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Breaking Convention: Music and Modernism

AK 2100Nov. 9, 2005

Music and Tradition

• A brief timeline of Western Music– Medieval: (before 1450). Chant, plainsong or Gregorian Chant.

– Renaissance: (1450-1650 Increased use of instrumentation and multiple melodic lines

– Baroque: (1650-1750). Characterized by the use of counterpoint and growing popularity ofkeyboard music and orchestral music

– Classical: (1750-1820). A brief but important era dominated by a handful of composers

– Romantic: (1820-1920). Equally important, with a few central figures. Greater emphasis onindividual style and expression

– 20th century. Challenged many musical conventions.

– The terms contemporary music or new music are used to describe “serious” or art musiccomposed today.

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The Classical Form

• A written musical tradition• Music for its own sake - not a vehicle for other forms of content.

Concerned with universality as opposed to the individual or local• Classical Sonata form: a way of organizing a work of music. Linked to

the structures of other forms - symphony, concerto, sonata• Commonly used in the “classical era” in Europe (1750-1820)• Basic idea: introduction of theme, development of theme and closure

of theme. Key Figures:– Ludwig van Beethoven (earlier works) (1770-1827)– Joseph Haydn, (1732 - 1809)– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)– Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)– Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

The Symphony

First Movement: fast, in sonata form

Second Movement: slow

Third Movement: ABA structure

Fourth Movement: fast, sonata or rondo form(ABACADA)

Beethoven. Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67

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Modernism & Music

• 1907: possible date for the beginning of the modern period with thefigure of Arnold Schoenberg

• Collapse of traditional tonality• Challenged common practice tonality (1700-1900)• Invests expanded spans of music with a sense of clearly defined, goal-

directed motion• Some generalized formal types: sonata form, the song form, the rondo

developed in conjunction with tonality• Logical pattern of formal connections• By end of 18th century its evolution had made it a sort of universal

musical language

Modernism & Music

• Main currents in 19th century musical practices undermined thiscommon foundation

• Most important reason – growing preference for a more personal kindof musical expression as opposed to a universal form

• Aesthetics of musical Romanticism – emphasis placed on the unique asopposed to the general. (later Beethoven - string quartets, ClaudeDebussy, Maurice Ravel, Frederic Chopin)– Beethoven String. Quartet in A, Op 18 No. 5, II– Chopin. Nocturne in F#, Op. 15, No. 2– Debussy. Three Nocturnes, Clouds– Ravel. Spanish Rhapsody, 4th Movement, Feria

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Modernism & Music

• Striving for individuality is evident in virtually all aspects of 19th

century music.• Many innovations undermined the foundation of Classical form• In place of the Classical ideal of form as an interaction among well

defined and functionally differentiated units, a new Romantic idealemerged of form as process, of music as continuum of uninterruptedgrowth and evolution

• Form thereby acquired a more open quality, quite different from theclosed character of Classical musical structure

Modernism & Music

• This can be seen with special clarity in openings and closings• Clarity is no longer the end goal• Program music: also lead to breakup of tonal music

– Richard Wagner, Die Walküre, Act III, Finale. (c 1874)• Also: rise of nationalism. Composers from other countries drew upon the very

different musical qualities found in the folk and ethnic music of their ownlands.

• Music became increasingly autonomous from Church and Royal Court. Oldpatronage system began to dissolve

• At the close of the 19th century, music had reached a position fundamentallydifferent from the one it occupied at the beginning.

• Composers were individuals, expressing themselves through their music.Believed in musical progress and the constant emergence of new forms ofexpression.

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The Atonal Revolution

• The Second Viennese School - Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg• Schoenberg: 1874-1951• Great impact on compositional practice• Took the pracatice of chromatic music to its logical extreme -- to completely abandon

tonal and harmonic conventions• First String Quartet (1905): extraordinary complexity and elaborate organization

– Two technical details Schoenberg later theorized but which are articulated here in the music areDeveloping variation,--continuous transformation of thematic substance, avoiding literalrepetition,

– And musical prose, constantly unfolding of an unbroken musical line without any symmetricalbalances in terms of phrases, or sections, and corresponding thematic content.

– Excerpt from String Quartet No. 2 (1907-8)• 1. Massing• 3. Litanei. Langsam

The Atonal Revolution

• 1907-1909-very creative period for Schoenberg where he made his break withtonality and triadic harmony and moved into free chromaticism

– Second String Quartet Op. 10– Three Piano Pieces Op 11– Two Songs– Book of the Hanging Gardens Op 15– Five Orchestral Pieces Op 16– Erwartung Op 17– Die Gluckliche Hand

• During this period, Schoenberg had two main goals:– The emancipation of dissonance– Complete abandonment of conventional tonal and harmonic conventions

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The Atonal Revolution

• The Book of the Hanging Gardens, No. 7• Again, each piece asks a particular question and illustrates different

organization structures• Erwartung (1909):Erwartung can especially be viewed as part of the

Expressionist movement, that dominated the arts during the first 20year of 1900s

• Pierrot Lunaire (1912) - excerpts– No. 18 “The Moonfleck”– No. 19 “Serenade”

• After 1916, Schoenberg published no pieces again until 1923• Long silence due to a search for new organization principles for this

new language

12 Tone Music (Serialism)

• Schoenberg no longer believed in the intuitive mode of composition• Saw atonal system as inadequate for longer pieces• 1921—“discovery” of 12 tone system• Conviction was that order, logic, comprehensibility and form could not

be present without obedience to laws (ZKIF)– Coherence, Counterpoint, Instrumentation, Instruction in Form.

(Zusammenhang, Kontrapunkt, Instrumentation, Formenlehre) (ZKIF).

• Schoenberg claimed that his discovery of the 12 tone system would“insure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years”

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12 Tone System

Each composition draws itsbasic material from auniquely chosen sequence ofthe 12 pitches of thechromatic scale. This is the12 tone row or series. Thisis called the “prime” form orP for short.

12 Tone System

In addition to “P” there arethree other related forms:

The retrograde R reversesthe sequence of pitches andintervals

In I each of the originalintervals is inverted so that aperfect fifth upwardsbecomes a perfect fifthdownwards

The retrograde inversion RIis a inversion of R

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Glen Gould, piano.

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Schoenberg developed the system “as in a dream . . . . Stronglyconvincing as this dream may have been, the conviction that thesenew sounds obey the laws of nature and our manner of thinking - theconviction that order, logic, comprehensibility and form cannot bepresent without obedience to such laws - forces the composer alongthe road to exploration. He must find if not laws or rules, at leastways to justify the dissonant character of these harmonies and theirsuccessions.”

Schoenberg quotes

"One may say: coherence is based on repetition, inasmuch as parts of Arecur in B, C, etc. And:Coherence comes into being when parts that are somewhat the same,somewhat different, are connected so that those parts that are the samebecome prominent.Contrast (relational) is likewise based on coherence, insofar as the sameparts as mentioned above are connected so that the unlike partspredominantly attract attention.Change and variation are based on repetition, insofar as several of thelike parts as well as several of the dissimilar parts become discernible.Development is one such succession of related ideas, in which disparateparts that are initially subordinate in importance gradually become theprincipal ideas. (ZKIF: 20-23)

Schoenberg quotes

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Stravinsky• 1882-1971• Rite of Spring, May 29, 1913 premier in Paris. Caused a riot• Pagan Russian rituals• High level of dissonance• Chromaticism• Pervasive rhythmic technique• Excerpts

Continuations of the atonal revolution…

John Cage. Music of Changes (1951)

Edgar Varese. Poeme electronique (1958)

Gyorgy Ligeti. Lux Aeterna (1966)

George Crumb. Black Angels (1970)