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Chapter 22: The Late Twentieth Century Modernism in Music: The Second Phase Key Terms Serialism New sound materials Electronic music Chance (aleatoric) music Multiphonics Musique concrète Sampling Synthesizers Computer music Late Twentieth Century Timeline The Late Twentieth Century 21 years separated two cataclysmic wars • Extravagant experimentation no longer seemed appropriate after World War I • Move toward abstraction, standards, & norms • Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism & Schoenberg’s serialism were efforts to achieve order World War II even more devastating • Bombings of Pearl Harbor, London, Dresden, & Tokyo • Mass murders in concentration camps • Atomic bombs over Hiroshima & Nagasaki Modernism in Music: The Second Phase Modernism reemerged with a vengeance • Old ways of thinking created this mess • Time for radical new approaches • New uses of color, rhythm, texture, & form Two contradictory tendencies— Intellectual, constructive techniques • Inspired by serialism, but going far beyond • Efforts to “serialize” rhythm, color, dynamics Emergence of chance techniques • Questioned past assumptions about music New Sound Materials (1) Insatiable demand for new sounds • The orchestra now seemed stiff, antiquated Composers explored many possibilities • New ways of using old instruments • Use of nonmusical sounds & noises • Sounds produced through electronic means New virtuosity required of performers • Singers had to hiss, grunt, click, laugh, cry • Pianists plucked or hit strings with mallets • Clarinets learned to play multiphonics New Sound Materials (2) Percussion instruments came to the fore • Inspired by Bartók, jazz, & other styles • Any sounds & noises are possible in percussion music • Marimbas, xylophones, gongs, bells, cymbals, etc. became standard in the postwar era Wartime technologies offered many new possibilities • Electronic music on a large scale was possible for the first time Electronic Music Only a few pre-war electronic instruments • Theremin, ondes Martenot, Hammond organ Postwar technological explosion • Advent of magnetic tape for sound recording, storage, & playback New technologies defined each new stage in the progress of electronic music • 1950s – Magnetic tape & musique concrète • 1960s – Transistors & the synthesizer age • 1980s – The MIDI protocol & computer music Musique concrète First style of electronic music • Begun by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948 Music made of sounds & noises • Traffic, factories, trains, airplanes, etc. • Avoided “musical” & electronic sounds Used tape recorder as compositional tool Composers manipulated recorded sounds • Cutting & splicing, changing speed, tape loops Lives on today through sampling Synthesizers German electronic studios led the way • The first electronically generated compositions were created by manipulating oscillators 1950s saw the first synthesizers • Impractically large & expensive before the advent of transistors 1960s voltage-controlled synthesizers • New instruments created by Moog & Buchla • Now anyone could afford an electronic studio • They soon grew in sophistication Computer Music The computer as a musical tool • 1955 – 1st computer-composed work (Hiller) • Late 1950s – 1st computer sound synthesis • 1983 – MIDI protocol adopted in 1983 MIDI revolution changed everything • Computers can now perform, record, edit, notate, print, synthesize, & reproduce music • They can process sequenced and digitally recorded music • They can even interact with live musicians On the Boundaries of Time Postwar modernists also rethought time How long can a composition be? • 45 seconds? 25 minutes? 15 hours? How can sounds relate to each other in time? • Connected or disjointed? Fast or slow paced? What rate of change? How does time feel as it passes? • Fast? Slow? Intense? Hypnotic? Webern, Five Orchestral Pieces, IV Only 6 measures & half a minute long! • Whole piece can be shown on a single line • Disconnected registers, colors, rhythms • A pointillistic work – each note acquires great significance • A short time segment of very high intensity Riley, In C Length varies – often about 45 minutes Score is 53 short motives on one page Each performer repeats each motive over and over – as often as they like Slow, gradual rate of change as the music becomes more polyphonic Chance music, yet early minimalist A long time segment of low intensity Chance Music Compositions in which some or many musical elements are left to chance • Decided by the performers as they perform • Or decided by composer through chance operations (dice, I Ching, etc.) • For In C, Riley did not specify interactions between performers or overall length Chance composers question the most basic assumptions about time • Must musical time be linear & goal-directed? • Do we ever really experience time that way?