Chapter 16 - American Modernism and Postmodernism

Electronic Music

1877- Thomas Edison patented the phonograph 1920s- radio broadcasts of music 1936- magnetic tape recorder 1940s/ 1950s- synthesizers 1990s- CDs, followed by MP3 and MP4 files

John Cage

4' 33"

Copland's Style

Americana: American folk and popular songs to soften the dissonant harmonies and disjunct melodies of European Modernism

Minimalism

Began in the early 1960s Aesthetic -rejected modernism and Neo-Romanticism -reduction to the most essential elements

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Brooklynn native studied in Paris (1921-1924) During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Copland sought to forge an American style by incorporating into his music elements of jazz, a distinctly American product dissonance and atonality alienated ordinary citizens turned to western and rural themes

Concerto Grosso 1985 (1985)/ commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Handel's birth

Commissioned by the Washington Friends of Handel a twentieth-century musical procedure generally called Neo-classicism

Charles Ives Reputation

Greatest and most eccentric American composer first to use polytonality "college art" blended dissonant harmony with traditional music

Jazz Age

Name for the 1920s, because of the popularity of jazz-a new type of American music that combined African rhythms, blues, and ragtime

Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut from Three Places in New England

Programmatic Incorporates well-known American tunes -Yankee Doodle -Hail, Columbia -The British Grenadiers

bebop

a complex, hard-driving style of jazz that emerged shortly after World War II; it is played without musical notation by a small ensemble

swing

a mellow, bouncy, flowing style of jazz that originated in the 1930s

big band

a mid-to large-size dance band that emerged in the 1930s to play the style of jazz called swing

F. Scott Fitzgerald

a novelist and chronicler of the jazz age

Appalchian Spring (1944)

a one-act ballet that tells the story of "a pioneer celebration of spring in a newly built farmhouse in the State of Pennsylvania in the early 1800s." A new bride and her farmer husband express through dance the anxieties and joys of life in pioneer America. composed for Martha Graham "Simple Gifts" -19th century Shaker tune -theme and variations form

Concerto Grosso 1985 Elements of Baroque Musical Style

a regular rhythmic pulse a repeating bass pedal point a walking bass terraced dynamics harpsichord

free jazz

a style of jazz perfected during the 1960s in which a soloist indulges in flights of creative fancy without concern for the rhythm, melody, or harmony of the other performers

Cool Jazz (Miles Davis)

a style of jazz that emerged in the 1950s that is softer, more relaxed, and less frenzied than bebop

Postmodernism - Post WWI

abandon the idea that history is progress blurring of "high" and "low" culture -eclecticism and irony -anything a valid subject for art globalization and Pluralism In music: -all genres of equal value -non goal oriented forms -mix of acoustic and electronic resources

Postmodernism

an all-inclusive style in the arts that developed after 1945 and in which almost anything goes, with all works valued equally

New Orleans Jazz

an early style of jazz that emphasized improvisation by a small group of soloists (cornet, clarinet, and trombone) and a rhythm section

blues

an expressive, soulful style of singing that emerged from the African-American spiritual and work song at the end of the nineteenth century; its texts are strophic, its harmonies simple and repetitive

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)

born in Miami educated at Florida State University first woman to earn a doctorate in composition from the Juilliard School of Music (NY) first woman composer to win a Pulitzer for her First Symphony

Edgard Varese (1883-1965)- Poeme electronique

electronic composition synthesized sounds combined with mystique concrete techniques used by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, George Lucas (guy who did Star Wars) sampling and scratching technique

Copland's Music

evokes a sense of space in his music by means of a distinctive kind of orchestration called "open scoring." creates a solid bass, a very thin middle, and a top of one or two high, clear tones, such as those of the clarinet or flute.

Peanuts Gallery

in response to being concluded in a Peanuts' cartoon generated another cartoon by Schultz as well as a documentary about the work

Jazz

lively, energetic music with pulsating rhythms and scintillating syncopations, usually played by either a small instrumental ensemble (a combo) or a larger group (a big band).

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Aesthetic

modernism integrated with earlier traditions genres and forms of European concert music seeks to communicate with ordinary listeners

symphonic jazz

music (mostly of the 1920s and 1930s) that incorporates idioms of jazz into the genres and forms traditionally performed by the classical symphony orchestra

John Adams (1947)

music has an electric quality best termed a "post-Minimalist" Short Ride in a Fast Machine (woodblock)

Jazz

originated as African-American popular music, much of it improvised spontaneously.

Neo-Classicism

the use of the genres, forms, and aesthetics of the Baroque (1600-1750) or Classical (1750-1820) periods to inform a new, Modernist composition.

Copland's Harmony

tonal and slow harmonic

Charles Ives (1874-1954)

went to Yale Businessman, not a professional musician -made a fortune in insurance -Not dependent upon audience reception -composed to suit himself