By Don Robertson “And so ‘Emancipation of the Dissonance’ turns out to be ‘Expurgation of the Consonance.’ It is a unique and drastic application of the old pleasure-pain principle. In this instance, goes the implicit reasoning, if the pleasurable is totally removed, then the painful ceases to exist.”
In my ignorance I'd never heard of John Cage but he reminded me of some thinkers I like, so looked him up. Lo & behold - a direct link to Coomaraswamy.
I heard that harmonious music could swing people's emotions and possibly behaviour. Think of Germany in the 1930s. Atonal music had intention to move away from that. Verbunkos (recruiting) music, sometimes confused with Hungarian folk music had been employed to excite young men to get them to join the military. That latter, NZ composer Anthony Ritchie introduced to us on a radiio program. Now it's intersting to feel Anthony's approach to composition.
A commentary on Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale. I played in this piece and found the libretto and the music to be moving.
https://sites.williams.edu/engl117s16/uncategorized/the-tale-of-a-soldier-uncovering-identity-in-stravinskys-lhistoire-du-soldat/
Modernism… the death of everything that is true, good and beautiful. I venture to say that everything post Brahms is utter garbage.
Art as con-trick. Who has the courage to call it out?
In my ignorance I'd never heard of John Cage but he reminded me of some thinkers I like, so looked him up. Lo & behold - a direct link to Coomaraswamy.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1145989.pdf
I heard that harmonious music could swing people's emotions and possibly behaviour. Think of Germany in the 1930s. Atonal music had intention to move away from that. Verbunkos (recruiting) music, sometimes confused with Hungarian folk music had been employed to excite young men to get them to join the military. That latter, NZ composer Anthony Ritchie introduced to us on a radiio program. Now it's intersting to feel Anthony's approach to composition.