Avant-garde in music: features, representatives, history and interesting facts

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The 20th century is the era of bold experiments in art. Composers, artists, poets and writers were looking for new means that could help to display modernity in all its contradictions and contrasts, to reflect the turbulent events of their time in their work. In their creative search, they went in different directions, gaining like-minded people and followers. Thus, new avant-garde trends in art were formed.

Avant-garde innovation

There are many new trends in classical music. Composers such as A. Schoenberg, V. Shcherbachev, A. Mosolov and others experimented with tonality, which led to its destruction. Other composers turned their attention to the approach to musical sound, striving to create new forms of sound and new musical instruments, as well as using the sounds of instruments far from music (for example, a typewriter) in their compositions.

The composers of the "Novoven school" created new techniques and principles of composition (dodecaphony, serial music). The dominant place of the melody is questionedin the work. Rhythm comes to the fore. The avant-garde in classical music sweeps away all foundations and rules, establishing new ones.

For example, composers F. Glass, S. Reich and T. Riley used the technique of primitivism - imitating the sounds of nature, striving for naturalness and simplicity.

The avant-garde in the music of the American composer J. Cage is manifested in the fact that the process of composing a work is based on the principle of "dice": sounds are unforeseen accidents, uncertainty.

Thus, the avant-garde in music is represented by specific genres: musical expressionism, sonorism, serial music, aleatorics and many other areas.

Specific music

"Concrete" is a current, a style of avant-garde music that replaces musical sounds with various noises (acoustic and natural effects). For the first time, the technique of concrete music began to be used in his work by the French composer Pierre Schaeffer. One of his most famous works is "Symphony for one person", which presents a certain sequence of sounds, reminiscent of a soundtrack for a theatrical performance.

The avant-garde in Schaeffer's music manifested itself in the fact that he sought to free himself from the instrument and the performer. It was his work that served as the beginning of the creation and development of electronic, and later computer music.

Expressionism

The avant-garde in the music of the 20th century is also represented by expressionism. This trend in the musical field has received the mostdevelopment in Germany and Austria. The largest representative of this trend is Arnold Schoenberg. His music is filled with deep psychologism. Despair, powerlessness, horror, an affective state find a way out in the writings of Schoenberg.

The Expressionists were against contemplative and passive art, leading a person into an illusory world, calling not to try to escape from the problems of real life. The melodies of their works are intermittent and broken. Dissonant harmony prevails.

The innovation of expressionist composers is the serial approach: 12 sounds sound in any sequence, but are not repeated until the rest are sounded. This approach is also referred to as "dodecaphony". Expressionist music is characterized by atonality.

Expressionism is close to romanticism in that it also strives for spiritual sensuality and the expression of human experiences. Expressionism includes the works of A. Schoenberg, A. Webern, A. Berg, G. Mahler, I. Stravinsky, B. Bartok, the late works of R. Wagner.

Pointillism

Anton Webern, one of the founders of the New Vienna School, began to use the technique of pointillism (dotted writing) in his writings. In it, much attention was paid to separately sounding sounds. The pointillism technique was used in their work by composers K. Stockhausen, L. Nono, P. Boulez.

Sonoristics

In avant-garde music, sonoristics occupies a significant place. The sound basis of this current is timbrecomplexes, sound masses (“sonors”), undivided in time. Sonor is a special coloring of the sound, which has a certain aesthetic impact. When perceived, the pitch of an individual sound loses its expressive power. Some works by K. Penderetsky, V. Lutoslavsky, S. Gubaidulina, A. Eshpay, K. Stockhausen are considered the brightest examples of sonorant harmony.

Aleatorica

Aleatorica ("dice") is a special compositional technique that involves a random combination of sounds. For example, instead of composing music, an aleatoric composer throws dice, translating the resulting numbers into notes. Or splatter paint on sheet music. Such composers were V. Lutoslavsky and P. Boulez.

Music of the Russian avant-garde

Russian avant-garde artists of the early 20th century were Alexander Scriabin with his original harmony and technique, Nikolai Myaskovsky and Vladimir Rebikov, as well as other innovative composers who embodied the aesthetic ideals of symbolism in their work.

Some composers abandoned the major-minor system, the usual form and structure of a piece of music. They began to look for new harmonies, timbres, rhythms. Composers N. Obukhov, L. Sabaneev, I. Vyshnegradsky and others gave the theoretical basis for original pitch systems.

Music of the new time

Some composers of the young Soviet state developed in their work the idea of replacing the melody with noises. Noise music is a trend that was conceived as as close as possible to the needs and life of the proletariat. A remarkable example in this area is Avraamov's "Symphony of Horns", which is based on a combination of various sounds of the industry: these are engine horns, locomotive whistles, pistol shots.

The line between high art and "lower art" was practically destroyed by the avant-gardists. Composers counted on a wide audience, bringing music closer to the life of workers, often taking away from musical art its highest goal: to elevate minds beautifully.

Some works of the avant-garde era have already lost their aesthetic value and topicality, remaining interesting only for musicologists. But there are also many works that have entered the treasury of world classics and have earned recognition from both the contemporaries of the composers who created them, and their descendants.