Music Final

Gyorgy Ligeti Lux aeterna (1966)

~Written for sixteen solo singers and chorus ~Often sing chords that include all twelve pitches of chromatic scale ~Starts w/ single pitch then expands both upwards and downwards slowly adding dense mix of pitches ~Lux aeterna taken from Requiem Mass- can scarcely be heard and understood ~Study in sheer vocal sonority ~Wrote other sound complex pieces such as Atmospheres for full orchestra -The performance is acc w/ painting Mark Rothko

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

~first true modernist ~Went through strict curriculum of famous Paris Conservatory of Music ~Enter at 10 yrs old ~Did not do well on piano exams ~Won various awards in theory and comp. ~Award coveted Grand Prix three year fellowship study in Rome ~Before this, Debussy took a job w/ Madame von Meck: patron of Tchaikovsky ~Russian music was one of influences and Indonesian gamelan ~Turned against Wagner and German music ~Long term relationship w/ mistress end bad ~First marriage was bad too ~Married a diff women he eloped had a daughter ~Early 30s Debussy seems to have rather suddenly crystallized musical style reflects influences of ~French symbolist poets and impressionist painters ~Opera Pelleas et MElisande (1902) written to words of play by symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck ~Second opera on Edgar Allan Poe ~Famous for innovations in orchestration and piano writing ~His preludes and etudes for piano are most impressive miniatures since time of early romantics ~Wrote criticism music for short time ~Anti german attitudes ~Died of cancer in Paris during WWI while city was being bombarded by Germans he hated

Other Characteristics

~ideal tone color for Sacred music = a cappella ~Performance by voices alone ~Tempo and dynamics change little in the course of a piece ~Rhythm is fluid without any sharp accents and shifts unobtrusively all the time ~Melodies never go very high or very low in any one voice ~The ups and downs are carefully balanced ~Rarely settles into easy swing of a dance rhythm or into the clear pattern of an actual tune ~Sometimes strike modern listeners as vague

Liturgy

~set of services arranged for worship -Specifies how to worship etc.

John Cage 4'33 (1952)

Saying that silence is an entity too as well as sound

ideal tone color for Sacred music

a cappella

Pentatonic scale

a five note scale playable on the black notes of piano imported from folk song and Asian music

Melismas

groups of notes on one syllable

New Development in Renaissance

~Accurate declamation- words were sung to rhythms and melodies that approximated normal speech ~Matching music to meaning of their words Word painting EX: words fly were set to rapid notes up

The English Madrigal

~Italian madrigals became all the rage in ~Elizabethan England and led to composition of madrigals in English ~Reflected taste and interest of Queen Elizabeth I herself ~Queen Elizabeth I "goddess of virginity" ~In 1601, twenty three English composers contributed madrigals to patriotic anthology in ~Elizabeth's honor called The Triumphs of oriana ~All the poems end with the same refrain ~Main functions of court music was flattery

Dance Styles

~Italian: saltarello ~Irish Jig ~French bransle ~Ending with clear cadences ~Phrases were each played twice in succession ~Forms aabb or aabbcc

Music at Court

~Kings and barons gradually gained political power at expense of church ~Assume leadership in artistic matters ~Later on- princely courts joined the monasteries and cathedrals as major supporters of music

Mass

~Kyrie: a simple prayer ~Gloria: long hymn ~Credo: Recital of christian's list of belief ~Sanctus: shorter hymn ~Agnus Dei: simple prayer -One of earliest way to unify these disparate elements is to sye same music to open each movement -Another way was to base each movement on same Gregorian chant- one belonging not to mass but perhaps liturgy of some special day on which Mass is celebrated

Leading composers

~Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361) ~Guillaume de MAchaut (1300-1377) ~Both churchmen ~City ended life as bishop ~Machaut was greatest French poet of his time Younger English contemporary Geoffrey Chaucer

The Evolution of Polyphony

~Polyphony: the simultaneous combination of 2 or more melodies ~Risen in medieval Europe Development of polyphonic music in late Middle Ages represents a decisive turn in Western music ~Know about the earliest European polyphony from uses in church ~Comes from writings of monks and other clerics ~Polyphony justifies as way of embellishing ~Gregorian chants- enhancing the all important liturgy

Modernism between the Wars

~Radical modernism was primary source of energy in period from before WWI until after WWII ~Many impressive composers active in first half of 20th century- maintained and even increased hold on audiences up to present day

Gregorian Recitation and Gregorian Melody

~Ranged from single pitch with no variation to long melodies ~Recitation used for texts considered fairly routine such as readings from the Old Testament ~Reciting tone: Pitch which text is sung on ~Repeated again and again except for small formulaic variations at beginnings and ends of phrases ~Punctuate the text and make it easier to understand- and sing, since they give the singers time for a breath ~Elaborate melody saved for prayers at Mass and processions ~One of simplest genres showing melody is antiphon ~Antiphon: workaday little pieces (some very moving)

Electronic music

~Recording equipment can reproduce sounds of any sort ~Electronic sound generators can do something else: generate sounds from scratch ~Tech breakthrough during WWII was dev. Of magnetic tape ~Open up exciting possibilities to modify ~Shortly after WWII composers began to incorporate sounds of life into composition ~Called concrete music b/c it used actual sound as contrasted w/ abstract products of electrons sound generator ~Musique concrete lives on in sampling- tech make it easy for anything that is required to put on keyboard ~Synthesizers: designed for music producing modules connected by patch cords to create complex sounds ~First synthesizers worked one note at a time ~Allowed many composers to produce taped music and combine music on tape w/ performed live music ~Computer music: amazing evolution of personal computers over last 35 years allowed for equally amazing evolution ~Synthesizers can interact via computer w/ live musicians

Estampies

~one line pieces in which some similar musical phrases are repeated ~Estampies: unassuming one line pieces in which the same or similar musical phrases are repeated many times in varied forms ~Suggest may have been written down jongleur improvisions ~Marked by lively and inconsistent rhythms in triple meter

Music in America: Jazz and Beyond

~Rift has been popular in US ~Cultivated music- music that has been brought to this country and consciously dev. Fostered at concerts, and taught in conservatories ~Vernacular music- music we sing and hear as naturally as we speak our native tongue

Jazz: The First Fifty Years

*First key is improvisation* ~Add ornaments and newly contrived interludes called breaks ~Always making up variations on tunes that they are using *Second feature:* ~Special rhythmic style involving highly developed syncopation ~Occurs when some accent in music are move away from the main beats *More subtle kind: beat syncopation* ~Derived from African drumming ~Accents are moved just a fraction of a beat ahead of metrical points ~Music said to be swing

The High Renaissance Style

-Around 1500 a new style emerged for masses, motets, and chansons hold sway for 16th century -Chief characteristic of high Renaissance was careful blend of two kinds of musical texture: imitative counterpoint and homophony

Imitation

-Most Polyphony was non imitative at the beginning of the 15th, but were by end -Imitative Texture: Balance between multiple voice parts EX: Josquin Desprez Pange lingua

Chance Music

Covers a great variety of music in which certain elements specified by composer in more conventional music are left to chance

medieval modes

D: Dorian E: Phrygian F: Lydian G: Mixolydian

Varieties of Modernism

Modernist/ modernism= special self consciousness on the part of the artists themselves Modernists of 1900 were artists and intellectuals who insisted on a particular vision of modernity: anti traditionalism

John Cage

Most consistent radical figure of postwar music Studied w/ Schoenberg Challenged all assumptions of traditional music rests

Reciting tone

Pitch which text is sung on

The cultivated Tradition

~First american musician to gain worldwide reputation were immigrant German composer ~Anthony Philip Heinrich ~Louis Moreau Gottschalk ~Americans were content to look to Italy for opera naf to Germany for instrumental music

Later Medieval Polyphony

~After 1200 CE the most significant dev. In polyphonic music was gradual distancing from church services ~Composer took fragment of Gregorian chant and repeated it several times over in bottom voice ~On top added two more voices w/ own words- love poems, commentaries etc ~This Genre known as Motet ~Little church left, proliferation of words in upper voices medieval polyphonic form, resulted from addition of texts to upper parts while maintaining gregorian chant in lower parts ~The motet was one of the five sections of the ~Mass.Unlike the Mass, which always used the same text, motets could be written for a variety of texts, giving church composers new means of expression.

Ars Nova

~After 1300, the technical dev. Of polyphony reached new heights of sophistication ~Ars nova "new art" or "new technique" ~Motet continued to develop ~Organum from Notre Dame regarded as ancient art- ars antiqua ~Historians compared the 14th to the 12th for breakup of traditions ~Bubonic Plague ~Black Plague, church broke apart cause breakup of traditions ~Church broken up into two rival popes ~Polyphonic music grew increasingly intricate and even convoluted ~Motets reflected intricacy in structural technique employing isorhythm ~Isorhythm: rhythmic patterns of many notes long repeated over and over but w/ diff pitch each time ~Went along w. Other schematic and numerical procedures for mind rather than ear

Homophony

~Almost all polyphony involves some chords as a product of its simultaneously sounding melodies ~Music of Machaut: chords= byproduct ~Medieval concentrate on horizontal aspect of texture instead of vertical ~Chords that resulted from the interplay of these parts were a secondary consideration ~Major achievement: Write rich chordal quality out of polyphonic lines ~Also used simple homophony- passages of block chord writing ~Use homophony both as a contrast to imitative texture and as an expressive resource in its own rights

Modernist Music before WWI

~Avant garde modernist moved away from norm ~Worked out new principles based on material of art itself ~European music before WWI ~Lay special emphasis on dev. In melody, harmony, tonality ~Dev. in tone color and rhythm, (musical sonority and musical time) dominated later stage of avant garde music after WWII

Literature and Art before WWI

~Avant garde music became detached from concert and opera- going public ~Abstracted from a base in society ~Modernist concentration on artistic materials led to abstraction of another kind ~Emphasis on technique welcomed by some relief from the overheated emotionality of late romantic music of Tchaikovsky, Mahler ~In 1920 objectivity was ideal espoused by artists ~Dutch painter Piet Mondrian made pictures out of straight lines at right angles to one another etc ~Igor Stravinsky was known for provocative statements ~Diametrically opposed rubato ~Others fascinated by machine rhythms ~Italian group called Futurists- composed w/ industrial noises

Instrumental Music: Early Developments

~Best 16th cent composers concentrated almost entirely on coal genres ~Except for William Byrd ~Instruments and music for instruments developed significantly during this period ~First violins and harpsichords date from 16 th century ~Others such as the lute ~Around 1500, hardly any music written for instruments specifically ~Instrumentalists would either play along with singers in coal music or else play motets, chansons, and other coal genres by themselves without words ~Principal vocal genre age 1550- madrigal- would not have made sense performed w/o words ~New genres emerging specifically for instrumental performance

Mixing Classical Form and Jazz: Maurice Ravel

~Born in 1975 ~South of France later to Paris ~Carved found between impressionism and Neoclassicism ~Favored clarity precision and instant communications ~Musical exoticism found a modernist voice in Ravel

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

~Born in little town in South France Two miles from Spanish border ~Brought to Paris ~Many his compositions have exotic Spanish resonance ~Spent no fewer than 16 years at Paris Conservatory ~Ravel hated Germany and German music ~Volunteer for military service against Germany in WWI ~Aim for clarity above all ~Most famous compositions make use of classical forms ~Never married or had any close relationships ~Met George Gershwin and Charlie Chaplin ~Contracted rare brain disease ~Died five years later ~Piano Concerto in G 1931 was last work but one -often the Debussy II -less international than Debussy more French

"Ave maris stella" Guillaume Dufay

~Born in north of France near Belgium ~A region that supplied whole Europe w/ musicians ~Worked in Italy- came to know artists and thinkers of renaissance ~Princely patrons who supported them ~Later years spent in glow of celebrity at important french cathedral of Cambrai ~Homophonic setting of a Gregorian Hymn ~Plainchant harmonization ~Addresses Virgin Mary ~D Dorian mode ~Set only even # stanzs 2,4,6 dame entire homophonic paraphrase ~Use isorhythm in love song

Aaron Copland

~By mid 1930s the reputation of another American modernist Aaron Copland was growing ~Rank as America's leading composer ~Passed through several stylistic phases- avant garde modernism ~Influence by Igor Stravinsky ~Most impressive work: set of twenty Variations for piano 1930 ~Reflects Stravinsky's dry rhythmic style and objective anti Romantic bent ~After, his music grew more traditional ~Held back from the most extreme versions of modernism and forged his own style using modernist elements he needed ~Copland adopted a nationalist agenda ~First turned to jazz in orchestral pieces called ~Music for the Theater and El Salon MExico ~Then incorporated cowboy songs in Ballets Old Shaker melody in Appalachian Spring

The Renaissance

~Changes in Europe from the 14th to 16th century ~Began in Italy ~Rediscovering and imitating ancient Greco-Roman Forebears ~Hope to bring about rebirth of their glorious past ~Italy consisted same pack of warring city states that had been at each other's throats all Middle Ages ~Rival Greek and Roman culture provided a powerful model for new values age of Columbus and Magellan, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, and Shakespeare ~Medieval society was stable, conservative, authoritarian, and orient toward God Renaissance laid groundwork for dynamic Western ~Renaissance artist wanted to make work more relevant to people's needs and desires

Early Modernism

~First major phase of avant garde took place in Paris and Vienna from 1890-1914 ~Revolution in tonality that went along w/ radical reconsideration of melody and harmony caught imagination of early 20th cent

Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians (1974-1976)

~One of the earliest classics of minimalist style includes four singers but do not sing words ~A cellist ~A violinist ~Two clarinets ~Large percussion group ~Four pianos ~Three marimbas ~Two xylophones ~And a vibraphone

Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (1945)

~Choreographed and danced by Martha Graham, towering figure in American modern dance ~Copland composed the ballet music and later arranged from it a concert suite in six continuous sections ~Section one: catch vast silent landscape at dawn ~Section 2: bride to be and young farmer husband enact emotions ~Sections 3 and 4: pick up tempo, whirling square dance ~Includes quiet statements of hymn ~Section 5: choreographed to set of variations on a Shaker song, "Simple Gifts" ~Section 6: like a prayer. Hymn and the landscape music return once again -written in 1945 -choreographed by Martha Graham -part of post war interest -ballet faded but music score continues

Chief composers w/ modernist in early phase:

~Claude Debussy ~Arnold Schoenberg ~Igor Stravinsky

The Middle Ages

~Collapse of Roman Empire in 5th century CE - age of Columbus ~Tune and polyphony originated around the middle of this period

New Sound Materials

~Composers after WWII demanded for new sound materials ~Ordinary orchestra even as expanded by Debussy, Stravinsky now struck as stiff and antiquated ~Explored new sonorities ~Began w/ composers making new demands on standard sources of music ~Singers instructed to lace their singing w/ hisses etc ~Post war era, percussion became standard

Claude Debussy, Clouds, from Three Nocturnes (1899)

~Debussy Three Nocturnes- like his orchestral works described as impressionist symphonic poems though they only have titles and not narratives ~Suggest various scenes w/o attempting to illustrate them explicitly ~Reference to famous atmospheric painting of James McNeill Whistler ~First: clouds, second: festival's, Third: Sirens ~In clouds: hear quiet series of chords, played by clarinets and bassoons Great cumulus clouds ~ABA's form ~english horn motive (synthetic mode) !pentatonic scale (new tune) ~Much more fluid ~A section of clouds return of clout theme after a more active passage Internal aba' pattern English horn figure in A'

Debussy and Impressionism

~Debussy occupies the border area btwn. Late 19th century and early 20th century ~Investigation of sensuous new tone colors for orchestra and for piano ~Some ways tied to Romanticism other items against ~Tone avoid heavy sonorities that were usual in late ~Romantic music merging instead into subtle, mysterious shades of sound ~Draws on vague-sounding new scales ~Orchestral sound differs sharply from Gustav Mahler ~Treated orchestra more often a single, delicately pulsing totality to which indv instruments contribute momentary gleams of color

Music & the Church

~Determined by Christian church -Church directed, supported, and directed music ~Composers were priests, clerics, and monks -Got training as church choir boys ~Minstrels/ jongleurs: popular musicians ~Music fostered by church was the singing or chanting of sacred words ~Singing was way of uttering words ~Sing words gives concepts in prayer ~Bring humans into beneficial contact w/ unseen spirits

Music and Church Services: Liturgy

~Difference btwn music in church in Middle ages and now= matter of free choice by minister ~Back then it was fixed by a higher authority ~The higher authority was called the liturgy ~Liturgy: set of services arranged for worship -Specifies how to worship etc. -Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity etc- all have complex liturgy ~Liturgies include prescriptions for dress, incense, candles ~In Christianity, central dates of liturgy concern the life of Christ ~Monks and nuns in the Middle Ages spent time praying ~Listening to singing was more for worshipping

Organum

~Earliest type called organum ~First described in music theory treatises around 900 CE ~Actual organum survived in musical notation from around 1000 ~Early organum consists of a traditional plainchant melody to which composer added another melody sung at sometime w/ same words ~Early Organum consists of a Traditional plainchant melody add w/ another melody, sung @ same time w/ same words ~History of Organum ~Added melody/ counterpoint, closely parallels to chant free rhythm ~Rhythm of this early stage is called parallel organum (free rhythm of Gregorian chant) ~Added melody (counterpoint) was treated more indp. (go up when chant goes down) ~Decorate w/ Melisma ~Add 2 counterpoint to chant ~Definite rhythm added

Stravinsky: The Primacy of Rhythm

~Earliest work followed from his teacher Russian nationalist composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov ~Three famous ballet scores written for Ballets Russes in PAris- dev own powerful style ~Ballets reveal fascinating progression toward more and more abstract use of folk tunes ~First ballet: The firebird (1910) Spins romantic fairy tale about magical firebird ~In Petrushka (1911) story of carnival barker and puppet ~Rite of Spring (1913) ~Stravinsky boldly and brutally imagined fertility cults of prehistoric Slavic tribes ~Musical style brought to head in the rites has stuck listeners as barbatic score is enormously loud ~Demands a colossal orchestral show his control and transform

The Late Twentieth Century

~Economic depression began in late 1920s 1930s Hitler came to rise ~Tyranny of Stalin lead to WWII ~JApanese attack ~These events and uncertainties helped prompt a new phase of experimental modernism in 1950s and 1960s

Kemp's Jig Anonymous

~Elizabethan actor, comedian, and song and dance man ~Immortalized for having created comic roles in ~Shakespeare such as Dogberry ~Specialized in popular dance ~Jig perform after main play ~Accompanied w/ pipe and tabor (snare) aab form ~Tune played several times: first by recorder, viol, lute accompanies

The Postwar Avant-Garde

~Experiment and innovation reemerged as driving forces in music during the third quarter of twentieth century ~Highly intellectual constructive tendencies came to the fore ~Efforts to serialize rhythm, dynamics, and timbre ~All composers wanted to question the most fundamental premises that had guided music composition before them ~Mainstream modernism after 1945 questioned every one of the features of musical tradition at once to point of even question composer's role in structuring a work at all

Early Homophony

~Fifteenth century saw beginning of homophony ~Homophony: music in chordal texture ~In simpler plainchant paraphrases- melody often highlighted by accompaniment that doesn't sound polyphonic ~Effect- melody on top supported by harmonization below ~Emphasis is on sensuous effect rather than on more intellectual process of polyphony

Troubadour Song "La dousa votz" Bernart de Ventadorn

~Finest Troubadour poets and musical ~Serve Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine ~Wife of Henry II of England ~G Mixolydian ~Set to same melody for all stanzas -> strophic form: AAA and each stanza a a' b ~Stress secular (non religious) of song ~Troubadours spoke Provencal ~Estampies: one line pieces in which some similar musical phrases are repeated

"Pange lingua Mass from the Kyrie & Gloria" Josquin Desprez

~First master of High Renaissance style ~Like Dufay, born in N. France ~Gregorian hymn for corpus Christi ~Patrons: Pope Alexander VI, Sforza family of milan, Estes of Ferrara, Louis XII, King of France ~Wrote 18 different settings of the Mas- all large pieces in standard five sections form ~Feast celebrating Holy Eucharist ~Boy sing high, men sing low ~Phrygian (E) mode ~4 voice/ imitative counterpoint ~Critical spot: homophonic than polyphonic

Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Part I, "The Adoration of the Earth" (1913)

~First performance caused a riot ~Audience shocked at violent stage and provocative choreography suggesting rape and ritual murder ~Ballet has no real story ~Intro: halting opening theme played by basson ~Sounds like prehistoric wildlife ~Omens of Spring and Dance of Adolescents ~Dancers presumably register an awareness of spring awakening ~Single dissonant chord repeated ~Derived from Russian Folk song ~Game of Abduction ~New Violence is introduce ~Pounding timpani ~Round Dances of Spring ~Strong downbeat makes meter hypnotic ~4 more section follow Part I ~Stravinsky's later works the barbarism was tamed but fry

The Mass

~Fourteenth century composers like Machaut had used isorhythm even when writing love songs ~Composers now cultivated much simpler style for their polyphonic songs or chansons ~Modest style of these was sometimes used for sacred texts including portions of Mass ~Rejection of isorhythms did not mean composers abandoned the technical dev of their craft ~Means efforts now used to focus on large scale musical construction ~For the first time compositions were written to last over 20-30 min ~Mass- the largest and most important prayer service of Christian liturgy ~Contains numerous items that were sung in plainchant

Folk Music, Nationalism and Modernism: Bela Bartok

~Growing up in Hungary in 1890s ~Swept by international avant garde leaders Debussy and Richard Strauss ~Influenc by close contemporary Stravinsky ~Man of multiple careers: pianist educator and musicologist as well as composer ~Folk music especially of his native hungary ensured Bartok's music would rarely become abstract as music modernist music was ~After his music became more accessible- references to folk were more mellow ~Used in own fashion sonata form and rondo

The Emancipation of Dissonance

~Harmony grew more dissonant ~Consonant chords: sound stable and at rest ~Dissonant chords: sound tense and need to resolve to consonant ones ~Tonality grew more indistinct ~Reached a point at which no tonal center could be detected ~Known as atonal music ~Melody harmony tonality colony relate "holy trinity" of music ~Joint emancipation of the three counts as central style characteristics of first phase of twentieth century avant garde music

Late Renaissance Music

~High Renaissance style was clearest used in church music ~Important new secular genres also made use of this style ~Broad appeal of style is shown by geographical spread of its four most famous masters: Palestrina, LAssus, victoria, and Byrd

New Attitudes

~Humans & nature become measure in philosophy, science, art than God ~Early 15th Century, new way of treating plainchant in polyphonic compositions ~Medieval compose writing organum or isorhythmic motets ~Lengthened notes enormously underneath added counterpoints ~Recast the meterless chant with fixed rhythms ~No longer felt obliged always to use plainchants ~Treat them as melodies to listen to not for polyphonic structures embellished chants w/ extra notes, set w/ graceful rhythms, smoothes out passages known as ~Paraphrase ~Emphasized sonorous & sensuous aspect and not the function as structure & control ~Put Plainchant @ top voice to be heard clearly and not at the bottom

Expressionism

~In Austria and Germany composers pressed forward w music that was increasingly emotional and complex ~Exploiting extreme states extending all the way to hysteria nightmare ~Years before WWI saw publication of first works of Sigmund Freud w/ new analysis of power of unconscious ~Schoenberg leading expressionist in music

Expressionists and Fauves

~In Paris and Vienna- artistic centers that were also centers of avant garde music ~Russian born painter Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) ~Belonged to German movement in arts called expressionism ~Express most extreme human feelings by divorcing art from everyday literalness ~Parallel to expressionists was short lived group in Paris Les fauves "the wild beasts" ~Distorted images ~Violence in bothe Kandinsky and Picasso's work ~Violence in music such as The Rite of Spring (ballet) Stravinsky ~Depicted human sacrifice in fertility ceremonies of primitive Slavic tribes

Italian Madrigal

~In secular music ~Took place around 1530 ~Short composition set to one stanza poem (usually love) points of imitation shorter, less strict ~Sung by one singer per part in intimate setting ~Points of imitation were shorter and imitations itself less strict ~More homophony ~Words assumed more importance ~Bother declamation and word painting were developed

The Motet

~Incented in late Middle ages ~Lived on and been applied to diff music ~Motets by Palestrina or Byrd have little in common w/ those of Machaut or Dufay 16th century motet- relatively short composition w./ Latin words ~Made up of short sections in homophony and imitative polyphony that were staples of High renaissance style ~Words are nearly always religious sometimes from Bible ~Motet is basically similar in musical style to Mass but different in scope and text ~Variety of possible words in motet that recommended it to 16th century composers ~Providing them with new words to express allowed church composers to convey religious messages in music with more power

Progress and Uncertainty

~Industrialization is one of two overriding facts of 19th century ~The other: emergence of modern nation-state ~Heart of 19th century: sense of confidence ~Progress in science and tech ~Confidence was shaken by nontech dev. Into advances in physics, biology, and psychology ~Impact of Einstein's theory ~Uncertainty deepened a crisis in religion: Charles Darwin ~Psychological theories of Sigmund Freud suggested that despite what people thought they were doing, controlled by unconscious

Varieties of American Modernism

~Innovative musical styles began to appear incorporating American jazz, blues, and other popular idioms ~In NY city, SF and others, encourage the composition and performance of new music ~Avant gardist Edgard Varese emigrated from France ~New Music society in SF formed by Henry Cowell issued a quarterly pamphlet making available music of new works ~Ruth Crawford, William Grant Still, and Aaron Copland take part in benefit from these new energies

Troubadour and Trouvere Songs

~Large groups of court songs have been preserved from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Age of Chivalry ~Noble poet composers of court songs: -Troubadours in S. France -Trouveres in N. France -Minnesingers in Germany ~Among them were knights and princes, and even Kings ~Chivalric Hero: Richard I of England one of the composers ~Troubador society also allowed for women composers and performers ~Countess Beatriz of Dia ~Maria di Ventadorn ~Some noble songwriters penned the words only ~Left music to be composed by jongleurs ~One interesting poetic type was the alba- the dawn song of knight's loyal companion who has kept watch all night and warns him to leave his lady;s bed before castle awakens.

Avante Garde Phases

~Later in 1950- second phase of avant garde ~1900-1920 & 1950-1970- assertive avant garde experimental gain upper hand ~1920-1930- period of consolidation

Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G (1931)

~Lighthearted piece for piano and small orchestra Tribute to Jazz ~Everything slightly skewed ~First movement: first theme is not jazzy Folk Like tune is presented ~Piano introduce second theme recalls blues ~Typical of early jazz is use of short breaks ~Back to sonata form - does in in the freest possible way ~At end uses long series of parallel chords -early tribute to Jazz idioms -for 2 handed -noted for elegance and wut *-loose sonata form first mvnt* -no dev -cadenza harp solo

Gregorian Chant "In Paradisum"

~Liturgy for the dead, sung on the way from final blessing of corpse ~Mixolydian G mode Antiphon, sang for the dead ~Refers to Lazarus, poor beggar in Buble who went to heaven while rich man went to hell ~Melismas: groups of notes on one syllable ~Monophonic

Early American Music: An Overview

~Long before Europeans came, Native Americans had own musical styles ~Puritans disapproved if music ~Puritan church services had rhyming versions of psalms were sung like hymns

"Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient" Guillaume de Machaut

~Machaut left numerous examples of secular polyphony ~Many motets of his used isorhythmic technique ~Close enough to trouveres to write beautiful monophonic songs ~Adapted their old traditions of chivalric love songs to complex ars nova polyphony ~Known as Chansons- no trace of Gregorian chant ~Serve courts of France & Luxembourg ~Non imitative polyphony ~4 voices ~Each stanza aa' b arrangement, identical to LA dousa votz

"Alleluia. Diffusa est gratia" Pérotin, Organum

~Many composed for services devoted to Virgin Mary ~Lengthy Mass ~Music probably written by Perotin- not certain ~Upper voice: quick, triple rhythm Diffusa ~Lower voice: rest of chant, not free rhythm ~Alleluia returns twice, first w/ new words in aeternum than in original

Formed specific movement marked by radical experimentation- peaked in years 1890 through 1920- period of breakthrough works by such figures

~Marcel Proust (novelist) ~James Joyce (novelist) ~Poets Ezra Pound and TS Eliot ~Painters Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse

Experiment and Transformation Melody

~Melody harmony and tonality work closely together ~Mahler's audiences were puzzled and irritated by distortions ~Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote even more complex melodies that made little sense to contemporary listeners ~Intense rhythms and anguish intervals of ~Romanticism exaggerated beyond recog. ~Outside Vienna- disintegration of tuneful melody was acc ~Claude Debussy used only most shadowy motives- constant suggestion of melody w/o clear tunes ~Igor Stravinsky- writing in PAris- seized upon ~Russian folk songs but whittled them down into brief utterly simple frag.- blank "objective" and w/o emotion

Music at the End of Millennium

~Mid 1960s is called minimalists ~Carried on at least one aspect of modernist experimentation: its presentation of long, slowly changing blocks of musical time ~Minimalism has worked wonders for American opera ~Steve Reich- philosophy major at Cornell master of minimalist style ~Early music explores issues of rhythm and timing in rather abstract fashion

Impressionists and symbolists

~Modernism got start in late 19th and peaked in 20th ~Best known movement: ~Impressionism dates from 1870 ~Astonished by flickering of color patches ~Symbolism: consciously unrealistic movement followed impressionism ~Symbolist revolted against realism of words ~Musical was a word the symbolists liked to apply to language ~Fascinated w/ Richard Wagner ~Claude Debussy is often called impressionism in music for fragmentary motives ~Famous text that inspired Debussy ~Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" ~Poem by Stephane Mallarme ~Opera Pelleas at Melisande ~Play by Maurice MAeterlinck

Music as Expression

~Music can illustrate certain words and to express certain feelings ~Exploration of music's power to express human feelings was a precious contribution buy musician to renaissance ~Derived inspiration for exploration from reports of music of ancient Greece ~Philosophers such as Plato had testified music was capable arousing emotions ~Composers shared this expressive aim of matching words and music leading to two important new dev.

"As vesta was from Latmos hill descending" Thomas, Weelkes

~Never rose beyond provincial cathedral organist choirmaster ~Trouble keeping even that post in later life ~Not a major figure ~Best compose of Madrigal in English ~Six part: 2 soprano, 1 alto, 2 tenor, 1 bass

New Horizons, New Scales

~Non European music began to make inroads into European classical music ~Debussy heard first non-Western music played by native musicians ~Sensed a resonance btwn his own music and shimmering timbres and gamelan ~Pentatonic scale- a five note scale playable on the black notes of piano imported from folk song and Asian music ~Debussy featured pentatonic in Clouds -Whole tone scale divides the octave into six equal parts -All intervals whole steps ~Octatonic scale: specialty w/ Stravinsky -Fits eight pitches into octave by alternating whole and half steps ~Serialism- "new language" for music invented in 1920s by Arnold Schoenberg

Plainchant

~Official music of Catholic Church was a great repertory of melodies designated for liturgy ~System of Plainchant known as Gregorian chant ~Called plain b/c unaccompanied, monophonic music for voices ~Monophonic: (one line) unaccompanied ~Named after famous pope and church father Gregory I

Response of Modernism

~One assumption was visual art had to represent something from external world ~Questioned then abandoned Abstract painting ~Language of cubisnism ~In music basic assumptions concerned the composing of melody and its close associates harmony and tonality ~Thrown into doubt

"Columba aspexit" Hildegard of Bingen

~She is St. Hildegard to Catholic Church ~First woman composer abbess ~Wrote famous book describing religious vision, natural science, and medicine, biographies ~Composed in honor of St. Maximinus ~Late medieval plainchant genere: Sequence AA' BB' CC' series of short tune sung twice with some variation ~Soloist sings A, choir sings A' ~Mizolydian ~Recording includes an instrumental drone- single two notes chord running continuously ~Sometimes drones used to accompany plainchant

Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

~Showed unusual talents as pianist and composer at early age ~Music was avocation of his father who was principal of an agricultural school in Hungary ~After Bartok's mom died, worked as piano teacher promoting Bartok's career ~Prolific composer and fine pianist as was his second wife ~Directed Budapest Academy of Music Mikrokosmos done more than any other work to introduce modernism to musicins ~Undertook large investigation of Hungarian folk music ~Published folk song and folk dance Nationalist composer of 20th century ~Strongly opposed Nazis ~Broke ties w/ German publishers ~Liberal views caused him a good deal of trouble from right wingers in Hungary ~Came to America after outbreak of WWII ~Not well known and little interest ~Last years were a struggle to complete Third Piano concerto and Viola concerto ~superb pianoist ~Imp piano teacher ~pioneer in pedagogical methods ~ethnomusicologist- study music as history -composer - major works: six string quartets -3 piano concerto -violin concertos -two rhapsodies for piano and violin -sonata -various suits -Mirkrokosmos: pedagogical collection

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

~Son of Russian Jewish immigrants living in Brooklyn ~After solid musical education at home went abroad to study in PAris ~Work with Nadia Boulanger ~Gave up composition i deference to talent of her sister Lili ~In America, promoted American music ~Organised important series of concert with Roger Sessions ~1930 attracted by leftist ideology and idea that art should serve the people ~1940's became more accessible and populist ~Well known works- draws on American folk materials ~Appalachian Spring- celebration of traditional American values ~After 1940 Copland headed up the composition faculty at the important summer school Tanglewood, Mass. ~Association w/ Boston Symphony Orchestra, composer position decreased Leonard Bernstein Devoid was his student -trained in France -highly educated composer -tireless promoter -two kinds of compositions: modernist (professionals) and populist Major works: *Ballets* Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Billy the Kid *Orchestral:* Third Symphony, Lincoln Portrait *Piano:* Piano variation, Piano Fantasy, Sonata

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

~Son of important opera singer ~Studies law and did not turn seriously to music till 19 ~Study w/ Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov ~Rimsky's brand of nationalism served young ~Stravinsky well in famous ballet ~Wrote for Ballet Russes: Russian Company centered in Paris ~Enormously dynamic organization run by Sergei Diaghilev ~After WWI, composed more ballets for Diaghilev ~Outspoken advocate of objectivity in music rejection of Romantic emotionality ~Modeled music on pre Romantic composers such as Bach HAndel Mozart ~Transforming music into NEoclassicism style ~Final work in this vein was opera "The Rake's Progress" ~People regarded him as Neoclassical composer in French orbit ~Died at home in NY in 1971 ~Buried in Venice near Dighilev

On the Boundaries of Time

~Sonority is one of two areas in which avant garde music in its post WWII phase made greatest breakthroughs ~Other area was time and rhythm w/ Webern and Riley we measure time in same units: min and sec ~Feeling of time is diff in the two

The Blues

~Special category of black folk song whose subject is loneliness, trouble, and unhappiness of every shade ~Blues lyrics can also convey humor and hope ~Blues are strophic songs like folk songs ~Many stanza sung to same melody ~Blues consists of 3-4 measure phrases ~Twelve bar blues measure aab form ~Provide jazz musicians w/ emotional patterns for improvisation ~Provide jazz w/ sonorous model ~Trumpet sax and trombone sound infinitely more flexible and human played in jazz style that played in military band ~Sippie Wallace name derive from child hood lisp ~African gospel music- ecstatic choral singing in evangilical church services grew up same time as blues and ragtime ~Wallace was also pianist and songwriter ~Performing career began at little churches in Houston

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006)

~Studies Budapest Academy of Music ~Appointed as professor there ~Pursue unique sound visions under Communist restrictions in Hungary ~Left for West in 1956 ~No distinct rhythm -sound planes- indv notes are affed to a conglomeration of sounds w/ sounds coming thicker and thicker

Period of profound changes in Euro & America

~The period from 1890 to 1940 profound changes in European and American society ~Changes were outgrowths of trends- collapse of ~Romantic political aspirations in 1848 ~Accelerating industrialization and increasingly pronounced nationalism ~Climax with cataclysms of WWI and WWII ~First group= avant garde modernists

Noble poet composers of court songs:

~Troubadours in S. France ~Trouveres in N. France ~Minnesingers in Germany

Characteristics of Plainchant

~Usually non metrical: no established meter, rhythm is free ~No major/minor but medieval modes (around DEFG)

"Pope Marcellus Mass from the Gloria" Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

~Was singer of Rome famous church sistine ~In youth, composed secular compositions ~Compose over hundreds of mass Was supposed to convince pope that complicated polyphonic church music can be heard clearly ~More homophony than Josquin ~Rich, shifting tones ~6 voice mostly homophonic ~Critical spots are more polyphonic

Anton Webern (1883-1945) Five Orchestral Pieces (1913)

~Whole piece is six measures long ~Music exceptionally concentrated b/c relationship btwn notes is strained by atomized ~Each note somehow becomes separate source of tremendous energy

Renaissance Dances

~Widespread Renaissance instrumental genres was dance ~Paran: solemn dance in duple paired w/ galliard faster triple

Bela Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936)

~Work can be thought of as informal symphony in usual four substantial movements ~Constituted small orchestra ~Includes piano harp, celesta, timpani ~Second Movement: music has folk dance fragments ~Pizzicato precedes theme 1 ~Motive a like Beethoven Fifth Symphony ~Motive works well in Timpani ~Has exposition, dev, and recapitulation and coda In Dev. has imitative polyphony -a fugue midway through becomes retrograde -fugue subject appears throughout work -sonata form