[Dixielandjazz] Modern Music and Pictorialism

[Steve Barbone]

Classical Music, like Jazz, (or vice versa) has undergone a dramatic change
in the original concept that there are certain "rules" that must be
followed. Note the below, excerpted from a classical music review.

Pictorialism? Think colors, or states of mind. What about "melody", well
perhaps that too is just a state of mind. :-) VBG.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Stirrings of Modernism, With Violence, Atonality and the Ballroom

NY TIMES - By ALLAN KOZINN - December 12, 2006

When composers shed their attachment to tonality, near the turn of the 20th
century, pictorialism was probably the last thing on their minds. But the
use of free dissonance, and the abandonment of the notion that key
relationships are governed by strict rules, gave them the power to create
vivid depictions of everything from the concrete (scenes and actions) to the
ethereal (states of mind). To the extent that such painterly composition was
possible before, it was stylized: Vivaldi¹s ³Seasons² unfold with tightly
prescribed harmonic relationships, and even avant-garde moments like the
chaotic opening of Haydn¹s ³Creation² resolve into comfortable tonality.

In his concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on
Sunday afternoon, and in a multimedia exploration of Bartok¹s ³Miraculous
Mandarin,² on Saturday evening, Pierre Boulez demonstrated how the limits of
musical expression have been decimated in the last century. Along the way he
showed that the Chicago Symphony, section for section, is in magnificent
shape. But that was almost a given, and it seemed beside the point.