Music History 3: test 2, people

Les Six- (france) young french composers, all showing a strong influence from neoclassicism, drew from Erik Satie, against the music establishment (Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre (F), Arthur Honnegger, Georges Auric, Louis Durey)

Kurt Weill- (german) opera composer and supporter of new objectivity, composed broadway musicals in new york

Paul Hindemith- (german)among the most prolific composers of the century, teacher of 2 generations and berlin school of music, yale, and university of zurich. Self taught, aesthetic of new objectivity, neotonal music. 

Nadia Boulanger- (american) first women to conduct many of the major symphony orchestras in the U.S. 

Edgard Varese- (america) ultramodernist: focus on new musical resources. French born, studies at schola cantorum and conservatoire. Spatial music and osund masses. ‘Organized sound’ aimed to liberate composition from conventional elements. Spatial, sound masses mved through musical space. 

Henry Cowell- (america) ultramodernist, native of california, experimentation in early piano music, techniques inside the piano, interested in non-werstern music 

Aaron Copland- (america) americanist: incorporated nationalism into european genres. Most important and central american composer of his generation. Combined modernism with national american idioms, organized concert series, composer groups. Promoted works of his of his predecessors and contemporaries. Jewish immigrant family in brooklyn, studied piano, theory and composition, first to study with Nadia 

George Gershwin- (america) americanist, late 20s and 30s, most famous, frequently performed american composer in classical genres. Saw now firm line between popular and classical, used jazz and blues to add dimensions to art music. Continued to fuse seeminglky disparate traditions

Sergei Prokofiev- (russia) initial reputation as a radical modernist, left russia after the revolution. Composed solo piano works and concertos for himself to play. Film scores, theatrical pieces roworked into concert works. Absolute music, after WWII works were condemned as formalist

Dimitri Shostakovich- (russia) entire career within the soviet system, combination of traditional discipline with experimentation. More aligned with modernists. Attacked by a communist newspaper saying ‘chaos instead of music.’

Milton Babbitt- (america) professor of music at princeton, held dual appointment in music mathematics. 3 composition periods: complete serialism, electronic, acoustic, serial, but sometimes hinting at tonality. Columbia-Princeton electronic music center

Pierre Boulez- inspired by messiawn’s mode de valeurs et d’intensites. Structures for 2 pianos, each row has its own specific set dynamics and articulation

Karlheinz Stockhausen- inspired by messiaen, mode of durations and intensities, created a ‘mode’ comprising 36 pitches, each assigned specific duration, dynamic level, and articulation. 

Samuel Barber- (america) committed to tonality, style owes much to romanticism, renowned for vocal music

Benjamin Britten- (america) most prominent composer in tonal or neotonal tradition, music for amateurs. International reputation in postwar decades, tempered modernism with simplicity 

Olivier Messiaen- (france) most important french composer born in the 20th century, studied organ, composition at paris conservatoire, profession of harmony at paris conservatoire, 1941. Extended techniques of debussy and stravinsky, post tonal musical language, devout catholic

Luciano Berio- (itlay) wrote series titled Squenza, each for unaccompanied solo instrument for specific performer, title refers to harmonic fields explored

John Cage- serial music, worked in experimentalist tradition, use of non traditional instruments, organization in units of time rather than pitch and rhythmic relationships. Prepared piano. Opposed museum-like preservation of music. Created opportunities for experiencing sounds as themselves. Strategies: chance, indeterminacy, blurs meaning of ‘composition’. Chance or ‘aleatoric’ music, compositional device. 

Harry Partch- individualistic, simple-minded search for sonic media, repudiated equal temperament, western harmony, sounterpoint. Inspired by chinese, japanese, native american, african, rural american music. 43 note scale, based on just intonation. Built new instruments that could play scale. 

LaMonte Young- Music centers on small number of pitches, held at great length 

Iannis Xenakis- greek composer living in france, also an engineer and architect

Gyorgy Ligeti- shifting masses of sound and tone colors. Atmosphere, requiem, lux aeterna, aventures

Krzysztof Penderecki- (poland) wrote one of the best-known pieces based on textures and process, threnody for thevictims of hiroshima. Tunrned to new-romanticism in the mid 70s.

George Rochberg- quotation and collage, precedent set earlier by Ives and Stravinsky. Contra morten el tempus, quotes boulez, berio, varese and ives. 

George Crumb- new sounds out of ordinary instruments… black amgels quotes dies irae and schubrt’s death of the maiden