Chapter 20: The Twentieth Century: Early Modernism

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Chapter 20The Twentieth Century Early Modernism

• Expressionism

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Key Terms

• Expressionism
• Emancipation of dissonance
• Sprechstimme
• Passacaglia

• Second Viennese School
• Ragtime
• Master rhythm

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Expressionism

• A music of increasing emotionality
• Debussy Stravinsky rejected Romanticism
• Expressionists took it to ultimate conclusion
• Exploited extreme psychological states
• Hysteria, nightmare, even insanity reflected a
  fascination with Freuds work
• Similar to parallel movement in art
• Subjective expression of inner turmoil
• Distorted exaggerated melody harmony
• Fascination with tone color color theory

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Second Viennese School (1)

• Schoenberg attracted two star students
• Alban Berg Anton Webern
• All three shared in many innovations
• The emancipation of dissonance
• The breakdown of tonality
• Seeking solutions to the problem of coherence in
  an atonal, expressionist idiom
• Three very different personalities
• Schoenberg developed 12-tone music
• But each one explored it in his own way

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Arnold Schoenberg(1874-1951)

• The leading expressionist composer
• Largely self-taught in music
• But wrote important books on music theory
• Gifted amateur expressionist painter
• Early music tonal, à la Mahler Brahms
• Began writing atonal music in 1907-08
• Erwartung, 5 Orchestra Pieces, Pierrot lunaire
• Developed 12-tone method in early 1920s
• A Survivor from Warsaw, Piano Concerto
• Taught at UCLA last 15 years of his life

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Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire

• Highly influential song cycle
• 21 poems by symbolist poet Albert Giraud
• Pierrot is the eternal sad clown
• Lunaire refers to the moon the bizarre
  hallucinations adventures it inspires
• Written in an expressionist idiom
• Kaleidoscopic scoring for voice 5 players on 8
  instruments
• Flute (or piccolo), clarinet (or bass clarinet),
  violin (or viola), cello, piano
• Each song uses a different combination

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Sprechstimme

• Voice uses Sprechstimme (speech-song)
• The soprano does not really sing or speak
• She does something in between the two
• Schoenberg notated approximate pitches
• Singer must speak in an exaggerated,
  quasi-melodic manner
• Sprechstimme technique magnifies, distorts,
  parodies, haunts these bizarre poems
• The actress who commissioned Pierrot requested a
  set of melodramas works for a speaking voice
  with instrumental accompaniment!

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No. 8 Night

• For voice, piano, bass clarinet, cello
• Evokes expressionisms nightmarish side
• Uses low instruments in low register
• Dense polyphonic texture
• Schoenberg called this a passacaglia
• Recurring 3-note ostinato used throughout
• Many overlapping versions, freely transposed
• The soprano even sings the motive at the word
  verschwiegen (secret silent)

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No. 18 The Moonfleck

• For voice, piano, piccolo, clarinet, violin,
  cello
• Starts with piano introduction
• Dense, dissonant, alarmingly intense
• The song depicts Pierrots obsession the
  flickering moonfleck on his jacket
• High-pitched, quicksilver motives used throughout
  the ensemble
• Schoenberg uses fugues canons
• We hear a fantastic lacework of atonal sounds

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Second Viennese School (2)

• Anton Webern (1883-1945)
• His life revolved around his composition, though
  he held low-profile conducting posts
• Avoided Romantic grandiosity favored low
  dynamics, abstract, pointillistic textures,
  brief but concentrated musical structures
• Some expressionist works are very short
• Composers of the second phase of modernism
  revered his vision of abstraction the brilliant
  sophistication of his later serial works
• Symphonie, Cantatas 1 2, String Quartet
• Accidentally killed by an American soldier

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Second Viennese School (3)

• Alban Berg (1885-1935)
• After Schoenberg, the most powerful exponent of
  expressionism in music
• Looked back to Romantic tradition more than
  Schoenberg Webern, especially to Mahler
• Use tonal references in Wozzeck his Violin
  Concerto
• His expressionist opera Wozzeck was an immediate
  success
• Later 12-tone opera Lulu now also a classic
• Died of an infected insect bite

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Berg, Wozzeck

• Based on an 1837 play by Georg Büchner
• An almost paranoid vision of the helpless poor
• Opera completed in 1923
• Conceptually a Wagnerian work
• Relies on orchestra for musical continuity
• It uses leitmotivs contains no arias
• Influenced by earlier expressionist works
• Sprechstimme borrowed from Pierrot lunaire
• Berg pays much attention to musical form
• Each scene uses a different, specific form

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Story

• Wozzeck is a poor, downtrodden soldier
• Troubled by visions
• Tormented by his captain
• Human guinea pig in bizarre experiments carried
  out by his regimental doctor
• Beaten up by the drum major who is having an
  affair with Wozzecks lover, Marie
• Wozzeck is finally pushed over the edge
• He murders Marie, goes mad, drowns himself
• Their young child is left an orphan

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WozzeckAct III, Scene iii (1)

• Invention on a rhythm
• A master rhythm is used throughout in many
  different tempos
• Wozzeck is in a tavern after killing Marie
• The two opening chord crescendos happen
  immediately after the murder
• Timpani are first to play the master rhythm
  just after the first chord
• Distorted ragtime piano introduction follows

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WozzeckAct III, Scene iii (2)

• Ragtime introduction Margrets song make use of
  the master rhythm

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WozzeckAct III, Scene iii (3)

• Margret sees blood on Wozzecks hand
• So do the others a crescendo of accusations
  (using master rhythm) chases Wozzeck away

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WozzeckAct III, Scene iv

• Invention on a chord of six notes
• B-flat, D-flat, E-flat, E, F, G-sharp
• Stated throughout, both as chord as melody
• Wozzeck goes back to the murder scene
• Orchestra creates eerie nighttime sounds
• Wozzecks mind has finally cracked
• Obsessed with blood, he looks for the knife
• He drowns while trying to hide it in the pond
• Vivid orchestral gurgles accompany his death
• Doctor Captain happen by but do nothing

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WozzeckAct III, Orchestral Interlude

• Invention on a tonality
• Orchestral music for the blackout after Wozzecks
  drowning
• Based on a D minor tonality, but loosely, in a
  late Romantic idiom influenced by Mahler
• A mourning lament for Wozzeck, Marie, humanity
  at large
• D minor often used for serious, tragic subjects
• Bachs Toccata Fugue in D minor
• Mozarts Don Giovanni, final scene with statue
• Beethovens Ninth Symphony