The first phase of modernist movement and its impact on the arts and music
- The sound of Experiment
- Sep 1, 2022
- 5 min read
Written by Anthi Georgiadou
30.08.2022
Presented it at Rodon FM
1. Synopsis
In this blog every week we will make a historical review of contemporary music from the period of the late 19th century to emphasize the promotion of experimental music. Specifically, we will make musical tributes to artistic movements that appeared from the end of the 19th century onwards, to essential composers of the time and to works. We will start from the art movements that emerged in the late 19th century to give the social, political, cultural and historical context that triggered the musical experimentations in the middle of the 20th century. We will dedicate the first blogs to the modernist movement and specifically to its first phase which lasted from 1890 to 1900. In particular, we will dedicate the first broadcasts to the following movements of the time: 1) musical maximalism, 2) Art nouveau to music, 3) musical symbolism and 4) musical impressionism.
2. Introduction
2.1 Starting Point
Modernism was a movement that began around 1890 and continued until the 1940s (the university of toledo, 2022). It influenced all aspects of intellectual production: Science, philosophy, visual arts, music, literature, and cinema. It includes philosophical, scientific and cultural trends such as Dialectical materialism, Theory of the evolution of species, Theory of relativity, Impressionism, Abstraction, and Cubism. From a sociopolitical point of view, there was a challenge of the working class towards the Capital, as the working class no longer accepted a subordinate role in the service of capitalism.
2.2. Chronology.
Historians divide the modernist movement into three chronological phases:
1) the late 19th century,
2) early 20th century to 1930 and
3) 1930 to 1945.
Historians consider the first phase as the beginning. The first phase of modernism lasted all the late 19th century. Modernism began with the painter J. M. W. Turner, who broke the traditional patterns of visual art and later helped to form the first school of modernism: The French Impressionist School.
2.3 Arts affected by Modernism
The first art form to be influenced by Modernism was poetry. Poets such as the French Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), Comte de Lautréamont (1846-1870), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) as early as the second half of the 19th century experimented with poetic writing. A key feature of modernist poetry is the dissolution of form. Free verse took the place of moderation and rhyme. Poets begin to violate the grammatical and syntactic rules, while sentences become fragmentary and incomplete, and punctuation marks are abolished.
3. Musical Modernism
Regarding music, modernism starts around1910. Musical modernism marked the end of the late Roman period while at the same time highlighting a new path both synthetically and stylistically as well as historically and aesthetically. A significant number of composers abandoned the hitherto ways of composition and the foundations of the so-called "new" or" modern" music were laid.
According to various experts, modernism comes from romanticism in response to the Industrial Revolution and the values of the bourgeoisie of the 19th century. Modernism is inextricably linked to the word "innovation". Its main feature is "linguistic pluralism", which means that no musical genre really occupied a dominant position (the university of toledo, 2022).
Examples of modernism include the rejection of tonality and the removal of the metric rhythm. The Finnish musicologist and semiotician Eero Tarasti defines musical modernism directly in terms of the "dissolution of traditional tonality and the transformation of the very foundations of the tonal language, the search for new models in atonalism, polytonism tor other forms of altered tonality", which took place at the turn of the century.
On the other hand, conductor and scholar Leon Botstein describes musical modernism as "the result of the fundamental belief of successive generations of composers since the 1900s and that the means of musical expression in the 20th century must be suitable for the unique and radical character of the time "that led to a reflection in the arts of the progress of science, technology and industry, mechanization, urbanization, mass culture and nationalism."
4. Movements included in the period The first phase of modernism, i.e., at the end of the 19th century, was the emergence of various artistic movements such as Maximalism (1890-1914), Art nouveau (1890-1914), Impressionism (1890-1930), Symbolism (1890-1900), and Intimism (1890).
4.1 Maximalism (1890-1914)
Maximalism influenced significantly the music of the period between 1890 and 1914, especially in German-speaking countries (Taruskin, 2005). indicatively, you can listen to the composition "the Work of the Earth" by Gustav Mahler, by clicking the link below. Gustav Mahler composed this piece between 1908 and 1909 [3]. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was an Austro-Bohemian romantic composer [4].
"The Work of the Earth" is an orchestral work written for two voices and an orchestra. When the composer released it, critics described it as a symphony. It comprises six songs for two singers who alternate during the performance [3].
4.2 Art nouveau
As strange as it may sound, art nouveau had a tremendous impact on all forms of art including music. In music, the influence of art nouveau is clear in the freedom of musical composition and the search for authenticity [5]. Indicatively, you can listen to the song "Fantasia for harp n. 95" by the composer Camille Saint-Saens who composed in 1893.
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) was a French musician and composer of the Romantic period [6]. The work "Fantasy for Harp" comprises two parts. The composer dedicated the composition to Madame Vicomtesse de Segur-Lamoignon (nee Rosita d' Arguelles) [7].
4.3 Music Symbolism (1890-1900)
In music, the Symbolism movement considered that all art should be a source of inspiration for music which is the most directly aesthetically and emotionally medium [11]. Indicatively, you can listen to the song "Prelude for the Afternoon Voice" by Claude Debussy [11] who composed it in 1894 with a duration of approximately 10 minutes [12].
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer and principal representative of musical Impressionism [10]. However, there is no other composer more inextricably linked to musical symbolism. In his work "Prelude to the Afternoon of Voice"; he used a poem by Mallarme and not only supplemented it but also expanded it [11]. Musical critics and historians alike consider the work "Prelude to an Afternoon of Voice" a turning point for Western classical music [12].
4.4 Impressionism (1890-1930)
Musical impressionism, and in particular the composers who dealt with it, focused on emotion, mood and symbolism [8]. Indicatively, you can listen to the work "Suite from Bergamo" by Claude Debussy. The completion of its composition took several years as Debussy made significant changes to the work [9].
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer and principal representative of musical Impressionism [10]. The project "Suite from Bergamo consists of four parts with varying rhythms and tempos. The composer wrote it for a variety of musical instrument combinations [9].
5. Conclusion
In today's post, we talked about the first phase of modernism and its influence in art and music. From what we discussed today, it is evident that musical modernism gave an end to the late romantic period. It showed new ways to composers and innovations and pluralism was given a high priority.
6. References
Taruskin, R. (2005). Oxford History of Western Music (First Edition). Oxford University Press.
the university of toledo. (2022). What is Modernism? https://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/guidepages/Modernism2.html
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