OT, but… (dissonance & consonance in same piece)

[David Ward]

This is not a notation problem, but maybe someone on this forum might have something to say about this question I've just posed on Twitter (don't ask…).

I find that when contacting people about an opera I wrote without commission (foolish…), I feel compelled to justify and explain passages of extreme consonance (extreme consonance?) and harmonic simplicity, but I don’t feel any compulsion to justify the passages of dissonance and complexity.

Why?

[John Ruggero]

Because we live in a foolish, fadish age? But don't get me started...

[erelievonen]

Had you been living some centuries ago, the situation would likely have been quite the opposite.

[benwiggy]

Possibly because simplicity is seen as easy and unchallenging and complexity is thought of as difficult (or requiring greater skill). Whereas often the greatest skill is in knowing what to leave out, rather than what to add.

[John Ruggero]

Brahms once confessed to a young composer (I think it was Schenker) that he was ashamed of his early piano music when he compared it to that of Beethoven who knew exactly how to create the maximum effect with the simplest means, which in turn is why Beethoven admired Handel.

[ttw]

Some people fail to realize that neither consonance nor dissonance is the point of a piece. The varying contrast between the two is important. In a mild sense, one does not use consonance for its own sake but to oppose dissonance. Of course, consonance and dissonance are fuzzy concepts but the core concepts can be distinguished.

[OCTO]

Every composer has his/her personal taste, IF they would or would NOT have need to explain that.

Perhaps you feel natural doing your music "as it is", as you are inside of it, and if it is out of that frame, you feel a need to explain it.

I believe that the terms of "consonance and dissonance" is not as important as changing for instance the style of music. THAT is perhaps the case(?).

Having a D-major pure baroque piece that transforms into some dissonant Hindemith/Schönberg baroqueske style is less alien today than, let us imagine, having the same D-maj piece that changes into a romanian gypsy-like, 13/4 piece of the same key or tonality.