MUSICIANS & CONCEPTS Flashcards
Bartok
He was from Hungary
Ethnomusicology: scientific study of non-western music
Nationalism and primitivism as origins
Immigrated to the USA because of WWII
Influenced by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, folk music.
Harmonically innovative: use of dissonance, revival of ancient and church modes, free and equal treatment of the chromatic scale (atonal).
Rhythmic innovation: uneven rhythm
Harmony and rhythm as the most important
Voices as percussions
Symmetrical music structures
Musical palindromes
Arch form
Pizzicato: pluck strings
Glissando: sliding a depressed finger down a vibrating string
Neoclassicism (baroque era)
Florence Beatrice Price
The first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer + to compose a piece played for orchestra
Fantasia: genre for solo instrumentalist
(Juliette) Nadia Boulanger
Style: Impressionism
Played organ (improvisation was big at the time) & traveled as a keyboard virtuoso
Her sister lily died and she stopped composing in the early 1920’s
She is remembered as one of the foremost composition teachers of the 20th century and one of the first professional female conductors
(Marie-Juliette Olga) Lili Boulanger
Nadia’s sick sister (bronchial pneumonia) - died at age 25
She won the Prix de Rome in 1913 (her second attempt) - first woman to do this
Vieille prière bouddhique.
Henry Cowell
Author of new musical resources - advanced innovative rhythmic and harmonic concepts.
Creation of “string piano”: reach inside the piano to manipulate the strings by plucking, scraping, scratching, etc.)
Tone cluster: chord that uses every pitch (on the piano depresses every key) between two notated pitches.
Ruth Crawford Seeger
Early American modernist composer (20s and 30s) Ultramodernist.
Specialist in American traditional folk music (dissonant counterpoint) + “indigenously American” approaches to serialism (12-tone music)
Dissonant harmonic language.
MUSIC OF THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
Individuality of expression and technical approach - diversity of styles
Many styles that end in “ism”
Expressionism, impressionism, neoclassicism, primitivism, etc.
Development of individual systems of harmony and methods of composition
Atonality, microtonality, serial procedures, aleatory.
Emphasis on rhythm by an influence of non-western music
Abstract music inspired by abstract plastic art
New sound sources explored:
New instruments: percussions, electronic, and unconventional instruments
New uses for traditional instruments: extended techniques
“Problematic”:
Manipulation of classical-era forms and genres continues to defy previous genre descriptions
Extinct baroque genres/forms/textures revived (neoclassicism)
Avant-garde aesthetic: make audience uncomfortable
Fixation on music history: taking something existing and making something new out of it
Erosion of eurocentric biases: diverse musical cultures
Modernism: innovative stylistic developments in the first half of the 20th century.
Impressionism in painting: Monet’s Sunrise Water Lilies, Degas’s The Dance Class, Renoir’s Girl with a watering can.
Soft pastel hues and mixed washes of colour, pretty and pleasant objects.
Primitivism: subcategory of exoticism: extreme ranges (high and low)
Neoclassicism as a reaction against late romanticism and impressionism
Debussy (1862-1918) → know dates
Innovator of harmonic language and orchestration in the 20th century.
Chromatic harmony and free form
Celebration of language
Lush harmonic language: extremely chromatic but pleasant to hear
Extended chords
Harmonic planning: chord progression in which each chord has the same interval content (same distance and move in parallel motion).
Stravinsky
Russian born, flew to the US
Famous ballet: le sacre du printemps (the rite of spring) -1913 Paris famous riot
Polytonality: simultaneous juxtaposition of two (or more) different key areas in different parts of the orchestra.
Anton Webern
His works were banned by the Nazis
He left Vienna
Aphorism or aphoristic: “music washes against the shore of thought”
He used silence a lot (influenced by Cage), music characterized by texture and musical gestures
Extended techniques for bowed string instruments
Harmonics: lightly placing fingers at specific points
Col Legno: turnign bow over and playing the strings with wood
Disjunct melodic lines: wide difficult leaps
Pointillism in painting represented in music by isolated points in spacee (sensation of no melody/beat and no sense of time)
Pierre Boulez
Integral serialism/control music: expanded serial procedures beyond pitch to control (order) all musical parameters.
Music is abstract and pointillistic (points of sound).
Musique Concrete electroacoustic music (electronic)
Created after WWII by Schaeffer
Influenced by Cage, any natural sound as “sound object”
Transformational processes of with equipment of the ‘50s:
Editing out portions of the sound (physically cutting the tape and using filters)
Varying the playback speed
Playing the sound backwards (tape reversal)
Combining different sounds (overdubbing)
Pure electronic music later created (and distinguished from musique concrete) by Herbert Eimert
John Cage
Influenced by sounds and teachings of non-Western cultures.
Percussions used to be militaristic or exotic but used by Cage
The prepared piano (extended technique)
Aleatory/elatoric music/indeterminacy/chance music: compositional technique with an unpredictable part (either in notation or in performance).
Piece “4’33” inspired by Rauschenberg’s Triptych (blank canva)
Bring back art to you
Break audience expectations of the piece, of music, etc
It is not silence, there are sounds
The audience as the performing artists
The “happening”: multiple forms of art are simultaneously performed or displayed, without strict coordination. Some dancers were also doing everyday movements (like music you find).
Gyorgy Ligeti
Hungarian Jewish composer born in Romania, later became citizen of Austria
New style term: sound mass composition
Eschew conventional melody, harmony and rythm in favour of sound masses with sliding ad merging orchestral clusters.
Micropolyohony: extremely detailed textural effect that are lost in the whole ensemble. Can be imitative or non-imitative polyphony.
Lux Aeterna (1966)
Luciano Berrio
Associated with the Beatles but also wrote about the politics in his time
Modern art music requires that you study music in an academy even if not necessary to perform
He explored extended techniques for the human voice
Lux Aeterna (1966)
Composed by Gyorgy Ligeti
Pointillism
16 part polyphony
Latin, sacred text from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass (funeral Mass)
Neoclassic because use of medieval era music
Style: sound-mass composition
Harmonic language: atonal
Texture: micropolyphony
Cathy Berberian
Collaborated closely with Luciano Berio (married)
Stripsody for solo voice (1966)
Score looks like a comic - supposed to be comic
Minimalism
Art with little material
In music, excessive repetition and simplification
Repetition of musical motives (melody, rhythm, and harmony)
Influenced by non-Western music, especially drums
Abstraction, cubism, etc.
Became very important in the 60’s
Early minimalism: Sometimes written just as a proof of music, found art, like Warhool and his canned soups.
Music became accessible and commercialized
Designed to entertain and just be
Abstract and emotionally neutral
Classic minimalism 1960-75
Diatonic tonality (major, minor, and other modes) - limited dissonance
Harmony makes works approachable
Then “process music”: content is very apparent and direct
Post-minimalism 1975 to present
Engaging: changes happen faster, more colorful (more sounds, orchestra, etc)
From being abstract to socially relevant again (carry a message)
Arvo Part
Spiritual minimalism because he writes sacred works
He studied a lot of Medieval and renaissance music which impacted his work
“Summa” & “Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten”
Summa
Arvo Part
Ensemble: A cappella SATB soloist or chorus
Genre: credo
Text: Latin, sacred from the Roman Catholic Mass Ordinary
Texture: homorhythmic (all parts rhythmically together) with polyphonic texture
Style: postminimalist or spiritual minimalism
“Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten”
Arvo Part
First and last sound are the same
Genre: symphonic poem
Ensemble: string orchestra with bell (called chimes)
Relevant styles:
Postminimalism: extremely limited motivic material, limited palette of timbres (strings) but more large and complex than classical minimalism (large orchestral ensemble, expressive - has a sad meaning)
Neoclassicism: densely polyphonic, through-composed work for a string orchestra (reminiscent of a typical baroque orchestra), strong emotional component.
Quotation music: using music from other composers (like Bach) in the piece
Summa Description
Arvo Part
Chords, homorhythmic (all parts rhythmically together) with polyphonic texture.
Espoir, like music for landscape or Narnia.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
First women to earn a Pulitzer Prize in music composition, which she won in 1983 for her Symphony No.1
Made music accessible for audience by expanding and redesigning tonality
Concerto grosso - Maestoso
Concerto grosso - Maestoso
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Concerto grosso - Maestoso
Genre: concerto grosso (revived baroque genre)
Style: neoclassicism (also example of quotation music, Handel)
Ensemble: flute and oboe soloists, with orchestra (strings and bassoon, harpsichord)
Texture: homophonic throughout (soloist with accompaniment, mostly)
Form: arch form or palindrome
Harmony: post-tonal
Diatonic harmony inflected with modernist dissonance - accessible music
Sounds like tonal music
Commissioned as a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Handel’s birth
Melody and textures feel baroque but harmony is of the 20th century
