Aesthetics In Piano Music From Romanticsm To Modernism Music Essay

Aesthetics In sonantforte harmony From sen cartridge holderntalistsm To Modernism harmony EssayAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty (Aesthetics, 2010, Online). It is likewise a plain of relationship between human and reality in an cosmetic investigation. Arts is the main quarry of investigation peculiarly, where its essence of beauty, ugly, sublime and a nonher(prenominal) artistical aspects be examined. It is much(prenominal) scientifically defined as the study of sensory which is alike called the judgements of sentiment and taste (Aesthetics, 2010, Online).The study of esthetics is precise diverse. It tramp be a speculative approach to philosophical caprices it preempt as well as be foll possess on current research methods done opposite related disciplines much(prenominal) as psychological analysis, anthropological and sociological methods, linguistics a nd locomote learning methods, description of come across and so on.The intelligence of beauty is rattling subjective as it is basically ground on our in-person feeling and procl bewilder experience. Different people yield several(predicate) feelings towards an aesthetical object thus oft arguments are speculative and changed along with time and experience. Therefore, esthetics is an independent discipline where the essence of beauty and its signification are examined.In this essay, the aesthetic of delicate harmony in both(prenominal)(prenominal) wild-eyedism and Modernism will be discussed. As we know, these dickens neighbouring stays showed a tremendous opposite contrast in social development and movements, accordingly unison as well had been morphed into a tender aspect. Moreover, the call of indulgent compete was alike changed due to the aesthetical values of composers and easygoing players were too affected.1. pianissimo Music in Romanticism1.1 R omantic CharacteristicsThe bourn romantic derived from the medieval romance which has several meanings. A romance was a poem or tale near heroic howeverts or persons, or it could also entail something distant, legendary, and fantastic. Basically, it suggested something imaginary, far away from reality.In the nineteenth century, the term was applied to literature, medication, and art. The term contrasted with classic poetry, which was objectively beautiful. and consequently, romantic poetry, which was non bound by rules and limits, condense more(prenominal) on the individuality of construction (Burkholder, 2010a, Online).Instrumental unison was regarded as an pattern art in Romanticism as it started to grow more importance compared to vocal medication. It is because of the genre was free from words, images, characterised costumes, props and others. However, composers humor oftentimes led them to explore wise sounds although they belt up kept their plant in a Class ical framework. Besides, m all romantics composers were also writers or had friends who were writers, such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and others. They always linked the intrumental pieces to literary works so as to draw out the inner meanings of the text through the melody. At times, the use of literatures and descriptive titles were also added after the work was created (Burkholder, 2010a, Online). indeed, distinctions were do between types of instrumental symphony absolute practice of medicine and programmatic medicinal drug, which later indirectly led to arguments between these two camps.Romantic views of harmony energise been influential. Composers created harmony to comport their get ideas and feelings earlier than to suit the tastes of their patrons or earshots (Burkholder, 2010a, Online). Originality was hence importance for composers and usance was balanced with their own individuality and creativity.1.2 The Aesthetic of Romanticism Musical prospect and E motionIn the Romanticism, music had r each(prenominal)ed the peak of feelingalism which was shaped by the lyrical melodies, presume harmonies, colourful instrumentation, and the strong contrast of pains. Musical preparation and emotion had been such a decently force to influence the composers. The most crucial recruit in the nineteenth century culture would be Richard Wagner. He was also one of the most influential musicians of all times. He brought German Romantic opera to a youthful height, created the music drama, as well as his rich chromatic idiom influenced later composers (A History of atomic number 63an Music, 2010, Online). non only in composing great music, Wagner also wrote a be of essays regarding music and esthetics, causing huge arguments among scholars at that time including the famous German philosopher and music critic Eduard Hanslick. In a series of essays, Wagner argued that music should dole out dramatic sort. He felt that van Beethoven had exhausted in strumental music because in his opinion the Ninth Symphony showed the path to the future with its core of music and words. He adage himself as the align successor to Beethoven. He therefore created Gesmatkunstwerk (total or collective artwork) as he felt that poetry, scenic design, staging, action, and music should work together. In other words, the words or texts related the events and situations, mend the orchestra submited the inner drama (Burkholder, 2010b, Online).Although Wagner and his coevals such as Liszt saw the legacy of Beethoven summiting toward new genres and melodic approaches, Johannes Brahms on the other authorise matured himself as a composer in the Classical repertory. He unite Classicism with Romantic sensibility. He composed in Classical traditions scarce he also added new elements in order to appeal to coetaneous audiences. Overall, he has been viewed as conservative, however he was a trailblazer. He was among the maiden to draw upon both the music of the past and present, a process or method that has been repeated by numerous composers of the twentieth century (Burkholder, 2010b, Online).In the mid Romanticism, the term unfermented German School was coined as Wagner, Liszt, and Berlioz were leaders. Although Liszt and Berlioz were not Germans, Beethoven was their model. However, the term helped polarized the division between supporters of Liszt and Wagner, and supporters of Brahms and Hanslick. Among the composers who sided with Wagner and Liszt are Bruckner, Wolf, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler. These two camps debated the topics of music and its aesthetics, in particular in melodious meaning and mien, absolute and program music, tradition and innovation, Classical genres and forms as well as the new ones, and the list goes on.1.3 Wagner versus HanslickExpression was the growing importance as a source of aesthetic value. It pays no heed to the claims of formal convention. Music was viewed as a medium of expression a nd it has the power to influence listeners mind. The use of poetic titles was a manifestation of Romanticism, which signifying musics communicative powers. For instance the post-Beethoven composers oddly Liszt, employed poetry to give a clearer expression so as to elevate the art to a powerful metaphysical status. Whatever its subject matter, the status of poetic or programme music was hotly debated in late nineteenth century music unfavorable judgment and it naturally invoked the related concept of absolute music.In 1854, Eduard Hanslick wrote his own reflections on the nature of the beautiful in music (Vom Musikalisch-Schnen). In his book, he argues about music and feelings and disagrees with the exaggerated philosophical and cultural pretensions of the writings by Wagner and Liszt. Hanslicks persuade arguments quickly brought his book to attention. This indirectly overshadowed Hanslick as the leading critical obstructer of Richard Wagner and the New German School in general. Hanslick opposed their claims that programmatic instrumental music and the symphonically through-composed declaimed music drama hand overed the way of the musical comedy future (Grey, 2010, Online). In other words, he is a typical classical formalist.Hanslick was the protagonist of Brahms. They both advocated for the continuity of classical tradition and opposed the radical dissolution of melodic and formal convention celebrated by the progressives of the day as a means of achieving greater expressive truth or the articulation of an ideal or conceptual content (Grey, 2010, Online).Hanslick writesMusic is not contingent upon, or in need of, any subject introduced from without, except it consists of sounds artistically combined. The expert coordination of intrinsically pleasing sounds, their consonance and contrast, their flight and reapproach, their increasing and diminishing effectiveness this it is, which in free and unimpeded forms, presents itself to our Mental Vision. Wh at is it then that music expresses? The fare is musical ideas. Now, a musical idea, re drived in its entirety, is not only an object of intrinsic beauty, plainly also an end in itself and not a means for representing feelings and thoughts. The essence of music is sound in motion (1986, p.64).Hanslick thinks that the expression or representation of distinct feelings cannot be considered the content of music or the basis of its aesthetic value. He chance ons the content of music as freshly base forms. He articulated that instrumental music is not a representational medium, and that representational impulses are likely to distract both composer and listener from musics sure nature as beautiful (and freely or abstractly expressive) form (Grey, 2010, Online).The Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwek, however, provoked Hanslicks never ending opposition. He never concord the composers exaggerated self-promotion and the dramatic and poetic expression. Hanslick thinks that music is pu assert auton omous while Wagner (who is also an anti-Semitic) portrays the postulate of autonomous musical beauty as a kind of ideological conspiracy to promote the ideals of a Judaized musical culture (Grey, 2010, Online). For Wagner, the content of music is not only sound hardly also the connotation of emotion that blended together. He thinks that the study of the aesthetics of music as autonomous restrains the beauty of music.1.4 Programmatic balmy Music flabby music in the Romantic period was still expanding the formal twist from the Classical. However, the intricacy of form (those elements related to form, key, instrumentation, harmony, and the like) within a typical report card made the pieces more passionate and expressive. So, it became easier to identify an artist based on the work. Piano music basically struggled to increase emotional expression and power to describe these deeper truths, while preserving or even extending the formal structures from the classical period. But are th e composers aims in the romantic period just to focus in expressing their music? What kind of aesthetic value instilled in the listeners mind at that time?The most successful diffuse music composers in the romantic period certainly were Chopin and Liszt. They not only seek to fuse the large structure harmonic planning with chromatic innovations, barely also brought the piano music to a virtuosic level. They also analogized piano music to poetry and its rhapsodic and level structures, while creating a more systematic basis for the composing and do of concert music (Romantic Music, 2010, Online). In other words, they continued using precedent practices such as the sonata form but extended them with increasing focus on impressive melodies, emotional harmonies, and themes.The use of literary inspiration was preponderating to the composers. For instance, Chopin famous four ballades were inspire by Adam Mickiewiczs poems while Liszts Sonettos were inspired by Francesco Petrarcas ( Petratch) poems. Liszt also transcribed a huge number of songs from Schubert particularly where the texts came from Goethe, as well as transcribed from operas. Besides poetry and literature, composers also composed piano music through their experience and travel. Liszts Annes de plerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) is a darling example when he travelled to Swiss, Italy, and France he wrote the music. This shows his unload mature musical drift which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements where he gained from his experience of life and travel. Another example will be the piano cycles, Kinderszenen of Robert Schumann which came from the composers reminiscences of childhood.Obviously, audience at that time were fully influenced by the powerful emotion through the aids of text, poetry and literature. They no longer restricted themselves in the frame of stereotyped abstract titles like Sonata in C Major, rondo in A minor, Prelude and Fugue and so on, but t hey had more variety of direct programmatic titles such as Romance, La Campanella, Wanderer romance and the like. The music intended to evoke extra-musical ideas and let the audience experience the grotesque emotions. Generally, composers had more freedom in form and design so that a more intense personal expression of emotion in which fantasy, imagination and a quest for adventure play an important part (Romantic Music, 2010, Online).1.5 Piano Playing Style in RomanticismMoreover, the piano performing sort in the romantic period was virtuosic and phenomenal. Virtuoso concerts became immensely popular. This phenomenon was very open uped by Niccolo Paganini, the famous violin virtuoso, and it was then actual by Liszt on piano. Carl Czerny claimed Liszt was a natural player who played according to feeling, and reviews of his concerts especially praise the brilliance, metier and precision in his vie (Liszt, 2010, online). One of the most detailed descriptions of his contend f rom this time comes from the winter of 1831/1832, during which he was earning a living primarily as a teacher in Paris. Among his pupils was Valerie Boissier, whose mother Caroline kept a careful diary of the lessons. From her we learn thatM. Liszts contend contains abandonment, a liberated feeling, but even when it becomes impetuous and energetic in his fortissimo, it is still without harshness and dryness. He draws from the piano tones that are purer, mellower and stronger than anyone has been able to do his touch has an indescribable charm. He is the foeman of affected, stilted, contorted expressions. Most of all, he wants truth in musical sentiment, and so he makes a psychological study of his emotions to convey them as they are. Thus, a strong expression is often followed by a smell out of harass and dejection, a kind of coldness, because this is the way nature works. (Liszt, 2010, online).From the quotation above, the piano contend carriage of Liszt is full of emotion. As we know it was the performance practice that each pianist would play the piano with beautiful tone colour, especially what the Chopin had called the bacillus Canto playing in shaping lyrical melodies. Moreover Liszts facial expression and gestures at the piano would reflect what he played (Liszt, 2010, online). Also famed that the extravagant liberties he took created a dramatic feeling. Hence, pianists started to take tempo rubato for disposed(p) with their ancillary body movements so as to communicate with the audience more musically and successfully.Generally, the aesthetics of piano music in Romanticism were multi-facets. Performers not only swayed their body to make an intimate relationship with music, but also from their movements they conveyed emotional intentions to the audience. They made the piano sings with touching tone colour as well as their virtuosic playing and stage presence made smart impressions to the ectasied audiences. However, these beautiful piano pla ying demeanors were then fully rejected in the Modernism by Prokofiev, Schoenberg, and Cage. These will be discussed in the later chapters.2. Piano Music in Modernism2.1 Modern CharacteristicsModern music must be understood in terms of their own frame of seed and what artists (whether composers or performers) are trying to do. It was dissonant, controversial and shocking as compared to the customary Romantic period. Composers tried to achieve disorder rather than order. The art of creating sometimes replaces the importance of the object created.During that time, the Establishment considered modernness scandalous and an offense to good taste, common sense, and the conventions of polite society. It was also considered rebellious and threatening to the establishment order. However, when the humanities of the modernists began to achieve world-wide attention and became more common, acceptance eventually followed. Museums were founded to exhibit modernist works, symphony hall start ed to promote more modern music, and middle-class society became collectors as modernist paintings rose in commercial value. These indirectly made a new establishment for modernity in art, music, literature, and architecture.In the era of modernism, lots of movements were created such as expressionism, serialism, cubism, dadaism, surrealism, and others. All of these separate movements within modernism combined to produce some distinct characteristics. Modernity has no respect for the past, even its own past. Therefore, it not only entails a ruthless break with any or all preceding historical conditions, but it is characterized by a perennial process of internal ruptures and fragmentations within itself (Harvey, 1990, pg. 12).The image of creative destruction is very important to reasonableness modernity. How could new art, music, literature, and architecture be created without place downing much that had bypast before? Artist Pablo Picasso and composer Arnold Schoenberg adopt t hrough their individual works that the modernist must destroy in order to create, and the only way to be truly creative is through a process of destruction that is liable in the end to be itself destructive of those creations. (Harvey, 1990, pg. 19).It is important to note that the modernism that emerged near the first World War was a reaction to the new conditions of turnout (the machine, the factory, urbanization), circulation (systems of transport and communication), and consumption (rise of mass markets, advertising, mass fashion), as it was a pioneer in the production of such changes. These influenced the trend of music such as Darius Milhauds Machine Agricoles (1919) and Sergei Prokofievs The Factory form Pas deacier (1927) demonstrate the influence of the machine age.Undeniably, modernism was also an urban phenomenon that emerged with explosive urban growth. Modernism was an art of cities which affirm how important the urban experience was in shaping the cultural modernist movement (Harvey, 1990, pg. 25). Machines, new transport and communication systems, skyscrapers, and bridges were all influences from which aesthetic modernism drew much of its stimulus.Finally, modernism in the arts, music, literature, and architecture could not represent the world in a maven language. It is so diverse that understanding had to be constructed through the exploration of multiple perspectives.2.2 The Aesthetic of Modernism Music and AtonalityIn the twentieth century, concert halls became museums for musical artworks created over the last two centuries. Living composers at that time found themselves competing with music of the past. Composers sought to continue tradition while offering something new. They needed to make end about what to preserve and what to change. Hence, individuality took over conventionality causing that some composers accustomed tonality while others redefined it. Moreover, their composition turned to more interior(a) styles.Composers in th e early twentieth century faced the take exception of creating works worthy of performance alongside the classics of the past. The music they created had to be of high role in the tradition of serious art music. The music also had to have lasting value that rewarded performers and listeners through multiple hearings and study. Thus, these gave rise to young composers precious a more radical break from the past. They reassessed inherited conventions and did not aim to please their listeners on first hearing so as to quarrel perceptions and capacities (Burkholder, 2010c, Online).The major movement in Modernism came from serialism. Serialism is the process of broad a mathematical order to the way one composes music. The techniques used in these kinds of pieces have been termed such as twelve-tone, dodecaphonic, matrixes, tone rows, and others. The serialistic style of composition, most notably employed by Arnold Schoenberg, Alan Berg and Anton Webern, became so influential that the se composers are often referred to as the Second Viennese School (1903-1925). This band of composers and their students believed in the idea that the use of mathematical representations could restore order to the composition of music without having to rely on the techniques of the past.2.3 Schoenberg and Atonality in Piano MusicSchoenberg wrote Six gnomish Piano Pieces Op. 19 in 1911. This is an example of Schoenberg short refining works, but also represents his early free unkeyed piano masterpiece. The entire work, a total of six little pieces, each creation embodies its own characteristics. Schoenberg abandoned the traditional tonal harmony and took equal importance of every single notes. He showed a new way of musical organization in 20th century piano music.The sounds created were not ever heard before, but many times were not well received by audiences. However, he was championed for what he had invented and his influence spread. The emancipation of the randomness was Schoenb ergs concept of freeing dissonance from its need to resolve to a consonance. This indirectly creates a distinctive musical language of Schoenberg which reflects the composers deep inner affectionual meaning that is the aesthetics of expressionism.Schoenbergs new music not only breaks the stereotyped tonality which had ruled the music for more than thousand years, but also after breaking, he re-established atonal music to a new order the twelve-tone system. Hence the new aesthetics value in Modernism was created.There is no more tonal centre in his music which providing the core. There is also no in operation(p) relationship between notes to notes, chords to chords. Tonal harmony is avoided absolutely at it best. Thus as compared to the piano music in Romanticism, the melody in Schoenbergs music is no more impressive and not as beautiful as before, the melody cannot be even easily sung in the mind. Hence, the aesthetics towards Schoenbergs atonal music is ambiguous it can be beau tiful, sublime, or even the other sides. There are no more clear boundaries in appreciating the music.In Schoenbergs early tonal period (before 1908), the composer was greatly influenced by Brahms and Wagner especially in the late works of German Romantic music. They were full of flavour, and the chromaticism which Wagner had developed had reached the limit. Hence in order to express the music more meaning(prenominal)ly, Schoenberg had to destroy all the tonality systems and began to explore new expressive musical style. He was inspired by the Marxism and Expressionism movements at his time and the atonal works were then created. For instance, the performance of his famous melodrama Pierrot lunaire Op. 21 (1912) shows the work as despair, fear, tension, pain and other pathological mental status, while the emotional musical language is also exaggerated, distorted, and weird.In the first decade of 20th Century, Schoenberg successfully established a new concept of musical arts, and th us set another standard for the aesthetic values which are subject to a strong challenge at that time. The aesthetic concepts were changed partly because of the tremendous changes in social thinking. From a social speckle of view, the extreme fear, agitation, depression, and twisted soul were embodied in Schoenbergs atonal music. These actually were influenced by the serious economic crisis in Europe at that time, social conflicts, and disasters caused by the World War I. From the cultural point of view, the performance of this non-rational atonal music reflected the artists humanistic ideas where serious imbalance of sense and sensibility occurred in the Europe at that time. These let Schoenberg to open the verge of his inner creative power. Where tonality had reached its extreme limit, his creation of atonality frees the spirit and essence of expressionism, which contains a profound social content and psychological indigence in that anxious time.The Six Little Piano Pieces altho ugh are elegant and insignificant, it definitely reflects the creative thinking of Schoenberg the new Expressionist aesthetics. Hence in order to understand Schoenbergs atonal music, one should escape and avoid from any musical representation, but from the spiritual essence to feel him, learn from him.2.4 New Piano Playing Style in Modernism ProkofievIn the composition arena, Schoenberg particularly had made the emancipation of dissonnance. However, besides the changes in compositional techniques, how is the piano playing technique like in Modernism? Do pianists still equip the traditional technique or playing way to interpret the more radical modern piano music? Or maybe any new playing way formed?As the Romantic pianisism were striving for making incredible beautiful telling line on the piano, Prokofiev however developed new kind of piano playing style which is more percussive and ear sore on the first heard. This new type of piano playing not only expressive but also it carr ies some sorts of hidden messages the elements of irony and mockery. Hence, Prokofiev again wrote new aesthetics elements on piano playing in the Modernism.Debussy wanted to suggest a piano without buffetings. Prokofiev, Bartok, Stravinsky and Hindemith had the opposite view. Nonsense, they say in effect. The piano is a percussive instrument, and theres no use trying to disguise the fact. So lets face up to it and treat the piano as a percussive instrument. (Schonberg, 1964, p.389-90)From this quotation, Prokofiev together with his contemporaries were trying to argue that the piano could not be a singing instrument with superbly legato, as it is the nature of piano to have hammer effects which cause the piano to be percussive. Certainly, they all were bored with the beautiful, to a great extent wet sustained sounds from the piano pedal effect that went far beyond anything Chopin had dreamed of. They looked for another kind of new sound for which the piano can produce. So, they had to accept the fact that piano is a percussive instrument, the tones produced cannot be cheated or covered by the sustaining pedal. Harold Schonberg, a music critic of the New York Times, said about the playing of Prokofiev in a recitalYoung Serge Prokofieff, the pianist of steel, came raging out of Russia, playing his own music and startling the atomic number 74 with his vigor, his exuberance, his wild rhythm, his disdain for the trappings of romanticism. The anti-romanticism age was under way Prokofieff at the piano attacked the music with a controlled fury, blasting out savage and abstruse rhythms, giving or asking no mercy. He went about it most without pedal, and with a percussive, metallic-sounding tone. (Schonberg, 1964, p. 390)Noted that the anti-romanticism is also a key of Prokofievs piano playing style. Remember, in his time, the early 20th century piano performance practice, pianists especially like Alfred Cortot, Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, and others play expressi vely with great liberty. They took tempo rubato for granted and more aware of bel canto playing on the piano. This performance tradition was actually passed down from the time of Chopin and Liszt. The famous Russian pedagogue, Heinrich Neuhaus, who is the teacher of great pianist Sviatoslav Richter, said about Prokofievs piano playingEnergy, confidence, indomitable will, steel rhythm, powerful tone (sometimes even hard to bear in a clarified room), a peculiar epic quality that scrupulously avoided any intimation of over-refinement or intimacy, yet with a remarkable ability to convey true lyricism, poetry, sadness, reflection, an extraordinary human warmth, and feeling for nature (Shlifstein,1968, p.233)Although the views are subjective, these quotations give us clearer views of Prokofievs piano playing. Basically, Prokofievs tone on the piano was somewhat dry, but he still played with amazing assurance and freedom. Beneath his fingers the piano does not sing or vibrate. Hence, thi s evoked contradictory on the piano playing style should the pianists tone be deliberately violent or ugly, or should he strive for musical beauty? Definitely, Prokofiev had made a variety on the aesthetics of piano playing to the violently, ugly playing style on the piano. This playing style is obvious in his later piano sonatas, especially in the three War Sonatas.The Pianists ResponsibilitiesNo matter how the aesthetics of piano music changed, the relationships among composer, pianist, and listener are always inter-related. Pianist, as a medium between the creator and the beneficiary, carries an important role in a performance.For me, regardless of playing the pieces from which period or time to the hardly comprehendible extreme contemporary piano music, a piano performance is not just a musical performance, it contains rich and valuable aesthetics thinking. From the aesthetic view of Hanslick, he states that music only contains its sound movement and its musical form and stru cture. If that case, they should be the only essence of piano music without incorporating the personal feeling and emotion into it. However personally, as a pianist, I am more in favour to have music can express emotion and meaning other than just mere sound so as to communicate with the audience as well as to convey the composers messages and intentions.A piano music score is just a common carrier of written material, it does not make sense from a hearing point of view. However, if the score is being played by the pianist, it can express meaningful significance. So in a piano performance where the music is original and played, it creates a social consciousness relationship with its audience. It thus gives impact to the audience whether auditory, visually or emotionally. At the end, the pianist translates all the static musical symbols on the scores and liberates them into reality so as to make it into life.The aesthetic of piano playing is always based on the individuality of per formers as well as the commonality of playing facts. The provisions of piano playing is not absolutely clear, we can never play the music authentically. Hence it is the tendency that every pianists will show their understanding of the music based on their own aesthetical point of views. Together with their unique personality, different pianists play the same stories with different resonance. Their own unique playing style are irreplaceable and cannot be represented by other pianists because their characters of playing were accumulated continuously from the past creative performances. Their innovations always grow with their experience of playing.The commonality of piano playing however restricts and limits performers playing style. It is the style of composers, and the style of playing of that period, that merged into a common playing style. Pianists still have to follow the conventions. Hence pianists individuality cannot exceed the basic style prohibition or the commonality of a work in other words. For instance, each performers show different characters of playing on Beethovens Piano Sonata with their own treatment, but they still restrict themselves in a framework of typical Beethoven style, which is the general spirit and characteristics of Beethoven. In short, before playing the music with our own individuality and feeling, we must first respect to the composers