APOSTASY
It was still possible to shock, however, and Rochberg proved it. Nothing in the work of previous collageurs, including Rochberg himself, prepared audiences or critics for his Third Quartet, even though its continuity with his previous works is obvious in retrospect. Its first movement, marked Allegro fantastico; violente; furioso, raised no eyebrows. Fantastic violence and fury were the modernist stock in trade, and the music was based on harmonies that, while suitably dissonant, were altogether familiar: every chord in Ex. 9-3a is a composite “atonal triad” plus inversion, a harmony of stacked fourths and tritones that had been in widespread use since the early years of the century, and the melodic motive is an arpeggiation of the same harmony, equalizing the “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions in a manner long associated with Schoenberg and Bartók. This was a time-tested, everyday—hence conservative—“new music” gambit.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 After Everything." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009006.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 9 After Everything. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 8 Dec. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009006.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 After Everything." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 8 Dec. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009006.xml
