Works/Musical examples Flashcards
Ionisation
- Varese 1929/31
- First all percussion Classical work, using gongs, maracas, sirens
- Expansion and variation of rhythmic cells
- Emancipation of Noise
Organ^2/ASLSP
- ’ As SLow aS Possible’, John Cage
- Written 1987; performed 2001-2640
- Continuous Organ piece lasing 639 years
- Organ in St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt
- Time/Commemorative?
Silent Prayer
- Prequel to 4”33, (1948)
- Intended for Muzak on the radio
- ‘recasting attention to the activity of listening quite apart from the activity of composing’ (Seth Kim-Cohen, 2009)
4”33
John Cage, 1952
1) Audience is the music; noise/silence, soundscape, humanism
2) Performer discipline; control, interpretation
3) Mastery of form and compositional perfection; accessibility, academy
0”00 (AKA, 4”33 No.2)
- John Cage 1962
- ‘Perform a disciplined action’
1) Allow interruption
2) Action cannot be repeated between performances
3) Fulfil an obligation to others
4) Cannot be performance of a musical compostion
One^3 (AKA, 4”33 (0”00) + 𝄞)
- John Cage 1989
- Setting up a microphone in the middle of the stage on the edge of feedback
- Every sound the audience makes is amplified and played back
- ‘Listening to the music hall’; listening practices
Music of Changes
- John Cage 1951
- Compositional choices decided by I-Ching
- Ancient Chinese divination scripture; spiritual probability
Grapefruit
- Yoko Ono, 1964
- Book of conceptual art
- Chapter ‘Music’; actions include recording, singing, listening
- Defining the nature of music: process, interpretation, audition vs. notation
‘I am sitting in a room’
- Lucier 1969
- Listening to the room
- Infidelity of recording (control)
- Process
Piano transplants
- Annae Lockwood 1968-82
- Installations of broken pianos
- Reuse and return to nature - ecosystem
- Environmental/natural sounds: fire, tide
‘O Saisons, O Chateaux’
- Lutyens 1946
- Poetic lyrics
- Serial piece with expressive elements
- not strictly adhering to serial means: splitting rows and omitting pitch classes
‘Projections’ and ‘Intersections’
- Morton Feldman
- Chose your own path
Feldman String Quartet No.2
- 5 hours long
- Altering perception of time, scale and form
The Rite of Spring
- Stravinsky 1913 (ballet)
- ‘Pictures of Pagan Russia in 2 parts’
- Self-exoticism for a French Audience
- Violent scenes with dissonant music
- Primitivism - rhythmic focus
Firebird
- Stravinsky 1910 (ballet)
- Based on Russian folk take of the firebird
Petrouska
- Stravinsky 1911
- Set Shrove Fair in St. Petersburg
- Characters are hand puppet, popular in market places of common people
Structures I (for piano)
- Boulez, 1951-52
- Integral Serialism
‘Mode de valeurs et intensities’ (No.2 Quatre Études de rythme)
- Messiaen 1949-50
- Numerical organisation to pitch, duration, dynamics, and mode of attack (timbre)
- Precursor to integral serialism
Meditations sur le mystiere de la Trinite
- Messiaen 1969
- Religious scripture
- Language Communicable
- Modality
Gesang de Junglinge
- Stockhausen 1955-6
- Seamless combination of human voice recording and synthesised electronic sound; marrying musique concrete and Elektronische Musik
- Spatial element of panning; assembling musical cells
Poeme Symphonique
- Ligeti 1962
- ‘Micropolyphonic’ piece for 100 metronomes set at different speeds
- Left until they run out (reverse fugue)
Disintegration Loops
- Baskinski 2001
- Tapes looped until they disintegrate and fall apart
Children’s corner
- Debussy 1908
- Serenade for the Doll : pentatonics
- Golliwog’s Cakewalk: Ragtime, blackface minstrel shows, quotes Tristan and Isolde
Estampes
- Debussy 1908
- Pagodes: Balinese gamelan, slendro scale, gong textures, title
- La Soiree dans Grenade: habanera rhythm, whole tone scale (Moorish invaders), folk guitar textures
- Jardin sous la pluie: Normandy: traditional French folk melodies
March of the Women
- Ethyl Smithe 1910
- Anthem of WSPU; used at rallied and in prison hunger strikes
- Lyrics have no clear reference to the movement or women at all
- Simple, joyful, major key
