MUSICAL SPACE
But now the repressed questions must be faced. Why was it desirable to denature tonality? Why was emancipation of the dissonance a necessary step? Unrelieved dissonance suited certain dreadful or turbulent moods, all right, of a kind then favored by many artists, especially German ones. But other moods—joy, serenity, contentment, anything “positive”—were seemingly put off limits. Were they no longer suitable for artistic representation? Did they merely reflect a “false consciousness” that it was the duty of true artists (“who do not turn their eyes away,” in the words of our epigraph) to unmask? And why was motivic saturation so desirable, especially when (as we have seen) its exacting compositional requirements could seem to contradict the “instinctive” creative freedom Schoenberg proclaimed?
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006015.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006015.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006015.xml
