Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2006
Capstone Advisor
Prof. Theo Cateforis
Honors Reader
Not Listed
Capstone Major
Music
Capstone College
Visual and Performing Arts
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Humanities
Subject Categories
Music | Musicology | Other Music
Abstract
This thesis seeks to analyze the similarities between the electronic music and serialist movement in art music, and the folk revival, both of which peaked during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Each of these movements contained within them an avant-garde that positioned itself on the university setting to gain cultural terrain to combat what they perceived to be commercialized “kitsch.” The avant-gardes within each culture felt the ideologies they promoted were justified because they were authentic. Electronic music composers and serialists viewed themselves as aligned with the modernist tradition of art music, which promoted the progression of music through generations of innovative composers from Beethoven to Schoenberg. Folksong enthusiasts on college campuses promoted music, usually field recordings by an authority such as Alan Lomax, a collector from the Library of Congress, which they perceived to be true to actual folk tradition. The beginning of the thesis discusses the idea of authenticity, especially its formation as a social construct and its transmission into objects which are not genuine to the tradition, such as machines, recordings, and ideologies. Next, the histories of each musical society are analyzed to show how the avant-gardes within them utilized the university to develop their respective constructions of authenticity, and how major events created debate between the “authentic” and the “kitsch.” Finally, a brief comparative note shows the parallel ideological formations within each movement. Parallels between art music movements and folk music movements are rarely discussed in musicological circles, and this thesis aims to bring these parallels out, rather than restate clichéd musicological schisms.
Recommended Citation
Blake, David, "PARALLEL DICHOTOMIES: SERIALISM, FOLK SONG, THE UNIVERSITY, AND AUTHENTICITY" (2006). Honors Capstone Projects - All. 709.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/709
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