Notes on 20th Century Musical Styles

Impressionism in Music

It has been said that impressionism in music was adapted from ART IMPRESSIONISM.
It is a style of music that makes use of sound to let the listener feel the moods that focus on the structure of music.
Started and developed in France in the 19th century.
Key idea: convey mood, atmosphere, and subtle tonal colors rather than strong, dramatic rhetoric.

Notable Composers (Impressionism)

Claude Debussy (ACHILLES CLAUDE DEBUSSY)
Best Composer (Impressionism): Debussy is a central figure in the impressionist movement.

Claude Debussy

Born in France on $22$ August $1862$ .
Sent to his first formal school at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of $10$ .
His first documented musical experience dates back to $1870-1871$ .
All of his musical pieces were instrumental in the development of this classical music up to this age.
The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun was his orchestral height.

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

A symphonic poem for orchestra.
The composition was inspired by the poem "The Afternoon of a Faun" by Stéphane Mallarmé.
It describes the sensual experiences of a faun who has just woken up from his afternoon sleep and discusses his encounters with several nymphs during the morning in a dreamlike monologue.
Debussy died on the $25$ th of March $1918$ due to rectal cancer.

Maurice Ravel

Boléro is a major work by Ravel.

Maurice Ravel (Boléro)

Born at $22:00$ (10:00 p.m.) on $7$ March $1875$ in the town of Ciboure, France.
His career in the Paris Conservatoire began on $4$ November $1889$ .
His deepest emotional tie for music was his attachment to his mother.
He died on $28$ December, at the age of $62$ , in Paris.
Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece.

Boléro (Overview)

Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein, Boléro is Ravel's most famous musical composition.
Boléro epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and reinventing dance movements.
It was also one of the last pieces he composed before illness forced him into retirement.

Expressionism

German Expressionism.
Borrowed from the visual arts.
Emphasizes intense and subjective emotion rather than portraying outward appearances.

Best Composer (Expressionism)

Transfigured Night (Arnold Schoenberg) is highlighted in this section as a significant expressionist work.

Transfigured Night

Arnold Schoenberg
Born in $1874$ in Austria.
Self-taught; he learned to play cello and violin at an early age.
Transfigured Night was his first masterpiece – a story of two lovers.

Arnold Schoenberg (Background)

One of the most influential composers of the $20th$ century.
Born in Austria in $1874$ .
Self-taught musician.
Learned cello and violin early on.
Transfigured Night is described as his first masterpiece and centers on a romantic narrative of two lovers.

Electronic Music and Musique Concrète

Pierre Schaeffer began with musique concrète.
Music concrete: a technique using a magnetic tape recorder to record different sounds.
This marks the birth of ELECTRONIC MUSIC as a broader concept.

Developmental Stages in Electronic Music

1) Tape Music Stage

2) Analog Synthesis Stage

Examples referenced: Margy SymIFICOTECT Oug (likely a garbled OCR reference to RCA Analog Programmable Electronic Music Synthesizer) and the Moog Synthesizer.

3) Digital-Synthesizer Stage

Arcana Ameriques – Edgard Varèse

Edgard Varèse is known as the “Father of Electronic Music.”
Born in $22$ December $1883$ in France.
Spent most of his career life in the US.
Wrote music that stresses the elements of rhythm and timbre.
He believed that music, in his view, is "an organized collection of noises in a pleasant way."

Aleatory Music and Indeterminacy

Aleatory Music and Indeterminacy: concepts based on chance selection of musical materials by the composer, performer, or both (CHANCE MUSIC).

John Cage – Music of Changes

John Cage as a central figure in the development of aleatory music.
Born in the USA in $1912$ .
His father was an inventor and his mother was a journalist.

5 Basic Categories of Musical Indeterminacy

Randomly Chosen Event
Randomly Ordered Event
Use of Indeterminate Notations
Music Notated Traditionally but Performed Indeterminately
Pure Performer Indeterminacy

Psalms 96:1-2

“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.”
Reference: $Psalms ext{ }96:1-2$

Thank you

End of notes.