Unit 3 Flashcards
1
Q
Salome
A
-using Wagnerian tonality in a very ironic way; her being in love with a dead head and having a beautiful melody
2
Q
Strauss’s Legacy
A
- increasingly conservative composition; Late Strauss Capriccio, 1942)
- became President of the Nazi Reichmusickkamer in 1993
- wrote official music for the Nazi Party (Olympic Hymn)
- Rosenkavalier is a shift towards the more conservative
3
Q
Was Strauss a Nazi?
A
- yes; accepted patronage and wanted to “clean up” German music
- no; not an anti-Semite, protected Jews close to him, and never espoused ideology
4
Q
Modernism
A
- move towards abstraction
- music: move away from tonality
- painting; move away from clear figuration
- in France: impressionism
- move away from chordal functions
5
Q
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
A
- started studying at the Paris Conservatory ate age 10
- moved in “bohemian” circles
- did not teach, perform, conduct, etc.
- another shift in the way composers earned their living; composers do nothing but composing; not a critic or writer
- he hated being called an impressionist; preferred symbolist (Afternoon of a Faun is a symbolist poem)
6
Q
Debussy’s Style
A
- Ambivalence toward Wagner; he loved his harmony; use of Tristan Chord in Prelude to Faun
- inspired by Liszt (octatonicism), Mussorgsky, Asian musics
- pleasure in the moment, not necessarily goal-directed, more static
7
Q
“Nuages” from Nocturnes
A
- Debussy
- “clouds”
- the impression of clouds; static harmony, alternative sales, “impression” of chords
- influence of Mussorgsky “tonal collections without tonal direction”
- repetition
- English horn melody in octatonic scale including the harmony to fill in missing notes
- pentatonic flute melody
- still program music
8
Q
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
A
- born to Jewish family, converted to Lutheranism (maybe just so he could work in Berlin and Vienna), started out as a romantic, imperative of originality
- also a painted
- emigrated to America in 1933 and converted back to Judaism
- he was considered by the Nazi regime the “decadent Jewish atonal style”
9
Q
Modernism: Innovation
A
- impressionism (not Freud, French, surface level) vs. expressionism (Freud, German, trying to express your inner subconscious; often distorted)
- 1899: Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” book; he theorized the “subconscious or unconscious;” beneath your conscious mind lay a seething reservoir of wants, needs, and awful thoughts that you can’t conscious reckon with
- the unconscious, expressing inner turmoil
- abstraction/innovation/search for new sounds/history progresses toward utopia/the past is prologue/centrality of the European canon/truth is absolute
10
Q
Abandoning Tonality with Schoenberg
A
- “emancipation of dissonance;” dissonance no longer has to resolve; extension of Wagner
- preferred the term “pantonality”
- no pitch hierarchy
- minimize repetition because it emphasizes a sense of home
11
Q
Pierrot Lunaire
A
- Schoenberg
- text is a German translation of Albert Giraud
- Pierrot (character from Commedia dell’Arte; iconic sad clown
- reciter plus five musicians playing nine instruments
- 21 songs, no ensemble repeated
- Sprechtstimme; the notation is different; an X for pitches or a slash through the stem, and this means that it’s somewhere between speech and singing; you hit the note, but you don’t stay on it
12
Q
Set Theory
A
- pitch-classes vs. pitch
- defined by interval content
- arrange sets in the most compact way, count half steps from lowest note
- this actually came around in the 1970’s
13
Q
Serialism
A
- solved the originality problem of free atonality
- method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another
14
Q
Serial Technique
A
- all 12 pitches arranged in a row
- perform procedures on that row: inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion
- Schoenberg created this while he was composing
15
Q
Schoenberg and the Canon
A
- counterpoint
- BACH
- Baroque Forms: Minuet and Trio
16
Q
Schoenberg as Teacher/Theorist
A
- two major pupils: Alban Berg and Anton Webern or “Second Viennese School;” pure atonality and then first wave of serialism
- initially influential, but philosophy and ethnicity proved problematic after 1933
- fled to America, taught at UCLA
17
Q
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
A
- tend to sound more tonal than Schoenberg
- born to a wealthy family in Vienna
- studied with Schoenberg 1904-1911, but they had a difficult relationship because of Schoenberg’s ego, he wants his students to worship him
- had an illegitimate child with a woman named Marie (which he puts into Wozzeck)
- because Schoenberg expected him to promote his music, he didn’t have as much time to dedicate to his own
- he thought Webern was the favorite student because he pushed things forward while Berg focused backwards a little bit
18
Q
Wozzeck
A
- Berg
- based on Woyzeck, unfinished play by Georg Buchner
- misfortunes of a poor soldier who commits murder
- political implications
- kind of around the same time as Salome
- Berg goes into the army and composes it over seven years, completing it in 1922
- if he didn’t start it before the army, you would think it was about all of his experiences
- lower class characters have names and upper class characters have titles
- opens with Wozzeck shaving the captain, and the captain completely bashing him for being poor and dumb
- Act I: Baroque suite; Act II: Five movement symphony; Act III: Theme and Variations
- formal design corresponds to the plot going on
19
Q
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
A
- contemporary student with Berg
- definitely into absolute music
- music should express only that which something else cannot
- economy of expression; say what you have to say, and then stop talking, which is why his music sounds sparse
- Babbit and Boulez are influenced by him with serialism, advanced 12-tone procedures; more interested in the sound of the row
20
Q
Symphony, op. 21
A
- 12-tone, elements of sonata form
- exposition: two canons, one lyrics, and one more energetic
- development: palindrome
- recap: same rows, same order as exposition, different rhythms, registers
21
Q
Igor Starvinsky (1882-1971)
A
- born near St. Petersburg
- trained by Rimsky-Korsakov (where he got the tradition of The Mighty Five)
- very steeped in nationalism and Russian folk music
- Russian, neoclassical, and serialist
22
Q
The Ballet Russes
A
- Paris still a cultural capitol, still interested in exoticism
- impresario Sergei Diaghilev; decided he was going to found a ballet company that brought together the most modern artists to put on ballets in Paris; brought in modern dancers/composers/costumers/visual artists
- he made the Ballet Russe, Russian Ballet
- Nijinsky was the top ballet dancer, and he was in a relationship with Diaghilev, but Diaghilev was kind of possessive
- he was nationalist, trying to get Russian music out there; Paris loved it for exotic flavor
23
Q
Stravinsky and the Ballet Russes
A
- first ballet was “Firebird” in 1910
- then Petrouchka
- both based on Russian subjects, lots of octatonicism, and Russian folk music
24
Q
The Rite of Spring
A
- his third ballet for Diaghilev
- scenes from Pagan Russia rather than a complete story; primitivism
- all-star line-up: Stravinsky, choreographed by Nijinsky, sets and costumes by Roerich
- strange costumes, hair styles, make-up
- it has been said that there was a riot
25
Q
Danse des Adolescentes
A
- similarity to the Mighty Five
- blocks of music
- Russian folk melodies
- sometimes called the Augers or Spring chord (Fb major chord with Eb dominant 7th, bi-tonality)
26
Q
Danse Sacrale
A
-constantly shifting meter, moveable downbeat
27
Q
Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
A
- born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; against Austrian rule
- fascinated with “peasant” (folk) music
- famous concert pianist
- served on the League of Nations
- worked with Kodaly
- focused on Eastern European music
- stopped collecting, started studying/cataloguing around 1920 by rhythms, modes, characteristics
- became a full-time professor of ethnomusicology in 1934; one of the first to focus on folk music with ethnomusicology
- he was against Romanticism, wanted to break from that tradition
28
Q
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
A
- atonal fugue subject of Movement I appears in all four movements
- Movement III (“Night Music”); folk-like elements; A section: drones, trills, ornamentation; C section: orchestration, 5/4 time signature (paidushko)
- he was into symmetry, so a lot of material were palindromes; the whole piece is almost palindromic
29
Q
Art Music in America
A
- 19th century sees a rise in symphony orchestras, some American symphonists
- 1892: Antonin Dvorak recommends American composers use folk music
30
Q
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
A
- father was a bandmaster church musician
- exposed to lots of American popular son
- studied at Yale
- insurance salesman
- trained, but didn’t have a professional life as a composer
31
Q
General William Booth Enters into Heaven
A
- William Booth founded the Salvation Army; patriotic
- collage: quotation
- he was blind
- quotes the hymn “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood”; cumulative form (fragment in the beginning, adds a little more as you go, and final tune is full)
32
Q
Jazz in Europe
A
- World War I
- touring bands
- African Americans decide to stay after fighting in the war; James Reese Europe
33
Q
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
A
- Member of Les Six; wanted to “un-germanify” French music
- Jewish
- trip to Harlem in 1922-23 while the Harlem Renaissance is going on; hears all of the awesome jazz, and he wants to incorporate it into his music; thought of it authentically “African” not “African American”
- Wagner becomes popular in French music, and they wanted to get rid of that crazy Romantic deep German excessiveness
34
Q
La Creation du Monde
A
- Primitivism; “African” art; bright colors, geometric shapes
- Milhaud
- written in a jazz style, written improvisation, harmony, sliding around in a mode
- traditional elements of form and ensemble
- modernist elements of polyrhythm/meter (piano and percussion) and polytonality
- Jazz elements of saxophone instead of viola, prominent woodwinds, and texture
35
Q
1920s in Germany
A
- Weimar Republic
- Inflation
- Political instability
36
Q
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
A
- Jewish; left them behind until he was kicked out of Germany
- son of a cantor
- collaborations with Bertolt Brecht (famous playwright); he was a hardcore Marxist, almost apocalyptic
- modernism for the public, politics
37
Q
Die Dreigroschenoper
A
- the three penny opera; an opera for beggars
- based on The Beggar’s Opera; neoclassicist
- opera is a grand spectacle for wealthy audiences, but this is part of the idea of bringing modernism to the people
- story is basically The Beggar’s Opera; anti-poverty opera
38
Q
Moritat von Mackie Messer
A
v
39
Q
The Russian Revolution
A
- 1917: Bolshevik Revolution, USSR forms under Vladimir Lenin; good for modern music; he wants to promote Russia as a modern country
- 1924: Lenin dies, Joseph Stalin eventually takes power; not good for modern music; believes art should be for the people
40
Q
Socialist Realism vs. Formalism
A
- Socialist Realism (here’s a prize); art for the people’s sake; simple, accessible, folk-music based
- Formalism (to the gulag with you); art for art’s sake bourgeois or decadent; complex and atonal
41
Q
Dmitri Schostakovich (1906-1975)
A
- 1936 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Fourth Symphony; Stalin shamed him
- Fifth Symphony “A Soviet’s Reply to Just criticism” sincere? (in a biography, it says that he wrote it as a parody) he wants to make Stalin happy; becomes the symphony of the Soviet Union; Stalin loves it
42
Q
Symphony No. 5
A
- great Mahler influence
- back in with Stalin
43
Q
Prokofiev’s Relationship to the USSR
A
- 1936: officially moves back to the USSR after Stalin invites him (Shostakovich was just disgraced, so he was probably looking for a replacement for him); opportunity, promises of privileges later taken away
- he’s in Paris around the same time as Stravinsky, the 10s, 20s
- not as modern as Stravinsky, but in with that crowd
- he was not modernist enough for French and German audiences who liked Stravinsky
- he was too modernist for America (they liked Rachmaninoff)
- his music glorifies the Russian state because that was what he was expected to write
- died on the same day of Stalin, so we don’t know how he actually felt
44
Q
Alexander Nevksy (1938)
A
- famous movie
- second film with director Sergei Eisenstein, and he worked with Prokofiev
- 13th century saint
- propaganda; about glorifying Russia and putting down the Germans
- film was banned after Stalin signs a pact to not go to war with Germany, then he breaks the pact and it goes back into theaters
45
Q
“Arise Ye Russian People”
A
- simple, folk-like melodies; more complicated orchestra; “Kuchkist” style (narrow range, Russian speech style
- was in Alexander Nevsky
46
Q
Brazil
A
- Portuguese Colony until 1822; Salons and virtuosos
- 1847: some native composers emerge; influence of Wagner, Debussy
47
Q
Heitor Villa-Lobos (LoBOSH) 1887-1959
A
- traveled around Latin America absorbing folk stuff; made his money by playing in places he could get work, locally, movie theaters;
- “Week of Modern Art” is a turning point in his career in 1922; Sao Paulo, Brazil; modern artists from various countries go as representatives, and he is selected for Brazil; this is what put him international and Brazil on the international stage
- efforts at musical education; tries to put a systematic educational reform to bring Brazil up to date with the rest of the world musically; which meant he had to work with the government which was fascist; it kind of worked
48
Q
Bachianas Brasilerias
A
- no romanticism (Wagner)
- folk music
- homage to Bach; he said that Bach was folkloric, which is political putting him on the same level as Brazil
- Brazil folk music put to Baroque counterpoint and harmonies
- pizzicatos are Bachian; basso continuo; descending tetrachord; form
- Brazilian because it’s so expressive and harmonies are more Brazilian
49
Q
Mexico
A
- Spanish Colony until 1821; music as religious outreach; Gregorian chant mixed with Spanish folk music
- italian opera
- 1910 was the Mexican Civil War; “Aztec Renaissance;” a lot of Mexican art that incorporates Native American styles (North and South America)
50
Q
Silvestre Revueltas 1899-1940
A
- supported Republicans during Spanish Civil War
- Mexico starts sending weapons over to Spain for WWI
51
Q
Homenaje a Feredico Garcia Lorca
A
- Republican poet and martyr
- elements of Mexican folk music
52
Q
The Great Depression
A
- turn away from ultra-modernism; no money, not relevant
- “back to beginning” ethos
53
Q
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
A
- first generation American
- started playing piano, going to performance at 12
- studied in Paris, 1921-1924; Parisian culture was more open to the gay population
- Nadia Boulanger was his mentor
54
Q
Nadia Boulanger
A
- important 20th century theorist, composer, and teacher; friends with Stravinsky; philosophy emphasized clarity, elegance, national style; thought like Bartok, focusing on folk music
- Boulangerie is a group of composers that she taught such as Copland, Glass, Piazzola, Bauer, Musgrave, Carter, etc.
55
Q
Appalachian Spring
A
- Copland
- written in collaboration with modern dancer Martha Graham
- angular dancing style, square dancing, more like folk dancing, more bouncing than smooth
- Simple Gifts
- originally scored for 12 instruments, but later turned into an orchestral suite
- influence of Boulanger and Stravinsky in the opening with the shifting meter and off-beat accents, and vertical layers
- hides dissonance in that he spreads out dissonant pitches so it doesn’t sound as crunchy
56
Q
The Harlem Renaissance (1919-1945)
A
-flowering of African American intellectual cultural music, poetry, and intellectuals
57
Q
William Grant Still (1895-1978)
A
- wanted to be an art music composer; most people didn’t accept him because he was African American
- worked for W.C. Handy, other popular artists; traveled with Blues groups, wrote for Broadway orchestras, pop by day, ultramodern by night
- “Dean of African American Music”
- first African American to win a Guggenheim Fellowship; first to have a symphony premier, to have an opera televised
- trained by ultramodernists
58
Q
Afro-American Symphony Mvt. I “Longings”
A
- William Grant Still
- bridge form
- African American elements: blues and spirituals
- blue notes; add two notes; flat third and flat seven
- call and response
- instrumentation
- spirituals: Early African American religious music; slow tempo, pentatonic melodies
59
Q
Postwar Modernism: Two Trends
A
1945: Zero Hour (the year is called Zero Hour) (what happened in Germany after the war)
- German culture “resets”
- the trauma of World War II for art
- result: the “Darmstadt” school; purpose to bring modernism back to Germany; bring the thinking of Schoenberg or Berg, Bartok
- purge German culture of the “disease” that was the Nazis and Socialist Party
- idea that music can manipulate people, and music shouldn’t be used for that; never used for propaganda; power of music is too great
60
Q
Total Serialism
A
- serialize everything as well as pitches
- inspired by Webern
- mathematical possibilities of serialism
61
Q
Pierre Boulez (1925-)
A
- disillusioned with the current practices
- 1951: one of the first to lay out the principles of total serialism
- 1952: “Schoenberg is Dead” rallying cry for new Darmstadt school; says that Schoenberg was too reliant on Classical and Baroque forms/models
62
Q
Le Marteau sans Maitre
A
- setting of surrealist poet Rene Char; three cycles, interwoven
- different ensemble for each movement
- row is more than pitches
63
Q
Musique Concrete
A
- Pierre Schaeffer, 1948
- found sounds
- manipulating magnetic tape
- French
64
Q
New Generated Sounds
A
- Bell Telephone Labs (based in New York City/turned into Verizon, Columbia, Princeton
- 1960s: Synthesizers (Moog)
- American
65
Q
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
A
- theorist and composer
- taught math and music
- one of the first Americans to write 12-tone music
- wasn’t part of the Darmstadt, but he wrote in that style
- Philomel
- wrote “The Composer as Specialist” as music for a group of elite people
66
Q
Philomel
A
- written for soprano Bethany Beardslee and electronic tape
- combines found sounds and newly generated sounds
- based on a Greek myth from Ovid; gods tortured the humans by turning them into animals; Prockney married to Tirius, and Philomel came to visit; Tirius isn’t nice, and he rapes Philomel, and he cuts out her tongue; she weaves a tapestry of the incident, the gods turn Philomel into a nightingale
- total serialism
67
Q
Minimalism
A
- seeks accessibility
- reduce music to its basic building blocks
- not “representative;” resists traditional interpretation
68
Q
Reactions to the Darmstadt Style
A
- 1960s: total serialism is wearing thin
- 1963: Terry Riley’s “In C” is the first minimalist piece
- minimalists thrived in downtown NY and San Francisco where all the hippies were, renewed interest in Eastern philosophy
- movement to composers as part of universities to earn a living
69
Q
Steve Reich (1936)
A
- split childhood between NY and San Francisco
- studied philosophy, college in San Francisco
- interested in rhythmic complexities and harmonic stasis
- phase shifting/phase music; two or more musicians playing identical lines, but at slightly different speeds or times; electronic or acoustic
70
Q
Tehillim
A
-setting of Hebrew Psalm texts; rhythm reflects the language
-ensemble evokes “primitive” instruments
-minimalist procedures
Part I: canon (phase shifting)
Part II: increasingly melismatic text; one note added every time
Part III: dialogue, increasingly overlapping
-repetition/timelessness/ancientness/creating an ancient Jewish sound; anti-Westernized Judaism
71
Q
Tehillim Part IV
A
- combines all the procedures from the first three movements
- loss of semantic meaning
72
Q
Postmodernism
A
- Cage/Minimalism could be considered postmodern
- distrust of history/atomic/violence
- collage/reimagining the familiar/search for ways to combine sounds/historical progress is a myth/break with the past/mixing east and west/recontextualization/truth is relative
- past composers are not influences; they do their own thing
73
Q
Alfred Schnittke (schnit-kah) (1934-1998)
A
- came of age during the “Soviet Thaw” mid 1950s-1960s
- lots of film music
- complicated relationship with the USSR; he got commissions, but he had to be more conservative in his style
- polystylism; draws on Baroque, Classical, serial, anything, basically, and mix them together; kind of like neoclassicism, but Shosta does it differently; Schnittke splits styles into sections; like a collage rather than going back in the past because the present is incorrect
- Concerto Grosso No. 1 Mvt. II “Toccata”
74
Q
Concerto Grosso No. 1 Mvt. II “Toccata”
A
- baroque suite (Schoenberg)
- alternating soloists with ensemble (Vivaldi)
- different styles for each section: baroque, galant, baroque, hymn, 12-tone, blocks, jumble
- canons (Reich)
75
Q
Sofia Gubaidulina (1931)
A
- born in the Soviet Union
- spirituality; Soviet Union was officially atheist, so this was a problem
- artistic movement?
