The American Scene Flashcards
The Music history 3 test
What did America draw on for culture?
European culture
Explain American composers at this time.
American composers studied in Europe and became late Romaticist who were overshadowed by greater composers.
Who was an American with some name recogntion?
Edward MacDowell
Tell me about musicians and composers in America.
America’s musicians and composers were inferior compared to Europe. America writing style was needed.
When did American composers became noticed?
In the French Impressionist scene, after the German romanticism.
Who was the most prominent American composer in Impressionism?
Charles Ives
What was Charles Ives noted for?
White Peacock and Poem for flute.
When did Charles Ives gain fame? What did he become known as?
Charles Ives gain fame after his death and became known as the father of American music, the original voice of music.
Who was born in Connecticut with a father who challenge their family in music
Charles Ives.
Where did Charles Ives study? Whom did he study with?
Charles Ives study at Yale with Horation Parker.
What did Charles Ives mainly do? What did he do on the side.
Mainly, Charles Ives owned an insurance and wrote music on the weekends.
How did conductors feel about Charles Ives music?
They disliked it. They would not play his music and scoffed at it.
When did Charles Ives stop composing.
Why?
What was the aftermath?
Charles Ives Stopped composing around the age of 44 due to an illness, then gain recognition in Europe for Concord Sonata.
What did other song did Charles Ives use in his music?
Hymns, folk, and popular songs indigenous to America.
What was the subject of Charles Ives music? Examples?
Charles Ives subjects were American. Examples are: 4th of July, Central Park in the Dark, and Three places of New England
What was Charles Ives influenced by?
His music was influenced by childhood experience like 2 bands playing in different tempi and keys.
What was used in Charles Ives music?
He used polytonality, atonality, clusters, and polyrhythms.
Who was the first to write about without bars or time signature?
Charles Ives
Who was born in Paris but came to the U.S in 1915?
Edgar Varese
Whose music rejected tonality, had interest in polytonality, and rhythms with an interest in percussion?
Edgar Varese
What was Edgar Varese also known for?
His good titles like Density 21.5, Hyperprism, Ionisation, etc.
What composer had a sound like not other? Completely original.
Edgar Varese
What instruments was Edgar Varese mostly interested?
winds and percussion
What did Edgar Varese founded? What happened as a result?
He founded international Composer’s Guild to perform new works. This gave the American premier of Perriot Lunaire.
Who stop composing in the 1930s and focused on electronic music?
Edgar Varese
When did Edgar Varese start composing again? What happened?
He started back in 1952. The world caught up with his recent activies and gain too much recognition.
Who was know as the first “experimentalist?”
Henry Cowell
Who had an interest in Far East and was influenced by it?
Henry Cowell
What did Henry Cowell used his sound for rather than harmony?
He used clusters mostly for the sound as he had interest sound
and sonority.
Where was George Gershwin born?
Brooklyn
Who had an interest in Jazz at an early age?
George Gershwin
What did George Gershwin did at the beginning of his career? Whom did get fame with? Desrcibe the piece.
He wrote songs for publishers in the beginning, but he gains fame with Swanee. Swanee is a piece, written in 1919, that is associated with Al Jolson, a singer, with lyrics provided by Irving Caesar.
Describe George Gershwin style.
original, it had lyrical melodies with chromatic harmonies and sudden modulation.
What was George Gershwin first and famous orch.
Rhapsody in Blue, a piece with a piano solo
What did George Gershwin Concerto in F sought to synthesize
Jazz and classical
What is George Gershwin best known musical.
America in Paris
What Opera did George Gershwin-
write. What was it?
Porgy and Bess, an opera about being an African American in America
What did George use with his music?
He used, Ragtime, jazz, and blues
What did we tend to think of George Gershwin? What was he really? Who respected him?
A broadway composer but he was respected as an American composer by Schoenberg and Ravel.
Who is Aaron Copand? Where was he born
America’s foremost composer. He was born in brooklyn.
Who became interested in composing at an early age?
Aaron Copland
Where did Copland Study? With whom?
He study with Nadia Boulanger in France. Boulanger had major influence on him
Who became experimental with music but became conservative later.
Aaron Copland
Who was instrumental when helping with Latin and American composer through league of composers and American allegiance.
Aaron Copland
How did Copland make his music “American?”
Through jazz, Cowboy songs, and Hymns plus more.
What was Copland concerned about in the early period?
He was concerned about his relatability in music.
Whose music texture can describe as not thick but straight foward?
Aaron Copland
Describe Aaron Copland’s harmony.
It was mostly diatonic
Describe Aaron Copland melody and rhythm.
It was simple and straight-forward while the rhythm was strong. He liked meter and syncopation.
Who is Samuel Barber?
A composer born in America from a musical family.
What did Barber do at the age of 14 (1924)?
He entered the Curtis institute for composition and piano
What happened to Barber in 1935?
He won the Prix de Rome and wrote a 1 movement symphony
What did Barber do in 1939 to 1942
He joined the Curtis Inst. faculty.
Who was regarded as a strong melodist and art composer.
Samuel Barber
Which composer had a Neo-classical style with diatonic harmonies, some free from chromaticism?
Samuel Barber
What was Samuel Barber?
He was a fine orchestrator, most performed American compose at one time.
Who was the first America born and trained conductor in N.Y Phil?
Leonard Bernstein
What was Leonard Bernstein?
He was a first-rate pianis, conductor, educator,and composer
Whose music can be described as American due to the use of jazz rhtyms and Broadway influence?
Leonard Bernstein
Desrcibe the melody and harmony of Bernstein.
The melody and harmony were conventional and generally tonal.
Who wrote successfully for the musical theater with West Side Story, On the Town as well as “classical” music via symphonies, and opera Candide
Leonard Bernstein
Name the composer who fused music of Brazil with classical writng of Choros, a series of pieces fusing Brazilian, Indian, and popular music for people with different instrument combinations.
Hector-Villa-Lobos
What did Carlos Chavez, from Mexico, do?
He drew upon Aztec culture and Mexico folk music. Has a Neoclassical writing style.
What happened to the music scene in the 1920s to 30s.
- New music began to be promoted in universities and by conductors along with acceptance and publicity to composers.
-The music scene shifted from Vienna to France, which became the place where American composers’ study. Nadia Boulanger being a prominent teacher there.
-Copland, Harris, Piston, and Thompson were pupils who gained recognition in the 30s.
What happen to music in the ’30s?
-American folksong began to rise in interest as more American composer were being commissioned and publish
-More Ascap and BMI took more interest in the classic composer and awarded him with some revenue from performance
-Newyork became the musical center of the world
-American composers used folksong and unique, American subjects.
Who is Carl Ruggles?
An American composer, painter, and teacher. He had a small works that consist of dissonant, nonmetric melodies, and wide dynamics with rich coloring
Who is Ferde Grofe?
He is an American composer who is know for his orchestral works and for pioneering big band music.
Who is Walter Piston?
He was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music. He is known for his symphonic and chamber music; also, he is known for his influence on the Neo-classical style in America.
Who is Howard Hanson?
He was an composer, conductor, and teacher who promoted contemporary American music and was, in his own compositions, a principal representative of the Romantic tradition.
Who is Vigil Thompson
American composer, conductor, and music critic whose forward-looking ideas stimulated new lines of thought among contemporary musicians.
Who is Roy Harris
He was an composer, teacher, and a prominent representative of nationalism in American music who came to be regarded as the musical spokesman for the American landscape.
Who is William Schumann?
American composer, educator, and administrator whose symphonies, ballets, and chamber music are noted for their adaptation of European models to American themes.
Who is Alan Hovhaness?
American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent, notable for his wide choice of material from non-European traditions.
Who is Vincent Persichetti?
American composer noted for his succinct polyphonic style, forceful rhythms, and generally diatonic melodies.
Lou Harrison
He was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. One of the most prominent composers to have experimented with microtones.
