Modernism to postmodernism?????
Claire
composers where the innovators of this "new" period? What does it really
mean to be a post-modern composer?
thanks, Sarah
Joseph Henry
>How did the change from modernism to postmodernism happen in music? Which
>composers where the innovators of this "new" period? What does it really
>mean to be a post-modern composer?
How many pages do you need?
Joseph Henry
Samuel Vriezen
<claire...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>How did the change from modernism to postmodernism happen in music?
And when did this happen? Was it neoclassicism, was it Ives, was it
Berio's Sinfonia?
>Which
>composers where the innovators of this "new" period? What does it really
>mean to be a post-modern composer?
Let's ask them.
--
Samuel
Your chance is not the same as mine, is it? If I make a throw
of the dice, it will never be the same as your throw. And so an
act like throwing dice is a marvelous expression of your
subconscious.
- Marcel Duchamp
David Smey
>>How did the change from modernism to postmodernism happen in music?
>
>And when did this happen? Was it neoclassicism, was it Ives, was it
>Berio's Sinfonia?
>
practice (which would need a different name, like post-structuralism?), then
yeah, you can go back to Ives. Why not go back to Don Giovanni, even. I
once read something nice about looking at it this way by Umberto Eco. First
he ridicules the way some people want to push the boundary of pomo-ism
further and further back, and then claims
“Actually, I believe that postmodernism is not a trend to be chronologically
defined, but, rather, an ideal category -- or, better sill, a Kunstwollen, a
way of operating. We could say that every period has its own postmodernism,
just as every period would have its own mannerism (and, in fact, I wonder if
postmodernism is not the modern name for mannerism as a metahistorical
category.)" [more interesting stuff follows]
Umberto Eco, “Postscript to the Name of the Rose,” (1983) from The Name of
the Rose trans. William Weaver (1984) (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.,
1994), 504-535.
Glenn Watkins' book Pyramids at the Louvre wants to see Stravinsky (and lots
of other early-20th-century people) as postmodern.
BUT - if you want a pomo "period" that actually starts after a thing called
modernism (or, heck, a "high modernism" which is what I like to call 1945 to
the 60s) then it makes no sense to go back that far. I'd like to think that
minimalism is the beginning of a pomo period, since it was a sweeping
rejection of the idea of an ever-better-evolving compositional technique.
an end to the high-low distinction. or something.
Samuel Vriezen
<ds...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>BUT - if you want a pomo "period" that actually starts after a thing called
>modernism (or, heck, a "high modernism" which is what I like to call 1945 to
>the 60s) then it makes no sense to go back that far. I'd like to think that
>minimalism is the beginning of a pomo period, since it was a sweeping
>rejection of the idea of an ever-better-evolving compositional technique.
>an end to the high-low distinction. or something.
>
If, of course, that is what you consider essential in modernism: the
rejection of a progressive view of history. I wonder though. Did the
minimalists really set out to counter the Darmstadt school or
something? Were they 'post' in that sense or were they just doing what
they were doing? And was the ever-better-ideology really present in
all of modernism? In Stravinsky? Isn't he postmodern by this idea?
Another point of view would have postmodernism reject the idea of
unified style, for instance, allowing for lots of ironic stylistic
spillovers. Then you really get at the very least Berio, whose
Sinfonia, and much more essentially so than anything by Ives, is
'intertextual' and 'poststructuralist' or somesuch. Perhaps
postmodernism is really this 'commentary tradition'.
I dunno. I wouln't for instance like to describe John Adams as
postmodern - I think he's more of a musical atavism. There's not much
particularly post anything about him.
Steve Layton
"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.remo...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3a4ca7ef...@news.xs4all.nl...(.....)
> Another point of view would have postmodernism reject the idea of
> unified style, for instance, allowing for lots of ironic stylistic
> spillovers. Then you really get at the very least Berio, whose
> Sinfonia, and much more essentially so than anything by Ives, is
> 'intertextual' and 'poststructuralist' or somesuch. Perhaps
> postmodernism is really this 'commentary tradition'.
>
(....)
With William Bolcom its high priest...(shudder...)
Steve Layton
Kristian Mark Twombly
:>
: If, of course, that is what you consider essential in modernism: the
: rejection of a progressive view of history. I wonder though. Did the
: minimalists really set out to counter the Darmstadt school or
: something? Were they 'post' in that sense or were they just doing what
: they were doing?
A lot of Art that can stand on it's own is lumped into larger and larger
categories by a public eager to classify it. I don't particularly have
any "movement" or "trend" in mind when composing, and I guess I assume
that most others don't...
How does one answer the eternal question, "What does your music sound
like, anyway?" I always say that it doesn't sound "like" anything other
than itself.
Why do the "minimalists" reject that label? Do Glass or Reich consider
themselves minimalists? They don't, and that cuts out two of the four big
names associated with minimalism...I am under the impression that Glass
never thought in minimal terms...he just did what he wanted to do.
IMHO ;-)
Kristian
Samuel Vriezen
<twom...@y.glue.umd.edu> wrote:
>Samuel Vriezen <sqv.remo...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>:>
>
>: If, of course, that is what you consider essential in modernism: the
>: rejection of a progressive view of history. I wonder though. Did the
>: minimalists really set out to counter the Darmstadt school or
>: something? Were they 'post' in that sense or were they just doing what
>: they were doing?
>
>A lot of Art that can stand on it's own is lumped into larger and larger
>categories by a public eager to classify it. I don't particularly have
>any "movement" or "trend" in mind when composing, and I guess I assume
>that most others don't...
I find 'labeling' useful, not for its capacity to explain art (that it
doesn't have) but because it services some form of approach to the
total chaotic field of all art. Also, because however the artist may
feel a free-willed subject and completely unique, there's always
things he shares with people around him. One should be conscious both
of one's individuality and of the way in which one is just a part of
the universe. If you only stress a work's individuality, you only get
half the picture, which might be a superficial and undeservedly heroic
one.
>How does one answer the eternal question, "What does your music sound
>like, anyway?" I always say that it doesn't sound "like" anything other
>than itself.
>
>Why do the "minimalists" reject that label? Do Glass or Reich consider
>themselves minimalists? They don't, and that cuts out two of the four big
>names associated with minimalism...I am under the impression that Glass
>never thought in minimal terms...he just did what he wanted to do.
>
>IMHO ;-)
And Schoenberg dislikes being called an 'atonal' composer. But _we_
know better! ;-)
David7Gable
>unified style, for instance, allowing for lots of ironic stylistic
>spillovers. Then you really get at the very least Berio, whose
>Sinfonia, and much more essentially so than anything by Ives, is
>'intertextual' and 'poststructuralist' or somesuch.
Minimalism is indeed both post-serial and post-Stravinsky. The changing meters
of minimalism and the use of the beat as the one fixed constant stem from
Stravinsky, along with the idea of organizing an entire piece around a series
of interllocking metrical changes in this fashion. The idea of setting in
motion a "mechanism" that issues in a piece derives in an admittedly simple
minded way from serialism.
You can call Ives, Stravinsky, and Berio post-modern if you want. (I never
will.) But James Joyce and T.S. Eliot and Schoenberg the neo-Brahmsian who
wrote the serial music must all be considered post-modern by your definition.
Indeed, where is the hermetically sealed text that by your definition would
constitute modernism?
The standard practice is to redeem the modernists you do like by co-opting them
for post-modernism and then condemning the rest.
Minimalism did not get rid of "the high-low distinction," as you quaintly put
it. Adams will still never equal J.S. Bach.
-david gable
Samuel Vriezen
>You can call Ives, Stravinsky, and Berio post-modern if you want. (I never
>will.) But James Joyce and T.S. Eliot and Schoenberg the neo-Brahmsian who
>wrote the serial music must all be considered post-modern by your definition.
>Indeed, where is the hermetically sealed text that by your definition would
>constitute modernism?
'Structures I', maybe?
>The standard practice is to redeem the modernists you do like by co-opting them
>for post-modernism and then condemning the rest.
>
>Minimalism did not get rid of "the high-low distinction," as you quaintly put
>it. Adams will still never equal J.S. Bach.
If only because they're different persons.
Note: I think the whole term postmodern is quite useless.
David7Gable
>>constitute modernism?
>
>'Structures I', maybe?
Yes, that's the example that springs to mind . . . and how quickly Boulez left
it behind.
-david gable