5.22 Modernism Between the Wars

• %%Radical modernism%% was a primary source of %%creative energy%%
• American modernists after Ives included Carl Ruggles (1876–1971), Roger Sessions (1896–1985), and Edgard Varèse (1883–1965; Varèse came to America from France)
• “More %%ambivalent view of avant-garde innovation%%”
  • Most avant-garde music was only played for a %%small audience%%
• More %%traditionalist%% American composers included Charlies Giffes (1884-1920), Samuel Barber (1910-1981), William Schuman (1910-1992), William Grant Still (1985-1978), and Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
• Some opera composers maintained popularity- Puccini, Richard Strauss
• Russians such as Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninov had nothing to do with avant-garde music
• %%Formality of concert life%% grew in the early twentieth century

Mixing Classical Form and Jazz: Maurice Ravel

• Ravel’s music was “marked by %%refinement%%, hyper-elegance, and a certain crispness”
• Between impressionism and Neoclassism
• %%Clarity, precision, and instant communication%% were priorities
• Musical exoticism (Vienna to Asia to Madagascar to America to ancient Greece)

Piano Concerto in G (1931)

• “Tribute to jazz”
  • Ravel was %%fascinated by jazz%%
• “Lighthearted” piece for piano and small orchestra
• First Movement (Allegramente)
  • Not jazzy
  • Long, lively, folklike tune
  • Fabulous %%orchestration%%
  • Whip, piccolo, pizzicato strings, piano, and a “special” high trumpet (in C), later more instruments like the harp
  • Uses short %%breaks%% (instrumental interludes)
  • High (E-flat) clarinet and muted trumpet
  • Three themes, each repetitively presented with different instruments
• Last work (except one other) before Ravel contracted a rare brain disease

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Biography

• Born in France near Spain
  • Spanish mother, uses %%exotic Spanish resonances%% often
• Studied at the %%Paris Conservatory%% (16 years)
• Succeeded Debussy (in a sense) in France
• Amazing ear for %%sonority%%
• %%Meticulous, aimed for clarity%% over all else
• Lived a lonely and uneventful life in Paris
• Once went to America in 1928, met George Gershwin and Charlie Chaplin, and came back richer
• Had a rare brain disease (1932, died in 1937)

Folk Music, Nationalism, and Modernism: Béla Bartók

• Grew up in Hungary in 1890s
• Bartók was inspired first by %%Debussy and Richard Strauss, then by Stravinsky%% later in life
• Pianist, educator, musicologist, and composer
• Committed to %%folk music%% deeply
  • Not as abstract as much modernist music
  • Early feel

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Biography

• Talented and trained from a young age in music
• “%%Prolific composer and fine pianist%%”
• Directed the Budapest Academy of Music
• Wrote %%Mikrokosmos%% (153 graded piano pieces)
• Wrote books on folk music
• Strongly %%opposed to Nazis%%
• Not popular in America, even after moving there
  • %%More popular in death%%

Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936)

• %%Informal symphony (3 mvts) for a small orchestra%%
• Strings, piano, harp, celesta, timpani, and other percussion
• Second Movement (Allegro)
  • Motive a “energizes” the preface (pizzicato), theme 1, and contrapuntal bridge passage
  • Full stop after bridge
  • Second groups of 3+ short themes
  • Then piano theme w/ off note repetitions
  • Cadence theme
  • Exaggerated cadence ends exposition
  • Development has motive b
  • Syncopated passage for piano, snare drum, and xylophone
  • Imitative polyphony and folklike tunes
  • Recapitulation has a very unstable meter

Varieties of American Modernism

• Modernism in America took off in the 1920s
• Composers associated w/ European modernism
• Innovative musical styles

Ruth Crawford

• Aka Ruth Crawford Seeger
• Very early %%American avant-garde modernist%%
• Women in male-dominated field
• Composed full time 1925-1933
• %%Skilled pianist%%
• Atonal, w/ dissonant harmonies
• Counterpoint
• Later collected/transcribed %%American folk songs%%

Prelude for Piano No. 6 (Andante Mystico; 1928)

• Published in Henry Cowell’s New Music Society of San Francisco's quarterly NEW MUSIC publication
• By Crawford, influenced by Alexander Scriabin
• %%Triple layered counterpoint%%
• %%Ostinato%%

Ruth Crawford (1901-1953) Biography

• Minister’s daughter in Ohio
• Studied at the %%American Conservatory in Chicago%%, w/ Djane Lavoie-Herz, and also in Berlin and Paris for a year
  • Studied abroad using the %%Guggenheim Fellowship%% in composition (first woman to win it)
• Studied with Charles Seeger (met him through Henry Cowell) in NY, later married and had 4 kids with him
• Died from cancer after starting to write her own compositions again

William Grant Still

• Distinctive %%African American identity%% and sound in his music
  • Rare
• Involved w/ the %%Harlem Renaissance%%
• “Musical %%nationalism%% in modernist guise”

William Grant Still (1895-1978) Biography

• Born in Mississippi
• Middle-class parents
  • Father died when Still was an infant, mother and stepfather encouraged musical interest
• Studied science at Wilberforce University, but then studied music at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory %%on scholarship%%
• Won two %%Guggenheim Fellowships%%, along with many other awards and commissions
• Arranger for dance bands, musicals, recordings, and radio shows, along with in Hollywood films
• Remembered for his concert music, opera, and ballet, etc.
  • %%Large output%%
  • Pathbreaking

Afro-American Symphony (1930)

• Still’s first symphony
• Relatively conventional Romantic orchestra, plus a few (tenor banjo…)
• Four movements w/ mostly conventional tempos and forms
  • First: fast, modified sonata form
  • Second: slow, melodic
  • Third: quick, dance-like
  • Fourth: slow, rondo-like
• Clear tense of key and tonic
• “Flavor” of jazz and blues in melodies, harmonies, and rhythms (syncopation, usage of the blues scale)

Aaron Copland

• America’s leading composer for a time
• Several %%stylistic phases%%
  • Started with avant-garde modernism
  • Dry, rhythmic, anti-Romantic (Stravinsky) style
  • More traditional music
• %%Nationalist%%
  • Used jazz, cowboy songs, square dancing, and old hymns

Appalachian Spring (1945)

• %%Ballet%%- choreographed and danced by %%Martha Graham%%
• Eight sections
• Consists of “a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills”

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Biography

• Russian-Jewish kid that grew up in Brooklyn with a musical education
• Studied in Paris and worked with Nadia Boulanger
  • Encouraged %%Stravinsky interests%%
• %%Promoted American music%%; formed the %%American Composers’ Alliance%%
• Avant-garde around 1930
• More accessible/populist style in later 1930s and 40s, w/ American folk roots
• Worked with the Boston Symphony Orchestra composing at a summer school
• %%Composed less and taught later in life%%

The Rise of Film Music

• %%Film%% reach large audiences, and use a wide variety of music
• Lots of films use symphony orchestras, similar to later Romanticism
  • Silent film (1910s-20s)
  • %%Leitmotiv%% techniques

Composers for Film

Film composers include Max Steiner (Gone with the Wind, King Kong), John Williams (Star Wars), Bernard Herrmann w/ Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, Psycho), William Grant Still, Aaron Copland (Our Town), Leonard Bernstein (On the Waterfront), and others, even for USSR propaganda.

Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky Cantata (1938)

• Monumental and innovative %%early sound film%%
• %%Propaganda%%- about a 13th century Russian hero fighting against Germans
• Music consists of “a series of vivid sound-pictures of the action” and parts where the orchestra stops for battle noise.
• Battle calls, growing dynamics and texture

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Biography

• %%Child prodigy, concert pianist, conductor, composer%%
• Born in Ukraine, worked w/ the St. Petersburg Conservatory
• Started w/ radical works, then moved towards “clear tonality, tunefulness, and the use of Russian folk themes”
• %%Global star%% by the 1930s
• Returned to Russia, 12 years later performances of his music were banned
• Wrote %%Peter and the Wolf%%

Music and Totalitarianism

• Economic, political, and military “%%upheaval%%s”

  • Inflation

• Orchestras and opera companies commonly disappeared

• %%Nazi Germany-%% Beethoven and Wagner were promoted by Hitler, modernist music was banned, Richard Strauss was supported, Jewish composers/musicians fled

• %%Soviet Union-%% Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a (maybe) communist that used surprisingly dissonant harmonies

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