Aesthetics and the
Christian Musician—part 5
Under the lack-luster philosophy of
some religious musicians, musicing unto God no longer has to be aesthetically
beautiful. Although almost all Christian
musicians who perform rock-based music would deny it, they don’t 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 19th 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 was
nonliteral and figurative thus developing a network of vague images.
The music of Claude Debussy was
chromatic, fluid and vague. Debussy’s
opera Pelléas et Mélisande in this symbolist style The opera is an expression
of Debussy’s philosophy that music should be a free art, truly representative
of the fact that it cannot be contained, but exists in time and is born on
air. That freedom meant a relaxation of
restrictions such as those that normally governed form, harmonic progressions,
and rhythm. The Development of Western Music, K. Marie Stolba, p.775.
This
vagueness was considered impressionistic and thus the connection was made with
the vagueness of the visual art of Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Paul Cézanne
(1839-1906), Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Claude Monet (1840-1926),
and Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).
The works of these painters are studies in the impression light makes on
the subjects of these paintings. Often,
light and subject seem to almost merge. The overall impression takes precedence
over clarity, thus vagueness reigns.
Thought
for the Day
The
vagueness of French Impressionism paved the way for the emancipation of
dissonance of the 20th century.
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