Transcript MUH 2011 Chapter 13 slides (7e)

The World of Music
7th edition
Part 4
Listening to Western Classical Music
Chapter 13: Music of the Twentieth Century
Modern Classical Music
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Diverse, Complex, Experimentation
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Conventional Instruments
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Traditional Techniques AND
Unconventional Techniques
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Unconventional Instruments
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Thumbtacks on Piano hammers
Buzzing mouthpieces
Humming, singing whistling through the instrument
Anvil/Automobile Brake Drums
Garden Hoses with mouthpieces attached
Fire engine sirens
Tape players (predecessor to the CD/DAT)
Often Complex
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Blurred tonality or lack of tonality
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Increased Chromaticism over the Romantic period
Tone Clusters
Polytonality
Different scales
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Whole tone
Pentatonic
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Longer Melodies that are more angular or disjunct (skips around)
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Difficult, Puzzling Forms and forms that are hard to understand/find
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Typically not singable because of this disjunct-ness
Can be free of bar lines & phrases and measured in time (seconds)
Silence is extremely important
Modern Classical Music continued
• Timbre and Rhythm over Melody and Harmony
• Avant-Garde : Cutting edge, the newest of the new…
• New musical language or notation
– This notation expressed the musical result in a picture more than
a rhythm and pitch indication.
– Traditional notation is still used
• Multicultural influences (native folk musics)
• New music and musicians are influenced by:
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World events (WW1 and WW2!)
World Economy (great depression - US)
Shifts in patronage
Political problems or situations
Impressionism in Art and Music
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Style from French Painting Philosophy called Impressionism
– Dibs and dabs of colors when viewed up close do not convey the true impression
desired by the artist. But when viewed in totality, makes a vivid portrait by the
artist
– Monet
– Renoir
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Reaction against Intellectual German Music
– Brahms
– Wagner
– Mahler
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Favored Delicate Instruments
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Flute
Harp
Strings
Light or no brass and percussion scoring in the music
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
• French
• Rejected Traditional Practices
– Great example of the transition from Romantic ideas to the 20th ce
• Influences
– Painters
– Poets
– Gamelan Music (of Indonesia)
• Excelled at Works for Piano and Orchestra
• Piano Preludes
• Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (The mythological character, not
Bambi) Orch.
• La Mer (The Sea) Orch.
• Syrinx (For solo Flute – no accompanying Piano)
Experimental Music
• Avant-Garde Composers in Every Generation
– Experimental Works
– Varying Degrees of Success
• Two Types of Composer
– One Who Uses Proven Techniques
– One Who Wants to Develop Original Techniques
• Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971)
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Representative Works
– Ballets (The Suites from these
works are popular Orchestral
Music)
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Russian, emigrated to USA in 1939,
became citizen (Naturalized) in 1946
Style Contributions
– Rhythmic complexity, irregular
rhythms, and shifting beat emphasis
– Innovative Orchestration
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Extreme ranges of the instruments
Unusual combinations of
instruments
– Original Uses of Tonality
– Reinvention of Old Material with new
uses
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Baroque and Classical Forms
Jazz
Russian Folk Melodies
Ragtime
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The Firebird
Petrushka
The Rite of Spring
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First performance caused a riot in the
audience
– Opera, The Rake’s Progress
– Chamber Work, The Soldier’s Tale
– Opera-Oratorio
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Oedipus Rex
Symphony of Psalms
Atonal Music and Serialism
• Atonality
– Literally Means, “No Tonality”
– Alternative to Major and Minor Keys
• Serialism or 12 tone
– Uses the 12 Tones in a Fixed Row or “tone row”
• No Traditional Scales
• No Traditional Chords
– Row May be Altered
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Reversed
Upside Down
Transposed
Combinations of the Above (i.e. Reversed and Transposed)
Changes in Instrumentation, Rhythm, Dynamics, etc. but not order
Too cerebral? No emotion?
• Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg (1874 –
1951)
• Austrian Jew, left due to
WW2 and Hitler (duh)
• Emigrated to America,
worked at USC and UCLA,
among other places
• Early works Post-Romantic
• Late works Atonal and Serial
• Style
– Disjunct Melodies
– Small Ensembles
– Irregular Phrases
– Complex and Fragmentary
Sound
– Controversial
• Representative Works
– Verklärte Nacht
– Five Pieces for
Orchestra
– Pierrot Lunaire
• Use of Sprechstimme
– A new combination of
singing and speech
recitation
– Variations for Orchestra
– Opera, Moses and
Aaron
Electronic Music
• Began in 1950’s
– Invention of Magnetic Tape Recording
– Musique Concrète
• Altered Speed of Tape
• Reversed Tape
• Splicing of Tape
• Synthesizers
• Computer-Generated Music
– MIDI
• Was this the elimination of the Musician?
• Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse (1883 – 1965)
• French (Came to
America in WW1)
• Promoted Experimental
Music
– Conducted
– Wrote Articles
– Participated in Classes
and Seminars
• Lifelong Interest in
Science and Technology
– Any sound could be music
• Used a Theremin in
Ecuatorial
• Representative Pieces
– Hyperprism
– Octandre
– Intégrales
– Ionization
– Déserts
– Poème Électronique
– Ecuatorial
Chance Music
• Also called Indeterminate music
• Performer is allowed to create
– Randomness
– Chance Elements (Dice, etc.)
– Improvisation
• Large-scale structure/form provided by
Composer in the score
• Pieces never performed the same way twice
• John Cage
John Cage (1912 – 1992)
• Known for Original Ideas
– Prepared Piano
• Items (Screws, Paper, Erasers, etc) Placed on Strings Inside
a Piano
• Can Sound like a full Percussion Ensemble
– Chance Music
• Less Control for the Composer
• Accept What you Get
– Multiple Radios Simultaneously Playing on Stage
– 4’ 33” of “Silence” from Performer (Audience, Theater, and
Surroundings Create the Music.)
Bela Bartók (1881 – 1945)
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Hungarian
Nationalism style (from Humgary)
Ethnomusicologist
– Preserved Folk Songs of Hungary
• Field Recordings on early cylinder
recorders
• Used These Melodies in his
Compositions
– Extended Interest to Other Parts
of Europe/Africa
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Left Hungary in 1940 due to WW2
and his Anti-Nazi views
Like most artists, became
famous/popular after his death
from Leukemia in 1945
– Wrote Concerto for Orchestra
while hospitalized
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Representative Works
– Mikrokosmos Piano text series
– Music for Strings, Percussion, and
Celesta
– Concerto for Orchestra
– 6 String Quartets
– 3 Piano Concertos
American/Americanist Music
• Reflects a sense of wide, open spaces
• Incorporates vernacular musical concepts
– Syncopation from Jazz
– Folk styles included
– Patriotic themes
Charles Ives
(1874 – 1954)
• Representative Pieces
– 4 Symphonies
– 200 Songs
– Tone Poems
• Great Innovator
• Highly Successful
Businessman
– Great Freedom to Compose
– Substantial Resources
• Style
– Quotations from American
Life
– Complex (for Performers
and Audiences)
• Three Places in New England
• The Unanswered Question
– 2 Piano Sonatas
Aaron Copland
(1900 – 1990)
• Merged Classical and
Vernacular Styles
• Innovation,
– But not at the expense of
the past
• Organized New Music
Concerts
• Sources
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Cowboy Songs
Mexican Songs
Church Music
Jazz/Blues
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Representative Works
– Ballets
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Billy the Kid
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Winn Dixie’s Beef people commercial
Rodeo
Appalachian Spring
– Patriotic Music
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Fanfare for the Common Man
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Olympic Theme 1972
Lincoln Portrait
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For Narrator and Ensemble
– Movie Music
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Red Pony
Our Town
American Women Composers
• Amy Cheney Beach (1867-1954)
– First American woman to have a Symphony
published
• Ruth Crawford (1901-1953)
– First woman to be awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939-)
African-American Composers
• Ullysses Kay (1917-1995)
– Earned a Fulbright Scholarship, Guggenheim
Fellowship, and a Prix de Rome
• William Grant Still (1895-1978)
– One of the best-known African-American
composers
– Earned a Guggenheim Fellowship
Other American Composers
• George Gershwin (1898-1937)
– Tin Pan Alley composer
– Known for writing Classical music with Jazz
incorporated within
• Henry Cowell (1897-1965)
– Known for using the Tone Cluster as a
compositional device
• Tone Cluster – several adjacent pitches played
simultaneously
Neo-Classical Music
• Return to Structures/Aesthetics of the Past
– Forms of Previous Periods
– Using Modern Language
• Possible Traits
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Control
Order
Emotional Restraint
Minimal Instrumentation
Transparent Texture
• Stravinsky
Minimalism
• Seeks Great Effect from
Minimal Material
• Began in 1960’s
– Philip Glass
– Terry Riley
• Reaction Against
Serialism (12 tone)
• Traits
– Extensive Repetition
– Slow, Subtle Changes
• Rhythm
• Chords
• Other Elements
– Tonal Style
– Other Similar Styles
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Jazz
Rock
Indian Music
African Music
Neo-Romanticism
• A return to 19th century Musical ideas
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Program music
Absolute music
Singable melodies
Etc. but with the newer 20th century practices and sounds
• Desired to write what audiences want to hear, instead of what the
artist/composer wants to hear
– Not wanting to alienate audiences
– Audiences would then pay to come and hear the concerts
• Most of the time, the composer would not become famous until after
their death, sometimes decades
• Igor Stravinsky
• Darius Milhaud (France)