Music History III Quiz 3 - People

Louis Armstrong

Incredibly famous jazz musician - popularized virtuosic jazz solos in jazz music, as well as the now-commonly-used swung style that is now associated with big band and jazz

Duke Ellington

Leading composer and musician of Jazz Age, wanted to cross divide between jazz and art music and believed jazz could exist for its own sake instead of just for entertainment or dancing, toured internationally and brought jazz to Europe

Paul Hindemith

One of the most prolific composers of century. German, but escaped the Nazi regime!

His musical style is started Neo-Romantic, but eventually ended up in The New Objectivity style. Complex counterpoint, though from the 1930s on, wrote in a more accessible, neo-Romantic style. He was also known for writing “Music for Use.” He also was known for his harmonic fluctuation - consonant chords, greater dissonance, then consonance again.

Sergey Prokofiev

Fled Russia after Bolshevik Revolution and traveled US as composer, pianist, and conductor, but returned to USSR in 30s after government promised him commissions and performances (needed money)

In 1948, attacked by government for “anti-democratic formalism” instead of “socialist realism,” and his music after that was much simpler but much less successful

Dmitri Shostakovich

Soviet composer and pianist whose entire career was under Stalin - lots of theories that his music has double meanings due to the strict parameters for music in the regime

First symphony launched him to fame at age 19

Known for Lady Macbeth of Mtensk District, which was a hit until Stalin saw it because he hated it - the opera was attacked in print and Shostakovich feared for his life because of Stalin’s purges

Experienced government crackdown - “rehab” was patriotic music and choral hymns to be republic, so composed beautiful music “for the drawer”

Used musical cipher DEsCH in later works

Ultimately joined the Communist Party in 1960 :(

Ruth Crawford Seeger

Modernist/experimentalist - dissonant counterpoint, serialism with musical parameters other than pitch (experiment)

New Deal completely transformed her music - decided preserving/arranging folk songs would be better contribution for society (Federal Music Project = funding for musicians) - collaborated with husband and others to compile field recordings of folk songs and edit transcriptions

First woman to win Guggenheim Fellowship in music

George Gershwin

Started out writing popular songs and Broadway shows, but by late ‘20s and ‘30s, became most performed American composer of classical genres

Nadia Boulanger and Ravel both turned him down as teachers

Saw no line between popular and classical music - felt they should not be separate; saw potential of jazz and blues to add new dimensions to art music

Aaron Copland

Was very influenced by ragtime and pop in his youth, studied with Nadia Boulanger, Stravinsky, and others

Radio and recording steered him in a new direction - he wanted to appeal to a larger audience, so he made his language more accessible, was heavily influenced by socialism, and reduced modernist language to dissonance combined with diatonic melodies

He is considered the quintessential Americanist

Benjamin Britten

British tonal/neo-tonal composer, influenced by Classics (mom wanted him to be fourth B), made pieces accessible for audience enjoyment, and also wanted to restore brilliance and vitality to English music

Humanitarian messages - music for kids and amateurs is a public service, religious and sexual allegorical pleas for tolerance, wrote War Requiem to demonstrate pacifism

Olivier Messiaen

French composer, organist, ornithologist - developed a musical language so unique he literally wrote a handbook on how to write like him

Deep Catholic faith, very pious

Compositional language - modes of limited transposition (basically he invented his own scales), harmony, color, RHYTHMIC PEDAL, nonretrogradable rhythms, additive rhythms, BIRDSONG, synaesthesia, total serialism

Milton Babbitt

“Carried mantle of Schoenberg serialism”

He developed his own take on total serialism TWO YEARS before it was popularized in Europe

Published many articles that explored compositional possibilities of 12-tone and serial music

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Found the concept of “automatic composition” appealing (aka music produced by some kind of rhythmic/tonal equation or formula) - saw it as liberating instead of controlling

Found the inhuman element of total serialism divine

Used a different serial approach for every piece, so wide variety of techniquess!! (Systemizing weird elements like register, tempo, subdivisions, also permutational serialism = constant re-ordering of 12-element collection, often rotation)

Also embraced electronic music

Pierre Boulez

Iconoclast (critical of everyone and everything)

Wanted to standardize serial music like Schoenberg did with 12-tone music

Later on didn’t like his early music w/total serialism because he believed they were too random

Almost impossible to analyze

John Cage

Leader of new avant-garde movement asking “what is music?”

Henry Cowell introduced him to possibilities of exploring totally new sounds and also introduced him to tala - Indian Classical Music

Also studied with Schoenberg, who introduced him to importance of musical structure that relates a whole to its parts

Started with serial works, then moved to experimental works in ‘30s and ‘40s

After WWII, turned to much more radical ideas for music!

An artist AND a philosopher