20th Century Music

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20th Century Music

• (1900-2000)

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Movements in 20th-Century Music

• Modernism
• Neo-Classicism
• Minimalism
• Popular Music-inspired, Folk-music inspired, Jazz
  Music-inspired Pieces

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Modernism

• Assumptions of music are challenged and/or
  taken to extremes
• Can involve complex rhythms, melodies, and
  harmonies
• The wierder, the better
• Composers
• Arnold Schoenberg
• Igor Stravinsky

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ARNOLD SCHOENBERG Mondestrunken (Moondrunk) from
Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot) (1912)

• Genre Song Cycle
• Super-complex harmonies with lots of dissonance
  called atonality
• Example of weird instrumental effects and
  scary-sounding half-sung/half-spoken vocal sound
  called sprechstimme (song-speech)
• Example of Expressionism - movement in arts
  seeking to express innermost extreme feelings
  (Freud)

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Moonstruck

• The wine that with eyes is drunk, at night the
  moon pours down in waves, and a spring-flook
  overflows the slient horizon.
• Desires shuddering and sweet swim countless
  through the floods!
• The poet, whom devotion inspires made drunk by
  the sacred drink, toward heaven he turns his
  entranced head and ,reeling, sucks and slurps the
  wine that with eyes is drunk.

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IGOR STRAVINSKY Part 1 from Le Sacre du
printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913)

• Genre Ballet
• Example of Primitivism - recalling the
  prehistoric power of rhythm and form (Darwin)
• From ballet based on story of ancient ritual
  sacrifice of a maiden
• Lots of rhythmic complexity - including
• SYNCOPATION
• Complex tone colors (unusual combinations of
  instruments)

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NEO-CLASSICISM (includes neo-romanticism,
neo-baroquism, neo-renaissancism, and
neo-medievalism)

• A reaction against the wierdness of Modernism
• A return to the past in thematic material and
  formal structures
• Composers
• Bela Bartok
• Benjamin Britten
• Ellen Taffe Zwilich

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BELA BARTOK Second Movement Game of Pairs from
Concerto for Orchestra (1943)

• Genre Concerto
• A B A form - used Classical forms such as sonata
  and rondo in an established form such as Concerto
• Use traditional melodic shapes

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BENJAMIN BRITTEN Young Persons Guide to the
Orchestra (1946)

• Genre (like a ) Concerto (for orchestra)
• Theme and Variations Form
• Theme is borrowed from a 17th-century Baroque
  composer Henry Purcell

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MINIMALISM

• A movement in music also against the complexities
  of Modernism
• Composers use simple melodic and harmonic ideas
  and repeat them over and over with very gradual
  changes
• Composer
• Philip Glass

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PHILIP GLASS Knee Play 1 from Einstein on the
Beach (1976)

• Genre Opera
• Simple melodic, harmonic and rhythmic patterns
• These patterns are repeated over and over again
  with subtle changes

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POPULAR MUSIC-INSPIRED, FOLK-MUSIC INSPIRED, JAZZ
MUSIC-INSPIRED PIECES

• Composers look to popular, folk, and jazz music
  for inspiration and musical material
• Composers
• William Grant Still
• Aaron Copland

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WILLIAM GRANT STILL Third Movement from
Afro-American Symphony (1931)

• Genre Symphony
• Inspired by African-American spirituals and Jazz
  music
• Featured lots of syncopation

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AARON COPLAND Section 7 from Appalachian Spring
Theme and Variations on Simple Gifts (1943-44)

• Genre Ballet
• Theme is based on early American Shaker folk hymn
  called Simple Gifts
• Theme and Variaitons form

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ELLEN TAFFE ZWILICH First Movement from Concerto
Grosso 1985 (1985)

• Genre Concerto
• Uses instruments from the past - (harpsichord)
• Modelled after concerto grosso of Handel and Bach
• Example of Neo-Classicism (although it goes back
  to Baroque music models)