Visual Art in Music: Modern Musical Notation
Posted on September 14, 2004
Filed Under Art, Music |
The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and Northwestern University have partnered to present Pictures of Music (Flash Player required), an online exhibit covering musical notation in twentieth century compositions with some history of notation thrown in.
The historical section of the exhibit is only adequate; it includes some typos, just a quick gloss of the important times and events, and no examples. The meat of the exhibit is in the separate section containing the examples of modern notation. Excerpts from many scores are available to view. The display also includes video interviews and an in-depth analysis of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise.
In this type of modern music (the popularity of which has declined the last few decades), more interpretation is left to the performer. Rather than the traditional system where the composer identifies the pitch, duration and timbre of every sound, this type of “classical” music allows more creativity by the performer. The validity of this philosophy isn’t debated in this exhibit; the point is to show the creative ways composers have devised in order to communicate to the performer how and what to perform. The result is in fact visual art.
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