Transcript 20th Century Music in 16`54

16’54”
A Tour of the Music of the TwentiethCentury
impressionism
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Claude Debussy
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Images, “Reflections on
the Water”
tonal sonorities…
non-functional harmony…
colorful texture…
expressionism
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Arnold Schoenberg
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Book of the Hanging Garden,
“Angst und Hoffen”
the dissolution of tonality…
full of emotional expression…
jagged melodic lines
romanticism’s last gasps…
expressionism
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Anton Webern
 (a student of Schoenberg)
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Five Movements for String Quartet,
Op. 5, No. 4
free atonality…
spare gestures…
new instrumental timbres…
an early American great
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Charles Ives
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Second Violin Sonata, Mvt. 3,
“Revival”
quotation…
polymeter, changing meters…
polytonality…
quintal and whole-tone
chords…
another atonal miniature
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Schoenberg
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Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19
 Number 4
this one’s a riot (or caused one)
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Igor Stravinsky
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The Rite of Spring
anti-romantic…
abrupt contrasts…
narrow melodies…
evocation of the primitive…
an expressionist opera
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Alban Berg
 another student of Schoenberg
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Wozzeck
 “Marie’s Lullaby” (Act 1, Scene 3)
a new approach to composition
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Arnold Schoenberg
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Suite, Op. 25, Trio (of a minuet)
based on a twelve-tone row:
E F G Db Gb Eb Ab D B C A Bb
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return to earlier forms (dance)
…meanwhile…
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Edgard Varèse
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Hyperprism
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experiments in musical timbre…
winds brass and
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a whole lot o’ percussion
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…meanwhile…
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Henry Cowell
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The Banshee
experiments in musical timbre
can you guess the sound source?
…a return to the past…
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Igor Stravinsky
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Symphony of Psalms
1930s neo-classicism
psalm text…
ostinatos...
pitch-centered, non-functional
a more tonal twelve-tone
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Alban Berg
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Violin Concerto
What sonorities did the violin solo first outline?
a gen-u-ine sonata
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Paul Hindemith
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Piano Sonata No. 2, I
more neo-classicism
can you hear the sections of an
exposition?
back to the baroque?
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Anton Webern
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Cantata No. 1, Op. 29, I
text painting (thunder!)
tone rows chosen to limit chord vocabulary
wartime
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Olivier Messiaen
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quartet for the end of time
“dance of fury, by the seven
trumpets”
irregular, additive rhythms
what’s the texture?
an American ballet
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Aaron Copland
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Appalachian Spring
unabashed diatonicism…
but non-functional…
on pins and needles:
a trip to the hardware store
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John Cage
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Sonatas and Interludes for
Prepared piano
exploring new sounds…
aleatoric composition
process…
hyperserialism
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Pierre Boulez
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Structures 1a
tone rows and
rhythm rows
hyperserialism
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Milton Babbitt
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Semi-simple variations
theme and Var. 1
exceedingly careful control of the presentation of
12 pitches…
take another chance
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John Cage
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Fontana Mix
 For electronic tape
 Composed through
indeterminate processes
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Aria
 Written in colored graphic
notation
 Singer chooses “style” for
each colored gesture
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May be performed separately.
Or together.
Whatever.
cluster’s last stand?
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Krzysztof Penderecki
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Threnody (For the victims of
Hiroshima)
new sound resources…
 sound “masses”
 unusual string timbres
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constrained improvisation…
Miniminiminiminiminim-alism
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Terry Riley
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In C
53 measures, each repeated ad lib.
any combo, number of instruments
this performance 42 minutes
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This is excerpt 1
Here’s a second excerpt
phaseshifting
haseshiftingp
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Steve Reich
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Piano Phase
two performers begin in unison…
one gradually pulls ahead…
this “gradual process” continues until they rejoin
new counterpoint results…
[second excerpt]
an homage to an homage of the past
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Luciano Berio
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Sinfonia, III, In ruhig fliessender Bewegung
a masterwork of quotation
what music underlies the excerpt?
what texts do you hear?
theatrical music
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George Crumb
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Apparitions
less minimilism
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John Adams
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Short Ride on a Fast Machine
includes some of minimalism’s repetitive
elements
adds
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greater local melodic interest
faster harmonic rhythm