Postmidterm Flashcards
What is “vernacular” music?
In the language of the people
Importance of vernacular music
Impacted recording
American became leading exporter of music
Influenced composers in classical tradition
What is “tonality”?
the use of keys in music and how they lead to a certain point
Mahler
German
Well known for symphonies and songs
Expansions of symphony to fullest form with the usage of song in symphony, combining chorale
Legacy: Last major Austro-German symphonist
Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the death of children)
Malher accompaniment
combining poetry and artwork
Poet writing after death of his children, Mahler using that emotion in accompaniment
Richard Strauss
turned to opera after establishing himself with symphonic poems
legacy: successor to Wagner in German opera
Salome
Strauss
Associated with John the Baptist
Dissonant harmonies with contrasts, combining different keys at the same time
French Modernism
French musicians sought greater independence from German music
Drawing on national heritage; simple, direct meanings
Claude Debussy
*Direction: towards pleasure & beauty
Orchestra works and songs
Impressionism and symbolism: evoking mood and feeling
*Influence: emphasis on sound itself as an element of music & seminal force in history of music
Nuages
Debussy
Interacting with patterns of fifths and thirds
Ravel
Outsider, independent streak
Impressionist works, strong musical
bringing in influences from different countries, evoking influences in different ways, rhythm, etc.
Spain Modernism
Composers: Albeniz, Granados, and Falla
Taking Spanish styles and putting together with modernist techniques
British Modernism
Composers: Vaughan Williams and Holst
Composers sought distinctive English voice
Established national identity
Folk song integrated into compositions
Composers using recognizable elements from past eras
Suite No 1 in E-Flat
Holst
British military band tradition
Modal flavour or melodies, references to English folksong, country dance
Tonal
Recognizable C minor
Rachmanioff
Russian; left Russia after revolution and emigrated to America
Symphonic poems
Self contained work for orchestra
Not specific narrative but more mystical sense
Influence of Chopin and Bach
Lyrical, tonal
Prelude in G Minor
Rachmanioff
Innovative textures, melodies within traditional harmonies
ABA’ form
“sounds” Russian
Scriabin
Schooled with Rachmanioff at Moscow Conservatory
Influenced by Liszt and Wagner
Push boundary with harmonies
Using techniques that avoid a tonal resolution
Experimental, mystical music
Vers la Flamme
Scriabin
Tone poem for piano
Uncertain ending
Avant-Garde
the art that seeks to overthrow accepted aesthetics , shake things up and do it in a new way
challenging the status quo
Iconoclastic
smashing iconic icons, establishing a new way of writing
Erik Satie
French nationalist
radical break from tradition
pokes fun and challenges conventions of classical music
Futurism
Italian futurists rejected traditional instruments
Luigi Russolo, futuristic painter & composer
Modernism
Movement that followed Romanticism, focused less on consumer appeal and more on composers emotions
more of a lean towards absolute music, it is what it is
Composers push boundaries of traditional harmonies
continue to call their music modern today
trying to make their own voice
Atonal
Not having a home key
Moving away from resolution
12 tone music
using the 12 chromatic notes
Arnold Schoenberg
Best known for atonal and 12-tone music
Born in Vienna, self taught
Founded and directed Society for Private Musical Performance
shaped course of musical practice
Tonal compositions: nonrepetitions
Atonal compositions: coherent, developing variations, integration of melody and harmony, chromatic saturation
Second Viennese School
Schoenberg, Bern, Webner
Nonrepetitional
Schoenberg
Each work should not simply repeat but build on the past
Like Brahms
Coherence of atonal music
Developing variation
Integration of harmony and melody
Chromatic saturation
Pitch-class sets
Manipulated notes, intervals of a motive
Pitch class is the note the set begins on
Pierrot lunaire
Schoenberg
Psychological, introspective
Evoking traditional forms, functions of tonality, 12 tone method
Piano Suite
Schoenberg
Begins on E and ends on Bb
Alban Berg
Studied with Schoenberg
Uses techniques from previous era to give his listeners a reference point
Post Tonal
Berg
Using atonality in a tonal way - bridge point between tonal and atonality
Wozzeck
Atonal, expressionist opera
Leitmotives, comment on characters, situations and traditional forms but uses ideas from the past that would be recognizable
Anton Webner
Studied with Schoenberg
Music is a presentation of idea that presents no other way
Very concentrated in how he writes his music; does not believe in unnecessary composition, everything is tight and concise
Never gain wide popularity
Symphony Op 21
Webner
Entire movement is double cannon in inversion
Integration of canon
Reinterpretation of sonata form
Klangfarbenmelodie
different statement of melody but same notes, contrasting characters (Schoenberg concept)
Stravinsky
Rhythmic in dances, combining shifting chords
Style traits, most derived from Russian traditions
Frequent ostinatos: repeated bass voice
Anti-lyrical, colorful use of music
Influence: popularized neoclassicism and use of serialism
The Rite of Spring
Dance of the Adolescent Girls
Undermining meter, pushing strong beats into the bar
Sounds primitive
Developing of motives
Building textures
Dark themes
Neoclassical period
Intentional imitation of preromantic (classical form, not tonal) writing, emphasis on absolute music
Octet for Wind Instruments
Stravinsky
Using melodic diatonic tonal melodies but with dissonance
Neotonality
Stravinsky
Tonal centers not established through functional harmonic progressions, not by key but pitch collections
Serial period
Stravinsky
Using 12 tone methods extends to parameters other than pitch