The 20th century was a major turning point in the history of classical music. Tonal harmony of the Romance era have been replaced with the dissonant sounding atonality of many composers of the 20th century. The 20th century of classical music was led by Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Claude Debussy. These composers have created techniques that were unlike any other in the history of classical music. Arnold Schoenberg is known for a technique called the Twelve Tone Technique. This technique contains a row of twelve pitch classes in a particular order. These pitch classes must be played in order, and once a pitch class has been played, it isn't repeated until the next row. There are four basic forms of a row: prime, inversion, retrograde,
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He opens up with a quiet, minor tonality into a massive crescendo. After this intro, there is a descending pattern from the low strings. At first it is monophonic but then it is joined by a counter melody of bassons, making it polyphonic. As the listener moves along through the piece, one can hear the violins ascending, clashing with the descending basson theme. After, it breaks into a march. In the march, there are many instances of staccato and it’s rhythm is syncopated and dotted. This gives the song a sharp, prideful sound. Throughout the entire piece there are many dynamic changes. Several points where it can go from super quiet to extremely loud in a matter of measures. According to the program, this movement is about “...the artist, led to execution for murdering his beloved, remembers her on the scaffold, but the melody is abruptly cut off by the fall of the guillotine and the concluding uproar.” In John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine, the rhythm is present in the form of an ostinati. As mentioned earlier, a Ostinati is short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition, sometimes slightly varied or transposed to a different pitch. In this piece, the rhythm almost seems to be off, giving the listener a feeling of rhythmic dissonance. As the listener is trying to get a feel for the melody of the woodwinds, the randomness of the snare drum hitting not on the third beat of a measure gives the feeling of
He opens up with a quiet, minor tonality into a massive crescendo. After this intro, there is a descending pattern from the low strings. At first it is monophonic but then it is joined by a counter melody of bassons, making it polyphonic. As the listener moves along through the piece, one can hear the violins ascending, clashing with the descending basson theme. After, it breaks into a march. In the march, there are many instances of staccato and it’s rhythm is syncopated and dotted. This gives the song a sharp, prideful sound. Throughout the entire piece there are many dynamic changes. Several points where it can go from super quiet to extremely loud in a matter of measures. According to the program, this movement is about “...the artist, led to execution for murdering his beloved, remembers her on the scaffold, but the melody is abruptly cut off by the fall of the guillotine and the concluding uproar.” In John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine, the rhythm is present in the form of an ostinati. As mentioned earlier, a Ostinati is short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition, sometimes slightly varied or transposed to a different pitch. In this piece, the rhythm almost seems to be off, giving the listener a feeling of rhythmic dissonance. As the listener is trying to get a feel for the melody of the woodwinds, the randomness of the snare drum hitting not on the third beat of a measure gives the feeling of