Music Theory- Vocab

Socialist Realism

Official Soviet cultural doctrine established by Joseph Stalin. Required composers to create accessible, uplifting, and ideologically aligned works that promoted communist values and national pride. (Clear melodies, trad. Tonality, march rhythms. Folk themes and no “formalism”) Prokofiev/Shostakovich

Zhdanov Doctrine/ Zhdanovism

Strict post WWII policy by Andrei Zhdanov and Joseph Stalin that condemned formalism and bourgeois decadence. Enforced Social Realism, composers like Shostakovich, Prokofiev

Coventry Cathedral

During the Coventry Blitz on 11/14/1940, German Luftwaffe bombed the organ. After this, they rebuilt the cathedral, and Benjamin Britten was commissioned to write War Requiem Op. 66 to serve as a artistic monument to post war peace, grief, and reconciliation.

Totalitarianism

A form of modern government that seeks absolute control over the public and private lives of citizens, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union. Music was used as an instrument of state control, mass mobilization, and ideological indoctrination. Shosti, Prokofiev, Khachaturian

Degenerate Music

A term used in Nazi Regime to ban music like jazz, music from jewish or romani composers, modern and experimental styles, and communist styles. A composer that was included in this category was Hindemith specifically kurt weil.

Modes of limited transposition

Musical Scales developed by Oliver Messiaen. Scales were built on complete symmetry, transposes up a semitone with the same pitch class before reaching all 12 keys. (Whole tone scale-2 transpositions)

Non-retrogradeable rhythms

A rhythmic palindrome that sounds and reads the same forwards and backwards. (Quartet for the end of time-Messiaen)

Neoclassicism

20th century art trend that rejected late romanticism and includes clean textures, smaller orchestrations, and similar framework with modern harmony. An example of this is Stravinsky.

Musical Diplomacy

Uses melody, rhythm, and performances as a form of soft power build cross cultural understanding, bridge political divides and advance foreign policy goals without formal rules. (Shostakovich-Soviet State used his symphonies to broadcast Soviet intellectual achievements.

Total/Integral Serialism

A mid 20th century method that extends twelve tone serial ordering beyond pitch to control multiple musical parameters (dynamics, timbre, articulation, register, and rhythm). Milton Babbit used it in Compositions for four instruments.

Harlem Renaissance

A major African American cultural, intellectual, movement, and artistic movements centered in Harlem, New York. William Grant Still-Symphony No.1 Afro American