Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What is Avant Garde in music?

Even those who created what was called "Avant Garde" (AG) in their time had some interesting opinions.

Charles Mingus An Open Letter to the Avant Garde:
http://www.parafono.gr/htmls/mingus_openletter.htm

Are Yoko Ono and Claude DeBussy or Frank Zappa and Erik Satie cut from the same bolt of cloth? Lists of 19th century AG artists reveal true innovators. 20th century lists show artists who contributed dead ends in useful adaptations and dissonance as a "look at me" tattoo.

Can Classical music be AG when the terms themselves are contradictory?

“Avant Garde is French for bullsh#.”
George Harrison

Is the term Avant Garde now reserved for non-sonorous, unpleasant 20th century music that happens to be class affirming? The "I wear cheap black clothes so I must be cool" of classical? Is there such a thing as AG in the been-there-done-that 21st century?

"Lists of 19th century AG artists reveal true innovators. 20th century lists show artists who contributed dead ends in useful adaptations and dissonance as a "look at me" tattoo."

Okay -- I really don't feel this way. But I do wish to add 20th century composers to my listening list and y'all here in PiCo seem to operate well in semi-rage mode.

So whom do I add?

I think your post reveals a clear bias against music lacking stuff like melody, tertiary harmony, etc....at least your first does.

Would I consider Scriabin to be Avant-Garde? Yes - his music grew out of Chopin, into a language using quartal harmony, synthetic scales, and mystical influences.

Is Schoenberg part of the AG? Yes - he took the collapse of tonality and presented an organized way of composing using all notes equally.

Those are just two examples. But as a 21th century listener, it's easy to imagine that there was Chopin....then Brahms....Tchaikovsky..then boom, Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, etc.

Before Boulez....was Messiaen and Webern....who extended dodecaphony which was introduced by Schoenberg...who grew out of the late romantics, particularly Wagner ...who extended the harmonic language developed by Liszt...who was part of the romantic movement which came from Beethoven and the Viennese classics...who descend from an era which culminated in Bach.

I don't think there has been an avant garde in classical music for some decades now. What was once the avant garde is now the old guard.

The number of composers who composed avant-garde music in their earlier years, only to turn to something more 'congenial' (for want of a better word ) and 'melodious' is legendary.

To name just a few off the top of my head, Henryk Górecki, Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass......

Avant-garde means everybody hates it.

Nice post, and I agree about where Schoenberg fits in, but I'll disagree with the mention of Messiaen here. His famous "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" notwithstanding, Messiaen composed extremely tonal (if sometimes dissonant) music, and found atonal music "colorless", which, you know, from him was a real insult. I wouldn't group him with Webern, or draw his connection to Boulez too strongly (even if the latter studied with him).

-J

No bias at all - my music library spans 15th through 19th century. I sadly have only incidental knowledge of what was 20th century cutting edge but still considered "classic". I'm willing to start anywhere but would prefer working from subject-matter-expert knowledge rather than flailing around in the unknown.

Thanks for the many suggestions.

Eh, I found it attributed to both. John Lennon gets enough publicity so I chose Harrison.

So, is it or is it not what 1/2 of the Beatles agree upon? Why is there a need for this "AG" category?

Another reason I'm asking is I'm participating in Coursera's "Write like Mozart" and a significant number of participants (more than zero) wrote concern that classical rules will assault their modern/cutting edge/Avant Garde compositional abilities. I'm having brain cramps working out their reasoning. Perhaps listening to the genre will provide insight.

Sort of the "That guy who has to point out situational irony to everyone even though they all get it." of music?

Nobody's mentioned the Russian Avant Garde movement....it *seems* like it might be on topic...I don't know Roslavets created a sort of twelve tone music independently of Schoenberg and, naturally, came to a very different sound world...um...*very* much more interested in the matrices of sound and less so much about the horizontal preference of music that came before. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3A0FPSM0Amg#t=49 Mosolov, Zaderatsky, Lyatoshynsky, Ustvolskaya, Gubaidulina...some more Russians whose work I consider to be quite distinctive from each other, but that fall, *arguably*, into what you're talking about...um...also, Flagello, Mathias, Wolpe and oooh! Antheil etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4on2sedCNg Um...getting away from piano (I could go on but....pfft ), some *living* composers Saariaho, Georg Friedrich Haas, Toshio Hosokawa...these composers are pretty much the opposite of the plinkity plonk people expect of avant garde...oh! Hiller is dead, but his Portfolio is quite good if you can appreciate it (is that tautologous? ). Um...Schnittke's pretty good while we're at it...I'd rate his concerto for piano and strings as amongst my all time favourite concertos...if not my favourite! It's perfect...um....anyway, that's enough for you to be getting on with....if you want.... Hope this helps...
Xxx

Is this the same Schoenberg who wrote on music theory? I've read two of his books and enjoyed them very much.

These are new names to me -I'm going to be busy the next couple weeks finding music. Thank you.

One question: Aren't atonal phrases, by virtue of their inherent vertical dissonances, more an horizontal "stream of consciousness" in sound? .

You're very welcome You raise an interesting point...my gut instinct is: NO But if you class tonal phrases as a vertical stream of consciousness I'd be willing to reconsider See...Roslavets, for instance, came to the conclusion that it basically didn't matter where or even in what order pitches appeared within a span of time; um...if you think of a graph where X is horizontal tonality, if you will, Y is vertical tonality and Z is time, you can see that vertical dissonance is just the same as horizontal dissonance in a way...that is to say, in a major scale, we're used to III then IV sounding harmonious played *one after the other*, um, it basically fits...but is that right? If the sustain pedal is on, those sounds blur together anyway, right? So...what's the difference, after time T, if you play them one after the other or at the same time, assuming dynamicness is all sorted out neatly...um...I'm not saying I *definitely* agree, but it's worth considering A second thing to consider; not all atonal music contains dissonances; for example, if there's one monophonic voice there *can't* be a vertical dissonance. Also, one may argue that dissonance is an illusion (I certainly would); by Gregorian chant standards, pretty much *everything* is dissonance...um...Chopin was criticised in his time, I believe, for his dissonances, but I'm sure he would have found Scriabin to be yet *more* dissonant...*what* makes the minor ninth a dissonance and the perfect fifth not? Sure, the number of oscillations before each wave pattern matches up is less in the perfect fifth, but, um, at what point is "dissonance" achieved? 3 oscillations? 4? 10? Serialism is an intensely organised system of writing music; *much* more so than, I would argue, most of that which "tonal" composers produced. But you're just discovering this stuff...don't take my word for it; your own conclusions are all that really matter! ^_^ Um...I'm glad you're trying to expand your repertoire; too many write this type of music off after one or, more realistically, zero listens. One or two hears, maybe, but rarely listens, I find. So....good for you!

Yeah, I don't think I've heard a knowledgeable person use that term seriously to refer to any contemporary "classical" music activity lately. Considering the meaning of that term as it was used in the 20th century, who could be called "avant garde" now? The term itself implies that Music moves (or is dialectically destined to move) in a certain direction that the avants can be at the front of, a notion that was once taken seriously. Or, at the very least, it implies the existence of some sort of compositional mainstream, a cohort of cozy 60-year-olds holding all the power and writing in a similar style, against which the avants can rebel. I don't think that exists anymore either.

Good old Wikipedia has a a very brief article about the term that makes some interesting distinctions about it. For example, they don't include the merely experimental as avant-garde - it also must be intended to challenge "social and artistic values by provoking or goading audiences". Not sure I completely agree with that, but I do agree with the assertion in the article that John Cage and Harry Partch were avant-garde composers in their time.

When I first became aware of the term in the 1960's, it seemed to be somewhat more inclusive - basically it was anything that wasn't "establishment" that also seemed to be breaking new ground. At least that seemed true in general usage - the musicologists might have already had a stricter definition going.

A "classic" work of the avant-garde (I know, oxymoron) when I was young was Varese's Ionisation. Now, it seems almost quaint.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wClwaBuFOJA

Another piece that seemed avant-garde back then was Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8

Actually, there was tons of "way out" stuff I remember as being avant-garde that was being created by people like Kagel, Berio, Nancarrow, Stockhausen, Crumb, Oliveros, Brown, Feldman, Scelsi, Johnston, Ashley, Lucier, Young, Riley, et al.

The funny thing is that once the minimalists became the avant-garde, and then became mainstream, it seemed to me that the whole notion of "avant-garde" collapsed.

Nobody likes it when it comes out. Then, a century later, they say it's genius.

The reasons you give make sense, I think - there is no prevailing consensus that makes it possible for an avant-garde to even exist. Nor are there many really new ideas bubbling up - spectralism might be the most recent idea pursued by a decent number of composers that actually is fairly new (well, it was new not too long ago, anyway).