Music of the 20th Century

Introduction

What is Impressionism?

Impressionism, in music, a French movement in the late 19th and early 20th cent. It was begun by Debussy in reaction to the dramatic and dynamic emotionalism of romantic music, especially that of Wagner. Reflecting the impressionist schools of French painting and letters, Debussy developed a style in which atmosphere and mood take the place of strong emotion or of the story in program music. He used new chord combinations, whole-tone chords, chromaticism, and exotic rhythms and scales. In place of the usual harmonic progression, he developed a style in which chords are valued for their individual sonorities rather than for their relations to one another, and dissonances are unprepared and unresolved. Although conceived in reaction to romanticism, musical impressionism seems today the culmination of romanticism. Its influence was widespread and is evident in the music of Ravel, Dukas, Respighi, Albéniz, de Falla, Delius, C. T. Griffes, and J. A. Carpenter.

Who are the Impressionistic Composers?

Besides the two great impressionist composers, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, other composers who composed in what has been described as impressionist style include Frederick Delius, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Erik Satie, Alexander Scriabin, Lili Boulanger, Federico Mompou, Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Karol Szymanowski.

Impressionism

Claude Monet (Impression - Sunrise)
Avoids hard outline of form or realism
Focuses on effect of light and color that leave a momentary impressionism

Impressionism in Music

Debussy blurs forms, rhythms, and tonality

Influenced by Indonesian classical music performed by Gamelan

Orchestra mainly made of gongs and chime

Claude Debussy

1862 - 1918
Educated at the Paris Conservatoire
Mostly associated with Impressionism in music

Debussy's "Blurring"

Used pentatonic scales (5 - tone scale)

e.g. (C# - D# - F# - G# - A#) - Asian sounding

Used whole - tone scales

Scale made up entirely of whole steps

e.g. (C - D - E - F# - G# - A#)

Dreamy or water - like quality

What is Expressionism?

In music, expressionism is a mainly German/Austrian affair, closely linked to the second Viennese school (Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern), and atonality. Stylistically, it’s the follow-up of late-romantic music. Emotions are taken to the extreme, leading to disturbing, unsettling and sometimes violent music.

The term Expressionism was originally borrowed from visual art and literature. Artists created vivid pictures, distorting colours and shapes to make unrealistic images that suggested strong emotions. Expressionist composers poured intense emotional expression into their music exploring their subconscious mind.

Expressionist music often features:

A high level of dissonance

Extreme contrasts of dynamics

Constantly changing textures

‘Distorted’ melodies and harmonies

Angular melodies with wide leaps

Expressionism

Atonality

Absence of a path hierarchy where all notes are equal in importance

Tonality - Tonic path around which all other pitches are oriented (i.e. key of C major)

Arnold Schoenberg

1874 - 1951
Born in Vienna
Strong admiration for German and Austrian music tradition
First composer to abandon tonality
Wrote first atonal piece in 1909, used recurring motives to give piece coherency

Expressionism

Art that seeks expression of pure emotional states liberated form all repression, exploring dark, previously hidden emotions or pure and ecstatic emotional states once considered taboo
Music that comes to terms with your fears, insanity, hysteria or other repressed emotions

"Mondestrunken" from Pierrot Lunaire

Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot)
Collection of expressionistic songs
Centers around a clown, Pierrot, who is a representative of the misunderstood modern artist
"Mondestrunken" (Moondrunk)
Rondo form
Expresses how the moon intoxicates the poet
Night is dark and a lonely place
For voice, piano, flute, violin, cello

Pierrot Lunaire

Schoenberg's singer uses Sprechstimme
Means speaking voice
Singer speaks but on certain distinct pitches
reinforces the surreal quality of the text and music

Igor Stravinsky

1882 - 1971
Studied with Rimsky - Korsakov
Wrote ballets :
The Firebird (1910)
Petrushka (1911)
The Rite of Spring (1913)
Russian - Became French Citizen in 1934

- Immigrated in America in 1945

The Rite of Spring

Premiere in Paris in 1913
Riot broke out!
Shocked and outraged at primitivism
harsh dissonances
Percussiveness
pounding rhythms
Introduction represents "Awakening of Nature" - (represented by solo bassoon)
Introduction gives way to "tick - tock" figure - (violins play pizzicato 4-note ostinato)
Strings pound out a dissonant chord with unexpected and irregular accents
Can hear Rimsky-Korsakov's influence in orchestration

Aleatoric / Chance music

Music by chance

Ex: 1. Experimentation with the magnetic tape (tape used in cassette tape)

by: cutting, splicing, etc.

2. Use of dice - Rolling of dice to come up with different notes to be used in a composition

John Cage

uAlso Known As:

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer of the 20th century known for his innovative, avant-garde ideas of creating and appreciating music.

uBorn:

September 5, 1912, his father was the inventor and electrical engineer John Milton Cage. His mother was the founder of the Lincoln Study Club and editor of the LA Times Women's Club.

uBirthplace:

Los Angeles, California

uDied:

August 12, 1992 in New York, USA

Types of Compositions

uHe was the pioneer of "indeterminacy" where the composer gives the performer the right to interpret his music.

uCage also experimented with musical instruments, for example, he attached objects to a piano's strings to see what sounds it will produce. He called this the "prepared piano."

uCage also explored electronic music and believed in "chance music"; that everything we do is music.

Influence

uAs a young boy Cage studied piano but it was only in 1931, after leaving Pamona College and spending a year and a half in Europe, that he decided to study music.

uHis first instructor was Richard Buhlig, followed by Henry Cowell and then Adolph Weiss before studying under Arnold Schoenberg free of charge.

uOther influences include Daisetz T. Suzuki whose lectures Cage attended.

Notable Works

uAmong his known works are:

u"4'33”

u"Construction in Metal”

u"Sonatas and Interludes”

u"Music of Changes”

u"Imaginary Landscape No. 4”

u"HPSCHD”

u"Études Australes”

u"Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake”

u"Europeras 1 & 2”

u"Freeman Etudes”

u"Concert for Piano and Orchestra”

u"Etcetera”

u"Etcetera 2/4 Orchestras”

u"Water Music”

u"Cartridge Music”

u"Atlas Eclipticalis"

u"ASLSP" (As Slow As Possible)

Cage published his first book "Silence" in 1961.

Facts About "4'33" and "Organ2/ASLSP"

u"4'33”

uIn this piece the orchestra is expected to remain silent for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, allowing the ambient sounds of the concert hall to become the music. Watch John Cage Performs "4:33"

u"Organ2/ASLSP"

uThe John Cage Organ Foundation deemed that John Cage's composition; "Organ2/ASLSP," be played for 639 years. The performance began on September 5, 2001 and will continue until September 5, 2640.

Electronic Music
-employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production

Electromechanical sound devices

-Telharmonium
-Hammond Organ
-Electric guitar

Electronic Sound devices

-Theremin
-Sound synthesis
-Computer

*once associated with Western art music
*experimental art music>varieties
electronic music >varieties

Origins: late 19th century to early 20th century

The ability to record sounds is often connected to the production of electronic music, but not absolutely necessary for it. The earliest known sound recording device was the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. It could record sounds visually, but was not meant to play them back.

In 1876, engineer Elisha Gray filed a patent for the electromechanical oscillator. This "Musical Telegraph," evolved out of his experiments with telephone technology and is the earliest extant patent for producing electronic sound. This oscillator was expanded on by Alexander Graham Bell for the early telephone.By 1878, Thomas A. Edison further developed the oscillator for the phonograph, which also used cylinders similar to Scott's device. Although cylinders continued in use for some time, Emile Berliner developed the disc phonograph in 1887.Lee De Forest's 1906 invention, the triode audion tube, later had a profound effect on electronic music. It was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube, and led to circuits that could create and amplify audio signals, broadcast radio waves, compute values, and perform many other functions.

Before electronic music, there was a growing desire for composers to use emerging technologies for musical purposes. Several instruments were created that employed electromechanical designs and they paved the way for the later emergence of electronic instruments. An electromechanical instrument called the Telharmonium (sometimes Teleharmonium or Dynamophone) was developed by Thaddeus Cahill in the years 1898–1912. However, simple inconvenience hindered the adoption of the Telharmonium, due to its immense size. One early electronic instrument often mentioned may be the Theremin, invented by Professor Léon Theremin circa 1919–1920. Other early electronic instruments include the Audion Piano invented in 1915 by Lee De Forest who was inventor of triode audion as mentioned above, the Croix Sonore, invented in 1926 by Nikolai Obukhov, and the Ondes Martenot, which was most famously used in the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen as well as other works by him. The Ondes Martenot was also used by other, primarily French, composers such as Andre Jolivet.

Electronic musical instrument

An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical audio signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker.

An electronic instrument may include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note. However, it is increasingly common to separate user interface and sound-generating functions into a music controller (input device) and a music synthesizer, respectively, with the two devices communicating through a musical performance description language such as MIDI or Open Sound Control.

Electronic Instruments PhotosAll electronic musical instruments can be viewed as a subset of audio signal processing applications. Simple electronic musical instruments are sometimes called sound effects; the border between sound effects and actual musical instruments is often hazy.

French composer and engineer Edgard Varèse created a variety of compositions using electronic horns, whistles, and tape. Most notably, he wrote Poème Électronique for the Phillips pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958.

Electronic musical instruments are now widely used in most styles of music. Development of new electronic musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research. Specialized conferences, notably the International Conference on New interfaces for musical expression, have organized to report cutting edge work, as well as to provide a showcase for artists who perform or create music with new electronic music instruments, controllers, and synthesizers.

Electronic Instruments Photos

Antonio Molina

Antonio J. Molina was a Filipino composer, conductor and music administrator who was named a National Artist of the Philippines for his services to music.

Early life

Molina was born in Manila, the son of a government official. He attended the Escuela Catolica de Nuestra Padre Jesus Nazareno in Quiapo, and college at San Juan De Letran where he was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in 1909.he was also known as Claude Debussy of the Philippines.

Musical career

His first composition was "Matinal" in 1912. He was appointed to teach harmony, composition, music history, and violincello at the UP Conservatory of Music, pursuing a career in music education until being appointed dean of the Centro Escolar Conservatory of Music. He founded the CEU String Quartet which was professionally organized and financed by its music school.
As a composer Molina is credited with over 500 compositions.