Austro-German Modernism

Music 305

What is one reason to study music history?

It is our heritage, beauty is enhanced by perspective (broader view)

What are the two main musical traditions of the 20th century in the West?

Classical music and popular music

What are some harmonic developments in the 19th c. that lead to the dissolution of tonality in classical music?

modulation to keys other than the dominant (chromatic mediants), chromatic voice leading, wrong-key endings

What are the two leading popular music genres of the 19th c.?

Minstrelsy (white man’s version of black music, birth of American entertainment industry) and Spirituals (sacred slave songs from the Antebellum)

What was Strauss’s relationship to opera in the 19th century?

the successor to Wagner, recognized as one of the greatest composers alive (comparable to Mahler and Puccini)

How did Strauss conjure an expressionistic atmosphere in the conclusion of Salome?

High A-Bb trill, “Salome’s allure” e minor leitmotif, low C# minor/diminished “cloud”, chromatic voice leading in vocal part, triumphant I64 chords- atmosphere over melody (atonality)

How did Strauss manipulate tonality to convey Salome’s derangment?

atonality is reality while tonality is in her head- it’s reversed. Contrast reminds us of her depravity

What did tonality represent in Salome conclusion? What did atonality represent?

Atonality is a representation of the horrific character of reality.

Tonality is Salome’s delusion, what it looks like inside her head

According to Schoenberg, why was atonality a historical necessity?

Saw the pattern of innovation in music history and felt that he owed it to art to continue development. Thought it was useless to write another chromatic piece that ended in the tonic.

How did Schoenberg describe the expressionistic character of Five Pieces for Orchestra?

“This music seeks to express all that swells within us subconsciously, like a dream.”

How did Schoenberg impart coherence to Premonitions, the first piece of Five Pieces for Orchestra?

Four-part fugue, use of themes, building to a climax that calms down again

What is Klangfarbenmelodie and how is it expressed in Colors: Summer Morning by a Lake, the third piece of Five Pieces for Orchestra?

tone color melody- not a succession of pitches, but a succession of tone colors.

Alternates between two instrument groups (1: flute, clarinet, bassoon, viola; 2: english horn, bassoon, french horn, muted trumpet, viola)

What is the Second Viennese School?

Schoenberg and his students, Berg and Webern (part of the same age in music history)

In what ways did Berg interpret atonality through a late Romantic lens?

“backward-looking”- doesn’t have a tonal center, but echos of romanticism (uses triads, scales, arpeggios, children’s songs nonfunctionally)

How did Berg impose order on his expressionistic opera Wozzeck?

reached back to previous forms, genres, and ideas

Act 1: five character pieces

Act 2: symphony in five movements

Act 3: six “inventions”

What are the principal stylistic characteristics of Wozzeck?

expressionist opera, Wagnerian (leitmotifs, continuous music, orchestra focused), atonal, use of Sprechstimme

In what ways did Webern interpret atonality through an abstract, futuristic lens?

prioritized texture: pointillism, minimalist (not the proper), concentrated length of pieces

How did Webern's musicology Ph.D. influence his approach to composition?

created his love for counterpoint (study of renaissance music)

How would you describe the twelve-tone structure of the first movement of Webern's Symphony, Op. 21?

2 canons, the second more broken up (leading and following voices, sometimes split over multiple instruments)

How do pointillism and Klangfarbenmelodie shape the first movement of Webern's Symphony, Op. 21?

plays with texture and timbre- soft, delicate, and gentle (despite dissonances)

composers on atonality scale

Strauss (largely tonal w/ atonal moments), Berg (atonal with tonal resonances), Schoenberg (uses traditional structural devices), Webern (abstract, texture)