Music History 3603

Techniques for establishing atonality

1. 3-note cell 2. ostinatos 3. stream of consciousness 4. counterpoint

Les Six

1. Louis Durey 2. Darius Milhaud 3. Arthus Honegger 4. Germaine Tailleferre 5. Georges Auric 6. Francis Poulenc

William Hogarth

18th-centrury English artist, Stravinsky based the libretto for "The Rake's Progress" on a set of engravings by him.

Symbolism

19-century movement in literature inspired by Edgar Allen Poe and participants included Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Stephen Mallarme.

Neoclassicism

A broad movement from the 1910s to the 1950s in which composers revived, imitated, or evoked the styles, genres, and forms of pre-Romantic music, especially that of 18th century, then called Classic.

Twelve-Tone Method

A form of atonality based on the systematic ordering of twelve notes of the chromatic scale into a row that may be manipulated according to certain rules (this is where you would you the matrix square and clock face).

Melodrama

A genre of musical theatre that combined spoken dialogue with background music.

Prix de Rome

A prestigious award won by Claude Debussy in 1884 and spent two years in Italy composing.

Paris Conservatoire

A prestigious music school that many composers studied at, including Cesar Franck who became a professor of organ there in 1871.

Whole-tone scale

A scale consisting of only whole steps, a whole step is an interval equivalent to two semitones.

Pentatonic scale

A scale containing 5 notes containing no half steps; C D E G A C

Modal Scales

A scale or melody types, identified by the particular intervallic relationships among the notes in a mode.

Octatonic scale

A scale that alternates whole and half steps.

Moscow Conservatory

A school of music where Tchaikovsky was a professor

Ostinatos & juxtaposed blocks

A style characteristic of Stravinsky, in that he would make use of repetitions and different blocks or chunks of music set against each other (emulated what was happening in art in Picasso's cubism).

Sprechstimme (Speaking voice)

A vocal style developed by Arnold Schoenberg in which the performer approximates the written pitches in the gliding tones of speech, while following the notated rhythm (i.e. Pierrot lunaire).

Collage Technique

Again we see George Braque and Pablo Picasso as champions of this art movement, which is simply a technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. A collage may sometimes include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or handmade papers, portions of other artwork or texts, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas.

Cubism

An art style in which three-dimensional objects are represented on a flat plane by breaking them down into geometrical shapes, such as cubes and conies, and juxtaposing or overlapping them in an active, colorful design.

Realist Ballet

An example of this would be the one-act ballet composed by Eric Satie. The plot reproduces various elements of everyday life such as the music hall and fairground. Before Parade, the use of popular entertainment materials was considered unsuitable for the elite world of the ballet.

Choreography/choreographer

Art of representing dances in written symbols; arrangement of dances./ A person who creates dance compositions and plans and arranges dance movements and patterns for dances, especially for ballets.

The Mighty Five

Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Musorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov were the composers that made up the Russian Might Handful.

Maurice Maeterlinck

Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was a Fleming, but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life.

Albert Giraud

Belgian symbolist poet of a large poetic cycle that influenced Schoenberg's twenty-one song cycle of "Pierrot Lunaire".

The New Objectivity

Came about as an opposition to the emotional intensity of the late Romantics and the expressionism of Schoenberg and Berg, this new trend emerged in the 1920s. New Realism was articulated, by composer Ernst Krenek, as something that opposed complexity and promoted the use of familiar elements, borrowing from popular music and jazz or from Classical and Baroque procedures. Members of the belief thought music should be accessible, communicated clearly, and draw connections to the events and concerns of the time.

George Balanchine

Choreographer and one of Stravinsky's favorite collaborators, who later founded the New York City Ballet.

Michel Fokine

Choreographer credited with being the founder of modern ballet style, (partnered with Stravinsky & Nijinsky on the ballets).

Leonide Massine

Choreographer of Erik Satie's realistic ballet, "Parade" (1916-17). SIDE NOTE: This ballet introduced cubism to the stage with stage design by Picasso.

Javanese gamelan

Claude Debussy heard a Javanese gamelan play at the Paris Exposition of 1889 (World's Fair). It is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, featuring a variety of instruments including xylophones, drums, gongs, bamboo flutes. It is expressed in Debussy's music through the incorporation of the whole-tone scale.

Pietro Mascagni

Composer of 'Cavalleria Rusticana' or Rustic Chivalry (1890), a one-act opera that entered the genre of verismo.

Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Composer of 'I Pagliacci' or The Clowns (1892), a one act opera that entered the genre of verismo and often paired with the other one-act opera of Mascagni.

Alexander Zemlinsky

Composer who taught Schoenberg in theory and composition and Schoenberg married his sister.

Niedermeyer School

Conservatory in Paris. Founded in 1853, ,gave general instruction, but focused on church music and became a general music academy in 1895. The school influenced many French composers to use modal melody and harmony and encouraged Paris to again become a leading country in music-making. This is where Gabriel Faure studied under Saint-Saens.

Cyclical method & cyclic form

Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device (Compare to Wagner's leitmotivs).

Monsieur Croche

Debussy's alter ego of sorts; a invented name of a music critic that was present during his career and loved and hated for harsh writing.

Expressionism

Early twentieth-century term derived from art, in which music avoids all traditional forms of 'beauty' in order to express deep personal feelings through exaggerated gestures, angular melodies, and extreme dissonance.

Nadia Boulanger

Famous student of Gabriel Faure who later went on to become a French composer, conductor, and teacher who taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century. She also performed as a pianist and organist. (Taught Dr. Grayson)

"Harmonielehre" (1911)

Famous theory of harmony published by Schoenberg that is still in print and used by may composers and musicians alike.

Jean Sibelius

Finlandia and Tapiola

Society for Private Musical Performances

Founded and directed by Schoenberg in Vienna which gave about 350 performances of music by himself and his students and colleagues. Refer to Weiss & Turk Reading of the requirements for the players wanting to perform at this Society (i.e. the strict level of performance and practice and not ideal for soloists of specialists).

Societe nationale de musique

Founded in France to promote French music and to allow young composers to present their works in public. DEBUSSY, RAVEL were great supporters and contributors.

Paul Dukas

French Composer of the symphonic poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". It is his most famous work and we know it from the 1940 Walt Disney production of "Fantasia".

Camille Saint-Saens

French composer, conductor, organist, and pianist of the Romantic era. This composer famously stormed out of the premiere of Stravinksy's "Rite of Spring" over the misuse of the bassoon in the ballet's opening bars.

Vincent d'Indy

French transitional composer, cosmopolitan tradition, pupil of Franck.

W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman

Friend and lover duo that wrote the libretti for Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" (1951).

Hauptstimme, Nebenstimme

German for main voice and accompanying voice, used to show if melody material was of primary of secondary importance.

Nationalists

Glinka was the father of Russian music along with the Mighty Five of Russia, and Stravinsky; these composers used folk tunes and made reference to their countries techniques in order to create a unifying sound and establish pride for their countries musical abilities.

Neo Primitivism

Going against primitivism, in that it favors the aesthetic. A Russian art movement that combined elements of Cubism and Futurism tied with Russian 'folk art.'

Serge Diaghilev

Impresario who commissioned Stravinsky to compose for his company the Russian Ballet.

Additive rhythm

In additive rhythm, by contrast, instead of large time-units being subdivided into regular beats, the beat, metre and melodic rhythm are all fashioned from multiples of the smallest unit. Often seen in and easily played by folk musicians, but it can cause problems for classically-trained instrumentalists. In the Western concert tradition, therefore, additive-rhythm music is usually notated with constantly changing time signatures. Seen in the sacred dance in Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."

Reminiscence motive

In an opera, a motive, theme, or melody that recurs in a later scene, in order to recall the events and feelings with which it was first associated. (Compare to the Wagner ideal of leitmotiv).

Series and Row

In twelve-tone music, an ordering of all twelve pitch classes that is used to generate the musical content.

Hexachord

In twelve-tone theory, the first six or last six notes of in the row.

Second Viennese School

Included Schoenberg and his devoted pupils, Webern and Berg, drawing an implicit connection to the first Viennese threesome, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Milhaud: "Mediterranean lyricism"

Influenced by Eric Satie; one of the more tuneful composers and encouraged a strong melody line (i.e. "La Boeuf Sur Le Toit").

Verismo

Italian translation means 'true', was the operatic parallel to realism in literature. Instead of portraying fantastical creatures from faraway lands they focused on lower class 'ordinary' people depicting events that are brutal or hopeless. (Also seen as a reaction against Romantic idealism).

Dada(ism)

Movement in art championed by artist Marcel Duchamp, "Fountain" which is just an urinal on its back, contradicted some of art's most basic assumptions.

Surrealism

Movement in art in which painters, Salvador Dali & Marc Chagall, explored the dreamlike world of the unconscious open up by Freud.

Serialism (Serial music)

Music that used the twelve-tone method; used especially for music that extends the same general approach to series in parameters other than pitch.

Wallpaper music

Music that was meant to be in the background, to be simple, unpretentious, and unassuming that futurists and modernists believed in.

Primitivism

Musical style that represents the primitive or elemental through pulsation (rather than meter), static repetition, unprepared and unresolved dissonance, dry timbres, and other techniques. A deliberate representation of the crude and uncultured, set aside the sophisticated and style of modern life. (ex. "The Rite of Spring")

Kalevala

National epic of Finland

Nationalism

Nineteenth and twentieth-century trend in music in which composers were eager to embrace elements in their music that claimed a national identity.

Edvard Grieg

Norwegian composer who gave voice to the view that composing in a recognizably national style was a sign of authenticity.

Vaslav Nijinsky

One of the greatest dancers of the twentieth century, (partnered with Stravinsky & Fokine on the choreography for the ballets).

Atonal

Pieces would be described as atonal if they avoided establishing any note as a tonal center.

Serge Koussevitzky

Russian-born conductor, composer and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.

Magic Square/Matrix

Several forms of a row that are compiled together in the form of a square. Including: Prime: The original form of the row. Inversion: reversing the upward or downward direction of each interval while maintaining its size; or the new melody or row form that results. Retrograde: Backward statement of a previously heard melody, passage, or twelve-tone row. Retrograde Inversion: upside-down and backward statement of a melody or twelve-tone row.

Robert Craft

Stravinsky's assistant who was enthusiastic about the twelve-tone music of Schoenberg and Webern and very likely contributed to Stravinsky absorbing the twelve tone methods in his own idiom.

Petrushka Chord

Taken from Stravinsky's "Petrushka", the puppet Petrushka has been brought to life by a magician and is characterized by this famous chord that combines F# and C-Major triads, both part of the same octatonic scale.

Pointillism

Technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Webern's music has sometimes been described as pointillism because it often features only one to three or four notes at once or in the same instrument in succession.

Developing variation

Term coined by Arnold Schoenberg for the process of deriving new themes, accompaniments, and other ideas, throughout a piece through variations of a germinal idea.

Klangfarbenmelodie

Term coined by Arnold Schoenberg to describe a succession of tone colors that is perceived as analogous to the changing pitches in melody.

Impressionism

Term derived from art, used for music that evokes moods and visual imagery through colorful harmony and instrumental timbre. Claude Monet was an influential artist in the movement and wanted to evoke the feeling of a picture, with blurry lines and capturing the light, not straight-edged and perfect.

Neotonality

Term for music since the early 1900s that establishes a single pitch as a tonal center, but does not follow the traditional rules of tonality.

Ballet Russes

The Russian Ballet owned by Serge Diaghilev; the ballets "The Firebird", "Petrushka", and "The Rite of Spring" were all written by Stravinsky and performed in Paris.

Chromatic saturation

The appearance of all twelve pitch-classes within a segment of music.

Orchestral Song Cycle

The genre of orchestral song tends to longer programmed pieces than songs accompanied by piano. For this reason the orchestral song may be either be a longer single song or, more commonly, a cycle. An example of this genre is by Ravel's second work entitled Shéhérazade, a song cycle after three poems by Tristan Klingsor.

Leos Janacek

The leading twentieth-century Czech composer worked in the genre of Western art music, especially opera, but sought a specifically national style.

B-A-C-H

The notes that represent Bach's name = Bb-A-C-B are are in one of Schoenberg's compositions and pays tribute to his German legend inspiration.

Polytonality

The simultaneous of two or more keys, each in a different layer of the music (such as melody and accompaniment).

Jean Cocteau

The writer of Satie's realist Ballet, "Parade". He called for new music that would be fully French and anti-Romantic in its clarity, accessibility, and emotional restraint.

Bach chorale: "Es ist geung"

This is a reference to Berg Violin Concerto, which alludes to the death of Manon Gropius, to whose memory the concerto is dedicated; she was the daughter of Berg's close friend Alma Mahler and died at the 18 of polio.

Schola Cantorum

Trained priests who were sent to Northern Europe to convert inhabitants and to establish schools (abbys) for the education and training of priests. **Look up in Burkholder.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Viennese playwright who had a long and fruitful collaboration with composer Richard Strauss that would result in seven operas (i.e. Elektra).

Westernizers

Westernizers had the same intent as nationalists in that they wanted to unify sound and establish pride, but they were not opposed to Western influences such as popular music like American jazz. These composers included Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, and Rachmaninov.

Georg Buchner

Wozzeck's libretto was arranged by Berg from a fragmentary play by Buchner. The plot is about a soldier who falls victim to his environment and poverty, betrayed by love, and driven finally to murder and madness.

Pantomime

a dramatic entertainment, originating in Roman mime, in which performers express meaning through gestures accompanied by music. This musical art form can be seen by the clown and other dolls brought to life in "Petrushka".

Rondel

a fixed form of verse based on two rhyme sounds and usually consisting of 14 lines in three stanzas in which the first two lines of the first stanza are repeated as the refrain to the second and third stanza.

Mystic Chord

a six-note synthetic chord and its associated scale, or pitch collection; which loosely serves as the harmonic and melodic basis for some of the later pieces by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin, however, did not use the chord directly but rather derived material from its transpositions.

"Emancipation of the Dissonance"

concept created by Arnold Schoenberg that freed the dissonance of the need to resolve down by step (as we see in species counterpoint rules). "The greater autonomy of the dominant-quality dissonance contributed significantly to the weakening of traditional tonal function within a purely diatonic context."