33 - Radical Modernists Flashcards
younger modernists
sought to challenge our perceptions and capacities instead of please audience upon first hearing
arnold schoenberg best known for
atonal and 12tone music
modernists vs avante-garde
modernists want new out of what’s before, carrying on from innovative classics, in that tradition and pushing forward with atonality, avant garde pushes further
schoenberg tonal works 3
- applied developing variation of Brahms and wagnerisn techniques
- nonrepetition, each work should not repeat past, but build on it
- nonrepitition within each piece
schoenberg atonal music 4
- avoided tonal centre (weaker pull to the tonic, prolonging dissonance and conflict)
- “emancipation of dissonance”, atonality inevitable as a way forward
- dissonance can be on its own without resolution
- structure through developing variation, integration of harmony and melody, or chromatic saturation
pierrot lunaire 3
- song cycle by schoenberg
- expressionits and traditional elements
- spreksteima - speak singing, approximated to notes
- 8 nacht and 13 entropy
schoenberg’s saget mir aud wetchen pfade2
symbolist subject matter, in tradition of lied but sounds very different musically
12-tone method 2
- 12 tones related only to one another
- traditional instrumental forms (motives and themes, tonal forms, classic and romantic genres)
row or series 3
- 12 pitch classes arranged in chosen order by composer, melody, chords, arranged in different ways
- all 12 tones stated before row used again
- can contain multiple sets
12-tone set
combo of those classes, could represent a character
pitch class
each 12-tone tone
schoenberg’s piano suite op 25
themes are presented and developed, using the tonal forms and genres of Classic and Romantic music, but twelve-tone rows stand in for the keys.
2nd vienna school people and…
schoenberg, berg, webern
recognized as important in development of atonality, but not very popular
schoenberg as modernist
still used traditional forms
berg general 3
- uses techniques from earlier eras to give listeners a reference point fusing the way he writes with expressions of the past
- adopted atonal, 12-tone methods
- writing for general audiance, but in a new direction
berg’s wozzeck 5
- expressionist
- leitmotifs, comment on characters and situations, traditional forms
- act 3 scene 3 imitates/refers to tonal styles and genres
- uses musical effects to enhance the plot, continuity
- 12 tone methods in new ways, combines with old methods
post tonality
pushing boundaries of tonality, but not yet atonal
anton webern main idea
evolution is necessary, musical idioms must move forward and follow laws of nature
webern style 3
- extremely concentrated and short, now waste, controlled, understated
- avoided tonal implications
- sometimes described as pointillistic, melody not fully stated in any voice
weber’s symphony no 21 1st mvnt
- double canon, inversion integrates 2 canons
- applies schoenberg’s klangfarbenmelodie (different statement of stating melody by changing timbre)
igor stravinsky style3
- undermining meter with unpredictable accents, rests, rapid changes of meter
- frequent ostinatos (often in bass, could by rhythmic or melodic)
- dry, anti-lyrical, colourful use of instruments, angular, block-like, rhythm over melody
petrushka chord
F#m and Cm triads from same octatonic scale
stravinsky’s rite of spring 6
- danse des adolescents and danse sacrale
- undermining meter
- ostinatos - no development of motives or themes, repitition and unpredictable variation
- timbre linked with motive variation
- petrushka chord
- stark timbres
stavinsky’s neoclassic period 3
- preromantic form but not tonal
- neotonality (tonal centres not established through functional harmonic progressions)
- octet for wind instruments
octet for wind instruments by stravinsky 3
- sounds tonal, but not moving in forward way
- melodic, diatonic, but parrallel motion and dissonance
- neoclassic
stravinsky’s influence
support for serialism helped it gain strong following
bela bartok 3
- collected peasant tunes to use them to progress music writing, recorded peasant people singing
- synthesized peasant and classical music
- used sungle pitch centre instead of a key (neotonality)
bartok’s staccato and legato from mikrokosmos 2
- elements of tonality
- mixture of diatonic chromatic motion, ornamentation
charles ives3
- distinctly american modernist techniques
- 4 distinct spheres
- cumulative form (thematic development first, themes at end)
ives’ 4 spheres
- vernacular music
- protestant church music
- european classical music
- experimental works
schoenberg developing variation
process of continuously building on germinal ideas so that each new idea is derived from what has come before
scheonberg The principle of nonrepetition 3
- continue tradition of saying something that has never been said before
- great composers say something new while conserving what’s best of their predecessors
- within and between pieces
schoenberg’s 3 principles of coherence within atonal music
developing variation, the integration of harmony and melody, and chromatic saturation
chromatic saturation
the appearance of all twelve pitch-classes within a segment of music
expressionism 3
sought to capture the human condition as it was perceived in the early twentieth century, introspective and negative, related to Freudian theories of the mind
inversion, retrograde
upside down, backwards
tetrachords
four consecutive notes
webern length
music only should do what’s necessary, so concentrated length, often as soon as all 12 tones used
Klangfarbenmelodie
(tone-color melody), in which changes of tone color are perceived as parallel to changing pitches in a melody.
primitivism
style with pulsation rather than meter, static repitition, unresolved dissonance, dry timbres, etc
cast aside the sophistication and stylishness of modern life and trained artistry
composer most closely aligned with neoclasssicism
stravinsky
neotonality
has a single pitch centre, but does not follow the rules of traditional tonality
serial music
extended the principles of the 12-tone method to series in parameters other than pitch, such as rhythm
polytonality
melody in one key and the accompaniment in another
unanswered question
first to use tonality and atonality in the same piece
cumulative form
development happens first and the themes appear in their entirety only at the end
