Abstracts of issue 9 (1997)

George Zervos

The Crisis of the 20th Century Music. Theme and Form in Contemporary Music

The crisis of contemporary music has become more and more intensive the last 20 years, a fact that is evidenced by the lack of interest from the part of the public as well as from the empty concert halls. It is important to stress, though, that this crisis is not a result of the publics inability to follow the musical developments of the 20th century music, but of the crisis of music itself, i.e., of the composing procedures themselves. The crisis of composing, however, is due to the abolition of tonality and the consequent dissolution of theme, which constituted not only the indispensable precondition of all compositional procedures but also the creator of forms of at least three centuries of musical creation.

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