Transcript Music in the 20th Century

Music in the 20th
Century
Music from 1900-1945
(Pre-World War II)
The turn of the century
Technology reaches
dizzying heights.
Mass communication –
radio, TV, satellites,
computers, the internet.
Medical sciences
conquer infectious
diseases and prolong
life.
WWI & WWII
Socio-economic gap
expands.
History and the Arts,
1900-1939
1900 – Europe and US in period of economic stability and
peace.
Modernism – optimistic experimentation and revolutionary new
styles.
Composers reject tonality and rhythmic norms.
Impressionism & expressionism.
WWI shattered sense of optimism. (40 million died; 20 million
wounded)
Bolshevik revolution and spread of Communism.
Great Depression (1929-1933)
Prohibition, women’s right to vote, New Deal.
History and the Arts
1939-2000
WWII brings more death and destruction to
Europe and Far East.

30 million died, artwork destroyed, economic and
political outlook in shambles.
Immigration of refugees to US.
Cold War
Art, music and literature tend toward intellectualism
over emotionalism.
Radical experimentation in sound led to use of
technology and development of popular music.
Cubism, post-modernism.
Arnold Schonberg
Viennese composer who
invented a new system that
would “free music from the
tyranny of tonality.”
Twelve-tone system – Each
pitch is equal, no tonal
center, no key.
Pantonality (all-tonality) vs.
atonality (nontonal).
Allowed for new chord
combinations and changed
significance of consonance
vs. dissonance.
Twelve-Tone Music
Each pitch is equal, there is no tonal center.
Each pitch must sound before any can be
repeated.
Tone row – The “melody”
Retrograde – Tone row played backwards.
Inversion – Tone row played inverted.
Retrograde inversion - Tone row played
backwards and inverted.
Tone clusters – Adjacent pitches sounding at
once. Twelve-tone harmony.
Other Scales and Modes
Pentatonic scale – five note scale.
Whole-tone scale – moves entirely by
whole steps.
Medieval modes.
Polytonality – 2 or more keys played at
the same time.
Quartal chords – built on fourths instead
of thirds.
More Musical Changes
in 20th Century
Melody – very erratic
and unexpected.
Rhythm – Complicated,
based on African or
Indian music.
Quarter tones – pitches
between half steps.
New instruments and
old instruments played
in new ways. Theremin
is first electronic
instrument.
Impressionism
Originally an artistic
movement in which
lines are blurred and
details are left to the
viewer’s imagination.
Impressionist music is
also harmonically vague
and fluid and is meant
to symbolize something.
Claude Debussy –
Composer
Claude Monet - Painter
Primitivism and Cubism
Artists became
attracted to direct,
instinctive and exotic
cultures.
Gaugin, Picasso Les
Demoiselles d’Avignon
Sigmund Freud
explores the power of
the unconscious mind.
Igor Stravinsky uses
primitivism in music.
Igor Stravinsky
Born in St. Petersburg,
Russia
Originally studied law.
Started music lessons at age
21 with Rimsky-Korsakov.
 Learned techniques in
orchestration.
1910 – moved to Paris.
Produced works for Ballets
Russes (Serge Diaghilev)
Polyrhythms, bitonality,
ostinato (repeated patterns).
Firebird, The Rite of Spring,
Petrushka.
More on Stravinsky
Influenced by Jazz.
Later music in Neo-Classical style (Pulcinella)
Wrote a Mass and an opera called, The Rake’s
Progress
Started writing music for films.
Twelve-tone music included an elegy for JFK,
and a Requiem (in anticipation of his own death).
Highly rhythmic, unusual orchestration, original
harmony (often with two tonal centers).
Expressionism
Artistic movement
rooted in Germany,
Norway and Vienna.
Klimt and Kokoschka –
artists
Schoenberg, Berg,
Webern – composers
Focus on inner states of
being and evocation of
extreme emotions
(anguish, fear, hatred
and death).
Arnold Schoenberg
Born in Vienna to Orthodox
Jewish family.
Felt that tonality had outlived
its usefulness.
Wrote atonal music.
Stopped writing during WWI.
Twelve-tone music offered a
unifying principle to atonal
music.
Variations for Orchestra,
Moses and Aaron (opera).
Fired when Nazis took over
and fled to USA.
Alban Berg
Both students of
Schoenberg.
Berg’s opera, Wozzeck,
is the first atonal
Expressionist opera (a
masterpiece of 20th
Century music).

Shows his view of war.
Berg uses strict forms
(sonata, rondo, fugue,
symmetry).
Anton Webern
Student of Schoenberg
Link to first stages of
Modernism.
Minimalism – everything was
understated and there is
never an extra note.
Wrote detailed instructions in
his scores.
Short pieces (1-10 minutes).
Studied Renaissance music
and used imitative
counterpoint.
Bela Bartok
Hungarian composer
influenced by the
nationalist movement.
Toured Europe
recording and notating
folk music of various
cultures
(ethnomusicology).
Known for piano music
and string quartets.
Music of other cultures
influenced his music.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Russian composer who
lived most of his life under
Soviet Communism.
Music of Soviet Union was
supposed to represent the
policies of the state.
Fought for creative
freedom against demands
of a totalitarian state.
Composed 15
symphonies & 15 string
quartets.
Musical “signature” in his
music.
Benjamin Britten
English composer.
Child prodigy. Began
composing at 5.
The Young Person’s Guide
to the Orchestra
Operas – Peter Grimes, Billy
Budd, Gloriana, The Turn of
the Screw.
War Requiem – written for
dedication of new cathedral
in Coventry that was
destroyed in WWII.

Mixed old with new (Latin
text with poems by Wilfred
Owen).
American Composers
William Billings – psalms and choral music.
Lowell Mason – Hymns and music education.
Mostly influenced by European music.

Inner turmoil – Civil War, Reconstruction
Shape-notes
Spirituals
Jazz
Charles Ives
First American Modernist
composer (avant-garde).
Insurance salesman who
composed in spare time.
Experimental in his ideas
of music.
Wrote music in two keys
at the same time.

The Unanswered
Question (Two
ensembles play two
different songs at the
same time.)
Patriotic music.
Aaron Copland
Much more mainstream
composer than Ives.
Studied composition in
Europe with Nadia
Boulanger (most famous
composition teacher of the
20th Century).
Wrote in an American
style by drawing on jazz.
Ballets – Billy the Kid,
Rodeo
Appalachian Spring &
Fanfare for the Common
Man
George Gershwin
Composed popular
songs and jazz pianist.
Also wrote classical
pieces.
Rhapsody in Blue, An
American in Paris,
Porgy and Bess
(opera).
Wrote musical plays
with brother, Ira.
Died at age 38 of brain
tumor.
Leonard Bernstein
Continued blending
popular and classical
styles.
Conductor of New York
Philharmonic.
Musicals – On the
Town, Candide,
Wonderful Town, West
Side Story
Choral music and
symphonic music.