Chapter Fifteen - Rosen’s Modernist Haydn

Summary

Modernism in music emerged roughly between 1890 and 1914, when it wasassociated primarily with expressionism, the avant-garde, and the rejectionof methods of tonal, formal, and rhythmic organization that had long beentaken for granted. During the second and third quarters of the twentiethcentury it enjoyed a dominant position, marked by increasing consolidationof musical techniques (and the necessary accompanying theories) andincreasing prestige among critics and scholars. Around 1970 or so, however,new and incompatible trends began to emerge, including a withering away ofdogmatic serialism; minimalism, “downtown” style, andnon-Western influences; and altogether an increasingly pluralistic scene.For better and worse, these trends were eventually gathered under thesloganeering but apparently inescapable banner of“postmodernism.” Today, modernism is no longer regarded as theinevitable goal of progress in music, as was believed by its votaries duringits heyday. It has taken its place as no more, but also no less, than one ofthe major style periods in the past history of music,following the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Romantic, and preceding thepostmodern. Notwithstanding the vast literature, there has been as far as Isee relatively little acknowledgement that in the arts postmodernism is notmerely a sensibility, but a historical period—the one we are livingin.

I inflict this potted history on the reader because it is relevant to mytopic. Charles Rosen, born in 1927 and coming of age after World War II, isan important modernist figure in his own right. His significance in thisrespect goes beyond his obvious roles as a performer of contemporary musicand collaborator with major composers (for example Pierre Boulez and ElliottCarter) and as an influential writer on twentieth-century music (for examplehis classic Arnold Schoenberg). Indeed his entiresensibility (as far as I see) is modernist, whatever his subject, andexhibits all the virtues—and some of the limitations—of thatorientation. I shall explore this topic with respect to his writings onHaydn, in conjunction with other important recent studies of Haydn’smusic.

During the twentieth century, Haydn’s reputation exhibited complex(and therefore interesting) relationships to the sensibility ofmodernism.