Final Exam Prompt
Identify the two composers we studied (from any point in history) who you feel were most profound, most original, most influential, or who resonated with you the most. Justify your choices, describing the specific features of their composition(s) that compel your (and our) interest in these composers. Refer to at least one specific "musical moment" in each piece.
Composer 1: Claudio Monteverdi - Transformation of harmony (understanding evolution of music) - Disrupting homophony norms & emotional clarity (Mei et al. responses) Composition 1: Lamento d'Arianna - Musical moment: "Lasciatemi morire' (1:15) - Harmonic discord b/w 2 singers, then soft equilibrium on morire (resignation) - Summary: emotion shaped by dissonance as much as by consonance/clarity Composer 2: John Cage - Contribution to understanding of sound - Postwar experimentalist; redefine production of sound (reason) - Rejected harmony, sound for what it is, chance Composition 2: 4'33 - Musical moment: Door opens at 0:42 - Total silence, blank score (filled by other sounds) - Lack of predetermined musical moments (subjectivity, occurring anywhere) - Sound = function of universe - Experimenting w/ something present elsewhere for millenia (primitive)
In what era did the notion of music as "art" and the composer as "artist" come into its own? What composer is most well-known for doing this, and why? In describing this composer, refer to at least 3 specific ideas discussed in class and/or readings and how they relate to common tropes of the "artist" or "genius." Discuss at least one major work and one specific "musical moment" from it.
Genius/artist: - Transition b/w Classical/Romantic eras, w/ Ludwig van Beethoven - Idea 1: biographic, young, family circumstances; abuse by father and deafness; also socio-economic status (Black Mozart) - Idea 2: produce art for sake of art, not hired by patrons to commission pieces; binded to composing by otherworldly/transcendent pull - Idea 3: disheveled, annoyed w/ viewer; removal from connection to humans, self-competition; only needs to surmount his own genius Symphony No. 5 in C Minor - Range of extreme techniques reflects prowess: harmony, texture, timbre, dynamics → emotional inconsistency - Unbridled melodic development in the piece reflects transcendent pull and Beethoven's inability to reign in the attraction of the Romantic infinite (Hoffman) - Musical moment: oboe solo at 4:35 emerges from gentle play of second theme; tone color creates eeriness through its isolation in silence, lures listener away from recognizable theme; represents mysterious elements and theme of struggle; oboe eventually swallowed by return of theme ("monstrous" and "immeasurable")
Choose 2 pieces discussed in class (or in suggested listening assignments). Reflect on some of the ways in which the pieces, and their musical attributes, are related to extra-musical factors (i.e. politics, art, the personal/biographical, literature, history, philosophy, dance, or performance/visual considerations; pick a few keywords or just focus on one; up to you). Tell me as well: How do these extra-musical factors alter your understanding/appreciation of the musical objects chosen? Strive for a balance between the musical and the extra-musical. Please do not neglect the musical aspects using the pertinent vocabulary. Discuss at least one specific "musical moment" in each musical example.
Musical piece 1: "Nuages", Claude Debussy (1899) - Historical background: following IR and towards end of impressionism; uncertain feelings/discontents abt IR, capitalism, pace of life, finding time to experience natural moment; obsession w/ what ought to be Musical moments: (1) 0:00-0:10 initial cloud theme played by clarinets/bassoons, gives musical, auditory impression of light/floating clouds; (2) climax at 2:40, despite slight crescendo, no conclusiveness or harmonic stability/resolution → eerie/confused harmonic dissonance → chords not trying to serve emotional end - General ambiguity/abstraction & fragmented harmonic experience → accept mystery of nature - Le Pont de l'Europe, Caillebotte Musical piece 2: "Rite of Spring Pt. I", Igor Stravinsky (1913) - Historical background: debut in Paris, period of "modernity", reaction to societal shifts in tech/socio-poli organization/modern nation-state/class structure - Russian folk fertility rites, linked to performance → primitivism, return to state of nature, bizarre/unmodern dances - Stravinsky in Weiss & Taruskin reading: wind instruments b/c drier tone & natural sound; melody develops by adding diff instruments, like unfurling/budding of tree Musical moments: (1) gentle rhythmic hopping at 2:56 abruptly shifts to intense rhythmic stomping at 3:00 (Dance of Adolescents) w/ irregular flickers of french horn; (2) extreme dissonance & polytonality 1:54, burst of several instruments, sharp trills w/ low horn notes, out of sync, emancipation of dissonance - Reaction: "anarchistic" & " barbaric" reflect assumption that dissonance functional insofar as it supports progress/resolution; helps understand Strav's piece as folkloric abstraction and that dissonance not negative but natural
Explain the "particularity" v "universalism" binary, how it relates to jazz and other African American musics, and how it may (or may not) have continued meaning in contemporary debates over music and culture, ethnicity, and/or race. In doing so, reference at least two class readings and two contrasting musical examples (could be either musical styles/traditions, specific pieces, or contributions from specific artists/performers/composers). Discuss at least one specific "musical moment" in each musical example.
P v U: - Rooted in socio-cultural/historical context of particular group; discernible AA quality to jazz - Universalism = jazz's possession of humanistic qualities, transcend diff. - Joel Rogers' 'Jazz at Home': marvel of paradox, "too fundamentally human to be typically racial", global presence, AAs in Harlem; particularist approach, "native soil" & "African roots" - HR-57: jazz rooted in unique AA experience, but universal "true intntl language", national particularism Musical example 1: "Buzzard Lope", Georgia Sea Island Singers - Vernacular spiritual: call-&-response, polyrhythm, blues tonality - Eg. of particular piece: not even racially, but in terms of spiritual genre → more "authentic in use of aforementioned techniques & b/c no score (idea of musical illiteracy), less "formal" than Burleigh (problematic discourse) - Musical moment: "Oh, throw me anywhere Lord" (call) → "In that ole field" (response); mutual understanding/solidarity based on oppression ("King Jesus will protect me"); tempo speeds up collectively at 0:25, group connection despite polyrhythm Musical example 2: "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child", Harry T. Burleigh - Burleigh = elevated/concert vernacular; keyboard accompaniment + word painting; did he want to enter universal western tradition? Or is he experimenting? - Reminiscent of opera, monodic like Strozzi - Musical moment: piano/voice work with/against each other → 0:56 dissonant "long" stretched out to emphasize distance from "home," or home pitch - Universal: musical techniques more generally express longing/absence, less lyrically particular - Can draw in Langston Hughes - Hurtson says concert spirituals are not "genuine Black spirituals;" real ones are "not really songs" Meaning in contemporary debates
Identify two readings that you found especially compelling, illuminating, or instructive. Justify your choices, describing the specific ideas that compel your interest and how they inform your understanding/listening of particular music. Refer to at least one major musical work for each reading and how they relate.
Reading 1: Mei - Nature gave voice for expression of inner states (some qualities associated w/ certain states) - Ancients not going past natural constraints of affect, Mei prefers single voice - Quality of one voice hinders the other's (mixed water) - "Mixing and confounding and somehow blunt each other's force" - Rejection of harmony reveals why it is so important Musical work: Claude Debussy, "Footsteps in the Snow" - Ostinato, but incorporates range of registers/pitches → harmonic dissonance (no clear emotional position) - Non-diatonic scale, move away from strong tonality and distance from harmonic clarity→ melodies not fully formed, fragmented/hesitant - Impressionist/modernist: wants listener to walk through snow w/ irregular footsteps - Mei would oppose Debussy's piece for dissonance → affect not congruent w/ sound, but instructive b/c reps Debussy's illustration of fleeting moment - Unlike Mei's argument, nature ≠ single emotional state; overlapping/contradictory affects in humans Reading 2: Angela Davis, "Music as Social Consciousness" - Explores Holiday's "Strange Fruit" - 'personal protest' → tells us about Holiday's personal relationship to song - Reiterates idea that musical does not exist in vacuum → context-dependent social entities - Indelible mark on love song repertoire + death of father, structural violence Musical work: Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" - "Strange Fruit" cannot operate w/o audience → plea for sympathy - "Overly dramatic... evoke pity rather than compassion" - Blending elements of love song (soothing, warm tone color) w/ word painting (roughly-edged, accented notes on grotesque lyrics) to penetrate moderates - Musical moment: "scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning flesh"
