World music genres and instrumental types

Music

A Survey of Culture and Classical Music from Bach and Brahms to Ives and Schoenberg

When Henry Simon complained in 1946 of a friend (and others) who believed Mozart's Don Giovanni to be a tragedy, it was telling for two reasons: 1) Mozart's 1787 opera was no tragedy -- but a light comedy, an opera buffa according to the composer; a dramma giocoso (jolly play) according to the librettist; 2) by mid-twentieth century something had happened in the Western World to make what was once seen as light now seem heavy -- and that something had much to do with cultural attitudes and their representation in music (Simon 3). This paper will analyze the shift in classical music from Bach (18th c. German) and Brahms (19th c.) to Ives (20th c. American) and Schoenberg (20th c. Austrian/American) in relation to cultural appetites -- essentially, the demise of melody in conjunction with the eschewal of cultural orthodoxy. It will focus on the death of classicalism, Romanticism in music, culture; New England schizophrenia; inverted counterpoint; and the persistence of Enlightenment doctrine.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a master of counterpoint -- the interaction of two or more independent melodies in one work. The technique had been used in the Renaissance, but Bach perfected it in the Baroque era. Melody, in a sense, was the key in Bach's compositions and would link him to the next great composer, Mozart -- melody being of the highest importance in musical composition, followed by harmony, and rhythm. The Romantic era would see a shift in this compositional paradigm: harmony would become the predominant focus and rhythm would be elevated (Beethoven's Fifth is a perfect example of rhythm's dramatic rise in composition). Melody and harmony both would find themselves adrift by the twentieth century, as composers like Bartok and Schoenberg elevated rhythm and de-emphasized melody, which essentially created a musical world fit for rock & roll and little else.

However, as John Rahn notes, "It is hard to write a beautiful song. It is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung simultaneously, sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole" (177). For sheer beauty it is hard to surpass Bach's concerto in a minor for four pianos -- or for sheer delight there is Mozart's opera buffa -- in both of which melodic discourse is the key that allows harmony and rhythm to fall into place. As Rahn continues, "The internal structures that create each of the voices separately must contribute to the emergent structure of the polyphony, which in turn must reinforce and comment on the structures of the individual voices. The way that is accomplished in detail is...'counterpoint'" (177).

Johannes Brahms would also excel in the art of counterpoint, becoming a kind of classical Romanticist -- a follower of both Bach and Beethoven, encompassing what each composer offered and putting them together most gloriously in his Fourth Symphony. The other great composer of Brahms' day was Richard Wagner (Wagner died in 1883, Brahms in 1897). Wagner soared to popularity through the application of rich harmonies and a new operatic form that was incredibly more dramatic and heavier than anything composed by the light-hearted Mozart. But then the Germanic culture had substantially altered in the intervening century as well, turning what was once light into heaviness.

The Romantic/Enlightenment doctrine of Rousseau had spread across Europe like wildfire, undermining the scholasticism of previous centuries, giving birth to various secret societies, and attacking the underpinnings of Church authority. New modes of music were sought to reflect these societal changes, which were indeed dramatic since Western civilization had been undergoing revolution virtually since the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation -- all of which would culminate in the Industrial revolution and two World Wars of the twentieth century. Twentieth century composers like Schoenberg would use a kind of inverted counterpoint to indicate their removal from past masters. Schoenberg, for example, developed the twelve tone system, in which every note was given equal importance, and music was written without a key. Why should there be a key in Bach's age, and no key in Schoenberg's? Perhaps Brahms -- a link between them, at least culturally -- has the answer.

Antonin Dvorak (composer of the New World Symphony and a devout Czech Catholic) said of Brahms and his unbelief: "Such a man, such a fine soul -- and he believes in nothing!" (Barker). Indeed, though Brahms genuinely admired his forerunners, he himself did not hold to their religious orthodoxy. As Barker states, music was his religion (and no less so for Wagner). Such was part of the Romantic spirit that pervaded Europe at the time -- a kind of natural transcendentalism that replaced revelation as the source of moral code. The religion of Bach and Mozart was replaced by the religion of man, held by Wagner and Brahms -- and such societal trends would give way to the social engineering experiments of the twentieth century: all things would be remade according to man's enlightenment as opposed to God's decree -- music not being least of these.

As Stephen Heiner's interview with Richard Williamson points out, music plays a significant role in the lives and attitudes of men and their culture:

Without Beethoven during my adolescent years, I'm not sure I would be a Catholic today. Mozart also greatly helped, and Wagner provided an extra religious dimension. Wagner appealed to Hitler precisely because his operas offer a religious dimension without the Faith, in other words, substitute redemption

Heiner goes on to reveal what Williamson sees as the connection between musical orthodoxy and cultural orthodoxy:

Around the time of the French Revolution, modern man refused to be under Christ, but, to hold things together, women stayed under man for a while. So she "saved" the situation for about one hundred years, which is when Wagner was writing his operas, but by the 20th century she had had enough, and that is when the "emancipation" of women began. The foundations have shaken ever since!

According to Heiner, the Women's Movement of the twentieth century may be directly related to the loss of melody in man's soul -- which, in a way, is seen brilliantly in the music of an early twentieth century American composer, Charles Ives. Ives wrote "schizoid music" (White) by taking two discordant melodies and smashing them together to hear what it sounded like. His music was like standing in the center of a park and listening to all the noise that went on around one. Ives was trying to capture the discordance of New England life -- which was significantly different, shattered one might say, from the Austrian life of Bach's day and age. Bach lived in a time of hierarchical religious structure; Ives lived in a time of religious freedom (an Enlightenment holdover) -- which asserts, like Schoenberg's twelve tone technique, that all religions (or notes) are equal; thus, none being of greater importance, none can be key to salvation (or music), and man is left with competing sounds, none of which can be properly arranged.