Reading: The Twentieth Century and Beyond and Music and Modernism Flashcards
What is characteristic of music of the 1900’s?
- Wider variety of styles than ever before.
- Widening split between classical and popular music.
Modernism/Modernists
Special self-consciousness, on the part of the artists themselves, of their position at the forefront of new developments.
Avant-Garde
In the most advanced style.
When did avant-garde experimentation seem to gain the upper hand?
1900-1920 and 1950-1970.
When were the times of consolidation among the periods of avant-garde?
1920s and 30s.
What are the two overriding historical facts of the nineteenth century?
- Industrialization.
- Emergence of the modern nation-state.
Impressionism
A French artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Symbolism
A late nineteenth-century movement in the arts that emphasized suggestion rather than precise reference.
Is Debussy more of an impressionist or a symbolist?
He is both, but more of a symbolist.
Expressionism
An early twentieth-century movement in art, music, and literature in Germany and Austria.
What movement seeks to express the most extreme human feelings by divorcing art from everyday literalness?
Expressionism.
Pentatonic Scale
A five-note scale (familiar from folk music) playable on the black notes of the keyboard.
Whole-Tone Scale
A scale, used sometimes by Debussy, comprising only six notes to the octave, each a whole tone apart (i.e., two semitones).
Octatonic Scale
An eight-note scale (used by Stravinsky and others) consisting of half and whole steps in alteration.
Serialism; Serial
The technique of composing with a series, generally a twelve-tone series.
