Aesthetics and the Christian Musician—part 7

 

Aesthetics and the Christian Musician—part 7

          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.

 

Thought for the Day

It is one thing for a composer to destroy norms of secular music but it is another for a Christian composer to strike out at norms and time proven traditions of musicing unto a high and holy Trinity just for the fun of doing so to be different or in jest.