Aesthetics and the Christian Musician—part 3

Aesthetics and the Christian Musician—part 3

          Other composers began to use chance operations which have been termed aleatoric i.e. like the throwing of dice.  In 1952, Cage composed his ultimate anti-musical composition, “4 minutes and 33 seconds”.  This piece became the ultimate composition of anti-music since his purpose was to compose music that said absolutely NOTHING!  The performer simply sat at the piano for the designated period of time making absolutely no sounds.

          At this point in the history of music,  so-called serious music composition had philosophically destroyed an aesthetic of beauty and profundity in music.  Cage had philosophically proved Stravinsky’s antithesis philosophical statement, “I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all...” , Wayne Bowman, Wayne.  Philosophical Perspectives on Music, p.194  So the godless antithesis of depraved man in the 20th century closed the door on a music aesthetic based on beauty and musing with anti-music based on distortion and chance techniques.

These composers opened the door for the lack-luster philosophy that the music part of music is incapable of expressing any effective message or perhaps any message at all.  They also destroyed profundity in music since chance music is just as profound as the most thought out composition by great composers like J. S. Bach.  Now complete musical despair reigns.  To these composers music says nothing is incapable of being profound, and is ultimately incapable of expressing anything at all.

Thought for the Day

Christian musicians who have abandoned the century time-honored concept of a Christian music being based on beauty, need to seriously consider what this change will do to sacred musicing.