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International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL?
CLASSIFYING CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
JOAQUIM M. BENITEZ
Hiroshima
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54 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 55
This opinion and the three propositions I have drawn from Meyer's
thought will help us to understand better his division of contempo-
rary music.
Meyer divides the music of the 20th century into three main aes-
thetic positions or tendencies. On page 222 of his book he presents
a diagram that is helpful in clarifying his division. For the sake of
expediency, let us present it here in a simplified form:
Aesthetic
emphasis: Content Form and Process Materials
(Commercial Art)
Aesthetic
position: . . .Traditionalism. .... .. .Transcendentalism ..
. . . .Formalism. ....
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
56
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ?
57
tivates only one style and tries to find coherence in his expression
through the mastery of the musical style which he judges is closest
to his own mode of feeling (17:174).
Formalism emphasizes form and process, and it will be for Meyer
the dominant aesthetic ideology in the coming stasis, although with-
out displacing either traditionalism nor transcendentalism (17:221,
235). The formalist somehow reacts against the >expressivity,< of
traditionalism. >The composer's chief aim is not to express his in-
dividual personality but to present an impersonal objective view
of the world or general principles of order< (17:155). For him a
work of art is an artificial construct whose validity is internal or
contextual. To create a work of art >)is an act of objective, imper-
sonal discovery< (17:235). And the resulting work of art )>has its
complete meaning within itself< (17:151). By stressing this concept
of art as objective and impersonal, formalism relates the artist to
the scientist. )>The artist, like the scientist, )>discoversa; and he no
longer >creates< by expressing himself; he constructs. Music be-
comes allied to formal logic or mathematics<< (17:157).
Transcendentalism, by emphasizing materials (that is to say, the
concrete sound experience), reacts not only against the 19th cen-
tury beliefs about individuality, expressivity and goal-orientation of
traditionalism, but also against the >objectivity<( of formalism. For
the transcendentalist, the constructs of formalism misrepresent and
distort our understanding of the world. >What are truly real, and
really true, are concrete, particular sense experiences<, (17:159).
When perception is ordered in terms of abstract, conceptual cate-
gories (sound parameters, structures, form,...) the concrete im-
mediacy of sounds is obscured. Sounds are valuable in themselves.
Emphasis is placed on the significance and reality of immediate
sense experience, that is to say, on materials. In Cage's words: )>To
liberate sounds from abstract ideas about them and more and more
exactly to let them be physically, uniquely, themselves,< (3b:100).
Consequently, we are not to listen to the relationships among the
sounds presented, but just to the sounds as sounds - as individ-
ual, discrete, objective sensations (17:73).
The resulting music is antiteleological: >The world of extreme
transcendentalism is one without causation or purpose, structure or
time, (17:227). Or, to use a typically Cagian statement: >,All activi-
ties fuse in one purpose which is no purpose(< (3b:10).
II
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
58
account the fact that he developed it more than ten years ago (about
1965-66), he should be considered one of the first to have tried to
explain in a very inclusive manner the phenomenon of contempo-
rary music.
But in spite of its merits, there are problems with his theory
that I would like to take up. Here I will limit myself to the one
connected with his ends-means continuum.
Meyer states that in the past )aesthetics and criticism were du-
alistic. On the one hand were the materials and form of a work of
art, the means; on the other hand were subject matter, expressions
and meaning, the end or goal( (17:210). He is historically right but
theoretically wrong. He is historically right because for more than
a century criticism has moved with the current of ,content, and
)>form( as the dualistic opposing sides of a musical work. Meyer is
theoretically wrong because, although many people have repeated
it, the opposition between ,formalistic(( and ,content, concepts is
not convincing. The real dualism is not so much between ,formu
and )content(, but rather between ))form(( and ))material((. As Ivo
Supicic has stated:
This statement might become one of the keys for justifying many
of the attitudes of modem composers. According to Meyer, the mu-
sic of the past or its modern counterpart (traditionalism) opposed
form and material (the means) with content (the ends, the )repre-
sentational significance< (17:213). Contrary to Meyer's analysis I
would support Supidic: >In music theory and aesthetics we are jus-
tified in speaking of the dual nature of matter and form, and of
musical content only as their synthesis (26:158).
I will not repeat here the definitions of matter, form and content
that Professor Supi6ic has so clearly set forth in his article. I wish
only to emphasize he uses the word >)form<( in a broad sense, refer-
ring not only to the architectonics of a work but also to its temporal,
melodic, rhythmic, etc., structures (26:150). I would go further and
say that form refers not only to consciously attained structures, but
also to any formation of the material, however unconscious or
automatic.
The aesthetic emphasis of )formalism, on form, and ))transcen-
dentalism, on materials as explained by Meyer is still quite valid,
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 59
* *
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
60
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 61
Acco* *tra
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62 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
* *
III
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ?
63
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64 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
IV
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 65
has nothing to do with the fact that avant-garde music is not widely
accepted and that, comparatively speaking, only a very small num-
ber of its composers are popular even with a very limited public.8
Only for the sake of completeness will I mention here the first
two characteristics of the avant-garde. They have been studied be-
fore, and I will limit myself to applying to music what Kirby has
said about the avant-garde in general in his excellent study.
We use )>avant-garde<( for want of a better term; it is the term
most commonly used of modern coinage to indicate this musical
phenomenon; and, thus, it conveniently denotes a way of conceiving
music common to many coiaposers. Still another reason is the fact
that avant-garde >refers specifically to a concern with the historical
directionality of artc (13:18). Historical directionality gives meaning
to the term avant-garde. >Some artists may accept the limits of art
as defined, as known, as given; others may attempt to alter, expand,
or escape from the stylistic aesthetic rules passed on to them by
the culture< (13:19). This is independent of the intrinsic value of the
works produced. As in any tendency, there is bad, mediocre, and
good avant-garde music. Because this term is not connected with
value, but with the historical directionality of art, this tendency to
advance must refuse to accept at face value what has been done up
to the present moment. This implies a commando-like mentality, a
certain elitism, and an ever continuing search for the new. The ever
continuing search for the new is the second distinguishing feature
of all avant-gardes.
)>What characterizes avant-garde is the myth of the new<< (20:214).
>The first quality of avant-garde art is newness<.9 In contrast to
other cultures, Western culture has always tended to consider innova-
tion and novelty as positive values. As Meyer points out, the sources
of stylistic pluralism in music became more acute around the
last decade of the 19th century, when )>works as diverse in spirit and
inflection as Debussy's L'Apres-midi d'un faune, Strauss's Ein Hel-
denleben, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Czar Saltan - though all were root-
ed in the style of traditional tonality< (17:182)coexisted in Europe,
and the desire for the new, the different, became of the propelling
forces for musical creation. The general acceptance of the term
avant-garde in criticism as meaning the attitude of the artist who is
8 It is interesting to note that many avant-garde compositions of the past
have become, overnight, ,acceptable( music. Let us recall the scandal that
followed the premiere of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps in Paris in 1913
and its popularity today. Or, perhaps, an even more revealing case would be
that of Schoenberg. During his lifetime none of his works were really accept-
ed by the general public. Nowadays, even Karajan conducts them! To para-
phrase Bernard Shaw, it is the fate of many avant-garde composers >to pass
from unaccteptability to acceptance without an intervening period of appre-
ciation( (As quoted by John ASHBERY, >The Invisible Avant-Garde,< in
(12:183).
9 Harold ROSENBERG, ))Collective, Ideological, Combative,, in (12:85).
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66 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
truly modern and in the vanguard acting against the forces of aca-
demia and conservatism in art coincided historically with these in-
novations and the resulting pluralism.10
I refer the reader to Kirby (13:37-62) for a detailed study of the
implications the concept of novelty brings up, and for an under-
standing of the challenge they offer to classical aestlhetics, as they
are the means for expanding our aesthetical outlook. I will only in-
sist here that novelty is not in itself a value, but only a condition for
a work being considered avant-garde, an element of the total aesthet-
ic experience which the avant-garde very much emphasizes. >A work
of art that is created today is not good because it is new, but it can-
not be significant unless it is new< (13:61).
I would like to add, as an intrinsic reason for this search for the
new, that avant-garde composers tend, as a whole, to fix in notation
their compositions. As Jean-Charles Francois has observed: >La mu-
sique occidentale est fixee par la notation, de maniere qu'on est bien
oblige d'ecrire toujours quelque chose de nouveau sous peine d'etre
de plagiat. C'est la la condition de l'avant-garde, (10:75). In societies
where music has an oral rather than a written tradition, the feeling
for novelty is less pronounced, and the concept of avant-garde does
not exist.
The avant-garde's fixing its works in notation highlights its most
important characteristic, what we might call ))intentionality<(. Inten-
tionality refers to its desire to control the sound result and to its
respect for the >work of art.(( The perspective of the avant-garde, of
course, adapts these essentially traditional concepts.
We will develop the implications of indeterminacy in music as we
proceed but let us say here that, when the avant-garde composer
uses indeterrninacy as a compositional device, he does so in such
a way that the concept of the >work of art<< (however transformed)
and his overall intentionality and control are completely dis-
rupted. Despite the disruptions, the composer is still considered re-
sponsible for the end product.
Many quotations from the enormous literature on this problem
could be introduced here. Let us choose quotations from only two
of the most representative composers of the European avant-garde:
Boulez and Stockhausen. Boulez wrote to Cage in 1952: >By temper-
ament I cannot toss a coin... Chance must be very well control-
led. II y a suffisamment d'inconnu.,1' And when the same year he
went to the United States for the first time, the pianist David Tudor
recalls that, after having played Cage's Music of Changes in front of
Boulez, >he was unsympathetic to the idea of chance. He responded
politely but it was clear that he was more than hostile to the loss
of control. <12
10 >The notion of the avant-garde replaced, around 1885, that of moder-
nity.< Frangoise NORA, )>The Neo-Impressionist Avant-Garde,< in (12:55).
11 As quoted by Peyser (19:82).
12 Ibid.
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 67
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ?
69
Sh6no in a recent study (24) has succeeded where others have failed
in studying the use of chance in all its implications.16 Therefore, for
the following classification, I will use his basic ideas, simplifying
and amplifying them with my own.
Shono bases his classification on the points of transition within
the process of practical music making. Thus, he indicates four times
when chance results. Taking the normally accepted scheme of COM-
POSER-SCORE-PERFORMER-SOUND RESULT-LISTENER,
each hyphen indicates a point at which chance occurs in the process.
In type 1, chance occurs between composer and score. This type,
in which chance participates in the compositional process, is what
Cage called in the early fifties ,)chance operations,. At that time
Cage used two kinds of chance operations. He tells us that to attain
>a music free from one's memory and imagination(( (3a:10), he used
chance operations )>some derived from the I-Ching, others from the
observation of imperfections in the paper upon which I happen to
be writing(( (3a: 17).
Of course, many other methods are possible, and Cage himself
has used others. But every method should be concerned with some
kind of pre-compositional use of chance. The distinguishing feature
of this first type is its reserving chance as a compositional method,
and thus the >composed, result may be written down on a score
in normal notation. The score can be played in a >traditional( man-
ner, by the performer, and there is no question of indeterminacy
as regards the sound result. In other words, in type 1, the concept
of the >)univocityc( of the music work (its identity or near identity
throughout different performances) is not destroyed, although its
intentionality (the piece of music as an intentional act of the com-
poser) is.17
In type 2, chance occurs between score and performer. Cage wrote
in 1958: ,More essential than composing by means of chance oper-
ations, it seems to me now, is composing in such a way that what
one does is indeterminate of its performance< (3a:69). Accordingly,
the composer has to leave the score in some way indeterminate. In
this case the resulting )>work( is not only >>unintentional< from the
composer's point of view (what Meyer called antiteleological, 17:
77), but also has lost its univocity, since it can be different at each
performance. In extreme cases, the >identity, of the work is im-
paired.
To effect the second type of chance, the composer has to leave
some details, some choices, or even some >compositional responsi-
bility( to the performer. Naturally, the amount of responsibility a
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 71
* *
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72 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ?
73
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74 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ?
75
REFERENCES
1. BOULEZ Pierre,
a) Penser la Musique Aujourd'hui, Editions Gonthier, Paris 1964.
b) Releves d'apprenti, Editions du Seuil, Paris 1966.
2. BROWN Earle, )>Form in New Music(, Darmstddter Beitrage zur
Neuen Musik, Schott, Mainz 1966, X, pp. 57-69.
3. CAGE John,
a) Silence, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1967.
b) A Year from Motnday, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown
(Conn.) 1970.
4. CHANAN Michael, )Music and its Criticism(, Art International,
James Fitzsimmons, Lugano, (May 1970), XIV/5, pp. 23-25.
5. CHARLES Daniel, ))Entr'acte: 'Formal' or 'Informal' Music?a,
The Musical Quarterly, January 1965, Vol. LI, No. 1.
6. COTT Jonathan, Stockhausen. Conversations with the Composer,
Simon and Schuster, New York 1973.
7. ECO Umberto, >>Pensee Structurale et Pensee Serielle,, Musique
en Jeu, 1971, No. 5, pp. 45-56.
8. EIMERT Herbert, >)The Composer's Freedom of Choice,< Die
Reihe, 1959, 3.
9. FOCILLON Henri, Vie des Formes, 6? ed., Presses Universi-
taires de France, Paris 1970.
10. FRANCOIS Jean-Charles, ))Universite et Musique,, Musique en
Jeu, 1976, No. 23, pp. 72-81.
11. FUBINI Enrico, Musica e linguaggio nell'estetica contempora-
nea, Einaudi, Torino 1973.
12. HESS Thomas B. and John ASHBERY, eds., Avant-Garde Art,
Collier Books, New York 1968.
13. KIRBY Michael, The Art of Time. Essays on the Avant-Garde,
E. P. Dutton, New York 1969.
14. KOSTELANETZ Richard, ed., John Cage, Praeger, New York
1970.
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
76
Sazetak
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AVANT-GARDE OR EXPERIMENTAL ? 77
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