Aesthetics and the
Christian Musician—part 6
Another
philosophical theory that affected composers of the 20th century was
existentialism. This theory was a
literary movement rather than an artistic theory like Dadaism and
surrealism. This theory was introduced
by Sören Aaby Kierkegaard (1813-1855).
He believed that man was not a part of any metaphysical scheme. He believed that each person must create
(authenticate) his own being in his hostile environment by an act of his free
will.
Composers
of the modern era, like the proponents of the “isms” mentioned above, struck
out against all tradition, standards of correctness with their new music.
Debussy paved the way to the door of
despair and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) walked through it with portions of his
ballet Petruska composed in bitonality.
His ballet Le sacre du printemps was composed in polytonality with the
use of polyrhythms. His Septet (1953)
and his ballet Agon (1957) were composed in Serial (12 tone) technique. So by the end of his career Stravinsky had
moved from conventional diatonic harmonic practice to Schoenberg’s despair of
12 tone technique.
The
ultimate expression of 20th century despair in music composition was developed
by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).
Although his earliest works were in post-Romantic style, his compositions
became more and more chromatic. Next,
his works became very dissonant and pantonal which defied the rules of
traditional harmonic practice. Next came
his 12-tone (dodecaphonic) compositions.
These works were based on a tone row using all twelve tones equally,
thereby emancipating dissonance. This
technique was the ultimate 20th century expression of despair in music
composition. It purported that all 12
tones should be used with equal emphasis with no regard to the rules of
harmonic practice.
Thought
for the Day
“Here is a definition of religious
Existentialism. The reason that it sounds faulty is because it is very faulty. “Statements
about God are about your experience and relation to existence (or being). For
example, "God exists" means "I experience a depth in my being
when I respond to reality with ultimate concern" (Tillich). It says
"Religion is man's response to ultimate concerns in terms of the
ultimate" (Tillich).”
www.philosophy-dictionary.org/Religious_existentialism
