Listening Quiz 3

Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (3rd movement) CD 14, T7

a. Desire not to be pigeonholed is strongly suggested by his orchestration; Work calls for an unusual combination of musical instruments: Double string orchestra (including harp), celesta (keyboard instrument that mimics the sound of small bells), and lots of percussion (timpani, piano, xylophone, bass drum, side drum, cymbals, and tam-tam b. Timbre all important; Third movement starts with varied repetitions of an exceedingly high note; Importance of timbre confirmed by addition of timpani, playing mysterious sounding glissandos (glide from one pitch to another) very unusual for the time c. Movement structure based on symmetrical or arch form; Proportions of Bartok's arch not strict; Overall impression of growth, development, climax, and return; Music progresses toward midpoint (m 45) after which it (more or less) retraces its steps; After midpoint, movement engages in retrogression; Sense of crescendo and decrescendo build into movement because of symmetry form; just as start of movement gradually adds instruments and ends with instruments dropping out; Xylophone symmetry in 1st few bars after 1st note

Debussy, Prelude a lapres-midi dun faune (Prelude to "The afternoon of a faun") CD 13, T3

a. Form: First critics called work formless; it is actually A B A' form b. Harmonic novelties; Significance of opening theme and its continual restatement at major structural moments: Each time theme repeats it is seen through a different lens with subtle changes to shape and accompaniment texture; First four appearances of theme harmonized differently; 1st theme statement deliberately simple and unaccompanied; Thereafter always accompanied; And each of those accompanied versions harmonized the flute melody in different keys; Key center keeps changing; Debussy's fondness for incorporating scales other than usual major and minor: Whole tone scale used in clarinet/flute in bars 32-37 c. Ambiguity; Rhythm: unless you were to see the music you would not know what its time signature is; Key: overall chromaticism obscures any sense of tonality; Timbre: also important; flute in low mellow ranges; opening flute solo unaccompanied to make flute melody all the more noteworthy

Ives, The Things Ours Fathers Loved CD 13, T7

a. Frequently wrong key harmonization of popular tunes (Dixie, My old Kentucky home, On the banks of Wabash, Nettleton, Battle cry of freedom, in the sweet bye and bye); Harmonization of these tunes, all familiar to Ives contemporaries, yield a strange sense of distance b. Uncanny: familiar becomes unfamiliar; Uncanny accentuated because Ives adopts popular tunes to new words c. Stream of consciousness approach to succession of tunes; Literary approach developed by writer James Joyce

Mahler, Symphony No 1 in D Major (3rd movement) CD 13, T2

a. Klezmer music: music associated with typically small ensembles of Jewish professional musicians; Steady oompah bass (typically low strings, bass drums, and cymbals); Rhythmically free winds above; Exaggerated accents; Repeated back and forth half steps; Prominence of shrill sounding E flat clarinet b. Movement evokes traditional funeral movement: places it in tradition from Beethoven's third symphony; Main theme: minor key parody of Frere Jacques (Bruder Martin: German speaking lands) c. Movement contains programmatic element (program music) unlike the symphonies of Brahms (absolute music)Schwind: How the Animals Bury the Hunter inspired Mahler's symphony I, iii; The weeping/mourning of animals provides a clue to movements content: sometimes sincere, sometimes ironic and sarcastic

Reich, Nagoya Marimbas CD 15, T4

a. Opens with a pentatonic phrase (ABDEG) repeated 25 times by Marimba 1, first by itself (3 times) and then against a series of ever changing contrapuntal figures based on the same pitches played by Marimba II b. When meter shifts (4/4 to 3/4) we hear a new and larger set of pitches incrementally extending in register in both directions. Piece becomes increasingly complex in the rhythmic interplay of 2 players from this point on c. Minimal timbre spectrum forces listener to focus on what is in the piece, especially the wide range of internal contrasts

Stravinsky, Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) excerpt CD 13, T

a. Polytonality: simultaneous use contrasting harmonies halfstep apart; Violins, violas, horns 1-4: E flat 7 chord; Cellos, basses, horns 5-8: E major chord b. In creating something new, Stravinsky found inspiration in something very old: Lithuanian folk music (old book); Folk tune played by the bassoon opening solo c. Spectacular use of orchestra; Thunderously huge orchestra; Combines instruments in continually untried ways; Timbre a central feature of work

Cowell, The Banshee CD 13, T11

a. Requires performer to manipulate piano strings inside the instrument; requires 2 players or something to depress the piano sustain pedal so dampers are lifted and strings freely resonate; Sounds in the Banshee made from playing directly on the strings of a piano (not keys); Performer stands in piano crook and plays strings with fingers, fingernails, or palms of hands b. Cowell spent his life exploring new techniques and composing pieces to showcase them; Central idea: use of traditional musical instruments in new ways c. Directions for new sounds prompted him to invent new music notation system. Premise is letters keyed to bring instructions for each playing technique

Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire Die Kreuze (The Crosses) CD 13. T1

a. Schoenberg projects violence of text by having voice engage in leaps of 9ths, diminished and augmented octaves, and other non-triadic intervals. b. All of this undermines any sense of tonal center; Another novelty, cycle completely avoids tonality; instead: atonality: music lacking tonal center c. Instead of normal singing, vocalist instructed to engage in Sprechstimme; Specified with Xs through note stems; not all musical notes employ them but most do; As speech, it constitutes a purposefully exaggerated over blown kind of delivery; It occupies a kind of twilight zone; Between speech and song that calls attention to the essentially artificial distinction between the two

Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire Der kranke mond (The sick moon) CD 13, T12

a. Song's atonality great emphasizes the unsettling text; Another novelty, cycle completely avoids tonality; instead: atonality: music lacking tonal center b. Atonality plus sprechstimme make the sick moon seem even more ill than any previously known tonal idiom could have; Instead of normal singing, vocalist instructed to engage in Sprechstimme; Specified with Xs through note stems; not all musical notes employ them but most do; As speech, it constitutes a purposefully exaggerated over blown kind of delivery; It occupies a kind of twilight zone; Between speech and song that calls attention to the essentially artificial distinction between the two c. One of the most intimate of the songs: for voice and flute only

Brahms, Symphony No 4 in E Minor, Op 98 (4th movement) CD 13, T1

a. Theme and Variation Design: Most immediate example of 19th century, symphony with last movement using theme and variation technique; Beethoven's Symphony No 3 (Eroica) iv; Theme: 8 measures long, presented by winds and brass, with timpani Cadential flourish; Variation 1: exceedingly parred down statement for strings and bass accompaniment; Notice rhythmic displacement of empty down beat; Yields rhythmic ambiguity; Variation 2: overlaps with conclusion of variation; Melodic interest in the winds; So where is the theme? Brahms makes it ambiguous; Broken up between violas and cello b. Build on basso ostinato: Brahms also reaches back to Bach (1685-1750), using a Baroque idea on which to construct theme and variations; 30 variations built on 8 measure cantata 150 finale; do we think that Brahms wants us to remember the text from Bach's Cantata? Material is in the bass in Bach's Cantata, in Brahms' symphony it is in the treble (and trombones part 1); Scenes of variations built on basso ostinato (repeating bass line; ground bass), a compositional procedure with a venerable history going back to Bach (ex: Bach's B minor Mass Crucifixus; repeats bass line 13 times c. Orchestra: This orchestra is huge; 1 flute, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings

Berg, Lyric Suite (3rd movement) CD 14, T4

a. Unlike Schoenberg and Webern, Berg's approach to the 12 tone method is one of greater freedom given that he has definite expressive purposes in mind; Freedom revealed in Fact that in iii, only the scherzo outer sections are 12 tone; Internal trio is atonal (not 12 tone method); The important of the row is important programmatically b. Surprisingly, Berg has a definite program that underpins the lyric suit, secret c. Last 3 notes as Berg composers the movement loop back to the row's first note: A B flat B natural F; He arranges these notes 1st played by all 4 instruments at movements start; Following non 12 tone trio, scherzo repeat beginning m 93 is a whole scale retrograde repeat of the opening, ending with just these 4 notes; Continually looping 4 note pitch collection binds the names Alban Berg (AB) and Hanna Fuchs (HF); they saturate the movement; German: B = B flat and H = B natural