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Music with Logic, No Emotion (Mid-20th Century American Experimentalists…
Music with Logic, No Emotion
Anything Goes: Schoenberg and Musical Expressionism
Evolution of Musical Expressionism
Redefine the new
Next step in music evolution- not revolutionary
expressionism
break from tradition
Dissonance (doesn't resolve)
Reject tonality (atonality)
Emancipation of Dissonance (Atonality)
Rejection of tonality
dissonance is standard
Dissonance can be at the end of a piece
TONS of tension
no need for consonance
12 tone method
arnold schoenberg
Composer, conductor, and teacher
students were berg and webern
Rejected tonality
12 tones
other USC then UCLA
Three Compositional Periods
Post-romantic
Atonal-expressionist
Twelve-tone
Pierrot Lunaire
1912
song cycle on 21 poems by Giraud
Poems about Pierrot
Bizarre and macabre
Mood changes: guilt, depression, atonement, playfulness
Set for female vocalist and chamber ensemble
21 poems broken down to 3 groups of 7
Sprechstimme: a new vocal style where the vocal melody is spoken rather than sung
Klangfarbenmelodie: each note of a melody is played by a different instrument
No. 18 from the cycle, The Moonfleck
Pierrot was disturbed by a white spot on his black jacket, and rubs and rubs to try to get rid of it
Harsh Dissonance
Melody: Disjunct line, quasi-speechlike
Rhythm: very fast, free flowing
Texture: Complex counterpoint with canonic (strict imitative) treatment
Form: rondeau text w/ poetic/musical refrain
Voice with five instruments
Mid-20th Century American Experimentalists
Blending of ideas
Innovative
New scales and harmonies
Various cultures
use of various sound sources
Highly virtuosic instrumental or vocal effects
Early experimentation
Henry cowell
Combined Asian instruments with Western esembles
Music from Iran, India, and Japan
Foreign scales with western chords
Pr-cursor to "prepared piano"
tone clusters for piano
group notes played with fist, forearm, and palm
Plucking piano strings directly
Tiger
The Banshee
Early Experimentation
Harry Partich
Proponent of microtones
developed a scale with 43 microtones to the octave
Built/adapted instruments to play it
focus on melody and timbre (not harmony)
Adapted Indian and African instruments
Cloud chamber bowls made of glass
cone gongs (made of metal)
Gourd trees
John Cage
Born in LA
Early interest in non-western scales
Cowell was his mentor
Invented the prepared piano
like gamelan music
Indeterminacy, aleatoric, and chance music
Sonatas and Interludes- Sonata V
16 sonatas in 4 groups- separated by interludes
For prepared piano
Materials inserted between the piano strings
nails
bolts
rubber
wood
leather
varied timbres
non-pitched
piano is percussion instrument
ethereal sound
Binary form (AABB)
A: rhythm; upper and lower line
B: faster; more disjunct and accented
End sustained dissonance
Melody: Irregular phrases
Rhythm: Opening with regular movement, then changing rhythmic flow
Texture: focus in a liner movement
George Crumb
American: Taught in Colorado, NY, and U Penn
Avant-garde composer
Art/music tradition
Folk themes
Non-western sounds
Won Pulitzer Prize
Caballito Negro (Little Black Horse)
Song from Madrigals, book 2
Text- Garcia Lorca poem (images of death)
Soprano and metallic percussion, flute or piccolo
3 part from ABA
Disjunct vocal line
No sense of meter
Effects
Flutter tonguing
Glissandos
Whispering/ Neighing
Rhythm: regular pulsations
Harmony: Atonal
Timbre: Bright, hard, metallic quality
Less is More: Minimalistic Music
Musical Minimalism
the scientific nature of serialism appealed to some
rejection of 12 tone music
A new, also scientific approach to stable harmonies was found
Process music- a few notes repeating over and over
Developed through technology into phase music
music recorded on loop
several copies played simultaneously
music speed slowed
phase music later produced by live musicians
Steve Reich
Born in NYC, studied modernist composition at Julliard
Wanted to write tonal music and pioneered minimalist music
studied west african drumming and balinese gamelan
judaic heritage is the center of many of his words
Reich's Electronic Counterpoint, III
Last of a series of his works he called "counterpoint"
Chamber work for guitar and tape
Twelve guitars with prerecorded tracks layered within
Very different approach to harmony and complexity from goal-directed tonality
Through-composed
Polyphonic
Hook is less the initial musical idea, but how that idea is gradually combined with itself
Melody: Short melodic ideas repeated as an ostinato
3/2 meter
Highly polyphonic, with canons
trance-like