Msc 3044 Listening Exam 4

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Feldeinsamkeit

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by Charles Ives. This is the musical setting of a poem by the German poet Hermann Allmers. This piece was written for Ives' professor at Yale University, Horatio Parker, who was a German-trained composer. Timbre is male voice and piano. Form is ternary (ABA)

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Charlie Rutlage

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By Charles Ives. This is a setting of a ballad by the Montana cowboy writer, D.J. O'Malley. It tells the story of the cowboy Charlie Rutlage who died in an accident while herding cattle. Timbre is voice and piano. At the point where Charlie is killed, the pianist uses their fists to play tone clusters which are dissonant groups of adjacent notes.

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The Unanswered Question

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by Charles Ives. This is a tone poem which is a one movement programmatic work, usually for orchestra. The string section which includes violin, viola, cello and bass is instructed to sit offstage or separated from the other instruments. The trumpet represents the question of existence. Human beings are represented in the piece by four flutes that bicker furiously after each question.

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String Quartet, 3rd Mvmt, Andante

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By Ruth Crawford Seeger. She moved to New York where she studied with Charles Seeger whom she married. Charles Seeger taught dissonant counterpoint which is where the roles of consonance and dissonance are reversed. The movement has only one melodic line created by instruments entering or changing their notes one by one. The melodic line is very chromatic.

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Study 3a for player piano

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by Conlon Nancarrow. The piece uses complex polyrhythms which is when a piece has two or more rhythmic patterns or principles of rhythmic organization. The piece has the form of boogie-woogie piano blues. Boogie woogie, or honky tonk, is a style of blues piano playing developed by Meade "Lux" Lewis and other blues pianists. It has a fast, driving tempo and a bass line that outlines the blues harmonies through a percussive ostinato. Boogie woogie influenced rhythm-and-blues which was the forerunner of rock 'n' roll.

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Piano Variations

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by Aaron Copland. The work consists of an 11 measure theme, 20 variations and a coda. Each variation has a different mood. Expressive, naive, clangorous, blurred, scherzando and threatening are some of the playing instructions. Despite the contrasting moods, the entire piece is unified by a continuous development of ideas.

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Variations on a Shaker Hymn

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from Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. Appalachian Spring is a ballet which is a theatrical presentation in which a story or idea is communicated by music, mime and dancing. The work was commissioned by dancer and choreographer Martha Graham for a performance in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The small size of the auditorium limited Copland to a 13 piece chamber orchestra or strings, woodwinds and piano. Copland later reworked the music of Appalachian Spring into a suite for full orchestra.

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Sea-Snatch

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From Hermit Songs by Samuel Barber. Hermit Songs is a song cycle which is a group of songs meant to be performed together that share musical and textual connections. Hermit Songs consists of 10 settings of medieval Irish poetry translated into modern English. The texts of the song cycle are predominantly religous, but spoken in a worldly and personalized tone. Sea-Snatch is about a boat being caught in a violent storm, its planks catch fire and its sailors cry out to the all-powerful King of Heaven.

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Agnus dei

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From War Requiem by Benjamin Britten. War Requiem embodies Britten's rejection of warfare. It was commissioned for the consecration of a new St. Michael's Cathedral in Coventry, a city in central England. Before WWII, Coventry was home to one of the most magnificent gothic churches in the world. The city was attacked by the German air force and the church was destroyed.

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Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

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by Krzysztof Penderecki. Penderecki's works were performed at Warsaw Autumn where younger Polish composers separated themselves from socialist realism and found new ideas in music from European contemporaries. A threnody is a song of lamentation. Pederecki uses graphic notations which are special notational symbols used to guide the players, and he controls their coordination by laying out the score in a succession of blocks, each of a specific duration. The piece has no form, but moves through passages of tension and relaxation.

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Composition for Piano No. 1

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By Milton Babbitt. After WWII, Babbitt took 12 tone and serial procedures in a new direction. Babbitt studied the systematic aspects of Schoenberg's method to allow it to be more widely used and for use in his own works. This piece is based on a 12 tone row which is all the notes of the chomatic scale without repeating notes. Babbitt varied the melody by using retrograde which is playing the row backwards, using inversion which is taking the intervals of the row and duplicating them in the opposite direction, and transposition which is moving the row up or down in pitch.

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Bransle Double

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From Agon by Igor Stravinsky. This is a ballet which is a theatrical presentation in which a story or idea is communicated by music, mime and dancing. This is a 20 minute work in collaboration with Russian-American choreographer, George Balanchine. A bransle is an old French dance that comes from the verb branler meaning to shake or swing. This piece is based on a 12 tone row which is all the notes of the chomatic scale without repeating notes.

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L'artisanat furieux

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From Le marteau sans maitre by Pierre Boulez. La marteau sans maitre uses poetry by Rene Char. Timbre is different for each movement and includes alto voice, viola, alto flute, guitar, vibraphone and xylorimba. The xylorimba is a xylophone with an extended low register. L'artisanat furieux is the third movement for voice and alto flute. It is the simplest and most conventional part of the work.

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Book 1

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From Music of Changes by John Cage. Music of Changes is a lengthy composition for piano, in four parts. The piece uses indeterminacy of composition meaning the choice of musical materials is not directly controlled by the composer. Cage used indeterminacy of composition by flipping a coin and using other random processes to determine a figure, rhythm, tempo, dynamics and polyphonic density. Half of the figures are void, meaning they contain silence.

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Poeme electronique

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By Edgard Varese. This piece is electronic music meaning the sounds are generated using electronic equipment. Poeme electronique was part of a multimedia display, also called poeme electronique by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. While the piece played, a film by Phillippe Agostini was projected on the structure's inner walls. Iannis Xenakis designed the pavillion where the piece was performed and it was destroyed after the fair.

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Mode de valeurs et d'intensites

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By Oliver Messian. This piece is based on a 12 tone row which is all the notes of the chomatic scale without repeating notes. The register, duration, attack type and dynamic level of each note is determined in advance. The score suggests 3 polyphonic lines, however this is not apparent due to the diversity in register, dynamics, attack quality and duration of each note. The texture becomes almost entirely pointillistic meaning made from an array of individualized tones rather than lines and chords.

Front 17

Stinging

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From Circles by Luciano Berio. Berio was devoted to modernism to expand his musical language, find new materials and learn new ways to organize music. Berio uses extended techniques of singing such as singing with the mouth closed, on the breath, with phonetic symbols instead of words or using imprecise pitch. Stinging is a poem from e.e. cummings' collection Tulips and Chimneys. In the piece there is no continuity of thought, no apparent emotion, no unifying ideas upon which the music might expand.

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¿De donde vienes?

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From Ancient Voices of Children by George Crumb. Ancient voices has five vocal movements, each using an excerpt of Garcia Lorca's poetry, and two instrumental interludes. In De donde vienes, Crumb's notation of the music is laid out partly as a circle. The piece features bolero rhythm; the bolero is a sensual and erotic Spanish dance. The piece also features a shimmering effect of the soprano singing into the amplified piano and shouts from the percussionists.

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String Quartet No. 2

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by Elliot Carter. This is a twenty minute work in four movements, fast/scherzo/slow/fast, with a brief introduction and conclusion. The timbre is two violins, viola and cello. The movements are played without a pause and are connected to the next by a cadenza. The introduction and first movement use a lot of counterpoint, are dissonant and atonal.

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Clapping Music

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By Steve Reich. Reich discovered phasing by recording a phrase of speech on a tape loop, playing it over and over again, and by playing the loop on two tape recorders a succession of new rhythms would emerge if the tapes were played at different speeds. Reich transferred his idea of phasing to a live medium or a performed ostinato. An ostinato is a rhythm or melody that repeats note for note. Clapping Music is a piece for two performers using their hands to clap out rhythms.

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Hungarian Rock

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By Gyorgy Ligeti. Timbre is harpsichord. The piece combines jazz, baroque keyboard music and modern harmony. The form is a chaconne which is characterized by continuous variations on a short ostinato figure in the bass, a short harmonic progression or both simultaneously. An ostinato is a rhythm or melody that repeats note for note.

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News

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from Nixon in China by John Adams. This is an opera which is a dramatic work set to music using lavish sets and costumes. The opera has gates which are points at which pitch collections change. News is an aria which is an elaborate, florid, expansive song for solo voice set to a short poem. The form is free as it follows the shifting ideas of the text, but resembles da capo aria form when the opening music returns.

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Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1

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By Joan Tower. This piece is a short orchestral character piece which is a piece that establishes a particular mood. Timbre is orchestral brass and percussion. Tower dedicated the piece to women who take risks and who are adventurous. The title and musical content of the piece refer to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man.

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Credo

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From the Berlin Mass by Arvo Part. In this piece, Part uses a method for constructing a polyphonic texture called tintinnabuli. The lower line is the melodic voice. The melody is mainly conjunct. The piece is diatonic, in the key of E major. The upper voice is the bell line.

Front 25

Symphony No. 3

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by Henryk Gorecki. The piece is also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. A symphony is a large scale, multimovement work for full orchestra. Timbre is female voice and full orchestra which includes strings, brass and percussion. The piece has three movements.

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Entropy

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By Max Richter. Max Richter is a German-British composer who lives in England. The piece is also called On The Nature of Daylight. The piece is from the album The Blue Notebooks. Timbre is string instruments.

Front 27

Allemande

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From Partita for 8 Voices by Caroline Shaw. A partita is a suite which is a succession of short pieces, especially dances. Allemande is French for German dance, a stately dance in common time at a moderate tempo. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The piece is a cappella meaning for voice only.