Transcript new sounds - Deans Community High School

th
20
Century
Music
INTRODUCTION
The 20th century period (the music of today!) was preceded by the
ROMANTIC PERIOD
(1810 – 1900)
As with previous movements to new periods of music, there were those
Romantic composers who continued to compose in a Romantic style
while trying to combine the new elements of the 20th century period
The composers concerned with this continuation of Romantic expression
became known as composers of the POST-ROMANTIC period e.g.
Mahler and Wagner
The 20th century period is mainly concerned with EXPLORATION and
EXPERIMENTATION. This meant that composers were largely
interested in discovering NEW SOUNDS and NEW TECHNIQUES and
NEW TRENDS. Because of all these new discoveries, we are faced with
numerous different musical styles to investigate.
ROMANTIC PERIOD
1820-1910
MANY STYLES
EMOTION
OPERA
Brahms
ADVENTURE
IMAGINATION
Schubert
POLITICAL REVOLUTION
Chopin
ARTIST AS INDIVIDUAL
EXPRESSED FEELINGS
GROWTH OF ORCHESTRA
Wagner
NEW INSTRUMENTS
Mahler
NEW SOUNDS
Some important new trends and techniques
Impressionism
Atonality
Sprechgesang
Serialism
Electronic Music
Neo-Classicism
CHARACTERISTICS
In order to identify the main characteristics of the 20th century period you
need to listen to FOUR main aspects
MELODY (the tune)
HARMONY (the key)
RHYTHM (the pulse)
TIMBRE (the texture)
Within these 4 main areas you should be able to identify the following characteristics
Melody
Harmony
Rhythm
Timbre
Wide Leaps
Note Clusters
Syncopation
Striking
Chromatic
Dissonance
Cross Rhythms Col-Legno
Glissandi
Atonal
Polyrhythms
Muted
Ostinato
FlutterTongueing
Total Lack Of
Melody
Extreme
Contrasts
NEO-CLASSICISM
A term that means the New Classicism. As the word
suggests, a composer writing in this style may form his own
musical ideas from traditions of the past, or take a classical
composer as his role model.
Neo-classicism is mostly associated with the period between
the two world wars.
IGOR STRAVINSKY
• Russian composer
• 1882 – 1971
• Composed the ballet PULCINELLA
(1919-20)
Pulcinella was recognised as one of the first neo-classical
compositions. Stravinsky based the one-act ballet upon
Pulcinella – a traditional hero of many 16th and 17th
century Italian comedies. Pulcinella was a witty and
warm-hearted character but was also known as a bit of a
scoundrel!!!
In Pulcinella, Stravinsky refers to characteristics of the
BAROQUE period and uses, as his role models, composers
such as
Bach
Handel
Pergolesi
(an Italian composer
who died in 1736)
Listen to the extracts from Pulcinella and answer
the questions
Extract 1: SINFONIA
1. How many BEATS are in the bar?
2.Is the piece in simple or compound time?
3.How many times do you hear a SEQUENCED PATTERN and
what are the names of the SOLO instruments that play them?
4.Does the MAIN THEME MODULATE to a HIGHER or LOWER
key?
5. Towards the end which two members of the woodwind family
have a conversation together
6. What ornament then decorates the melody?
7. The extract then ends with what kind of cadence?
Answers
1. Two beats in the bar.
 2. Simple
 3.Pattern heard 3 times. Played by Cor
Angles and French Horn.
 4. Modulates to a higher key
 5. Oboe and Bassoon
 6. Trill
 7. Perfect Cadence

Extract 2: TOCCATA
1. Which instrument plays the OPENING THEME?
2. What term would you use to describe how the music is
articulated?
3. Listen carefully to the SOLO SEQUENCE. Is it ASCENDING or
DESCENDING?
4. What musical period and composer does this excerpt remind you
of?
5. Is the music in compound or simple time?
6. Throughout the extract the woodwind and strings seem to be
having a rather frantic conversation in which overlapping melodies
are heard sometimes copying each other. Can you think of two
words to describe this kind of writing?
Answers
1. Strings
 2. Arco
 3. Descending
 4. Romantic
 5. Compound
 6. Imitative & Polyphonic/Contrapuntal

IMPRESSIONISM
A term originally used by artists of the
late 19th century. The main aim was to
capture on canvas the IMPRESSION
made on them by the OBJECT of their
painting. Composers soon related their
idea of impressionism to their music.
IMPRESSIONISM
* French movement; late 19th and early 20th century
* Begun by Debussy in reaction to the emotionalism of romantic music
(especially Wagner)
* Atmosphere and mood take the place of strong emotion or of the story
* Harmonies and tone colours used to paint a musical picture of colour
and light
* Experimenting with the old and the exotic; medieval modes and eastern
scales
Ravel
Debussy
Orchestration
* Using unusual instruments (e.g. harp,
celesta, triangle, brushed cymbals)
* Using instruments in unusual ways
(e.g. flutes/clarinets in dark lower registers, violins in their
extreme upper register and muted brass instruments)
* Using instruments in unusual combinations, subtly
changing instruments as a melody or passage progresses
Harmony
* Chords valued for their individual sonorities rather than for
their relations to one another. Composers would often write
a sequence of such chords in parallel motion. Mildly
dissonant chords such as 9th chords and 11th chords often
used
• Primary Intervals (4ths, 5ths, Octaves) – emphasising
and using them in parallel motion (opening of Cathedrale
engloutie)
• Whole Tone Scale (6 whole tones with no semitones) – a
wonderful, eerie, atmospheric effect
• Pentatonic Scale (5 note scale with no semitones) –
popularly associated with oriental music but also common
in Scottish, Irish and English folk music
Debussy often bases his harmonies upon unusual scales
THE PENTATONIC SCALE Based on only FIVE notes
THE WHOLE –TONE SCALE Built on notes that are a
WHOLE TONE apart
DEBUSSY
Born in France in 1862. Died in 1918.
One of the main composers associated
with impressionism. Debussy’s music
showed how willing he was to be
stimulated by artist’s work, especially
MONET.
L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune (The Afternoon of a Faun), written
in 1894, was Debussy’s first important composition in an
impressionist style. Debussy studied how the artist treated
COLOUR and LIGHT and tried to capture it in the treatment
of his own HARMONIES and TONE-COLOURS .
Debussy based his L’Apres-Midi d’un
Faune on a poem. The poem
describes a young faun lying under
SHADY trees in the heat of a
summer’s afternoon. He spies a
group of nymphs in the distance
running through a COOL glade. He
asks himself if they are real or do
they exist only in his imagination? His
thoughts become more HAZY as he
becomes more drowsy in the heat.
Listen to the following extract from Debussy’s
L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune and answer the questions:
1. The melody starts with which instrument?
2. What effect is used by the brass instruments at the start?
3. Which instrument echoes the melody?
4. How is the melody then decorated?
5. What scale does the clarinet use to add atmosphere?
6. The SECOND theme is played in which SOLO instrument?
7. Which STRING instruments add to the TONE-COLOUR
of the melody and thicken the orchestral texture?
8. In the second theme are the violins playing in UNISON
or HARMONY?
9. Towards the end of the second theme what happens to
in the tempo?
10. What word describes this?
Debussy Answers










1. Clarinet
2. Mute (Con Sordino)
3. Flute
4. Trills, and Mordants
5. Whole Tone
6. Oboe
7. Violins
8. Unison
9. Speeds up and slows down
10. Rubato