32 - Early 20th Century and Classical Tradition

Question 1

modernism 3

Answer 1

• composers struggling with what to write, want something new, overshadowed by core rep people want to hear again
• search for new, building off of past
• some value tradition, some totally reinterpret it

Question 2

atonality 2

Answer 2

lives in the moment of dissonance without as much need to resolve conflict, exploring music for own sake

Question 3

gustav mahler 5

Answer 3

• best known for symphonies and artsong
• sometimes put his songs and melodies into symphonies
• expanded symphony to largest form, continuation of romantic expression
• sound as art and an experience
• 8th symphony of 1000

Question 4

mahler’s kindertotenlieder 4

Answer 4

• orchestral song cycle
• uses music to display intensity of emotion
• techniques you wouldn’t expect (descent on dm, rising on dM, don’t know where tonal sense is)
• wagnerian harmony (still tonal, but pushing)

Question 5

strauss operas 3

Answer 5

• turned to opera after establishing self in symphonic poems
• pushing further away from tonality, inspired later composers to abandon tonality
• heir of wagner

Question 6

strauss’s salome 4

Answer 6

• stronger subject, actions, emotions, than any proceeding opera
• high level of dissonance
• drama through simple means
• verges on atonality, but resolves, showing her love framed by our horror

Question 7

mahler legacy 2

Answer 7

• last austro-german symphonist
• one of first to see music not just in notes, but in sounds

Question 8

french modernity 3

Answer 8

• revival of 16-18 century french music
• national heritage, drawing from past
• french tradition: emotional reserve, understatement, refined, sophisticated

Question 9

claude debussy 6

Answer 9

• direction toward pleasure and beauty - pleasure is law
• admiration of wagner but revulsion against bombast
• impressionist and symbolism
• also wrote songs
• chromatic, whole tone chords w/o any urgency to resolve
• emphasis on sound itself as an element of music (colours)

Question 10

nuages III

Answer 10

• oscillating pattern of 5ths and 3rds
• embraces clashes and dissonance
• symphonic poem - self-contained orchestral work

Question 11

ravel 3

Answer 11

• whole tone juxtaposed with diatonic music
• rhapsodie espagnol - orchestral suite w/ spanish flavour
• combined many influences

Question 12

spanish composers 3

Answer 12

albeniz, granados, de falla

Question 13

spanish modernism

Answer 13

combined modernist styles with spanish techniques

Question 14

vaugh williams 3

Answer 14

• relied on tonality
• building national identity
• links to amateur music making, carrying on of choral socity

Question 15

vaugh williams’ suite no 1 in eb, intermezzo for military band 3

Answer 15

• use of modes
• looks back on church music
• folk music

Question 16

serge rachmaninoff 3

Answer 16

• late romantic
• uses things recognizable from past
• symphonic poems

Question 17

rachmaniinoff’s preulde in gm, no 5 2

Answer 17

• feeling and emotion, lyrical
• rhythmic and tonal, traditional harmonies

Question 18

alexander scriabin 3

Answer 18

• pushing boundaries of tone, chromaticism, tritones, evade resolution until very end
• mystical, experimental, had synthisesia
• evolved complex harmonic vocabulary, no key signatures, no yearning for resolution

Question 19

resolution

Answer 19

moving into 1900s, can never rest, resolution pushed off

Question 20

scriabin’s vers la flamme 3

Answer 20

• tone poem for piano
• tritones “resolve” into perfect 5ths
• figures change section to section

Question 21

leos janacek 5

Answer 21

• leading czech composer
• folk music, national style
• melodies based on peasent inflections, rhythms of spoken words
• repeats, juxtaposes ideas instead of repeating
• tone colours contrast

Question 22

jean sibelius III

Answer 22

• modal, tonal folk melodies with new national style
• modal melodies
• 4th symphony’s melody doesn’t quite fit in the key - wagnerian, tonal but evading resolution

Question 23

avant garde 4

Answer 23

• seeks to overthrow accepted aesthetics
• conoclastics, irrelevent. antagonist, nihilistic
• focus on what’s happening in the present
• some say not overthrowing, but pathbreaking like beet and wagner

Question 24

satie 3

Answer 24

• radical break from tradition
• embryos desseches (dried embryos), 3rd movement satirizes wagnerian leitmotives
• satirical of classic/romantic tradition, extended resolution mockery

Question 25

futurism 4

Answer 25

• rejected traditional instruments
• got rid of notes
• noise music of normal noises around us, car engines etc
• appreciated beet and wagner, but felt oversaturated and bored of them

Question 26

late romantic vs modern

Answer 26

composers of this generation have aspects of both

Question 27

mahler as conductor 3

Answer 27

• grande movements, then reduced to minimal
• perfectionist
• desired drama and emotion from performers

Question 28

debussy symbolism 3

Answer 28

• not expressing an emotion or story, but evoking a feeling, scene, mood, or atmosphere
• simple colouring
• themes don’t need to develop, but change slightly like being seen from a new perspective

Question 29

rhapsodie espagnol

Answer 29

• spanish elements not exaggerated or exoticized, by accurately portrayed

Question 30

sibelius’s 4th symphony

Answer 30

• rotational form, cycling between 3 main ideas