Test 3 Flashcards
The End of Tonality: Arnold Schoenberg
Todays Topic
-Schoenberg did not see himself as a total break with tradition but a continuation of tradition
Modernism: Innovation
- Impressionism vs. Expressionism
- 1899: Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams”
- Freud theorized the subconscious, something below your thoughts - The unconscious, expressing inner turmoil
- Impressionism - not trying to compose “the thing” just give an impression of it.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
- Born to a Jewish family, converted to Lutheranism (was it sincere?)
- Survived WWII in America
- Started out as a romantic
- imperative of originality
- the idea that you have to be original you can’t just copy
- you have to keep pushing music forward - Modernism means you have to be creating new!
Schoenberg’s Abandoning of Tonality
- “Emancipation of Dissonance”
- Dissonance no longer has to resolve - Preferred the term “pantonality”
- hated the term atonality, he said he was composing with tones not without them. - No pitch hierarchy
- no pitch should feel like home - Minimize repetition
- repetition creates a sense of home
Pierrot Lunaire
-Tet is a German translation of Albert Giraud
-Pierrot
-character from Commedia dell’Arte
-iconic sad clown
Commedia dell’arte - style that is semi-improvised, comedy
Pierrot Lunaire
- reciter (not singer) + 5 musicians playing 9 instruments
- 21 songs, no ensemble repeated
- similar to a song style
- Sprechtstimme
- reciter - part not sung but recited in sprechtstimme, notes have x’s or slashes instead of circles on line. Hit the notes more in speech than in song. Stylized speech
Set Theory
- Pitch-classes vs. Pitch
- Defined by interval content
- Arrange sets in the most compact way, count half steps from lowest note.
Serialism
- Solved the originality problem of free atonality
- “Method of composing with twelve tones which are related to each other
Serial Technique
- All 12 pitches arranged in a row
- Perform procedures on that row: Inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion
The Second Viennese School: Berg and Webern
Todays Main Topic
Schoenberg as Teacher/Theorist
- German, into german tradition
- Two major pupils: Alban Berg and Anton Webern
- “Second Viennese School”
- Atonality and serialism
- first Viennese school was Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven - Berg’s pieces tend to sound a little more tonal
- Initially influential, but philosophy and ethnicity proved problematic after 1933
- Schoenberg was Jewish and wrote Atonal - Fled to America, taught at UCLA
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
- Born to a wealthy family in Vienna
- Studied with Schoenberg, 1904-1911
- Difficult relationship - Schoenberg tried to get Berg to promote his music
- Berg wasn’t feeling it - Sounds more “tonal” than Schoenberg
- Berg thought Schoenberg favored Webern
Wozzeck
- Berg
- Based on Woyzeck, unfinished play by Georg Buchner
- Misfortunes of a poor soldier who commits murder
- Political implications
Construction of Wozzeck
Break down online
-Act 1 scene, 5 drum major seduction in Rondo
Act III, Scene 3: Variations on a Rhythm
Online
- previous scene is the murder scene, Marie is dead
- Haupststimme
- More info online
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
- Contemporary student with Berg
- Music should express only that which something else cannot
- Economy of expression
- music viewed as dry/sparse
Symphony, op. 21
- Webern
- 12-tone, elements of sonata form
- Exposition
- two canons, one lyrical, one more energetic
- Klangfarbenmelodie - sound, color, melody
- Exposition
- Canons
- Plays with tone color
- Development: Palindrome
- Recap: Same rows, same order as exp., different rhythms, registers
Igor Stravinsky and the Ballet Russes
Topic 11/3
The Next Generation of Russians: Igor Stravinsky
- 1882-1971
- Born near St. Petersburg
- Trained by Rimsky-Korsakov
- Octatonic scales
- Three major compositional periods
- Big in Nationalism
- 19th century culture
- Parallels with mazorgsky
The Ballet Russes
- Paris still a cultural capital
- still interested in Exoticism
- Impresario Sergei Diaghilev
- he decided he was going to create a ballet company that brought together all of the best most modern artists, dancers, composers, designers, etc.
- The Ballet Russes - Dringing Modernist artists together
- Star Dancer/choreographer - Vaslav Nijinsky - Diaghilev’s lover
- Opened in 1909
Stravinsky and the Ballet Russes
- First Ballet: 1910, “The Firebird” - Stravinsky
- Next, “Petrouchka” - Petrouchka chord (c major chord layered with F#, you get an ochtatonic collection)
- Both: Based on russian subjects, lots of octatonicism, folk music
- Leon Bakst, costume design for “The Firebird,” 1910
The Rite of Spring - Stravinsky’s most famous work
-Third ballet of Diaghilev
-Scenario: Scenes from Pagan Russia
–“Primitivism” - more violent, animalistic. Dance style was very primitive.
-All-Star line-up: Stravinsky, choreographed by Nijinsky, sets and costumes by Nicolas Roerich
-Riot! (dancing, not the music?)
-initially a disaster because it was not the typical sexualized ballet. People would talk through it and cause the dancers to not be able to hear the music.
Rite of Spring Reconstruction
“Danse des Adolescentes”
- Similarity to the Mighty five
- similarities to Boris Godunov - Blocks of music
- Russian folk melodies
- The Dinosaurs from the original fantasia
- a lot going on vertically but horizontally its very repetitive
Danse des Adolescentes 2
- Polytonality
- “spring” or “Augurs” chord
- E-flat dominant 7 and F-flat major - Vertical layers
- Ostinatos - Cubism - brought to the forefront by Picasso. Show three dimensional objects in a two dimensional way
“Danse Sacrale”
- Constantly shifting meter
- moveable downbeat?
- whenever Stravinsky wanted an accent he inserted a downbeat.
Neoclassicism - Stravinsky strikes back
todays topic
The Long 19th Century
- 1789-1914 (French Revolution-World War I)
- Devastation of World War I - most disastrous war ever to take place in Europe.
- First war fought Modern weaponry
- Guns and Mustard gas - a lot of people blamed nationalism for WWI
From Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”
- “If in some smothering dreams…”
- people became disillusioned with nationalist music
Stravinsky after the Rite
- Stranded in Switzerland by the Russian Revolution (1917)
- WWI ends in 1918
- 1919: Pulcinella (Ballet), arranges this piece by Pergolesi
- Inspires “Neoclassical” Period
- Stravinsky a Fascist, not a communist
- A man without a country when in Switzerland
- Music becomes anti-nationalism
Neoclassicism
- Draws on all pre-Romantic idioms
- Two related goals:
- Anti-Romaticism
- Anti-Nationalism - more similar to Baroque
- a lot of Bach Influence
- Stravinsky didn’t want his music to express emotion because emotion leads to War, Nationalism leads to war.
- One country isn’t better than another
Stravinsky on Musical Expression
- Stravinsky wrote a lot about music, his music
- He was often quoted instead of writing about himself
- Composer’s quotes of the time were often questionable.
- You couldn’t get composers to shut up at this time - STRAVINSKY QUOTE ONLINE
- Difference between beauty and emotion
- Music of this time should be objectively beautiful
Symphony of Psalms
- Commissione by the Boston Symphony for Stravinsky
- Premiered in 1930
- memorial piece for WWI
- Influences:
- Fugual moments
- a lot of repetition
- openning similar to the Eroica - not meant to be listened by just anyone coming off the street (just enjoyed). Meant to be listened to intellectually.
Symphony of Psalms: Neoclassical elements
- Opening: similar to Eroica
- Bach-like arpeggios
- Mostly wind ensemble (Renaissance Consort?)
- Gregorian-chant
-Symphony of Psalms: Continuity with the Russian Period
- Blocks of Sound - m.24 big break followed by something new. Music that is built in chunks
- Ostinatos
- “Neotonality”
- Psalms Chord - standard e minor chord, but played spread out with the 3rd doubled (emphasized).
- scale degree 1 > scale degree 2 - this piece keeps switching between G and E
Stravinsky’s Later Career
- Famous conductor
- Emigrated to America in 1939
- Last period: serialism. (after Schoenberg was dead)
- they weren’t enemies but they weren’t friends
The Search for New Sounds
Todays topic
Bela Bartok
- 1881-1945
- Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (area that is now Romania)
- Fascinated with “peasant” (folk) music
- Famous concert pianist
- Served on the League of Nations
- Outspoken against the Nazis
- Experienced the 19th century serge of Nationalism
- went against this by looking into folk music - His Parents were teachers
- Interested in Pedagogy
- Studied at the Royal Academy of Music
- One of the first Ethnomusicologists, interested in teaching
- Famous Pianist and toured Europe, ended up in USA
Bartok as Ethnomusicologist
- Worked with Zoltan Kodaly
- Focused primarily on Eastern European music
- Romanian/Hungarian nastionalist
- Stopped collecting, started studying around 1920
- Trianon of Trianon in 1920 that broke up and established the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
- Became a full-time professor of ethnomusicology in 1934
Bartok’s Style
-Mixing folk and modernist elements:
Quotes online
sounds similar to stravinsky. Saying his sound isn’t nationalist but anti-romantic.
- Using folk music to search for new sounds. You can’t use music to promote someone’s nationalism after WWI.
- Get the sentimentality out
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
- Atonal fugue subject of Movement I appears in all four movements.
- infusion of Folk music characteristics. Doesn’t directly quote any folk tunes.
Movement III, (“Night Music”)
- Folk-like elements:
- A section: drones, trills, ornamentation
- C Section: orchestration - Symmetry: orchestra setting, “Bridge” form
- Bartok was very into symmetry, Palindrome
- Breakdown online
- He would brake his orchestra in half when performing on stage.
Art Music in America
- 19th Century sees a rise in symphony orchestras. some American symphonists
- 1892: Antonin Dvorak recommends American composers use folk music.
Charles Ives
- 1874-1954
- Father was a bandmaster, church musician
- encouraged a different way of listening to music - Exposed to lots of American popular song
- Wasn’t recognized as a brilliant musician until the 1930’s or 40’s
- Only started publishing his music in 1918
- Studied at Yale, did study music
- Previously an insurance salesman.
“General William Booth Enters into Heaven”
- William Booth founded the Salvation Army
- Patriotic - Booth was blind
- Collage: Quotation
- Cumulative form
- “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood”- Sounds like Sister Act
Jazz Comes to Europe
todays topic
Jazz in Europe
- Jazz started in New Orleans
- WWI
- The American GI’s bring with them their music - Touring Bands
- music was sent over to entertain the troops - African Americans decide to stay
- James Reese Europe - forefront of bringing Jazz to Europe
- Early 1920’s Jazz caught fire, particularly in Paris.
- Parisians saw jazz as kind of the African primitive music
- France had African colonies
Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1972)
- Member of Les Six (similar to Russian 5)
- Wanted to “un-germanify” French music - Trip to Harlem in 1922 - 23
- hears Jazz and decides to incorporate it into his music
- sees Jazz as strictly African, not an american music - At the time French music was very Wagnerian
La Creation du Monde
- Milhaud’s most famous piece
- Primitivism
- The Creation of the World
- the saxophone is down with the strings
- music is similar to a jazz band
- Dorian mode
- Whats classical about his music
- uses orchestral instruments (string section)
- very rhythmic (quick, fast, almost baroque)
- melody is heard in all different parts (like a jazz fugue)
La Creation du Monde 2
- Traditional elements
- form
- ensemble
- Jazz elements
- saxophone instead of viola
- prominent woodwinds
- texture - Modernist elements
- polyrhythm/meter (m. 1, piano and percussion)
- polytonality (m.24) left in C major right in D - three beat ostinato in piano
- percussion has 6
1920’s in Germany
- Germany was forced to pay for the war
- Weimar Republic
- first time Germany was ever a democratic government
- this new government was based in Weimar
- symbolic gesture towards humanism/enlightenment
- didn’t work out that way - Inflation
- in debt so just started printing money - Political instability
Kurt Weill
- 1900-1950
- Son of a Cantor
- had an apartment in the synagog
- Collaborations with Bertolt Brecht
- Modernism for the public, politics
- developed new theory of modernism
- modernism should be used for political purposes
- bring modernism to the people
Die Dreigroschenoper
- most famous work of Weill and Brecht
- Based on The Beggar’s Opera
- Three penny opera
- “This evening you will see an opera for beggars. Because this opera was conceived to be so magnificent that only a beggar could dream of it, and because it must be precede so that a beggar could afford it, it is called The Threepenny Opera.”
“Third Threepenny Finale”
-Poem online
Moritat von Mackie Messer
the ballad of Mack the Knife