Bartok, Stravinsky and Messiaen

Question 1

What are static ostinatos?

Answer 1

Stravinsky used ostinatos often, but created complex rhythmic variation over them

See: Stravinsky ‘Histoire du soldat’, ‘The Rite of Spring’ (The Augurs of Spring, Procession of the Wise Elders)

Question 2

What is rapid block development?

Answer 2

Very short blocks of different rhythmic lengths, each having a distinct character (e.g. Register, instrumentation, harmony). These blocks are juxtaposed rapidly one after another to ‘develop’ a section

See: Stravinsky ‘The Rite of Spring’ (Sacrificial Dance)

Question 3

What are rhythmic cells?

Answer 3

Rhythmic ostinati of different lengths, superimposed atop of one another. This usually gains interest by obstinate overlapping in interesting ways (I.e. One ostinato of 3 beats, one of 8, one of 13)

See: Stravinsky ‘The Rite of Spring’ (Procession of the Wise Elders), ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet’

Question 4

What is cut and paste?

Answer 4

Harsh transitions back and forth between two distinct ideas. Both ideas proceed basically as if nothing had happened

See: Stravinsky ‘The Rite of Spring’ (The Augurs of Spring), Les Noces

Question 5

What is vertical chromaticism?

Answer 5

Passages that are diatonic, tuneful or folk-like horizontally, but chromatic vertically, forming a dissonant texture made out of lots of fairly clear or consonant melodies. A kind of bi-tonality

See: Stravinsky ‘The Rite of Spring’ (Introduction)

Question 6

What are pitch cells?

Answer 6

?

In Bartok: String Quartet 3

Question 7

What is bi-tonality?

Answer 7

Multiple key centres at once I.e. C major and Bb minor simultaneously

See: Mikrokosmos 105 or 125

Question 8

What is the golden section?

Answer 8

The climax of a work and its substructures adhering to proportions of the Golden Ratio (the golden section is roughly 2/3s into a piece)

See: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

Question 9

What is arch form?

Answer 9

ABCBA

See: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

Question 10

What is added-value rhythm?

Answer 10

Rhythms created by the addition of a dot to a note, or the addition of a rest that would give the same value as if a dot were added (I.e. A quaver could be transformed either into a dotted quaver or a quaver followed by a semiquaver rest). These rhythms are often ‘unbalanced’ I.e. Not according to a fixed metre/time signature

See: Messiaen ‘Quartet for the End of Time’, or almost any other Messiaen piece

Question 11

What are the modes of limited transposition?

Answer 11

A set of synthetic scales created by Messiaen which have a limited number of transpositions that can be applied to them. The whole tone scale is a mode of limited transposition because it can only appear in two forms (starting on a C or C# - if it starts on D, it contains the same pitches as when it starts on C). There are seven in total.

See: Messiaen pieces

Question 12

What is a non-retrogradable rhythm?

Answer 12

A rhythm that, when played backwards, is the same (‘ta ti ta’, ‘ti ta ti’, ‘ka ta-a ka’ etc.)

Question 13

What is a rhythmic pedal?

Answer 13

Basically an ostinato. Messiaen uses these and accompanies them with transformations of themselves by different augmentations or diminutions

Question 14

What is an isorhythm?

Answer 14

Having a repeated rhythmic pattern onto which a repeated pitch pattern (of a different length) is superimposed