Liturgical music and modernity

Abstract

In every music age there occurred a certain kind of modernity which brought about the development of musical language. However, modernity as understood these days occurred more or less at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in painting. It was initiated by the painting movement known as Dadaism. The artists who created this movement often followed nihilism. Dadaism turned into a new movement called surrealism. Its representatives were, among others, Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp. This movement was also characterised by artists’ rebellion against the traditional conception of beauty and art.
A similar rebellion in music did not follow until the end of the 1950s in the form of avant­‑garde tendencies, which brought about the breakdown of the traditional approach to music creation. At that time liturgical music maintained its traditional musical language, which showed results in the form of a bigger disintegration of the church and culture. In his book A song for the Lord Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger raises and analyses these phenomena, which makes the book a splendid title to solve those problems.An excellent lodestar for the authors of not only liturgical music is A letter to artists by saint John Paul II, in which the author raises the sense of artistic work. The letter is also a kind of a bridge between the creator of contemporary art and the church. One may also try applying certain modern composer techniques in liturgy, with particular consideration of the ones that concern concertina and musical scales (e.g. Messiaen scales). However, it should be done very carefully so as not to disturb experiencing liturgy by the faithful.