First Quarter

MUSIC
2023-2024
Music of the 20th Century is also known as
Contemporary Music.
Impressionism
Impressionism

was one of the earliest musical

forms that paved the way to this
modern era. Impressionism is a
French movement in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries.
The sentimental melodies and
dramatic emotionalism of the
preceding Romantic Period,
whose themes and melody are
easy to recognize and enjoy, were
being replaced in favor of moods
and impressions.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Claude Debussy was one of
the most influential and
leading composers of the
20th century. He was the
principal exponent of the
impressionist movement
and the inspiration for other
impressionist composers.
 CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
He reformed the course of musical development
by eradicating traditional rules and conventions
into a new language of possibilities in harmony,
rhythm, form, texture, and color.
He was born on August 22, 1862 in a small town
called St. Germain-en-Layein in France. On
March 25, 1918, he died of cancer at the height
of the First World War in Paris.
He was known as the "Father of
the Modern School of
Composition" and made his
impact on the styles of the later
20th-century.
Debussy's mature creative period was exemplified
by the following works:
• String Quartet
• La Mer (1905)-a highly imaginative and
atmospheric musical work for orchestra about
the sea
• Première Arabesque
• Claire de Lune (Moonlight)-The third and most
famous movement of Suite bergamasque .
 MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)
Joseph Maurice Ravel was
born in Ciboure, France, to a
Basque mother and a Swiss
father. At age 14, he entered
the Paris Conservatory,
where he was musically
nurtured by a prominent
French composer,
 MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)

Gabriel Faure. The compositional style

of Ravel is mainly characterized by its
distinctively innovative but not atonal
style (music that is written in a way
that is not based on any particular key)
of harmonic treatment.
His works demands considerable
technical virtuosity, which is the
character, ability, or skill of a
virtuoso—a person who is
exemplary in musical technique
or execution.
Ravel's works include the following:

• Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899)

• String Quartet (1903)
• Sonatina for Piano (c.1904)
• Rhapsodie Espagnole
• Bolero
 BOLERO
..\Downloads\Maurice Ra
vel - Bolero.mp4
Ravel was a perfectionist and every
bit a musical craftsman. He strongly
adhered to the classical form. A
strong advocate of Russian music, he
also admired the music of Chopin,
Liszt, Schubert, and Mendelssohn. He
died in Paris in 1937.
Expressionism
The term "Expressionism" was originally
used in visual and literary arts. It was
probably first applied to music in 1918,
especially to Schoenberg because, like the
painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), he
veered away from "traditional forms of
beauty" to convey powerful feelings in his
music.
Features of expressionism music are
as follows:

• a high degree of dissonance

(dissonance is the quality of sounds
that seems unstable)
Features of expressionism music are as
follows:
• extreme contrasts of dynamics (from
pianissimo to fortissimo, very soft to very
loud)
• constant changing of textures • "distorted"
melodies and harmonies • angular melodies
with wide leaps
• extreme contrasts of dynamics
(from pianissimo to fortissimo, very
soft to very loud)
• constant changing of textures
• "distorted" melodies and harmonies
angular melodies with wide leaps
 ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874–1951)
Arnold Schoenberg was
born on September 13,
1874 in a working-class
suburb of Vienna, Austria.
He taught himself music
theory but took lessons in
counterpoint. His works
were greatly influenced by
by the German composer Richard
Wagner as evident in his symphonic
poem Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 5
(1903), a counterpoint of Debussy's
opera of the same title.
His works include the following:
• Verklarte Nacht
• Three Pieces for Piano, op. 11
• Pierrot Lunaire
• Violin Concerto
• Skandalkonzert, a concert of the
Wiener Konzertverein
 SCHOENBERG
..\Downloads\Arnold Schoenbe
rg Pierrot Lunaire.mp4
Although full of melodic and lyrical
interest, his music was also extremely
complex, creating heavy demands on the
listener. He experienced Triskaidekaphobia
(fear of number 13). Schoenberg died on
July 13, 1951 in Los Angeles, California,
the USA, where he had settled since 1934.
 IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
Stravinsky was born in
Lomonosov, Russia on June
17, 1882. In his early
music, he reflected the
influence of his teacher,
the Russian composer
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
He died in New York City
on April 6, 1971.
 IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
But in his first notable composition, "The
Firebird Suite (1910)," his skillful handling of
material and rhythmic inventiveness went
beyond anything written by his Russian
predecessors. His musical style added a new
flavor to his nationalistic musical style. The Rite
of Spring (1913) was another superb work
showcasing his new technique.
Acclaimed works by Stravinsky includes:

• Ballet Petrouchka (1911

• The Nightingale (1914)
• Three Tales for Children (1917)
• Pulcinella (1920)
• Duo Concertant (1932)
• The Rake's Progress (1951)
 STRAVINSKY
..\Downloads\Excerpts from
The Rite of Spring by Stravins
kyarr. Buckley.mp4
20th Century
Musical Styles
Technology has been a
game-changer in music.
It has produced
electronic music devices
such as cassette tape
recorders, compact discs
and their variants, the
video
compact disc (VCD),
and the digital
video disc (DVD),
MP3, MP4, digital
music players,
smartphones
karaoke players, and
synthesizers. These
devices are used for
creating and
recording music to
add to or to replace
acoustical sounds.
ELECTRONIC MUSIC
The ability of electronic
machines such as
synthesizers, amplifiers,
tape recorders, and
loudspeakers to produce
different sounds was
popularized by 20 century
th

notable composers.
Musique concrete, or concrete music
is a music that uses the tape recorder.
Any sound that the composer will hear in
his surroundings will be recorded. These
sounds are arranged by the composer in
different ways, like playing the tape
recorder in its fastest mode or reverse.
In musique concrete, the
composer can experiment with
different sounds that cannot be
produced by regular musical
instruments such as the piano or
the violin.
The first electronic devices for
performing music were developed
at the end of the 19th century, and
shortly afterward, Italian futurists
explored sounds that had not been
considered musical.
 EDGARD VARÈSE (1883–1965)
He was born on December
22, 1883, Edgard (also
spelled Edgar) Varèse was
considered an "innovative
French born composer." He
pioneered and created new
sounds that bordered
between music and noise
and spent his life and career
mostly in the United States.
Varèse's is considered as the "Father
of Electronic Music," and use of new
instruments and electronic resources.
He was also dubbed as the
"Stratospheric Colossus of Sound." He
died on November 6, 1965.
His musical compositions are
characterized by:
• an emphasis on timbre and rhythm; and
• "organized sound" (certain timbres and
rhythms can be grouped together in
order to capture a whole new definition
of sound).
 VARESE
..\Downloads\MUSIC 10 QUARTER 1 ELE
CTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC.mp4
 KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN (1928– 2007)
Karlheinz Stockhausen is
a central figure in the
realm of electronic music.
He was born in Cologne,
Germany. He had the
opportunity to work with
Messiaen, Schoenberg,
and Webern.
Stockhausen's music was initially
met with resistance due to its
heavily atonal content with
practically no clear melodic or
rhythmic sense. Still, he continued
to experiment with musique
concrete.
Some of his works include:
• Gruppen (1957)
• Kontakte (1960)
• Hymnen (1965) and
• Licht (Light)
 STOCKHAUSEN
..\Downloads\Kontak
te, Stockhausen.mp4
CHANCE MUSIC
Chance music, also known as Aleatoric
music, refers to a style in which the piece
always sounds differently at every
performance because of the random
techniques of production, including the
use of ring modulators or natural
elements that become a part of the
music.
Most of the sounds emanating
from the surroundings, both
natural and man-made, such as
honking cars, rustling leaves,
blowing wind, dripping water, or a
ringing phone.
John Cage was known as one JOHN CAGE (1912–1992)
of the 20th-century
composers with the
broadest array of sounds in
his works. Cage was born in
Los Angeles, California, USA,
on September 5, 1912 and
became one of the most
original composers in the
history of western music.
He challenged the very idea of music by
manipulating musical instruments to attain
new sounds and became the "chance
music." In one instance, Cage created a
"prepared" piano, where screws and
pieces of wood or paper were inserted
between the piano strings to produce
different percussive possibilities.
Cage became notable for
his work The Four
Minutes and 33 Seconds
(4'33"), a chance musical
work that instructed the
pianist to merely open
the piano lid and remain
silent for the length of
time indicated by the
title.
 CAGE
..\Downloads\John Cage
4'33'' Petrenko · Berliner
Philharmoniker.mp4
ACTIVITY TIME
Varèse's Poème Électronique is one of the
first compositions that was created through
the use of technology. It's an 8-minute
piece written in 1958. Varèse composed the
piece with the intention of creating a
liberation between sounds and, as a result,
uses noises not usually considered
"musical" throughout the piece.
access at https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=bEkjC76oSNk.
While listening, answer the following guide
questions on a separate sheet of paper:
• Can you guess the materials used to create the
different types of noise used in the piece? Name
at least 5.
• How does the piece affect your current mood or
emotion? Describe.
Performance
Output