O pojęciu „muzycznego postmodernizmu”

The usual way of characterising the notion of “musical postmodernism” is set out by the following claims: (1) a postmodern musical work corresponds to the postmodern worldview; the notion in question is closely connected with the etymology of its name (“postmodern” means, in any case, “of an era after a modern one”); (3) the characterisation of the postmodern worldview (and, thus, of a postmodern piece of music) ought to conform to the beliefs of the classics of the postmodern thought; (4) the postmodern repertoire includes mainly the works created after about 1970; (5) the most important features of these compositions are euphony, aleatoric indetermination, polistylistics, and repetitiveness. The notion governed by the claims (1) – (5) is highly unclear and provides little help for understanding musical phenomena. In order to make it more precise, the basis of its definition should be modified and the three following claims accepted: (A) a postmodern musical work is a musical representation of the postmodern worldview; (B) the existing musical repertoire contains some postmodern works; (C) a correct definition of musical postmodernism should enable to qualify at least some of the given composi-tions as postmodern or not. The conditions (A ) – (C) and the analysis of the postmodern worldview seem to suggest that a postmodern musical work is such of a precariously integrated structure. A postmodern work represents the undermining (“deconstruction”) of the crucial idea of the com-posing practice: the piece of music arises from the integration of sounds, not of a simple aggregation of them. The musical “deconstruction” can emerge when some of the important portions a work or certain aspects of it exhibit larger degree of integration than the work as a whole. It seems that some compositions by Ives and the final movement of Chopin’s Sonata in B minor Op. 35 are postmodern in the sense pointed above.