Modernism

Debussy's influences

French baroque (Rameau, Couperin), Russian (Rimsky-Korsakov), Asian (Indonesian Javanese Gamelan), Symbolism (poetry)

Debussy's musical style

Beauty, elegance, pleasure, simplicity

Debussy said…

"There is no theory…pleasure is the law"

Debussy's works

Pelléas et Mélisande (opera set to Maeterlink), Prelude to an Afternoon of a Fawn (tone poem set to Mallarmé), Estampes: Pagodas (piano), Noctures: Nuages (orch.), La Mer (orch.)

Ravel's ethnic background

Father was Swiss/French, mother was Basque/Spanish

Ravel's influences

French baroque, Viennese waltz rhythms, Spanish, Romani/Gypsy, Jazz

What is neoclassicism?

Mixing elements of 18th c. music w/ modern elements

Ravel's works

Piano Concerto in G/Piano Concerto for LH, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Bolero, Tzigane, Violin Sonata No.2 "Blues", String Quartet in F (Mvt.1 neoclassical, Mvt.2 Spanish), Miroirs, Gaspard de la Nuit

Rachmaninoff's influences

Russian orthodox liturgy, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Chopin

Rachmaninoff's musical style

Past + national identity + individuality

Rachmaninoff's works

4 Piano Concertos (4th influenced by jazz/American style), Etudes-Tableaux Op.33 & 39, 24 Preludes, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Isle of the Dead (symphonic poem), 3 Symphonies

Scriabin's musical style

Music transcends the ordinary, otherworldly, ecstasy, divine

Scriabin's influences

Liszt/Wagner chromaticism, Rimsky-Korsakov exoticism, Debussy

Scriabin's works

10 Piano Sonatas (6-10 atonal), Prometheus (orch.), Poem of Ecstasy (orch.), Verse La Femme (tone poem for piano)

Satie's musical style

Avant-Garde: challenge the norm, oppose the status quo, start fresh

Satie's works

3 Gymnopédies (piano), Three pieces in the form of a Pear (piano, 7 pieces), Dessicated Embryos (satire on Chopin's funeral march), Parade (ballet w/ scenery and costume done by Picasso influenced by Cubism)

Schoenberg's 3 major musical periods

Late-romantic until ~1907, Atonality began 1908, Serialism in the 1920s

Schoenberg's late-Romantic period

Inspired by Brahms's developing variations, String Sextet Veklarte Nacht (transfigured night), String Quartet No.1

Schoenberg's atonal period

"Emancipation of dissoannce", Pierrot Lunaire: expressionist song cycle set to Symbolist poetry by Giraud, inludes sprechstimme, baroque elements (canon, fugue) and a cabaret band; String Quartet No.2: first atonal string quartet, Mvt.4 has no key signature, Mvt.3-4 features a soprano

Schoenberg's serial period

Piano Suite Op.25, String Quartet No.3-4

Berg's musical style

More popular than Schoenberg, used tonal expression and procedures which conveyed meaning to the audience

Berg's atonal works

Wozzeck: one of the first major operas in the 20th c. style

Berg's serial works

Lyric Suite (string quartet), Lulu: opera dedicated to Schoenberg, based on two stories by Wedekind (Erdgeist, Pandora's Box) features "filmmusik" interlude that splits the opera into 2, originally incomplete and finished by Cerha

Webern's musical inspirations

Musicologist

Webern's musical style

Bare bones: short pieces, minimal notes, dynamics rarely above forte

Webern's works

Mostly for small chamber ensembles (instrumental and vocal), Symphony Op.21: featured a double canon (Bach) and "klangfarbenmelodie" (tone color melody based on instrumentation), Piano Variations

Stravinsky's 3 major musical periods

Russian period from ~1910, Neoclassical 1919-1951, Serialism in ~1953

Stravinsky's Russian period

Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev to compose for the Ballet Russes in Paris, composed Firebird (nationalist, Rimsky-Korsakov exoticism), Petrushka (Russian folk, Viennese waltz, French song), Rite of Spring (nationalism, primitivism: elemental, crude, uncultured; no male lead and no story of 1 main character)

Second Viennese School

Schoenberg and his students Berg and Webern

Second Viennese School did what?

Pioneered radical and unprecedented changes in music

French modernism (Debussy/Ravel) did what?

Pushed boundaries

Stravinsky's neoclassical period

Pastiche style that combined western classical with Russian links, emotional detachment, Pulcinella (orchestrated Pergolesi's music), Symphony in C, Symphony of Psalms (chorus/orch.), Symphony in 3 Mvts., Concerto for Piano and Winds

Stravinsky's serial period

In Memorium Dylan Thomas (song cycle), Threni (voice/orch.), Movements (piano/orch.), Agon (ballet for Balanchine)

Bartók's musical influences

Bartók was Hungarian/Romanian, and was on a search for innately Hungarian music and traveled extensively around Eastern Europe for research

Bartóks musical style

Synthesized Hungarian/Romanian/Slovak/Bulgarian music (rhythmic complexity, irregular meters, mixed modes) with the western classical tradition (contrapuntal, formal procedures)

Bartók was…

Pianist, reseracher, composer, teacher

4 ways Bartók utilized Folk

1. Transcription/arrangement, 2. Quotation of melody, 3. Invent peasant melody, 4. Elements of folk

Bartók's works

Music for strings, percussion, and celesta, Mikrokosmos (153 pedagogical pieces for piano), Concerto for Orchestra (Mvts. in arch form: fast, fast, slow, fast, fast), 6 String Quartets, Bluebeard's Castle (opera)

Ives's musical inspiration

American vernacular music (patriotic), protestant church music, European classical music, experimental music (cumulative form, polytonality, layering rhythms, stacking intervals) and Ives combined all of these in a collage style

Ives's musical style

Tonal + atonal, programmatic of American life (similar to Stravinsky/Schoenberg but didn't know them)

Ives's works

Piano Sonatas (No.2 Concord, MA), 4 Symphonies, Country Band March, 3 Places in New England

Les Six ideology

1917-1918, Free French music from foreign domination, anti-romantic (Wagner/Strauss), no impressionism, popular inspiration (jazz, cabaret, dance), parallel to the Mighty 5 in Russia

Poulenc

Dialogues des Carmélites (opera discussing religion and politics), Gloria (choral), Stabat Mater (choral), Ballet (Les Biches), Movements Perpétuals (piano), Sextet for Piano and Winds (quintessentially French)

Tailleferre

Female, most neoclassical, inspired by French baroque (Rameau, Couperin)

Milhaud

Global, Creation of the World (USA/Jazz), The Ox on the Roof (Brazil)

New Objectivity ideology

Not overly emotional/expressionist, focus on procedures, baroque/classical inspiration, popular music, jazz, accessible to everyone by connecting to event of the time

Hindemith's musical style

3 main periods (Late romantic, individual expressionist, new objectivity), harmonic fluctuation (fluctuates between consonant and dissonant as a flow of tension/release rather than key centers/tonality)

Hindemith's works

Concerto for every orchestra instrument, Kleine Kammermusik (woodwind quintet), Gebrauchsmusik (music for use), Mathis der Maler (opera to symphony)

Prokofiev's musical inspirations

Radical modernist (expressionist) to "Russian sound", and labeled around 1948 as "formalist" by soviets

Prokofiev's works

Alexander Nevsky, Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf, Piano Sonata 6-8 ("War"), 5th Symphony, 5 Piano Concertos, Toccata

Prokofiev's history

Left Russia during the Russian Revolution but returned bc of career and wrote for the Soviet state, during WWII Soviet state became relaxed and he composed his war sonatas and 5th symphony

Shostakovich's musical style

Traditional discipline + modernism, outwardly conformed to socialist realism but there was an underlying message of bitterness and mourning (source: "Testimony" book by friend), most works were politicized with a double meaning, labeled "formalist" by the Soviet state in 1948

Shostakovich's musical works

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 15 String Quartets, 15 Symphonies, 5th Symphony, Symphony No.7 (Leningrad), String Quartet No.8

Shostakovich's history

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District angered Stalin during the purges (political figures, artists, and intellectuals were executed or put into prison camps), responded with the 5th Symphony which outwardly conformed to socialist realism but had an underlying message of bitterness and mourning