Test 3 Flashcards
Describe the motivic structure and how it unifies Pierrot Lunaire
- Uses developing variations, presenting a basic idea and continuously drawing out new variants.
- Each new idea is derived from what has preceded it.
- Motivic development is how modernist composers kept a piece unified.
What elements in Pierrot Lunaire relate to the past
Passacaglia (use of ostinato) theme is presented in the bass clarinet, imitated by piano and then cello.
Minuet and Trio to reflect his new language
What is the name of the style of vocal writing in Pierrot Lunaire? describe it.
Sprechstimme
- not quite speech, but not quite lyrical singing
- Rhythms are performed as written.
- Pitches are approximated.
Describe the orchestration of Webern’s Symphonie Op 21
Derived from pointillism, featuring only a few notes at a time at once or in the same instrument in succession.
Describe one way Webern’s Symphonie Op 21 uses symmetry
Symmetrical tetrachords; The sense of a “home key” is created by registration, like when each chromatic scale appears in only one octave during the exposition around a central pitch of A (which does not function as a traditional tonic).
Development is a mirror image of itself
Describe the structure of Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, including specific information from the anthology.
- The form is approximately symmetrical, surrounding the C section.
- Starts and ends the same way, there is a section and then a fugue theme.
- contrapuntal techniques.
- Serbo-Croatian melody m 6 in viola.
How many sections are there in Music for Strings, percussion, and celesta, how are they organized
There are five sections, ABCB’A, and four Fugal themes that appear in each. Slow Arch Rondo
Define Bartok’s night music and his use of symmetry
Night music technique after his piece of the same name, a wash of sound using a pentatonic scale.
The xylophone part is exactly symmetrical.
describe the cyclical characteristics of Music for Strings, percussion, and celesta.
Reflective of itself, the xylophone mirrors itself
B’ is approximate symmetry.
contrapuntal technique - melody is in retrograde.
Characteristic that unify the wrok bc of atonality
fugue theme fragments form symmetrical form
What dose Black water blues commemorate?
A flood that happened on Christmas day in 1926 in Nashville, Tennessee. It can be seen as a complaint against poverty and racial oppression.
Describe the types of changes in the music from one verse to another in Back water blues
Each stanza follows the 12-bar blues
Sung different words to same melody, piano line got more complicated and included more improvisation each repetition.
How does the piano/song version of West End Blues differ from Armstrongs’ band arrangment?
trumpet solo instead of piano introduction
12 bar blues form instead of verse chorus.
Define Scat Singing
singing syllables rather than playing notes on an instrument in a way that imitates instrumental sounds.
What style of jazz does Cotton Tail represent and what are its characteristics
Big Band and Swing style
Define contrafact
New tune over borrowed harmonic progression,
What is the contrafacts in Cotton Tail, what other piece in the anthology uses it?
I Got Rhythm, Gershwin AA’BA’ melody
What is the form of Stravinsky’s Octet, first movement? How does it differ from the classical version of this form?
Sonata form. Has a slow introduction, frequent meter changes, dissonances
Define the other stylistic elements stravinsky borrows from earlier periods in his octet.
Sonata form
Describe the modernists elements of Stravinsky’s octet
Modern dissonance, octonic melodies, neotonality, mood juxtapositions, superimposition of layers.
Which elements of Milhauds La Creation are derived from jazz and which ones represent neoclassicism and modernism?
Jazz influence: syncopations, conversational between instruments, blue notes, melodies, riffs
neoclassic influence: fugues, poly tonal, polyrhythms
Define Moritat
- German genre where words of the song list off a criminal’s crimes.
- Street songs are usually heard at street fairs.
- Combined with a jazz band and modernist harmonies.
How is an atonal piece unified?
Motivic development. Creates unity and coherence, inspired by developing variations.
Define the basic elements of serialism
use of chromatic pitches, dynamics, articulations, and rhythms in a rotation. created to help with writing longer atonal works. Total serialism.
Define pointillistic orchestration, which composition on the syllabus used this technique
Only features a few notes at a time or in succession inspired by pointillistic art, which uses small dots to create an image. Phrases are shared between instruments.
Webern Symphonie Op 21 Mvmt 1
In a lengthy paragraph, describe the characteristics of the Expressionist movement as a whole. (That is, what were the painters, writers and artists all interested in and who were they?)
Interested in the human psyche, often psychological distress.
Describe the characteristics of expressionist painting. Name some of the Expressionist painters (e.g. Kandinsky).
Artists used misshapen faces and bodies and odd colors.
EX. Kirchner - alienation in crowds
Poet Altenberg - postcard poetry focused on the underdog
What types of compositional techniques did Bartok derive from music outside of the classical canon?
Bulgarian music gave him the idea for drones and asymmetrical meters. 2+2+3
Tonal center drone from Bulgarian bagpipe music.
Serbo Croatian melodies
Hungarian influence: Short on-beat accents in the string melodies
Western influence: Beethoven Bach
First ethnomusicologist
Be able to write a paragraph discussing the influence of folkmusic on Bartok’s own compositions.
Source of renewing modern music.
Short on-beat accents from rhythm common in Hungarian folk tunes
Stravinsky’s Russian style
Classic era forms, baroque figuration, and bach like counterpoint mixed with modernism.
Examples: neotonality, implied pitch center, frequent changes of meter, paralell fifths and fourths.
Define neoclassisicm
Movement from the late 1910s-1950s where composers revived, imitated, or evoked the styles, genres, and forms, of pre-romantic music (classic or baroque) mixed with modern ideas.
Which composers were associated with the neoclassisicm movement and what were the distinctive elements of their compositions
Stravinsky, Milhaud, Weill
What did neoclassicist composers derive from earlier composers and what modernist or popular music techniques did they use?
Dissonances, meter changes, mood juxtapositions, superimposition of layers, neotonality, octonic melodies, ostinatos.
Describe the stylistic elements in Stravinsky’s neoclassic compositions.
Dissonances, meter changes, mood juxtapositions, superimposition of layers, neotonality, octonic melodies, ostinatos.
Define Classic Blues
Traditionally performed by African-American women, accompanied by piano or small ensemble
Define new orleans jazz
Centers on group variation of a given tune, either improvise or in the same spontaneous style.
define swing
Notes on the beat are given extra time and those on the offbeats are delayed or shortened.
Diagram the standard 12-bar blues, coordinating the chords with measures.
I I (IV) I I - IV IV I I - V V (IV) I I
Define Atonal music
Music without a tonal center using contrapuntal layers to create dissonances.
Define Delta Blues
Came from the delta region of Mississippi and is usually associated with male African American singers and guitarists.
Directly rooted in oral traditions.
Describe the Second Viennese School’s compositional techniques associated with atonality and serialism
Made up of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg
Born of want to create longer atonal instrumental.
- Pitch centers
- Highly organized
- Experimented with atonality and serialism
Describe the stylistic elements of traditional Bulgarian music
Bulgarian music gave him the idea for drones and asymmetrical meters. 2+2+3
Tonal center drone from Bulgarian bagpipe music.
Serbo croation melodies
Describe the melodic shape and rhythms of Serbo-Croatian folk music
Parlondo rubato – speech-like. Long notes followed by short notes. Oral translation. Not atonal.
Who were Les Six? What were their shared ideas?
Honegger
Milhaud
Poulenc
Tailleferre
Auric
Durey
They didn’t like their name because it didn’t give them individuality. Inspired by Satie. Entertaining simplicity.
Describe Milhaud’s style
Neoclassic composers were influenced by early jazz.
Clear melodic line - neoclassicism
Polytonality - modernist
Ostinato figures, blues scale, syncopation, riffs, and jazz band instruments like the saxophone. - jazz
Small fugue in the beginning - baroque
Discuss the political movement that Weill and Brecht were associated with.
The Weimar Republic was a time between wars that held a lot of liberal ideas. The government subsidized ticket prices, and composers wrote in styles that would appeal to the public.
Hans Eisler felt that music should speak for the community as a whole.
Describe the ways Weill’s Threepenny Opera was influenced by 18th century music and by jazz
- Syncopations of American jazz, there was a jazz band in instrumentation.
- barrel organ of 18th century street singer
- Accompaniment changes as the piece progresses
- 18th century text
