Aesthetics and the Christian Musician- part 5

Aesthetics and the Christian Musician- part 5

Under this lack-luster philosophy mentioned in the four previous posts, religious music no longer has to be aesthetically beautiful.  Although almost all Christian musicians who perform rock-based music would deny it, they do not believe in a music aesthetic based on any definable traditional standards of beauty.  If they do believe in a Christian music aesthetic, it is most certainly a redefined beauty based on a synthesis somewhere in between beauty and ugliness.  How did music degenerate in its aesthetic beauty from the music of J.S. Bach to the anti-music of composers like John Cage? 

I believe that Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was one of the early composers who started in the direction of despair music.  He became interested in the literary works of the symbolist writers of the 19^th century.  These writers addressed their writings to a system of symbols and symbolic meaning as a negative reaction to naturalism and realism in literature.  This school which was nonliteral and figurative began to develop a network of vague images.   These vague images found their way in to the music compositions of this off-shoot of the romantic period that became known as impressionism.