Reading: The Twentieth Century and Beyond and Music and Modernism

Question 1

What is characteristic of music of the 1900’s?

Answer 1

• Wider variety of styles than ever before.

- Widening split between classical and popular music.

Question 2

Modernism/Modernists

Answer 2

Special self-consciousness, on the part of the artists themselves, of their position at the forefront of new developments.

Question 3

Avant-Garde

Answer 3

In the most advanced style.

Question 4

When did avant-garde experimentation seem to gain the upper hand?

Answer 4

1900-1920 and 1950-1970.

Question 5

When were the times of consolidation among the periods of avant-garde?

Answer 5

1920s and 30s.

Question 6

What are the two overriding historical facts of the nineteenth century?

Answer 6

• Industrialization.

- Emergence of the modern nation-state.

Question 7

Impressionism

Answer 7

A French artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Question 8

Symbolism

Answer 8

A late nineteenth-century movement in the arts that emphasized suggestion rather than precise reference.

Question 9

Is Debussy more of an impressionist or a symbolist?

Answer 9

He is both, but more of a symbolist.

Question 10

Expressionism

Answer 10

An early twentieth-century movement in art, music, and literature in Germany and Austria.

Question 11

What movement seeks to express the most extreme human feelings by divorcing art from everyday literalness?

Answer 11

Expressionism.

Question 12

Pentatonic Scale

Answer 12

A five-note scale (familiar from folk music) playable on the black notes of the keyboard.

Question 13

Whole-Tone Scale

Answer 13

A scale, used sometimes by Debussy, comprising only six notes to the octave, each a whole tone apart (i.e., two semitones).

Question 14

Octatonic Scale

Answer 14

An eight-note scale (used by Stravinsky and others) consisting of half and whole steps in alteration.

Question 15

Serialism; Serial

Answer 15

The technique of composing with a series, generally a twelve-tone series.

Question 16

Consonance

Answer 16

Intervals or chords that sound relatively stable and free of tension, as opposed to dissonance.

Question 17

Dissonance

Answer 17

Intervals or chords that sound relatively tense and unstable, in opposition to consonance.

Question 18

Atonal; Atonality

Answer 18

The absence of any feeling of tonality.

Question 19

“Holy trinity” of music:

Answer 19

Melody, harmony, and tonality.

Question 20

Series

Answer 20

A fixed arrangement of pitches (or rhythms) held to throughout a serial composition.