UnconstrainedTime wrote: ↑December 24th, 2023, 9:12 am
I am interested to know whether this perspective is known in philosophy:
Until the 20th Century, music was more focused on notes than sound. This can be seen in the fact that a piano transcription of a symphony is known as the same piece of music, even though none of the sounds are in common between the two, and that the study of music theory is fundamentally based on relationships between notes.
Until abstract art, visual art was focused on objects which have a word for each object, such as people, animals, specific places etc.
These changes, from music focusing on notes to music focusing on sounds, and from art focusing on nameable objects to art focusing on the marks themselves, happened at about the same time, and can both be said to be about the same thing, which is changes from things which have the main focus on concepts which can described by very simple data, to things where the main importance is placed on things which need very much more complex sets of data to represent them effectively.
And the same change, at the same time, can be seen in the evolution from fine jewelry which is mainly about simple geometric shapes and smooth polished surfaces, to art jewelry which often uses forms and/or surfaces which are complex, rough, broken, or organic.
This seems to me to be a change from a single system, where the focus is on simple symbolic representations, to a focus on the exploration of what is outside that system. It seems to me that this could be said to be the biggest revolution in the Western Art Tradition.
Is this perspective known?
Hello and welcome to the forum!
I think you've made an astute observation here in your first post. I’ve never really heard the change in music and art put in this particular way and I find it quite thought-provoking. I've studied the history of western classical music extensively over the years and I used to see the change from the romantic era into the modern era like you’ve suggested here, as a revolution, since the works of the early 20th century appear to us to be so different from what came before them. However, as I've studied the history more, I've recently begun to see it a little differently, as more as a gradual and ongoing evolution that is also tied to much of what was happening in history over that period, rather than as a sudden shift or revolution.
When you are saying that music prior to the 20th century focuses on ‘relationship between notes’, I take it that you are referring specifically to the system of counterpoint and harmony that developed in central Europe and that came to fruition around the time of Bach in the net 18th century. But I think it's important to note that this way of creating music was a primarily a German/Austrian phenomenon. Though its success as an effective system for composing larger scale works led it to spread through Europe and beyond, there were still a lot of other things were going on in music in other countries at the time, and as the formal structures and inventions of composers such as Bach and Haydn began to spread throughout Europe and were merged with other ideas and different musical traditions, new forms and styles came about as a result. Although the eventual transition into modern music and art appears to be a sudden change, I think you can trace a lot of it back to earlier innovations – to ‘seeds’ that were planted early on. For example, by 1810 Beethoven is already experimenting not just with those forms and harmony but also with attention to sounds rather than notes to evoke nature (bird songs and thunder) or create scenes (peasant folk dances) in his 6th symphony. And the evolution becomes more pronounced as we turn our attention to how the German forms were adapted and changed by composers in neighboring countries, such as with the
Symphony Fantastique of Berlioz in the 1820s, which I see as a work that clearly is already at this early date drawing the focus away from the relationship of the notes and harmonic progression and is using sound in very new ways.
Personally, I see the complete shift toward abstraction as beginning with Liszt’s and Wagner’s harmonic inventions (e.g. the ‘Tristan chords’) which bring to the German system of harmonic progression the idea that harmony might be used not just as a grammar to create progression and development of a musical idea over the course of a structure, but that could also serve a function in and of themselves as musical ‘objects’ to be heard and experienced for their own sake. But it’s really Debussy who takes hold of this idea and sets music off in a new direction, beginning with his
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun in 1894, which I’d suggest could be the first real example of what you’ve described as music that is entirely ‘focused on sounds’ rather than on relationships of notes. (Incidentally, I find it interesting that this timing coincides with the attendance by Debussy’s, and other notable figures of the time, at the 1889 Paris Exposition, where he was introduced to and inspired by music from distant countries and other cultures. The Exposition was reported attended by over 30 million people, which leads me to think that in this era, Europe is entering a period where it is being rapidly exposed to many very different ideas from all parts of the world, which I things must have contributed to the major and rapid changes we see in the arts. It's worth noting too that a lot of the artistic innovations of this time also originate here in Paris.
Avant garde, of course, is itself a French term.)
Of course, many other musical innovations follow Debussy’s, but when I look at the history as a whole, I see each of these changes not so much as a ‘revolution’ in music but as the beginning of new 'school' or style within the totality of Western music. I’ve come to liken it metaphorically to a tree that is continually branching and flowering and producing new forms, rather than like a metamorphosis of a tradition that is changing it from one thing into something completely different. So I might argue that the new forms of modernity really owe their existence to the forms that came before them and don't represent a 'break' from the past.
To address your final question from a philosophical perspective, I'm not an expert in the philosophy of art, but what I've said above recalls for me some of the late ideas of Wittgenstein where he explores his notion of ‘family resemblances’ which suggests (as described in Wikipedia) “
that things which could be thought to be connected by one essential common feature may in fact be connected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to all of the things.” I find this is a useful way of thinking of the history of the arts and sciences, as two members of opposite ends of the ‘family’ may seem like completely different things when looked at one way yet are ultimately still related through a web of similar traits and common ancestors. In short, I think that understanding any work of art really requires looking at it in its full context and examining not just what it is but also where, how and why it came about. That’s kind of the path that I’ve been on with this question, but I’m sure there are other ways of thinking of these things that I’ve yet to hear.
Sorry if I’ve run on here, but I do find it a fascinating topic! I’d be interested to hear more about what you think. Thanks for starting an interesting thread.
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