Early C20 Modernism

Question 1

Modernism Characteristics

Answer 1

A desire for progress, innovation, and a rejection of the past

Period of significant development, particularly in science and technology, that increased levels of industrialisation and globalisation.

Question 2

Claude Debussy

Answer 2

1862 - 1918
French composer and skilled pianist

Question 3

Impressionism (Music) Characteristics

Answer 3

Reject traditional structure
Progressive harmony
Atonality
Atmosphere and mood
Experimentation with orchestral instruments
Tone poems

Question 4

Claude Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Answer 4

Composed 1894
Inspired by Mallarme’s poem ‘The Afternoon of a Faun’
Symphonic poem for orchestra
Considered a turning point in Western art music. Some consider the score to be the beginning of modernist music

Question 5

Claude Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande

Answer 5

Premiered 1902
Opera in five acts based on symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck
Considered a landmark in 20th-century music.
Debussy strove to avoid excessive Wagnerian influence on Pelléas from the start
Took several features from Wagner, including the use of leitmotifs
The orchestral emphasis is on quietness, subtlety and allowing the words of the libretto to be heard.

Question 6

Igor Stravinsky

Answer 6

1882 - 1971
Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Question 7

Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Answer 7

Written for 1913 Ballets Russes season
Choreographed by Nijinsky
Inspired by poem by Sergey Gorodetsky
Depicts various primitive rituals celebrating spring, then a young girl dances herself to death as a self-sacrifice.
First premiere it caused a riot due to the modernist choreography and high levels of dissonance.

Question 8

Ballets Russes

Answer 8

Founded in 1909 by Russian Impresario Serge Diaghilev
Had annual seasons in Paris
Integrally connected to Stravinsky

Question 9

Arnold Schoenberg

Answer 9

1874 - 1951
Born in Vienna

Question 10

Arnold Schoenberg: 12-Tone System

Answer 10

Developed in 1920s
Instead of using 1 or 2 tones as main points of focus, Schoenberg suggested using all 12 tones “related only to one another.” In such a system, no notes would predominate as focal points, nor would any hierarchy of importance be assigned to the individual tones

Question 11

Arnold Schoenberg Second Period

Answer 11

1908 - 1922
Free Atonality
Typified by the abandonment of key centres

Question 12

Arnold Schoenberg Second Period Music

Answer 12

String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10 (1908) (first explicitly atonal piece)
Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16 (1909)
Pierrot Lunaire Op. 21 (1912)
Erwartung Op. 17 (1909)

Question 13

Arnold Schoenberg: Erwartung

Answer 13

Op. 17
Composed 1909
One act monodrama
Atonal expressionism and large shift in musical language
Among the “impregnable” “great monuments of modernism

Question 14

Expressionism (Music) Characteristics

Answer 14

Primacy to the emotions
Focus on negative emotions and disordered mental states
High levels of dissonance
Constant changing of textures
Distorted melodies and harmonies
Angular melodies with wide leaps

Question 15

Atonality

Answer 15

The absence of functional harmony as a primary structural element.
Music that lacks a tonal center, or key