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Postmodernism

preceded by Modernism

Postmodernity Post-anarchism Postmodernist anthropology Postmodern architecture Postmodern art Postmodern Christianity Postmodern dance Postmodern feminism Postmodernist film Posthumanism Postmodern literature Post-Marxism Post-materialism Postmodern music Postmodern picture book Postmodern philosophy Postmodernism in political science Postpositivism Post-postmodernism Postmodernist school Postmodern social construction of nature Postmodern theatre Post-structuralism

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Postmodern music is either simply music of the postmodern era, or music that follows aesthetical and philosophical trends of Postmodernism. As the name suggests, the postmodernist movement formed partly in reaction to the ideals modernist. Because of this, Postmodern music is mostly defined in opposition to modernist music, and a work can either be modernist, or postmodernist, but not both.

Postmodern Classical music is not a musical style, but rather refers to music of the postmodern era. It bears the same relationship to postmodernist music that postmodernity bears to Postmodernism. Postmodernist music, on the other hand, shares characteristics with postmodernist art—that is, art that comes after and reacts against Modernism (see Modernism in Music).

Contents 1 The postmodernist musical attitude 2 Timescale 3 Composers cited as important to postmodern music 3.1 Classical 4 See also 5 Sources

The postmodernist musical attitude

Jonathan Kramer posits the idea (following Umberto Eco and Jean-François Lyotard) that postmodernism (including musical postmodernism) is less a surface style or historical period (i.e., condition) than an attitude. Kramer enumerates 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices." According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music:

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Timescale

One author has suggested that the emergence of postmodern music in popular music occurred in the late 1960s, influenced in part by Psychedelic rock and one or more of the later Beatles albums (Sullivan 1995, 217). Others have placed the beginnings of postmodernism in music generally at around 1930 (Karolyi 1994, 135; Meyer 1994, 331–32).

Composers cited as important to postmodern music

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010)

Classical

• John Adams (Kramer 2002, 13)
• Luciano Berio (Kramer 2002, 14)
• John Cage
• John Corigliano (Kramer 2002, 14)
• George Crumb
• Brian Eno
• Henryk Górecki (Kramer 2002, 13)
• Charles Ives (LeBaron 2002, 59)
• Zygmunt Krauze (Kramer 2002, 13)
• Bernard Rands (Kramer 2002, 14)
• Steve Reich (Kramer 2002, 14)
• George Rochberg (Kramer 2002, 13)
• Alfred Schnittke (Kramer 2002, 13)

See also

• Postmodernism
• 20th-century classical music
• 21st-century classical music
• Theodor W. Adorno
• Frederic Jameson

Sources

• Albright, Daniel. 2004. Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.
• Burkholder, J. Peter. 1995. All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowings. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Danuser, Hermann. 1991. "Postmodernes Musikdenken—Lösung oder Flucht?". In Neue Musik im politischen Wandel: fünf Kongressbeiträge und drei Seminarberichte, edited by Hermann Danuser, 56–66. Mainz & New York: Schott. ISBN 3795717728
• Heilbroner, Robert L. 1961. The Future as History. New York: Grove Press.
• Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822309297 (cloth); ISBN 0822310902 (pbk)
• Karolyi, Otto. 1994. Modern British Music: The Second British Musical Renaissance—From Elgar to P. Maxwell Davies. Rutherford, Madison, Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-3532-6
• Kramer, Jonathan. 2002. "The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism." In Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Aunder, 13–26. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-8153-3820-1 Reprinted from Current Musicology no. 66 (Spring 1999): 7–20.
• LeBaron, Ann. 2002. "Reflections of Surrealism in Postmodern Musics". In Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Aunder, 27–74. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-8153-3820-1
• Meyer, Leonard B. 1994. Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture, second edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52143-5
• Ortega y Gasset, José. 1932. The Revolt of the Masses. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31095-7 Online edition
• Sullivan, Henry W. 1995. The Beatles with Lacan: Rock ‘n’ Roll as Requiem for the Modern Age. Sociocriticism: Literature, Society and History Series 4. New York: Lang. ISBN 0-8204-2183-9.
• Varga, Bálint András, and Rossana Dalmonte. 1985. Luciano Berio: Two Interviews, translated and edited by David Osmond-Smith. London: Boyars. ISBN 07145282930714528293
• Wellmer, Albrecht. 1991. The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics and Postmodernism, trans. David Midgley. Cambridge [Massachusetts]: MIT Press. ISBN 0262231603