Modernism, or Back to the Future

Look, I got inspired to write, with no mention of edges in sight!

So, I was thinking about Back to the Future this evening, and about how fabulous those movies were/are, and what a shame it is that I don't own them on DVD. A flood of nostalgia overtook me, and I wished for a moment that I could trade in my venerable Camry for a nice '82 production model DeLorean. Then I thought about how much the dang thing weighs (it was fiberglass and stainless steel, mostly), and how much trouble I would get into with the US Department of Propriety in 2009 for driving a car that was terribly fuel inefficient and probably ran on leaded gasoline anyway (No beer cans and eggshells to dump into a Mr. Fusion, say it ain't so!)

So the whole plot of the movies and the reality of the car got me thinking to our recent online and real-time discussions of Modernism and Ives, etc.

Let me first lay out some of the threads that have emerged thus far, so I can refer to and tie them together:

Modernism as defined by Taruskin is an affinity, if not a fetish, for the trends of the present in lieu of the traditions of the past.

Ives can't be considered a Modernist because he "is too nostalgic," that is, he referred too much (at least for Taruskin's taste) to music of the past.

Brahms was the first truly modern composer (Burkholder's assertion, yes?). Like the sterotypical non-musicologist, I know the quote, but not where it's from.

Brahms was modern: He wrote music about music. Whatever the hell "about" means, per our discussion Tuesday.

Schoenberg once said something to the effect of "I am a Conservative that was forced to become a radical."

So, here's where I'm headed:

First off, I agree with Jeffrey, we are doomed to a semester of running around in circles if we continue to argue the semantics of terms. American this, non-American that. A conversation between Ben and I produced the product of identifying American as a synonym for United Statesian, we all obviously knew what we (and the title of Gann's book) were talking about, but yes, the ambiguity of the term gave everyone license to argue the interpretation. Same here with Modernism. Taruskin means "modernism," an affinity with the present, not Modernism, a self-referential term used to allow a group of individuals to identify themselves based on their shared affinity for the present at the time that they were active as a collective unit (albeit a loose unit). Now, the term Modernism is still up to debate obviously, but is convenient as a label, not at all evoking the controversy of the term Minimalism, since Modernism does not go far in describing the musical process.

I think it is therefore possible for one to be modernist without being a Modernist, and but perhaps not vice versa, since the artistic credo of the Modernists required a modernist bent.

But here's the rub for me: all Schoenberg (and his mates) did was take the direction of art music from the past 40 years to its logical conclusion (and Boulez, Messiaen, and Babbitt, etc. to the next conclusion beyond them). They stopped using a key signature, they stopped using harmonic progressions. Later, they came up with a new method for determining the organization of pitches (obviously serialism vs. scales). But what's truly new? They still used the standard 12 pitches, wrote in traditional forms (Webern just figured out how to turn the exposition of sonata form into a single pitch), and used music as a form of expression (hence Expressionist). How is their music any different than Brahms in the sense of writing music about music, that is, music that came previously? It isn't, right? Hence why the Modernists gave Brahms an honorary induction as the first modern composer.

So, Mr. Taruskin, explain to me again why Ives doesn't get to count? Did he not use forms that were created before he got to them (sorry to burst any bubbles, but the wind band, as an evolution of the Marching Band, is WAAYYYY older than the symphony as an ensemble)? So isn't he writing music about music, and further, by quoting older hymn tunes and whatnot in his pieces, then treating (rather than subjecting?) them to development, etc, is he not, in a greater sense than the Modernists, writing music about music, since the subtext of his treatments is that vernacular and other musical traditions are just as fertile a ground for the compositional techniques that are in use in Western Art Music at the time? So, affinity for modern techniques (including some of his own devising), reference to music and forms of the past. Tell me again how he doesn't count?

I get nostalgic for DeLoreans, despite the fact that my contemporaries (fellow US-ians in 2009) would vilify me if I drove one regularly (but honestly, let's not kid ourselves, you all know you want one, too =). Ives was nostalgic for marching bands, and has likewise recieved some vilification. I like Back to the Future, it reminds me of my childhood, not to mention that Huey Lewis rocked it on Back in Time, though MJF did a lousy job of superimposing Eddie Van Halen onto Johnny B. Goode. Shoenberg is no different, to me. He wanted to take old forms (not to mention old ensembles) and bring them into the future, too. Whatever helps ya sleep at night. One of the fabulous things about the age we live in now is that we've made it ok for any and everyone to play in the sandbox. Ives=modernist, not Modernist, nostalgic, whatever. He's obviously a competant composer, so that's all there to it, as far as I'm concerned.

enough.