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Chapter 23: New Currents After 1945
Objectives

Chapter 23 describes the end of World War II (1945) as a "decisive turning point not only in world history, but in music as well." It traces the impact of the war's human, economic, and psychological costs, and describes the proliferation of contrasting styles, goals, and audiences in post-War music. It opens with a discussion of the devastation of atomic weapons and Penderecki's response (in his Threnody) seeking new procedures to reflect this event, and moves on to a discussion of further 1950s developments in the use of serial composition, including Babbitt's use of combinatorial hexachords and Babbitt's and Messiaen's extension of the procedure to other musical elements, in the technique labeled integral or total serialism. The chapter continues by contrasting with such tightly-controlled music the aleatoric or "chance" procedures explored by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pauline Oliveros among others (look at the Primary Evidence Box on p. 576), and new developments in electronic music in works by Cage, Xenakis, Berio, and Reich (be sure to look at the Composer Profile of Cage on pp. 574-75). This discussion is extended to include developments in synthesized, electronic, and computer music, particularly pioneered by Milton Babbitt. The chapter charts simultaneous developments in the 1950s and 1960s outside the university and concert hall: the rise of rock & roll and rock music, the revival of folk music as a topic for young urban singers and audiences, new developments in African-American jazz (most notably the "free jazz" of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and John Coltrane), and the "phase" or "process" music by Terry Rily, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass which eventually came to be called minimalism. The chapter closes with a section on "Postmodernism," a kind of "bookend" for the end of a century which had begun with the modernist revolution, examining the wide diversity of music styles, historical periods, influences, organizing principles, and philosophical bases that obtained at the end of the 20th century.

After reading this chapter you should be able to:

List reasons why World War II may be considered a watershed event in the 20th century, not only in politics, but also in music.

Explain the further developments--combinatoriality and integral serialism--pioneered by Milton Babbitt and Olivier Messiaen.

Describe the motives, procedures, and results of experiments in aleatoric music by John Cage and his students and followers.

Sketch the interaction of technology, popular culture, musical aesthetics, and individual composers' choice which expanded the parameters and usages of electronic music in the post-War period, and discuss further developments in the areas of synthesized and computer music.

Trace the parallel development of popular music genres (especially American) including rock, folk, and jazz styles.

Explain the motives, procedures, and results of the composers who came to be called "minimalists".

Provide a survey--an informed perspective--on the state of music at the end of the 20th century, drawing examples from a variety of genres and several different composers, and showing how music interacted with other cultural factors in the period.