What Is Music?

According to Tame (1984, p.164), as early as 1936, the Russian
Association of Proletarian Composers was itself replaced by
Soviet Composers, an official organ of the government. This fact
proves, that music as art has also conceived seriously by politics
– as a beneficial tool for propaganda or vice versa – a dangerous
‘virus’ for the existing regime.
At that time western civilization experienced cultural explosion.
Fragmentation and diversity is a distinguishing characteristic of
the 20th century’s spiritual culture. The conscience of mankind
had lost the integrity of the global scene and thus the sense of
security, which was affected by disaster and the devastating
power of World Wars. Faith in morality and humanism was
undermined. That universal chaos awakened new philosophers,
psychologists, for example Sigmund Freud, who researched the
human instincts, or Henri Bergson, founder of intuitivism. Idea of
intuitivism is visible in art and music (surrealism, expressionism,
improvisation, jazz, and atonality) of the 20th century. There came
avant-garde and experimental music with its questions ‘what is
the meaning of music’, wave of hippies and their rock music. It
was the century, which saw the chaotic birth of all kinds of music.
Art and music divided into numerous genres as society divided
into numerous subcultures. “The philosophical outlook of most
composers today [20th century] is simply stated: the ideal is that
there should be no ideals, and the rule must be that there should
be no rules” (Tame, 1984, p.72)…