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Audience reluctance in the face of twentieth century avant-garde music

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Frova, Andrea
Copyright Year	2012
Abstract	Some fraction of the avant-garde music of the last century has met with little interest among many classical music goers, if not outright rejection. Such is the case of 12-tone serial music, aleatory music, and their developments (e.g., the Darmstadt School). While a small circle of people does appreciate these musical genres, the fact remains that 100 years after the invention of serial music by Schoenberg and his pupils, a large gap has opened between composers and listeners. We discuss here the possible causes of such a musical disconnect in terms of the difficulties the brain encounters (unless suitably trained) when it processes sound structures that are deprived of the basic elements of classical harmony—melody, consonance/dissonance dichotomy and rhythm. In the light of modern psychoacoustic and the neurosciences, classical canons prove to be inherited concepts rather than culturally acquired. This appears in the morphology of the train of neural pulses reaching the cortex: those triggered by music that is classically consonant are neat, periodic and recognizable, while those generated by the kind of music that does not appeal to the audience are confused and ambiguous, approaching those of random noise. The outcome is that the “musical” discourse appears void of syntax and context; it does not engage memory and does not lead to anticipation, consequently appearing to be of no significance to those who lack the indispensable professional training. And violating Stravinskij’s statement that music must be liked on its own, namely that its appreciation must stem from straight and simple listening—repeated if necessary—without need for any additional mental effort by the listener, or clarifications and declarations of intent by the composer.Una certa parte della musica d’avanguardia del secolo scorso ha suscitato scarso interesse nel vasto pubblico della musica classica, quando non un rigetto totale. Si tratta della musica seriale dodecafonica, della musica aleatoria, e delle loro derivazioni (tipo sviluppi di Darmstadt). Benché esista una ristretta cerchia di estimatori di questi generi musicali, è un fatto che a cento anni dalla introduzione della dodecafonia ad opera di Schoenberg e allievi, tra compositori e ascoltatori si è prodotta una grossa spaccatura. Vengono qui discusse le possibili cause di tale sconnessione in termini della difficoltà incontrate dal cervello (che non sia debitamente istruito) nell’elaborazione di strutture sonore private degli elementi basilari dell’armonia classica – cioè melodia, dicotomia consonanza/dissonanza e ritmo. Alla luce delle odierne analisi psicoacustiche e neuroscientifiche, i canoni classici si dimostrano concetti ereditati più che acquisiti per via culturale. Ciò si manifesta nella morfologia del treno di impulsi neurali che raggiungono la corteccia auditiva: quelli generati dalla musica che corrisponde alla consonanza classica sono nitidi, periodici e riconoscibili, laddove quelli prodotti dalla musica respinta dal vasto pubblico sono confusi e ambigui, analoghi a quelli del rumore casuale. La conseguenza è che il discorso “musicale” appare svuotato di sintassi e di contesto, non impegna la memoria e non suscita l’aspettativa, risultando di conseguenza non significativo per chi è sprovvisto delle dovute basi professionali. E contravvenendo alla celebre asserzione di Stravinskij che la musica debba piacere in sé e per sé, il suo apprezzamento dovendo nascere dal diretto e semplice ascolto, eventualmente insistito, senza necessità di sforzi mentali volontari da parte dell’ascoltatore, né di chiarimenti o dichiarazioni di intenti da parte del compositore.
Starting Page	289
Ending Page	293
Page Count	5
File Format	PDF
ISSN	20374631
Journal	Rendiconti Lincei
Volume Number	23
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	17200776
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Milan
Publisher Date	2012-04-17
Publisher Place	Milan
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Contemporary music 12-tone music Neural processing of music Origin of consonance/dissonance Environment Life Sciences Earth Sciences Biomedicine general History of Science
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
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4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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