In many opinions of this thread I see this terms too easily bounded:

Modern music = dissonance = ugliness = rough modern world.

A little comment on the subject.  What is called "emancipation of
dissonance" in XX century music was precisely that:  an emancipation a)
from its traditional tonal bounds, b) from its traditional meanings.
Dissonances were used by the new composers to build new kind of musical
structures, and not for denotating emotional (or extramusical) contents.
I know that some works od Berg could be the exception to this; however,
the association between dissonance and "weltschmerz" is purely romantic:

major 2nd       =  hmg..
minor 2nd       =  hmmf..!
dominant 7th    =  ouch!
major 7th       =  argh!
dimin. 7th      =  ooouuchh!!!

The listener of the works of Schoenberg, Webern, Varese etc.  was expected
to enjoy the dissonance as a musical entity in itself:  by its own
qualities of sound, its own texture and its own structural possibilities.
I. e. he was expected to find the intrinsec beauty of a minor second.
So, the link between "all our contemporary sufferings" and the "ugliness"
of dissonant intervals deserves, at least, some critical examination.

Pablo Massa
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