Music History III Exam 3 - Listenings

Backwater Blues

Bessie Smith, 1927, USA

Blues = troubles, defiance and will to survive, humor and wit

Classic Blues incorporates sexuality and feminism

12-bar blues

“Blue notes” = ‘bending’ pitches to give sadder sound - singing lower pitch than major scale, often lowered 3rd, 5th, and 7th for emotional effect

West End Blues

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, USA, 1928

Typical 1920s jazz elements = syncopation, novel vocal and instrumental sounds, irreverent and unbridled spirit (mocks social AND musical norms), improv

But West End Blues is New Orleans jazz! Which means it’s a group variation on a tune with alternating, virtuosic solos (call-and-response, also Gospel echoes)

The Hot Five was a mixed-race performing group! Which meant that for the first time, African American musicians were performing in all-white elite venues

Cotton Tail

Duke Ellington, 1940, USA

Ellington known for tight arrangements (less spontaneous improv), and he wrote for specific players’ abilities

This piece was written to highlight the skills of tenor sax player Ben Webster

Structure: opening tune followed by a bunch of choruses over the same chord progression

Tune borrowed from Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm (though heavily changed), harmonies preserved

Symphony Mathis der Maler, Movement II

Paul Hindemith, 1934, Germany

First an opera, then a symphony (better-known as a symphony)

Based on the life of Matthias Grunewald, painter of the famous 16th-century Isenheim Altarpiece

Plot: Mathis leaves his calling as a painter to join peasants in rebellion of nobles in the German Peasants’ War of 1525, in which the peasants lost. Ultimately realizes that abandoning his art was abandoning his obligation to society (relevant to Hindemith’s life because he was writing music under the Nazi regime)

Neo-Romanticism: less dissonant counterpoint, clearer tonality, harmonic fluctuation (consonant chords gradually become dissonant, then are resolved)

Symphony No. 5, Movement III

Dmitri Shostakovich, 1937, Russia

This piece was a reaction to Stalin’s public hatred of Lady Macbeth of the Mtesnsk Districti, which prompoted the papers to bash his opera (Stalin felt that it was too dissonant, violent, and sexual), and caused Shostakovich to fear for his life

Since this symphony was a reaction, it was more “pleasing” to listen to, and thus more accepted by authorities, but this movement has a tone of bitterness and mourning

String Quartet 1931, Finale

Ruth Crawford Seeger, 1931, USA

Her best-known work!

Employs new musical procedures for every movement

The finale has 2-part counterpoint between the first violin and the other strings, has a very methodical approach (gradual building of fabric, then reverses the process), and is a musical palindrome! (the same forwards AND backwards)

Appalachian Spring

Aaron Copland, 1944, USA

His most famous work!

It was first a ballet, but later was most frequently performed as an orchestral suite

Ballet choreographed by Martha Graham (who basically co-composed the piece)

It won a Pulitzer Prize!

Incorporates variations on Shaker hymn ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple

Widely spaced sonorities, starkly empty fifths and octaves, diatonic dissonances (the rest of his musical output after this was similar!)

Peter Grimes, Act III, Scene 2, “To hell with all your mercy!”

Benjamin Britten, 1945, England

Brought Britten international fame!

First English opera since Purcell to become world famous

Plot: a fisherman is loathed by other villagers because he is suspected of murder, is pursued by a mob, and ultimately driven to suicide (individual persecuted by crowd = allegory for hostility towards homosexuals in British society)

Grimes is NOT a sympathetic character (deeply flawed)

Audience meant to see themselves in the CROWD (hateful group that persecutes outsiders, driven by misinformation, suspicion, and hatred)

Final scene = catharsis through tragedy, BITONALITY TO PAINT THE SCENE (2 different keys!!!)

Quatour pour la fin du monde, Movement I. Liturgie de cristol

Olivier Messiaen, 1942, Germany (wrote it in POW camp??)

Inspired by Biblical prophecy of Apocalypse (stasis to contemplation to negation of desire)

Musical language: birdsong, modes of limited transposition, additive rhythm, rhythmic pedal of 17 with pitch pedal of 29, beautiful timbres and harmonic color a result of synaesthesia

All Set

Milton Babbitt, 1957, USA

Developed his own take on serialism two years before Europe!

Sought congruence in how different elements were organized

He was also a mathematician so processes/numbers/organization was big for him

Le Marteau sans Maitre, Movement VI, “Borreaux de solitude”

Pierre Boulez, 1955, Germany (premiere)

Best-known totally serial piece

9 short movements, setting verses from a cycle of a surreliast poem by Rene Char

“Pontilist style”