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Article ID: CBB001212428

The Temporalist Harp: Henri Bergson and Twentieth-Century Musical Innovation (2011)

Clelanda, Kent (Author)

European Legacy
Volume: 16, no. 7
Issue: 7
Pages: 953-967
Publication date: 2011
Language: English

Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Bergson and European Modernism Reconsidered”

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History of philosophy of science Music theory Music Musical scales; temperament Aesthetics 20th century Bergson, Henri Louis

The twentieth century was a time of dramatic change in the structure, language, and aesthetic purpose of music. Numerous factors came together that led the musical avant-garde toward new artistic paths such as atonality and aleatoricism (use of chance elements) in music, and a shift in the idea of what music should portray away from beauty toward truth, or from idealized to actualized. If the arts are a reflection of the philosophical and aesthetic spirit of the times, then an examination of prominent philosophical and aesthetic regimes of the time should reveal changes that facilitated the aesthetic and artistic innovations of the era. This article will examine the relationship between the philosophical and aesthetic writings of Henri Bergson and the affinities, and in some cases influences, they had on the development of two of the major musical innovations of the twentieth century. Specifically, Arnold Schoenberg's development of atonal compositional technique results partially from Bergson's focus on knowledge as a conveyor of truth, and John Cage's cultivation of aleatoricism as a compositional process arises out of Bergson's critique of nothingness as stated in Creative Evolution.

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Article Irema, Nazim (2011) Bergson and Politics: Ottoman-Turkish Encounters with Innovation. European Legacy (pp. 873-882). unapi

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