tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post110640802655958866..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Music: sacred & profane-1Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1152913709514665702006-07-14T17:48:00.000-04:002006-07-14T17:48:00.000-04:00In the case of Hindemith, particularly, he'd often...In the case of Hindemith, particularly, he'd often offset a highly dissonant passage with predictable, even martial rhythmic patterns. He had been self-consciously harkening back to Baroque forms since the late 1920s. <BR/><BR/>There's something of an irony in the comment about Berg not writing a tune you can whistle because part of Wozzeck employs a solo performed by whistling. <BR/><BR/>I'd say there's a substantial difference in how modernist techniques get employed. Some composers employ them, like Schoenberg, to make an ideological point. Other composers, like the Catholic Penderecki, have shown over the last forty years that they finally prefer to subordinate serialism and atonality to particular musical points. When Penderecki uses every musical modernism at his disposal to depict the suffering of Christ in his Passion According to St Luke it works because he has found the perfect use for the musical devices of modernism. In Messiaen's case he uses musical concepts from around the world in the service of Catholic music which attempts to depict Christ as the head of the universal church and so all musical ideas across all cultural and historical moments are fair game. <BR/><BR/>It's not entirely surprising that in the long run some of the avant gardists most admired from the 20th century (Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Penderecki) were those who eventually subordinated their musical modernism to their various forms of Christian belief. This is something the fans of arch-modernism avoid because they don't like the faith and it's also something opponents of 20th century music try to avoid because they would rather not believe that some of the leaders of the musical avant garde did not completely abandon some form of the Christian faith. As a Protestant I'm not sure I'd necessarily endorse the beliefs held by Stravinsky, Messiaen, or Penderecki but I could hardly say they were atheists.Wenatchee the Hatchethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13208892745502555715noreply@blogger.com