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5.23 The Late Twentieth Century

Uneasy period from 1918-1939 between WWs- after this…

  • Economic depression

  • Pearl Harbour

  • Other uncertainties

The Postwar Avant-Garde

  • Experiment and innovation

  • “Highly intellectual constrictive tendencies

    • Serialized rhythms, dynamics, and timbre

    • Applied mathematical theories

New Sound Materials

New sonorities, using both old instruments and electronics

Clarinets used multiphonics, odd chords

Electronic Music

  • Electronic sound can generate noise, and recording equipment can reproduce sounds

  • Magnetic tape (WWII development) revolutionized made tape manipulation easier

  • Post WWII “Musique concrète” incorporated life sounds into compositions (similar to modern sampling)

  • Synthesizers appeared in the 1960s, revolutionizing creation of new sound w/ patch cords

  • Computer/electronic music has increased in popularity over time

On the Boundaries of Time

Time and rhythms had breakthroughs in this time period

Webern, Five Orchestral Pieces (1913), IV

  • Six measure long piece

  • “Atomized” orchestration

  • Concentrated music

  • Intense

Chance Music

Chance music describes a variety of unconventional music, which can be very extreme (dice thrown to determine instruments) or more tame (improvisation parts)

The New Generation

  • Lots of new composers worldwide post-WWII

    • French, German, Italian, Pole, Hungarian, Greek, American, and Japanese composers listed

Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)

  • Older than some other composers of the time

  • Very radical music

  • Fire destroyed Paris and Berlin (early) works

  • “Found his voice” after moving to America

Poème électronique (1958)

  • “Extraordinary multimedia experience”

  • Written for 1958 Brussels World’s Fair

    • Sponsored by Philips Radio Corporation

  • Musique concrète snare drum

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

  • Ligeti went to the Budapest Academy of Music as a student and a young teacher

  • Moved West from Hungary in 1956 due to Communist restrictions

  • New sonorities

  • Sometimes no clear pitches/chords

  • No discernible meter/distinct rhythm

Lux aeterna (1966)

  • 16 solo singers and chorus

  • Some chords with the entire chromatic scale

  • Hard to illustrate with pitch-time graphs

  • Four slow “sound surges

John Cage (1912-1992)

  • “Father of chance music

  • From California

  • Studied with Schoenberg

  • Had questions about music foundations

4’33” (1952)

  • More of a statement

    • Common with Cage

  • Any amount of players

  • Everybody sits in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds

Music at the Turn of the Millennium

  • Traditional features questioned “in more basic ways”

  • Less “difficulty and elitism” in avant-garde music

  • New styles

Steve Reich (b. 1936) and Minimalism

  • Minimalism: famous mid-60s style with simple and very repetitive melodies, motives, and harmonies

    • Big in opera

  • Keyboardist Steve Reich is an “acknowledged master”

    • Early music “explores issues of rhythm and timing”

    • Later is more broad?

Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)

  • Early minimalist classic

  • Cellist, violinist, 2 clarinetists, 4 singers, 4 pianos, 3 marimbas, 2 xylophones, vibraphone

    • Percussion majority

  • “Rigorously, almost schematically, organized

    • Intro, 12 connected sections, and conclusion

New Expressionism and Connecting to the Past

  • More accessible and approachable than previous music

  • Some had “more straightforward expression”

  • Some composers “recalled” late Romantic music

    • George Rochberg, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

    • Postmodern defines “new music that refers to styles older than modernism”

  • General “eclecticism” and “stylistic variety

Tania León (b. 1943)

  • Cuban refugee to America

    • Global heritage

      • Influences compositions, she uses many cultural themes

  • Studied at the National Conservatory of Havana

  • Once worked w/ ballets! (Dance Theatre of Harlem)

  • Now teaches at Brooklyn College

  • Uses more dissonant/atonal harmonies

  • “Enormously dynamic rhythm

Ind­ígena (1991)

  • Refers to “indigenous”

  • Chamber orchestra work- 13 players, largely strings and woodwinds

  • Has comparsas- repeated string chords

  • Polyrhythms- complex, overlapping rhythms

  • Noticeable trumpet

John Adams (b. 1947)

  • A “true American original”

  • Raised in New England, went to Harvard

  • First influenced by Steve Reich’s minimalism

  • Has written several operas

    • Topics “plucked from headlines”

    • Common American themes

Doctor Atomic (2005)

  • Opera about the testing of atomic bombs (“Manhattan Project”)

  • Uses a sonnet from early 17th century poet John Donne

    • Lyric poem of 14 lines

  • Aria opening with orchestral ritornello

Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)

  • Won the 2013 music Pulitzer Prize

    • Youngest to win it (30)

    • Entered “on a whim”

Partita for 8 Voices (2013)

  • A “partita” was an early 1600s section in a set of variations (usually for keyboard). In the 1700s, it was a dance suite for 1 instrument

    • Bach made six for harpsichord, and three for violin

  • Shaw used both partita elements, and wrote four movements w/ Baroque names

  • Very complex

    • “Broken’ voice of [yodeler]”

    • Hummed glissandos

    • Lots of speaking instead of singing

  • Three variations

NG

5.23 The Late Twentieth Century

Uneasy period from 1918-1939 between WWs- after this…

  • Economic depression

  • Pearl Harbour

  • Other uncertainties

The Postwar Avant-Garde

  • Experiment and innovation

  • “Highly intellectual constrictive tendencies

    • Serialized rhythms, dynamics, and timbre

    • Applied mathematical theories

New Sound Materials

New sonorities, using both old instruments and electronics

Clarinets used multiphonics, odd chords

Electronic Music

  • Electronic sound can generate noise, and recording equipment can reproduce sounds

  • Magnetic tape (WWII development) revolutionized made tape manipulation easier

  • Post WWII “Musique concrète” incorporated life sounds into compositions (similar to modern sampling)

  • Synthesizers appeared in the 1960s, revolutionizing creation of new sound w/ patch cords

  • Computer/electronic music has increased in popularity over time

On the Boundaries of Time

Time and rhythms had breakthroughs in this time period

Webern, Five Orchestral Pieces (1913), IV

  • Six measure long piece

  • “Atomized” orchestration

  • Concentrated music

  • Intense

Chance Music

Chance music describes a variety of unconventional music, which can be very extreme (dice thrown to determine instruments) or more tame (improvisation parts)

The New Generation

  • Lots of new composers worldwide post-WWII

    • French, German, Italian, Pole, Hungarian, Greek, American, and Japanese composers listed

Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)

  • Older than some other composers of the time

  • Very radical music

  • Fire destroyed Paris and Berlin (early) works

  • “Found his voice” after moving to America

Poème électronique (1958)

  • “Extraordinary multimedia experience”

  • Written for 1958 Brussels World’s Fair

    • Sponsored by Philips Radio Corporation

  • Musique concrète snare drum

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

  • Ligeti went to the Budapest Academy of Music as a student and a young teacher

  • Moved West from Hungary in 1956 due to Communist restrictions

  • New sonorities

  • Sometimes no clear pitches/chords

  • No discernible meter/distinct rhythm

Lux aeterna (1966)

  • 16 solo singers and chorus

  • Some chords with the entire chromatic scale

  • Hard to illustrate with pitch-time graphs

  • Four slow “sound surges

John Cage (1912-1992)

  • “Father of chance music

  • From California

  • Studied with Schoenberg

  • Had questions about music foundations

4’33” (1952)

  • More of a statement

    • Common with Cage

  • Any amount of players

  • Everybody sits in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds

Music at the Turn of the Millennium

  • Traditional features questioned “in more basic ways”

  • Less “difficulty and elitism” in avant-garde music

  • New styles

Steve Reich (b. 1936) and Minimalism

  • Minimalism: famous mid-60s style with simple and very repetitive melodies, motives, and harmonies

    • Big in opera

  • Keyboardist Steve Reich is an “acknowledged master”

    • Early music “explores issues of rhythm and timing”

    • Later is more broad?

Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)

  • Early minimalist classic

  • Cellist, violinist, 2 clarinetists, 4 singers, 4 pianos, 3 marimbas, 2 xylophones, vibraphone

    • Percussion majority

  • “Rigorously, almost schematically, organized

    • Intro, 12 connected sections, and conclusion

New Expressionism and Connecting to the Past

  • More accessible and approachable than previous music

  • Some had “more straightforward expression”

  • Some composers “recalled” late Romantic music

    • George Rochberg, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

    • Postmodern defines “new music that refers to styles older than modernism”

  • General “eclecticism” and “stylistic variety

Tania León (b. 1943)

  • Cuban refugee to America

    • Global heritage

      • Influences compositions, she uses many cultural themes

  • Studied at the National Conservatory of Havana

  • Once worked w/ ballets! (Dance Theatre of Harlem)

  • Now teaches at Brooklyn College

  • Uses more dissonant/atonal harmonies

  • “Enormously dynamic rhythm

Ind­ígena (1991)

  • Refers to “indigenous”

  • Chamber orchestra work- 13 players, largely strings and woodwinds

  • Has comparsas- repeated string chords

  • Polyrhythms- complex, overlapping rhythms

  • Noticeable trumpet

John Adams (b. 1947)

  • A “true American original”

  • Raised in New England, went to Harvard

  • First influenced by Steve Reich’s minimalism

  • Has written several operas

    • Topics “plucked from headlines”

    • Common American themes

Doctor Atomic (2005)

  • Opera about the testing of atomic bombs (“Manhattan Project”)

  • Uses a sonnet from early 17th century poet John Donne

    • Lyric poem of 14 lines

  • Aria opening with orchestral ritornello

Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)

  • Won the 2013 music Pulitzer Prize

    • Youngest to win it (30)

    • Entered “on a whim”

Partita for 8 Voices (2013)

  • A “partita” was an early 1600s section in a set of variations (usually for keyboard). In the 1700s, it was a dance suite for 1 instrument

    • Bach made six for harpsichord, and three for violin

  • Shaw used both partita elements, and wrote four movements w/ Baroque names

  • Very complex

    • “Broken’ voice of [yodeler]”

    • Hummed glissandos

    • Lots of speaking instead of singing

  • Three variations

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