Aesthetics and the Christian Musician—part 6

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