Transcript Music Apprec - Early 20th 2

Early
th
20
Century
Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
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Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils:
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Alban Berg
Anton Webern
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Berg . . .
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Schoenberg’s pupil
Music rooted in Romanticism (character and
action, mood and atmosphere)
Liked formal patterns of the past . . . Fugue
and invention, variations, sonata and suite
Famous for Wozzek, Lulu, Lyric Suite
Berg’s most famous piece
Wozzeck (an opera)
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Inspiration came from an Expressionist play by
Georg Buchner
Libretto organizes the play into 3 acts, each
containing five scenes, which are linked by brief
orchestral interludes. These interludes set the mood
of the next scene.
Plot on p. 524
Act III, Scene 4, Interlude and Scene 5
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Uses Sprechstimme
Use of instruments (celeste creates eerie atmosphere)
Schoenberg’s other student
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
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Known for his brevity
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Entire output could fit on
three CDs
Never went back to any
other method of
composition after the
12-tone row; included
other elements in row
format besides the
notes
Use of instruments
extreme
Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21: II
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12-tone
For clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 horns, 2 harps, violins,
violas and cellos
Takes under 10 minutes to play
Only one of the Second Viennese School to
undertake composition of a symphony
Klangfarbenmelodie
Pointillistic texture – each instrument given just one
or two notes; extreme registers
p. 532
Music of the Americas
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Stephen Foster – wrote parlor and minstrel songs
(Oh, Susanna; Camptown Races, Beautiful
Dreamer, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair)
Instrumental Music – Marine Band, formed in 1798,
2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 French horns, bassoon, and
drums
By 1861-65, brass
Greatest bandmaster – John Philip Sousa
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Stars and Stripes Forever
The Washington Post
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
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Musically trained
Profession was the head of a successful insurance agency
Composed every spare second when he wasn’t working
Wasn’t recognized until just 7 yrs. before he died; his piece, the
Concord Sonata, was hailed as “the greatest music composed by
an American.”
Idealism of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
Find hymn tunes, marching bands and traditional songs set in an
“Ives” tonality
The Things Our Fathers Loved, p. 548-549
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
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After the first performance of
Symphony for Organ and
Orchestra, Walter Damrosch, a
New York conductor, had to
“calm” the audience. In 1925,
they were not used to the
contemporary sounds. He
stated, “If a young man at the
age of twenty-five can write a
symphony like that, in five
years he will be ready to
commit murder.”
Copland
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Decided to simplify his music so that he could
reach a larger audience.
Many popular ballets were written:
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Rodeo
Billy the Kid
Appalachian Spring
Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man
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Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
Eugene Goosens, wanted a musical tribute honoring
those who were involved in World War II . . . A
fanfare for “soldiers, or for airmen or sailors . . .” to
be used to open a concert in 1942.
He was asked to compose a traditional fanfare,
direct and powerful, yet with a contemporary sound.
Copland was late, and so it was premiered on March
12, 1943, since taxes were to be paid on March 15 –
they both felt it was a good opportunity to honor the
“common man.”