Hwm- The European Mainstream In The Twentieth Century- 20

Front 1

Introduction

Back 1

1. Political/Historical background after WW I
a) Britain & France sustained enormous losses in human life & material resources
b) The United States had a financial boom following the war but the Great
Depression soon followed in 1929
c) The period of peace (1918-1939) following the war was marked by increasing
international tensions

Front 2

Music developments after WW I

Back 2

a) marked by bold innovation - the seeds sown in the earlier period
1: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) - gave up the major-minor system of
relationships (tonality)
1: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) - gave up the major-minor system of
relationships (tonality)
2: equally important was the tendency to suppress the goal directed harmonic
progressions that had provided continuity and formal organization for more than
two centuries
b) non-western musics and the traditional folk music of Eastern Europe offered
composers resources free of such familiar constraints as fixed meters and
conventional tonal relationships
c) gap widened between the "new music" and the responsiveness of listeners
d) censorship in Russia & Germany - beginning in the 1930's - sought to "protect" the
public from the new music

Front 3

Music developments after WW II

Back 3

a) 1949-1956: the active practice of dictated ideological directions imposed on music
in the Stalinist period
b) 1950's & 60's: further widening of the gulf between the concert going public and
the output of the avant-garde composers
1: Aleatoric music - which left much of the pitch & rhythmic content to chance
2: Serial music - highly organized on an intellectual level but seemingly chaotic on
the audible surface
c) 1970's & 80's: musical languages to try and reach a wider audience
1: reintroduced styles of the past or adopted a neo-Romantic idiom
2: Minimalism - small amount of musical material is repeated many times and
undergoes slow processes of change
i- evolved from a branch of the avant-garde
ii- began to incorporate African drumming, Asian music, and other influences
3: seeking to communicate directly with audiences through the use of familiar
musical idioms and gestures drawn from the entire range of music history,
musics of the world, popular styles - mixed or blended in unprecedented ways
4. Technology - recordings, radio & television spawned an unparalleled growth in the
size of the audience for many kinds of music

Front 4

Ethnic Contexts

Intro

Back 4

a) the distinctive character of the ethnic musics of central & eastern Europe became
an important resource for composers in the first half of the century
b) recordings led to more complete documentation of ethnic music than had been
possible previously
c) composers - rather than trying to "smooth the irregularities" and make them fit into
art music came to respect their uniqueness and drew inspiration from these idioms
to create new styles

Front 5

Béla Bartók (1881-1845)

Back 5

a) developed a style that, more intimately that ever before, fused folk elements with
highly developed techniques of art music
b) combined contrapuntal textures, thematic development, and sensitivity to the
purely sonorous value of chords true to the western tradition - blending melodic
lines derived or inspired from Eastern European traditional music
c) in most of his music a primary tonal center recurs - though it may be obscured for
long stretches by modal or chromatic means or both
c) in most of his music a primary tonal center recurs - though it may be obscured for
long stretches by modal or chromatic means or both
1: works from the 1920's he utilized polytonality - writing simultaneously on two or
more harmonic planes
2: but he did not negate tonality
d) important contributions as an ethnomusicologist

Front 6

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)

Back 6

a) Hungarian
b) more narrowly national & less thoroghgoing than Bartók
c) most pervasive influence has been in education with the Kodály system

Front 7

Soviet Orbit

Back 7

1. the music of the former Soviet republics betray national influences which were
officially encouraged - but several leading composers cultivated international styles
2. Sergey Prokoviev (1891-1953)
a) lived outside Russia from 1918-1934 then resettled in Russia
b) charged with "formalism" meaning that the music did not celebrate the
revolutionary ideology and it heroes nor reflect the working-class experience
through an accessible "socialist realism"
3. Dmitri Shostakovich (1960-1975) - spent entire career within the soviet system
breaking upon the international musical scene at the age of 19 with his First
Symphony in 1926

Front 8

Post-Soviet Music

Back 8

a) state control was relaxed over culture starting in the 1970's
b) glasnost (openness) intesified interest in foreign developments and permitted both
Russian & Western audiences to become acquainted with Russian composers
who had worked quietly for decades
c) Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) - incorporated a "polystylistic" approach
incorporating music from the Baroque to the present - as well as popular music
d) Sofiz Gubaidulina (b. 1931) - almost all of her works have a spiritual dimension

Front 9

England

Back 9

1. Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
a) foremost English composer in the first half of the century
b) drew inspiration from national sources - English literature, traditional song,
hymnody, & earlier English composers such as Purcell & Tallis as well as the
European traditions fo Bach, Handel, Debussy, & Ravel
c) profoundly national quality of his compositions owes something to quoting or
imitating British folk tunes but even more to his assimilation of the "modal"
harmony of the Elizabethans
2. Gustav Holst (1874-1934) - influenced not only by the English traditional song but by
Hindu mysticism
3. William Walton (1902-1982) - occupied a prominent position in mid 20th century
English music
4. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) - the most prolific and best-known English composer of
the the mid-20th century and distinguished especially for his choral compositions,
songs, and opera
4. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) - the most prolific and best-known English composer of
the the mid-20th century and distinguished especially for his choral compositions,
songs, and opera
5. Michael Tippett (1905-1998) - open to historical, traditional ethnic, & non-Western
styles and materials

Front 10

New Music Manchester group

Back 10

a) Alexander Goehr (b. 1932)
b) Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934)
c) Harrison Birtwestle (b. 1934)

Front 11

Germany

Back 11

1. Harbored the most aggressive nationalism between the two world wars
a) Nazis did try to enforce a kind of national purity
b) Led to a dissolution of its creative forces - some of its most talented musicians took
refuge abroad

Front 12

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

Back 12

a) disturbed by the widening gulf between composers and an increasingly passive
public in the late 20's & 30's he began to compose "Gebrauchsmusik" - music for
use as opposed the music for its own sake
b) followed a new harmonic method which he called "harmonic fluctuation"
1: fairly consonant chords progress toward combinations containing greater
tension & dissonance
2: which are then resolved either suddenly or by slowly moderating the tension
until consonance is reached again

Front 13

Orff and Weill

Back 13

Carl Orff (1895-1982) - along with Kodály's method and materials he won a following
among educators in many countries
4. Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
a) two careers
1: as an opera composer in Berlin - embracing Gebrauchsmusik
2: as a Broadway composer in New York

Front 14

Latin America

Back 14

1. Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) - Brazilian, made use of Brazilian rhythms &
sonorities
2. Silvestre Revueltas (1898-1940) - Mexican
3. Carlos Chávez (1899-1978)
4. Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) - Argentinian

Front 15

Neo-Classicism in France

Back 15

Neo-Classicism represented a broad movement from the 1910's into the 1950's
a) composers revived, imitated, or evoked the styles, genres, and forms of pre-
Romantic music, especially of what we now call the Baroque & Classic
b) many mid-20th century works hark back to earlier procedures - but in less obvious
ways
c) composers tried to absorb the more experimental elements from the previous
decades while maintaining continuity with tradition
1: held to some recognizably familiar features of the past
1: held to some recognizably familiar features of the past
i- tonal centers - defined or alluded to
ii- melodic shape
iii- goal oriented movement of musical ideas
2: while incorporating fresh & unfamiliar elements
2. Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) - excelled in music of dynamic action and graphic
gesture
3. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) - often employed polytonality
4. Francis Poulec (1899-1963

Front 16

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Back 16

1. participated in the most significant musical developments of the firs half of the 20
century - giving impetus to some of these developments
2. Early Works
a) The Firebird - from the Russian nationalist tradition
b) Petruska
1: containing many stylistic ingredients that remain identified with Stravinsky
2: Petruska chord - with polytonal effect, through the use of the octatonic scale
c) Le Sacre
1: stuck many listeners as the culmination of primitivism
2: novel not only in the rhythms, but even more in the previously unheard
orchestral effects
3. His Neo-Classicism
a) with The Rake's Progress" in 1951 he adopted a neo-classic approach
b) refers to his prefernce for balance, coolness, objectivity, and absolute (as opposed
to program) music
4. Choral literature
a) Oedipus rex (1927)
b) Symphony of the Psalms (1930) - utilizing "pandiatonicism"