to explore the unknown and the forbidden, and to push against cultural conventions the accepted limits of art, and that the seriousness of motivation for that need varied greatly among artists and even, perhaps, within individual artists. There's an enormous spectrum between Webern and Satie, or between Munch and Duchamp, both in matter and in spirit! And yet we recognize qualities in all of them which we identify as "Modernist."

Are qualities we call by that name really common to the works of these diverse artists? Do these qualities have to do with something that's there in all of them, or with something that they all lack (by accident or intention), or with both? What elements of music as traditionally conceived did composers of the Modernist era criticize and reject? What reasons did they give? What did they seek to replace those traditional elements with? What were the influences acting on them? What were they responding to in the wider culture? What were the different strands of contemporary thought and practice? What are the underlying affinities, if any, between various aesthetic approaches and styles? Which ideas and doctrines congealed into ideologies, or hardened into dogmas? How were such dogmas used to sanction and encourage, or to disparage or discourage, certain ideas and practices? What composers were marginalized? Who was doctrinally incorrect, or "insufficiently Modernist," and why? What has become of Modernist ideals and practices since the end of the Modernist heyday? Or has it ended at all? Did "Postmodernism" represent a rejection of "Modernism" - or is it fundamentally an evolution of it? Does anything in contemporary music represent an "ism" in any meaningful sense?

These are questions this topic brings to mind for me.


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## echo (Aug 15, 2014)

In Mod we trust


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Yeah, the imagination and the craftsmanship of some of the CGI artists at Industrial Light and Magic far exceed anything modernist art critic Clement Greenberg ever championed.


How so? (What led you to conclude this?)



Marschallin Blair said:


> I'll take the tracking shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer flying over the viewer's head at the opening of _Star Wars_ over a Jasper John's (sic) painting any day.


This says a little bit about you and nothing at all about either the tracking shot or the Johns painting. _Why_ would you "take" the tracking shot over a Johns painting?


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Modern is a useless word. It means completely different things in various of disciplines such as history, literature, music and art.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> Modern is a useless word. It means completely different things in various of disciplines such as history, literature, music and art.


It bears repeating, just like "Liberal" and "Conservative" are hurled about as heinous epithets to slam the opponent in politics, that is about the only real context we find in these debates about modern / contemporary music and the older repertoire.

It is also quite significant that 'modernist' and the 'modernist agenda' are hauled out, as strategic weapons (fictional) whenever someone who more favors the 'conservative' music feels -- for reasons only they could possibly maybe explain, those usually entirely personal and based upon their personal tastes -- that those who are advocating modern-contemporary music are somehow also advocating obliterating any of the older repertoire. The fact the majority of these alleged 'modernists' often have a wider latitude, from the earliest repertoire up to the music of the present day, where the conservatives typically have a cut-of line past which they just will not go, is also something to note. The modernists seem to love it all: the conservatives love only 'some of it.'

I have yet to see, as any kind of 'strategic ploy' in discussion, these alleged 'modernist agenda' members haul out their baseball bat of "the conservative agenda." I think this says a lot about the two sorts.

There are sometimes cries of 'a modernist agenda' leveled at the composition teachers in music schools and conservatories. Some of this may be true, but it would also be completely ill-serving the students if they were not taught how to write music, including in the most current musical syntax and harmonic vocabularies. The fact is any music student who goes through the full training has already been taught 'how to write in the older manners' through the progression of their studies, and if any so chooses, they have been then prepared if they choose to write in any of the older styles. There is then no real modernist agenda in the schools either, but a natural emphasis on preparing students for the current time when they finish their studies and walk away from schools. Once you're out, you've covered what is necessary, do not have some strange lag between what you were taught and the real world around you, and if the student wants to write music which sounds more in the manner of Carl Maria von Weber, they've been well-prepared for that if that is what they choose to do.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> How so? (What led you to conclude this?)
> 
> This says a little bit about you and nothing at all about either the tracking shot or the Johns painting. _Why_ would you "take" the tracking shot over a Johns painting?


Some people will not call it 'art' if it ain't a picture of something. (You knew that, of course.)


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I must say I find it easier to accept modern classical music over modern visual art.

I've found many are of a different opinion. One can always look away from a "dissonant" painting, while many find the more avant garde strains of music irritating. I had to laugh at a studio mate of mine who painted large, "grungy" abstractions that he insisted were "beautiful"... yet yelled at me to turn off Eric Dolphy and Schoenberg.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

How so? (What led you to conclude this?)

What leads you to conclude differently?

_I'll take the tracking shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer flying over the viewer's head at the opening of Star Wars over a Jasper John's (sic) painting any day._

This says a little bit about you and nothing at all about either the tracking shot or the Johns painting. Why would you "take" the tracking shot over a Johns painting?

And your post says so much more about George Lucas or Jasper Johns?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Some people will not call it 'art' if it ain't a picture of something. (You knew that, of course.)

True. But what does that lead you to conclude?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

PetrB said:


> It is also quite significant that 'modernist' and the 'modernist agenda' are hauled out, as strategic weapons (fictional) whenever someone who more favors the 'conservative' music feels -- for reasons only they could possibly maybe explain, those usually entirely personal and based upon their personal tastes -- that those who are advocating modern-contemporary music are somehow also advocating obliterating any of the older repertoire. The fact the majority of these alleged 'modernists' often have a wider latitude, from the earliest repertoire up to the music of the present day, where the conservatives typically have a cut-of line past which they just will not go, is also something to note.


Yes, and you've made a note of this quite a few times in the past. I do have a serious question - why is it something to note?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

The 20th century was the most diverse in the history of Western Classical Music. There were many styles from the neo-romantic to the avant-garde.

I have used the term "modernism" to delineate the more non-traditional forms of music: Cage, Schoenberg, Boulez, _etc._

After all of these years there still seems to be a considerable animus towards these various schools of musical styles. Not as bad as it was fifty years ago. It was a convenient term to use in these discussions.

I realize that the term from a sematic point of view is bogus.

If someone can give me a more accurate term, I will be more than happy to use it.

My feelings toward this type of music will be the same no matter what we call. Some of I like. Some I dislike. I do not care if other people like music I dislike.

Note: I have tried to read the preceding post and I have to idea what is going on. I will go ahead and apologize now if the post is irrelevant.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

arpeggio said:


> The 20th century was the most diverse in the history of Western Classical Music. There were many styles from the neo-romantic to the avant-garde.
> 
> I have used the term "modernism" to delineate the more non-traditional forms of music: Cage, Schoenberg, Boulez, _etc._


Modernism usually designates _all_ music that goes past Romanticism: in addition to the composers you listed, it includes Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bartok, Britten, Dutilleux, and so forth. Even composers such as Barber could never have written the way they did without the modernist upsetting of traditional tonality.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Modernism usually designates _all_ music that goes past Romanticism: in addition to the composers you listed, it includes Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bartok, Britten, Dutilleux, and so forth. Even composers such as Barber could never have written the way they did without the modernist upsetting of traditional tonality.


Thanks for the clarification. I thought that is what it meant. I am probably wrong but it seem to me that some thought the term was somehow artificial and inaccurate. To be frank most of the discussion is way over my pay grade.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> Yes, and you've made a note of this quite a few times in the past. I do have a serious question - why is it something to note?


In case 'either side' takes the argument of 
A.) only the old stuff is real music, and good. 
B.) the new stuff is the only worthwhile stuff

as a legitimate argument ;-)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Some people will not call it 'art' if it ain't a picture of something. (You knew that, of course.)
> 
> True. But what does that lead you to conclude?


Uh, They're most comfortable with representational art? They don't like non-representational art enough to even call it art?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There are so few people on this forum who reject modern music simply because it is modern that I am honestly baffled as to why they are considered significant enough to criticize. What could be a discussion of the meaning(s) of Modernism keeps falling into the ditch of "modernists" vs. "conservatives," with whichever "them" is being condemned ending up not merely pigeonholed but caricatured. Of course no one is naming names - that's against regulations - and so we're all left to guess who is getting slapped down and to try to connect the argument to anything specific and concrete. This is unlikely to do justice to the nuances of any member's views or tastes.

I would just like to point out that criticizing Modernism, complex and debatable concept that it is, does not necessarily entail rejecting modern music as such, and that people who do the former are not necessarily doing the latter. If we object to the use of "modernism" as a loose term of opprobrium, we ought to spend more time understanding and clarifying it than taking our revenge by using "conservatism" in the same loose and biased way.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Some people will not call it 'art' if it ain't a picture of something.


Others will call it "art" if it's not a thing at all (i.e. if it's just a "concept").

Which is more absurd?


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Others will call it "art" if it's not a thing at all (i.e. if it's just a "concept").
> 
> Which is more absurd?


It sounds absurd out of context, but so does the following: you are going to a building specifically designed to watch cloth with bits of dye on it, those cloths are worth millions of dollars.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

OMG! I found out what the modemist agenda is:






Oh wait, I misread that.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2015)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> How so? (What led you to conclude this?)
> 
> What leads you to conclude differently?
> 
> ...


St, none of this is about me. It's about another poster who made an assertion without defending it. So, so far, the assertion is empty.

It's an interesting and provocative remark. So I'm curious, how did Blair come to that conclusion? It's not about what I would or would not conclude. I'm not the one who brought it up. I'm not the one who made the unsupported assertion. I'm the one asking for the support. Onus probandi, St.

Same for the last question as well. I'm not the one making any assertions about Lucas or Johns. Onus probandi, St.

Nice try to distract attention away from the point. I'm surprised you'd think I, or anyone else, would go for it.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Others will call it "art" if it's not a thing at all (i.e. if it's just a "concept").
> 
> Which is more absurd?


"Art" is a concept. We designate different things as "art" according to how we understand the concept.

For those who think that "art" comes only from people designated as "artists," the invitation from the indeterminate branch of modern music for listeners to contribute to the production of "art" by doing some listening--where what is listened to is not as important the listening itself, as a thing--is likely to seem off-putting and perhaps even something to deride or scorn.

Oddly enough, Cage has already been designated as an composer (an artist in sound). His 4'33" has already been officially acknowledged to be a piece of music by Edition Peters, one of the more prestigious music publishers. Cage has also many dozens of pieces, from both before and after 1952, which consist of little black dots on lined manuscript paper.

Calling all that absurd is absurd.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Others will call it "art" if it's not a thing at all (i.e. if it's just a "concept").
> 
> Which is more absurd?


Are you saying both types:

1.) "If it isn't a representational picture of something it is not art"
2.) "It can be art if it is not a thing at all" (here, I would really want specifics i.e. that to which you refer.)

are equally whack?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> "Art" is a concept. *We designate different things as "art" according to how we understand the concept. *
> 
> For those who think that "art" comes only from people designated as "artists," the invitation from the *indeterminate branch of modern music for listeners to contribute to the production of "art" by doing some listening*--*where what is listened to is not as important the listening itself*, as a thing--is likely to seem off-putting and perhaps even something to deride or scorn.
> 
> ...


We designate different things as "art" according to how we understand the concept.

This omits consideration of how we form the concept in the first place, and what use the concept serves.

the invitation from the indeterminate branch of modern music for listeners to contribute to the production of "art" by doing some listening

There is an art object and an observer of it. The observer is not part of the object. If the observer is asked to contribute to or alter the object, he is a collaborative artist. Otherwise he is not "contributing to the production" of the art. Listening to music does not contribute to its production.

what is listened to is not as important the listening itself

Important to whom and for what?

Cage has already been designated as an composer

No one doubts that Cage is a composer.

4'33" has already been officially acknowledged to be a piece of music by Edition Peters, one of the more prestigious music publishers.

Is this supposed to prove anything or impress anyone? I trust the score is inexpensive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Are you saying both types are equally whack?


No. I'd say that not acknowledging abstract painting as art indicates a restricted concept of art, but that regarding a concept with no physical embodiment as art is - well, kind of whack.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> No. I'd say that not acknowledging abstract painting as art indicates a restricted concept of art, but that regarding a concept with no physical embodiment as art is - well, kind of whack.


Now I waste my money on a lot of things but a null set isn't one of them.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I think that part of the difficulty lies in an attempt to discriminate between John Cage as a composer _and_ as a philosopher. In reality, he really seems to treat the two fields as one and the same. Part of the goal of modernism seems to be - correct me if I'm wrong - an effort to combine several different artistic disciplines. A graphic notation score would be a good example of music and visual art working together. Cage was a composer, visual artist, and philosopher all wrapped into one. I don't necessarily see them as separate.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

It's amazing how overly discriminative people can be when it comes to "defining" art. And the funny part... none of it sticks. Otherwise, you wouldn't have to fight so hard and still get nowhere. Haha


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Blake said:


> It's amazing how overly discriminative people can be when it comes to "defining" art. And the funny part... none of it sticks. Otherwise, you wouldn't have to fight so hard and still get nowhere. Haha


Some people truly enjoy discrimination - i.e. thinking.

Sticks to what?

Life itself gets us nowhere. In the end we are all dead.

Haha


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Some people truly enjoy discrimination - i.e. thinking.
> 
> Sticks to what?
> 
> ...


Very Well.

Haha


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Some people truly enjoy discrimination - i.e. thinking.
> 
> Sticks to what?
> 
> ...


Its funny: 'discrimination' has a negative connotation to it whereas 'discernment' does not.

- Yet fundamentally they're the same thing.

(And 'no,' I'm not talking about the 'invidious discrimination' of _people_ which is a contextually different thing from aesthetic discernment in _art_.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Its funny: 'discrimination' has a negative connotation to it whereas 'discernment' does not.
> 
> - Yet fundamentally they're the same thing.
> 
> (And 'no,' I'm not talking about the 'invidious discrimination' of _people_ which is a contextually different thing from aesthetic discernment in _art_.)


I'm just going to use your post as a springboard here. I've found that seriously analyzing art sucks the life right out of it. It turns the piece into dead concepts buried in one's head, so you're really not hearing it anymore.

Now, a scientist... that's his job to analyze the forms of life quite intently. But for art? Nah, it just seems uncalled for to be so seriously discriminative.

Light analytics can be enjoyable, but it appears that threshold is consistently crossed around these parts. Damn near acting like we could be defending the honor of one's family.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The word "discrimination" is different from "discernment" in suggesting more strongly a choice among alternatives, as among definitions of "art."


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Blake said:


> I'm just going to use your post as a springboard here. I've found that seriously analyzing art sucks the life right out of it. It turns the piece into dead concepts buried in one's head, so you're really not hearing it anymore.
> 
> Now, a scientist... that's his job to analyze the forms of life quite intently. But for art? Nah, it just seems uncalled for to be so seriously discriminative.
> 
> Light analytics can be enjoyable, but it appears that threshold is consistently crossed around these parts. Damn near acting like we could be defending the honor of one's family.


I think as long as people argue in good faith about what art is, I'm willing and able to listen- and will hopefully see something that I didn't see or appreciate before the endeavor.

- But I understand what you mean by dissecting and killing it; like some pedagogue out of Hesse's _Glass Bead Game_ would.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The word "discrimination" is different from "discernment" in suggesting more strongly a choice among alternatives, as among definitions of "art."


Yes, even I know this, Lord Duck.

- Were you _in_ the_ Glass Bead Game _by chance?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Yes, even I know this, Lord Duck.
> 
> - Were you _in_ the_ Glass Bead Game _by chance?


I know _you_ know it. It's _them_ I don't trust. :lol:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

PetrB- Some people will not call it 'art' if it ain't a picture of something. (You knew that, of course.)

_SLG (quote)- True. But what does that lead you to conclude?_

Uh, They're most comfortable with representational art? They don't like non-representational art enough to even call it art?

But how is that worth pointing out? Some people are most comfortable with pictures of pretty flowers and puppies. Some prefer nudes. Some like landscapes.

I know your post wouldn't have been intended to infer that those people who are more comfortable with "figurative" (representational) art are inherently ignorant of art.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2015)

I hate to have to be the one to point this out.

There are others on this board who would be able to express this much better than I.

But oh well. Here I am, with an observation.

Things like "discernment" and "discrimination" and "thinking" and the like are all concepts without physical embodiments.

It seems an odd choice to single out artistic concepts without physical embodiments as somehow less valid than these other concepts without physical embodiments.

And if any of this "concept without physical embodiment" talk is directed at Mr. Cage's four and a half minute piece, then what is the performer or performers who come on stage to perform it? They're pretty physical, right? And their instruments. Also physical. The stage, the seats, the walls, the ceiling, the audience. All physical.

But no one plays anything, you say? There are no sounds? Well of course there are sounds. We've gone over this a million times.

And, guess what, dear hearts, no music is physical, not in the same way that marble is physical, or pigment, or concrete, steel, and glass. It's not even as physical as paper and ink or screens and pixels.

All music is like that. Not physical, not solid, not material. Kinda like that other thing we were talking about. Concepts. And pretty much, all the physical things like sculptures and paintings and buildings started out as non-physical ideas. All of them.

Music only gets as far as making waves that push air against ear drums. It is the least physical of all the arts and so closer to non-physical things like ideas and philosophies and concepts. Concept music. Show me a piece of music that's not conceptual. Show me a piece of music that's not philosophical. Why Woodduck himself has praised Wagner and his ideas in a way that is very much like the way millions has praised Cage and his ideas. Only difference I can see is that Woodduck likes Wagner and Wagner's ideas, so the conceptual nature of Wagner's operas is A-OK. He doesn't particularly care for Cage in general or _4'33"_ in particular, so now suddenly ideas and concepts are bad things.

Having cake and eating it, too, is something that a lot of people very badly want to do. But really. Once it's eaten, it's gone. You really really really cannot have your cake AND eat it too.

So what have we learned so far?

That a major publishing company has published _4'33"_ as a piece of music. We don't get to decide. It's over. It's official. You can buy this piece of music in a music store. You can order this piece of music online from the publisher. You cannot do this with any other idea or concept, can you?

That all physical objects started out as ideas. That some ideas never get embodied at all, unless you count say books as embodiments of ideas. That the ideas that get embodied in the steel and paint of a suspension bridge and the ideas that get don't get embodied at all (unless you count the paper and ink of the book) are equally valid. Or, that is, the validity of one is that you can walk across it without its dumping you in the river. The validity of the other is that it makes you think.

Quiz on Friday.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Concepts are physical, too. They are actual energetic vibrations in the mind. It seems to be a common misconception ~ whoa, hoho ~ to separate things from physical to non-physical based on how "hard" they are.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I know _you_ know it. It's _them_ I don't trust. :lol:


I think you _designed_ the game.

I just like the pretty colors.

_;D_


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> I hate to have to be the one to point this out.
> 
> There are others on this board who would be able to express this much better than I.
> 
> ...


A man sitting at a piano doing nothing is what you consider the "physical embodiment" of the "concept" of 4'33"? In the sense that a physical painting is the physical embodiment of the painter's concept? Do you see no difference between these examples in the way you're using these words?

You use words so ambiguously in this post - words like "concept," "physical," "embodiment," "idea" - that you place on the reader the task of sorting out the meanings you've conflated before any response is even possible. That ambiguity may be responsible for your completely spurious comparison between anything I've said about Wagner and anything I've said about 4'33." You imagine me thinking that "ideas and concepts are bad things" with respect to the latter because I don't "like" it? What could that even mean? I wouldn't dream of comparing Wagner's actual music with Cage's pretense at it, and be assured that my esteem for ideas and concepts is quite unshaken by the latter. Perhaps it would help to review what I've said about both.

Quiz? We can't take a test on it till we know what it's saying.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Explain.

Just saying that I "use words ambiguously" is not nearly as convincing as explaining why you drew that conclusion.

And my noting that there are different kinds of concepts, ones that get embodied and ones that don't, is not an example of ambiguity.

So make sure you define ambiguous unambiguously, for sure.

Otherwise, I did not make a comparison between anything you said about Wagner and anything you've said about 4'33". You have the entire text quoted there. Reread it. See? The comparison I made is quite different that what you just said it was, isn't it?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> A man sitting at a piano doing nothing is what you consider the "physical embodiment" of the "concept" of 4'33"? In the sense that a physical painting is the physical embodiment of the painter's concept? Do you see no difference between these examples in the way you're using these words?
> 
> You use words so ambiguously in this post - words like "concept," "physical," "embodiment," "idea" - that you place on the reader the task of sorting out the meanings you've conflated before any response is even possible. That ambiguity may be responsible for your completely spurious comparison between anything I've said about Wagner and anything I've said about 4'33." You imagine me thinking that "ideas and concepts are bad things" with respect to the latter because I don't "like" it? What could that even mean? I wouldn't dream of comparing Wagner's actual music with Cage's pretense at it, and be assured that my esteem for ideas and concepts is quite unshaken by the latter. Perhaps it would help to review what I've said about both.
> 
> Quiz? We can't take a test on it till we know what it's saying.


Absolutely.

Just to cut to the chase in any argument, one must first define one's terms- if there's to be any coherency to the debate whatsoever.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I think you designed the game.

I just like the pretty colors.

One advantage of being an artist is being able to respond to those who ask upon seeing my art book library, "You don't read all those books, do you?" with a half-tongue in cheek, "No. I just look at the pretty pictures." :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> Explain.
> 
> Just saying that I "use words ambiguously" is not nearly as convincing as explaining why you drew that conclusion.
> 
> ...


OK. You in red, me in black.

It seems an odd choice to single out artistic concepts without physical embodiments as somehow less valid than these other concepts without physical embodiments.

What does "valid" mean here? What are these artistic concepts that are said not to be "valid"? In what sense are they or are they not comparable to concepts such as "discernment" and "thinking?" Who used the term "validity"? To whom and to what does this refer?

And if any of this "concept without physical embodiment" talk is directed at Mr. Cage's four and a half minute piece, then what is the performer or performers who come on stage to perform it? They're pretty physical, right? And their instruments. Also physical.

Yes, all those things are physical. Are you saying that they are the "physical embodiments of artistic concepts"? In what sense? In the same sense that a painted image is? Or a heard melody? Or a printed poem? Isn't there a basic difference of meaning here?

And, guess what, dear hearts, no music is physical, not in the same way that marble is physical, or pigment, or concrete, steel, and glass. It's not even as physical as paper and ink or screens and pixels.

Music consists of sound. If sound is not physical, what is it? It certainly begins with a composer's mental concept, but until it's given physical embodiment - until it is "sounded" - it doesn't exist for a listener. Listening's physical too. Deaf people don't hear music.

All music is like that. Not physical, not solid, not material. Kinda like that other thing we were talking about. Concepts.

How is music like concepts? Concepts are entirely mental, not physical at all. Music is... well, I've already said what music is. Your notion of what is physical and what isn't, and what is a physical embodiment of a concept, are equally shaky.

Show me a piece of music that's not conceptual. Show me a piece of music that's not philosophical.


Music embodies concepts. _Embodies_ them. It isn't "like" them. Music "philosophical"? In what sense?

Woodduck himself has praised Wagner and his ideas in a way that is very much like the way millions has praised Cage and his ideas. 

"Very much like"? What does that mean? "Like" in what respect? Is there any actual comparison here?

Only difference I can see is that Woodduck likes Wagner and Wagner's ideas, so the conceptual nature of Wagner's operas is A-OK. He doesn't particularly care for Cage in general or 4'33" in particular, so now suddenly ideas and concepts are bad things.

What does "the conceptual nature" mean? All art has a "conceptual nature," so why would I consider that good or bad in any instance? Do you think I object to calling 4'33" music because it has a "conceptual nature"? Where is a meaningful comparison between Cage and Wagner? And when have I rendered any judgment on "Cage in general"? This is all very confused.

That a major publishing company has published 4'33" as a piece of music. We don't get to decide. It's over. It's official. You can buy this piece of music in a music store. You can order this piece of music online from the publisher. You cannot do this with any other idea or concept, can you?

Hey, you've got a point there. If in doubt, ask Boosey & Hawkes. :lol:

That all physical objects started out as ideas.

Only if you believe in God.

That some ideas never get embodied at all, unless you count say books as embodiments of ideas.

Of course I do. What else are they?

That the ideas that get embodied in the steel and paint of a suspension bridge and the ideas that get don't get embodied at all (unless you count the paper and ink of the book) are equally valid. Or, that is, the validity of one is that you can walk across it without its dumping you in the river. The validity of the other is that it makes you think.

The idea that all physical bodies will fall at the same rate of speed unless slowed by friction with the atmosphere is a valid idea that makes me think, but a demonstration of it is not a work of art.

So is 4'33" music? You know my answer. But why did you post this stuff here, and not under the 4'33" thread which is where I've actually discussed the subject? Everything I have to say about it is there in high-definition black and white. If you want address my words, use my exact words and do it there, not here where what you seem to think I'm saying can't be checked against what I'm actually saying.


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