5.21 Early Modernism

  • Major phase of avant-garde music took place in ^^Paris and Vienna^^ around ^^1890-1914^^
  • Leading figures were ^^Igor Stravinsky^^ and ^^Arnold Schoenberg^^
  • ^^Rapid development^^ in all arts
  • 19th century musical ideas were “under attack”
  • Large ^^revolution^^ especially in tonality, also melody and harmony

Debussy and Impressionism

  • Claude Debussy is right ^^in between^^ late 19th century and early 20th century styles   * New ^^tone colors^^ and rich ^^harmonies^^ are similar to Romanticism   * Tone colors ^^avoid “heavy sonorities”^^ (different from romantic) and are “subtle” and “mysterious”   * Fragmentary/tentative melodies/motives   * Vague harmonies   * Tonality often ^^clouded^^
  • Gustav Mahler had more ^^contrapuntal^^ orchestra
Clouds, from Three Nocturnes (1899)
  • Debussy’s ^^Three Nocturnes^^ is reminiscent of ^^impressionist symphonic poems^^
  • Clouds is the least “nocturnal” of the collection   * Others are Festivals and Sirens
  • Begins w/ quiet woodwind chords (suggesting clouds), then an English horn motive (octatonic scale), then parallel chords (same structure in chords, parallel pitches)
  • Approximate ^^ABA’^^ form

Stravinsky: The Primacy of Rhythm

  • ^^Igor Stravinsky^^ was taught by Russian nationalist composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
  • Wrote 3 ballet scores for the ^^Ballets Russes^^ (Russian Ballet) in Paris   * Stravinsky used his quickly developed “powerful, hard-edged” avant-garde style   * More abstract use of folk tunes
  • First ballet is ^^The Firebird^^ (1910)   * Romantic fairy tale   * Magical Firebird, ogre Kastchei, and Prince Ivan Tsarevitch   * Half-Asian setting   * “Beautifully colored” folk music
  • Next is ^^Petrushka^^ (1911)   * Mardi Gras in St. Petersburg   * About a carnival baker and his puppet   * Satirical?
  • ^^The Rite of Spring^^ (1913)   * “Bold” and “brutal”   * Uses Russian folk music     * Repeated, fragmentary motives   * Imagines fertility cults of prehistoric Slavic tribes
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Biography
  • Debussy entered the strict ^^Paris Conservatory of Music^^ at 10   * Great in ^^theory and composition^^   * Not so great in piano   * Awarded the coveted ^^Grand Prix^^ (top prize; 3-year fellowship to study in Rome)
  • Worked with Madame von Meck (“eccentric” patron of Tchaikovsky)
  • Influenced by Russian music and the Indonesian gamelan
  • Rejected previous influence of French symbolist poets and impressionist painters
  • Also ^^rejected Wagner and German^^ music despite their influence due to his time in Bayreuth
  • Famous for innovations in ^^orchestration^^ and piano writing
  • Impressive ^^preludes and etudes for piano^^ (miniatures)
  • Wrote music criticism for a short time
  • Hated Germans
  • Died of cancer in Paris during WWI
The Rite of Spring, Part I, “The Adoration of the Earth” (1913)
  • First performance caused ^^riots^^
  • ^^Violent and dissonant^^ sounding, w/ “provocative choreography”
  • Suggests rape and ritual murder
  • Ballet has ^^no real story^^   * Stravinsky thought of this as an “abstract concert piece”
  • Second part (“The Sacrifice”) involves a virgin being danced to death
  • Structure:   * Introduction   * Omens of Spring and Dance of the Adolescents   * The Game of Abduction   * Round Dances of Spring

Expressionism

  • Austrian and German composers still had ^^emotional and complex music^^   * Exploited extreme states   * Expressionism
  • Sigmund Freund
  • Influenced by ^^psychoanalytic theory^^   * Erwartung (Anticipation) is a monologue written by Schoenberg for soprano and orchestra     * Reasonably dark (dead bodies)     * Sense of hysteria
  • ^^Schoenberg^^ was the leading expressionist in music   * Pioneered the “emancipation of dissonance,” “breakdown of tonality,” and serialism
  • ^^Second Viennese school was Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg^^   * First was Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Biography
  • Son of important opera singer
  • Studied ^^law^^ until age 19
  • Studied w/ ^^Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov^^ (kuchka member; nationalist)   * Helped him write his 3 Ballets Russes ballet scores
  • Composed more b^^allets^^ and other things after WWI   * Also ^^modeled his music on that of Bach, Handel, and Mozart^^, transforming it w/ his “unique rhythmic and harmonic style” (This style was called ^^Neoclassism^^)
  • Advocate of “^^objectivity^^” in music   * Rejected Romantic emotionality
  • Died in NYC, buried in Venice
Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot) (1912)
  • Most ^^famous/influential 20th century song cycle^^
  • Poems are by symbolist Albert Giraud
  • Pierrot is the “eternal sad clown”
  • ^^Sprechstimme^^ (speech-song) is an invention of Schoenberg in which sound is not fully organized into pitches   * “Extreme example” of avant-garde   * In this case, soprano doesn’t quite sing, doesn’t quite speak (somewhere in between)
  • ^^Soprano and 5 instrumentalists^^   * 8 instruments     * 1 person switches between flute and piccolo     * 1 person switches between clarinet and bass clarinet     * 1 person switches between violin and viola     * Cello     * Piano   * Not all player in every song (unique accompaniment in each)
  • No. 8: “Night”   * Voice, piano, bass clarinet, cello   * “Nightmarish”   * Vision of “ominous insects”   * Schoenberg called it a passacaglia (type of Baroque ostinato piece)   * Mostly Sprechstimme
  • No. 18: “The Moonfleck”   * Voice, piano, piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello   * “Dense, dissonant, atonal, and alarmingly intense” introductory piano passage   * “Nagging bother of an obsession”   * High-pitched scattered motives
Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1923)

  • Berg was a ^^student of Schoenberg^^

  • Berg began working on Wozzeck during WWI, and completed it in 1923

  • ^^Wagnerian^^, but also similar to Pierrot lunaire

  • Highly intense

  • About Franz Wozzeck, a ^^“low cog” soldier^^   * Tormented by his captain, the regimental doctor, and visions   * His lover Marie sleeps w/ a drum major and then beats Wozzeck up when he objects, so he murders her and then drowns himself

  • Act III, Scene ii is the murder scene   * Followed by a blackout and 2 crescendos

  • Act III, Scene iii   * Wozzeck drinks w/ Marie’s friend Margret in a tavern   * Distorted, dissonant ragtime   * Disjoined, confused, shocking   * People see blood on his hands and turn on him, he escapes   * Built on a “master rhythm” w/ slight modifications in different tempos   * More ostinato

  • Act III, Scene iv   * Wozzeck returns to the pond (scene of the crime)- he sees blood and goes in the water to wash himself, drowns

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Biography
  • Grew up in Vienna
  • Self taught before Alexander von Zemlinsky trained him
  • Wrote music theory books and literary texts for his compositions, also painted in expressionist style (^^versatile^^)
  • Early music was similar to late Romantic
  • Increased ^^chromaticism and atonality^^   * Met w/ hostility from the public   * Attracted interest of Mahler and Richard Strauss (students flocked too)   * His music became more and more atonal
  • ^^Developed twelve-tone (serial) system^^   * Radical and fruitful
  • Jew forced to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power   * Moved to LA, become a US citizen
  • ^^Strange^^ personality
  • “First ^^great teacher^^ since Bach”
Schoenberg and Serialism
  • ^^Twelve-tone system^^ was a “method of composing with the twelve tones solely in relation to one another” (according to Schoenberg)   * Known as ^^serialism^^   * “Ultimate systematizing of [Romantic] chromaticism”
  • Twelve-tone row or series was an ^^ordered sequence of the 12 pitches^^   * Schoenberg stuck to using the 12 pitches in a fixed order, w/o repetitions or backtracking before starting over again   * Any octave   * Sequence can be presented inverted (backwards, retrograde)
  • Each piece has its own “sound world”

The First American Modernist

The ^^first major modernist composer in the US^^, Charles Ives, amazingly worked in isolation (composed in his spare time). He used mostly ^^American subjects^^ (nationalist). He wrote ^^highly experimental, dissonant music^^ (some was for piano tuned to 1/4 tones instead of 1/2)

Charles Ives (1874-1954) Biography
  • Son of a Civil War military bandmaster and music teacher   * His dad liked to play 2 tunes simultaneously in different keys for fun? Unconventional guy
  • Church organist as a teenager
  • Went to Yale   * He thought his professor Horatio Parker had tame, traditional, and unmasculine   * He wanted to make more ^^experimental and vigorous music^^
  • After graduation, worked in insurance and as a church organist, then later just in business   * Didn’t try to get his works published or performed
  • He thought that ^^communal joy in music^^ making mattered much more than how a piece sounded
  • Almost gave up music completely later in life
  • He ^^did get to see his music admired^^ by the public at large :)
Second Orchestral Set, Second Movement, “The Rockstrewn Hills Join in the People’s Outdoor Meeting” (1909)
  • Ives wrote ^^4 symphonies^^
  • Has false starts, parts of hymns, irregular rhythms, etc.
The Unanswered Question (1906)
  • Needs 2 conductors
  • Three distinct, independent levels of music   * Choir w/ consonant harmonies   * Dissonant woodwinds   * Trumpet which sounds “like a voice”   * Strings are also playing ppp throughout w/ no change in tempo   * ^^NOT traditional polyphony^^ (they don’t fit together at all)

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