though at each stage, what is "simple" has its own complexities deeper than its predecessors, and harmonically, rock is like this too.
As things get complex and more rules get bent/broken/replaced by ever more rules to help manage the size of things, there is often a rebellion that starts over.
The fugues of the late Baroque (Bach) were simplified into the Sonata Form structure by his son. The progression of that went in and through Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and well into the Romantic era and the "great split" of Berlioz/Wagner (emphasis on harmony) vs Schumann/Brahams (emphasis on structure), unified into a single vision of the late Romantic by Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler.
Yet within this there were *3* cases of starting over and going back to a simplicity - Chopin, Satie, and Debussy. Yet if you were to listen harmonically to these three, what they do is still far more complex than anything Bach could have done...it just was a simplification of harmonic structure to get away from the complexities of managing a work on the scale of Mahler or (pre-atonal) Schoenberg who were both the cutting edge of the Romantic movement. Each would become an influence in Stravinsky's peak of his Russian period (1910 to 1920).
In 1923, it happened again - Schoenberg introduced the 12-tone system to help direct his atonal directions (Webern would take it to even simpler levels - constructing raw gems of works at their essence), while Stravinsky and Prokofiev would restore basic structures through neo-classical as a way to contain their polyphonic harmonic tendencies).
Each would progress into the 40s and 50s (Boulez and Stockhausen on one side, Shostakovich, Copland, and Hindemith on the other), until finally yet another break was needed to re-simplify things - and in came Minimalism (Reich and Riley, followed by Adams), and new experiments in culturally native pentatonic scales (Takemitsu and Rautavaara). What made these simple schools more complex than their predecessors was their acceptance of the element of chance into the music, influenced by Cage.
We're probably still 30-40 years from another great revolution in orchestral presentation again back to simplicity. The current threads haven't been fully developed yet, in my opinion, mostly because they are increasingly being cross-fertilized...just as Stravinsky's late period had done starting with Agon.
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timeasmymeasure
"Classical" music progresses this way, too
Date: 2013-08-16 12:16 am (UTC)As things get complex and more rules get bent/broken/replaced by ever more rules to help manage the size of things, there is often a rebellion that starts over.
The fugues of the late Baroque (Bach) were simplified into the Sonata Form structure by his son. The progression of that went in and through Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and well into the Romantic era and the "great split" of Berlioz/Wagner (emphasis on harmony) vs Schumann/Brahams (emphasis on structure), unified into a single vision of the late Romantic by Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler.
Yet within this there were *3* cases of starting over and going back to a simplicity - Chopin, Satie, and Debussy. Yet if you were to listen harmonically to these three, what they do is still far more complex than anything Bach could have done...it just was a simplification of harmonic structure to get away from the complexities of managing a work on the scale of Mahler or (pre-atonal) Schoenberg who were both the cutting edge of the Romantic movement. Each would become an influence in Stravinsky's peak of his Russian period (1910 to 1920).
In 1923, it happened again - Schoenberg introduced the 12-tone system to help direct his atonal directions (Webern would take it to even simpler levels - constructing raw gems of works at their essence), while Stravinsky and Prokofiev would restore basic structures through neo-classical as a way to contain their polyphonic harmonic tendencies).
Each would progress into the 40s and 50s (Boulez and Stockhausen on one side, Shostakovich, Copland, and Hindemith on the other), until finally yet another break was needed to re-simplify things - and in came Minimalism (Reich and Riley, followed by Adams), and new experiments in culturally native pentatonic scales (Takemitsu and Rautavaara). What made these simple schools more complex than their predecessors was their acceptance of the element of chance into the music, influenced by Cage.
We're probably still 30-40 years from another great revolution in orchestral presentation again back to simplicity. The current threads haven't been fully developed yet, in my opinion, mostly because they are increasingly being cross-fertilized...just as Stravinsky's late period had done starting with Agon.