20th-Century Music and Impressionism Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering musical techniques, styles, and literary influences of the late 19th and 20th centuries based on the lecture notes.

Polytonality

Simultaneous use of two or more tonal centers.

Whole-tone scale

A non-traditional scale employed by composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries; consists of six different pitches all spaced a whole step apart.

Pentatonic scale

A scale consisting of five different pitches, easily rendered by playing the black keys on a piano.

Expanded tonality

The use of extremely chromatic harmony while still maintaining allegiance to a tonal centre.

Modal scales

Use of scales (modes) in which the pattern of whole steps and half steps creates non-standard tonalities.

Changing meter

Shift of metrical groupings, manifested through changes of time signature.

Polyrhythm

The simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythms.

Atonality

Total absence of a tonal center.

Impressionism in music

Reflecting the French artistic movement; it employs expanded harmonic vocabulary, suggests images rather than depicting, and employs innovative orchestral colors.

Symphonic poem

One of the most popular forms of orchestral program music; a single movement in free form invented by Franz Liszt.

Symbolism

A French literary movement of the late 19th century; authors such as Stéphane Mallarmé sought to suggest subject matter rather than depict it specifically.

Franz Liszt

The composer who invented the symphonic poem, a single movement form of orchestral program music in free form.

Stéphane Mallarmé

A late 19th-century author associated with the French literary movement Symbolism, who sought to suggest subject matter rather than depict it specifically.