The Revolt of the Composers

       Music as it was known, was changed forever. A new instrument appeared that excited some , and horrified others. The walls had been breached and change poured in. Composers immediately began composing, ecstatic over the increased dynamic range, the increased amplitude, and a wider range of notes. Teachers of the day either had to break down and buy one of the instruments, or fade into poverty as it became more and more popular.

  Of course Cristofori probably did not have any idea that his new "pianoforte " would shake up the whole music world. He was an entrepreneur selling a new instrument. Historians in the 1700's probably had a hard time trying to keep up with the 'new music' being written for the piano. When Cristofori first unveiled the piano in 1709, historians probably thought that it was a novelty that would wear off. That harpsichords and clavichords would always be the true instruments of music.

How many harpsichord teachers have you ran into in your lifetime?

How will historians treat the 20th century ?

Let's briefly look at the changes in music that led to the eruptions of our century.

  We have the advantage of being able to take a step back and take a broad survey of the changes in music over the centuries.

  Each stage or 'era' of the development has a "name" or categorization. The Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, Neoclassic, etc. eras have become neat packages that describe a style or form of music. But if we look at the beginning of each of these eras, we find composers who sought to expand, to break the rules placed on them. Each composer felt that the seams were bulging. That the music of their day had simply became exhausted. That repetition was all that was left for them. Or, maybe they could bend a rule here, add a new sound there...just something different. Of course, the starched music conservatives covered their ears and ridiculed them, their music was scoffed at, riots broke out at concerts. But musicians had always been creators, and if the world became to small for them, they created moons, and then stars and more.

  Beethoven added saxophone and gongs. Schubert began to modulate like a madman. Wagner raged war on tonality. Brahms waged war on Wagner. Debussy borrowed from the orient and gave birth to the whole tone scale. Music became increasingly louder (larger orchestras), or longer ( need I mention Wagner ? Or Satie who wrote Vexations, a single page of music that was to be played 840 times).  And of course Schoenberg championed the idea that the 12 notes of an octave could be played in any order (as long as you followed his rules).

 Finally all of these eras broke on the beach of the 20th century. The century of industrialization, machinery, science, the internet, wars that encompassed the whole planet, atomic power, space travel and pet rocks.

  Music always reflects the environment it is born in. It use to be that the only sounds around us were birds or wind or ocean. Now there is always the sound of cars, planes, radios, and lawn mowers. We have to concentrate to hear the birds. Our environment is noisy, disruptive, loud, and chaotic. So is the music being written. The music of the 20th century is being written by mathematicians and scientists and computer programmers. Record companies dictate what is considered to be good music. It is both an exhilarating and horrifying time for music. Where will it lead is in the next millennium?

 You have covered all of this in great detail in your music history classes, taught by instructors much more knowledgeable than myself. The music of our time has not only expanded the boundaries of musical form, it has practically blown it up. We will concentrate on electronic music, which is often casually mentioned, almost as an afterthought in a lot of music history books and classes. Yet it has provided musicians with a palette of sounds that have never been attainable before. Will the final outcome be music heaven? Or will the machines replace talent and inspiration to the point that music will fall back onto itself and succumb to the redundancy and mediocrity that the pioneers tried so desperately hard to break free from?

Only you students of the new music frontier can determine the outcome.

A Painting by Luigi Russolo-Italian Futurist-painter and musician

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Russcol, Herbert, The Liberation of Sound :  An Introduction to Electronic Music , Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1972  1) p._____