Music

Quarter 1
Music of the 20th
Century
Impressionism
• As the world entered the 20th century, a new era in
music was introduced, and 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.
I. Features of Impressionism music are as
follows:
• The use of "color," or in musical terms, timbre, which
can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic
usage, texture, etc. (Timbre is known as the tone color
or tone quality)
• New combinations of extended chords, harmonies,
whole tone, chromatic scales, and pentatonic scales
emerged.
• Impressionism was an attempt not to depict reality,
but merely to suggest it.
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. 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 composed a total of more or less 227 masterpieces, which include orchestral
music, chamber music, piano music, operas, ballets, songs, and other vocal music.
He was known as the "Father of the Modern School of Composition" and made
his impact on the styles of the later 20th-century composer like Igor Stravinsky.
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.
In the field of visual arts, Debussy was influenced by Monet, Pissarro, Manet,
Degas, and Renoir; and from the literary arts by Mallarme, Verlaine, and Rimbaud.
Most of his close friends were painters and poets who significantly influenced his
works. On March 25, 1918, he died of cancer at the height of the First World War in
Paris.
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,
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 are defined with intricate and sometimes modal
melodies and extended chordal components. It demands
considerable technical virtuosity from the performer, 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)
 Sonatine for Piano (c.1904)
 Rhapsodie Espagnole
 Bolero
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)
• 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
Expressionism
-is a style of music where composers seek to
express emotional experience. For the next lesson,
we will discuss several musical styles that
developed in the modern era. Some of these were
being experimental, short-lived, and too
revolutionary, while others found a fusion between
the old and the new style of music. New inventions
and discoveries of science and technology also led
to continuing developments in Music.
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 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.
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. 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 wrote approximately 127
works, including concerti, orchestral music, instrumental music,
operas, ballets, solo vocal, and choral music. Concerti or concerto is a
musical composition for a solo instrument or instruments
accompanied by an orchestra, especially one conceived on a
relatively large scale. He died in New York City on April 6, 1971
•One of the most significant
compositions of Schoenberg is Three
Piano Pieces, Op. 11. This musical
piece was the first composition ever
to dispense completely with "tonal"
(counterpart of atonal) means of
organization.
ELECTRONIC MUSIC
The ability of electronic machines such as synthesizers, amplifiers, tape
recorders, and loudspeakers to produce different sounds was
popularized by 20thcentury 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.
20th Century
Musical Styles
EDGARD VARÈSE (1883–1965)
• He was born on December
22, 1883, Edgard (also
spelled Edgar) Varèse was
considered an "innovative
Frenchborn composer." He
pioneered and created new
sounds that bordered
between music and noise
and spent his life and career
mostly in the United States.
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).
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.
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 drew inspiration
from these composers as he
developed his style of total
serialism together with Pierre
Boulez.
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)
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.
• An example of Chance music is John Cage's Four Minutes and
Thirty-Three Seconds (4'33"), where the pianist merely opens the
piano lid and keeps silent for the duration of the piece. The
audience hears a variety of noises inside and outside the concert
hall amidst the seeming silence.
JOHN CAGE (1912–1992)
• John Cage was known as one 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."