New Tonalities

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New Tonalities

• MUSC 315

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New Tonalities Stravinsky and Bartok

• The twentieth century was characterized by an
  exhaustive search for new ways of musical
  expression.
• The old-fashioned traditional tonal system was no
  longer providing composers the means for
  originality and self expression.
• Some composers, such as Schoenberg, found a
  solution by rejecting tonal music.
• For others, folk music of their native lands
  offered the possibility of a new musical
  aesthetic.
• Stravinsky and Bartok redefined the meaning of
  tonal music without rejecting it altogether.

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Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

• Stravinsky study piano since he was nine and
  later harmony and counterpoint.
• Although his father was an operatic bass,
  Stravinsky matured in an environment in which
  music not supported.
• His family opposed to a career in music, so he
  pursued studies in law and legal philosophy.
• In 1903, shortly following his fathers death,
  Stravinsky decided to switch to a career in music
  and started studying composition with
  Rimsky-Korsakov.

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• He established a musically rewarding relationship
  with his teacher that lasted until Rimskys death
  in 1908.
• The influence of Rimsky on Stravinskys early
  music is evident in the emphasis on non-Western
  scales and brilliant orchestration.
• In 1908, Stravinsky completed Fireworks a work
  that illustrates his preference for static,
  non-developmental harmonies.
• He met Sergey Diaghilev, the famous Russian
  artistic impresario, who offered Stravinsky to
  join his new project, the Ballet Russes.

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• Stravinsky was very stimulated by his association
  with this group and composed three major ballet
  scores
• Firebirth (1910)
• Petrushka (1911)
• Rite of the Spring (1913)
• The music for these three ballets was conceived
  as an integral part of the whole production that
  included, drama, dance, staging, and set design.
• Stravinsky worked in close collaboration with the
  other artists in all aspects of the production.

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• Listening
• Firebirth (1910)
• New approach to form music mirrors stage shifts
• To coordinate the music to the shifting spatial
  designs of the dance movements, Stravinsky
  developed a new approach to form that will be
  very influential to later works
• Individual segments of music were interrupted by
  the presentation of the next new or recurring
  segment.

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• Stravinsky completed the Rite of the Spring in
  1913.
• This composition made Stravinsky the most
  prominent composer of his age.
• In the premiere the audience was shocked by the
  percussive and primitive nature of the music and
  ballet.
• The choreography, costumes, and sets were as
  revolutionary as Stravinskys music.
• After the Rite, music could never be the same
  again.
• The striking elements of this composition are the
  aggressive tone and propulsive quality of the
  music.

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• New rhythmic conception
• Rhythmic complexity
• Continuous change of meter signatures
• Superimposition of multiple ostinatos with
  different rhythmic values and durations
• Hammered, percussion quality of the orchestration
• The orchestra is treated as a large percussion
  instrument

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• Stravinsky new approach to rhythm represents a
  basic alteration of traditional Western rhythmic
  conceptions, as radical as the abandonment of
  functional tonality.
• Durations are organized not by the regular
  subdivision the measure, but by the addition of
  unequal shorter units into larger, irregular
  patterns
• E.g. Sacrificial Dance

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• New concept of tonality
• High level of dissonance and chromaticism
• Tonal centers are established by repetition or
  assertion rather than by harmonic functional
  relationships
• Static, non-developmental harmonies
• Bitonality Two different keys played
  simultaneously.

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• Video
• The Rite of the Spring (1913)
• Libretto and Choreography by N. Kasatkina and V.
  Vasilyov.
• A pagan Slavonic tribe assembles on the occasion
  of a feast devoted to the sacred spring. One of
  the girls has to be sacrificed to the Sun God.
  The choice is the beloved of the Sheppard who has
  to find a way of saving her. A protest against
  barbarity and brutality starts to rage in his
  heart.

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• By 1914, Stravinsky was living and working in
  Switzerland, returning to Russia only
  occasionally during the summers.
• With the war and the Russian Revolution of 1917
  he was exiled permanently from his country.
• He lived in Western Europe and later the United
  States.

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Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

• The Hungarian composer was born into a musical
  family and was himself a sort of prodigy.
• He began piano lessons at only five and was
  composing by the time he was ten.
• In 1899, he entered the Budapest Academy to study
  piano and composition.
• Bartok had a nationalist attitude toward music
  his deep concern for national identity was
  central to his life and career as a composer.

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• He was appointed professor of piano at the
  Budapest Music Academy in 1907, and made his
  living basically as teacher and performer.
• In 1904, Bartok began a fieldwork project with
  his fellow composer and compatriot Zoltan Kodaly
  (1882-1967).
• Using a wax cylinder phonograph, he recorded the
  local people performing.
• Bartok and Kodaly lay the foundation for the
  discipline of ethnomusicology the study of
  indigenous music within a cultural context.
• Listening Recorded Hungarian Songs
• Bartok collection

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• This study let Bartok open new possibilities for
  musical composition.
• In his words the outcome of these studies was
  of decisive influence upon my work, because it
  freed me from the tyrannical rule of the major
  and minor keys.
• Bartok search for a new tonality took place in
  his countrys musical tradition
• Modal harmonies
• New, asymmetrical phrase structures
• Fluctuation of tempos
• Listening Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs (1917)