20th CENTURY & CONTEMPORARY ERA
(1900 - Present)
The Old Guitarist (1903) - Pablo Picasso
The Kiss (1908) - Gustav Kimpt
The Persistence of Memory (1931) - Salvador Dali
Trafalgar Square (1943) - Piet Mondrian
Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) - Andy Warhol
SPLINTERING STYLES
•The Classical Era was marked by uniformity and conformity
•Romantic Era composers showed individuality within the same artistic palette
•During the 20th Century, composers no longer relied on building off the past or what their contemporaries were doing – instead, they strived to throw out conventions and start from scratch, creating tonal and compositional palettes that were altogether new and unrelated to each other.
•More than ever before, the music reflected the historical time with the confrontation of world wars, technology, and globalization increasingly influencing art (music included)
•AVANT-GARDE movement: composers interested in radical, cutting edge technique
IMPRESSIONISM
•A movement that straddled Romantic and 20th Century Eras
•Music (like the art), was subtle, gentle, and representational without being overly emotional or realistic
•Experimentation with lesser-used scales: whole-tone, pentatonic, and octatonic
•Composers focused on tone “color” and mood rather than traditional melody/harmony; tends to sound vague and “careless”
"The Sunken Cathedral" (Piano Solo 1910) - Claude Debussy
EXPRESSIONISM
•After the horrors of WWI, many artists (especially in Germany) were inspired to create art that expressed emotion without traditional beauty or “perfection”
•Expressionist music relied on dissonance, contrast, and the lack of conventional melody/harmony to express more primal emotions
•“German Existential Angst”
•SPRECHSTIMME: “speak singing” (speaking in a singing voice)
SERIALISM
Tone Row from Alban Berg’s Opera, Lulu
•Invented by Arnold Schoenberg to prevent CHROMATICISM (the use of any chromatic note, not composing based on a specific scale) from sounding overly chaotic
•All the notes in the Chromatic Scale organized into a fixed order and relationship to each other (called a TONE ROW)
•The Tone Row could be played in order, backwards (RETROGRADE), mirrored (INVERSION), both (RETROGRADE INVERSION), or in the same sequence starting on any note (TRANSPOSED)
•Serialism followed the general rule that each note of the Tone Row would sound once (in whatever the order specified) before a repeat of the note occurred
•Second Viennese School: Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg
ALEATORY
•ALEATORIC MUSIC: music composed with an element of chance
•Composers let go of much control; methods included dice rolling, I Ching reading, and other unrelated genre correlation
•In some cases, music is written like a “choose your own adventure” so every performance is different based on musicians’ decisions
•Redefines what music is and is not
I Ching
MINIMALISM
•Direct reaction to over-complication of avant-garde
•MINIMALISM: slight and subtle changes over long, repetitive, simple lines
•An effort to be more accessible, pleasant, and consonant
•Usually meditative and hypnotic
•A goal of “goalessness”
Clapping Music (Body Percussion Duet 1972) - Steve Reich
ELECTRONIC MUSIC
RECORDED SOUND
•MUSIQUE CONCRÈTE: sound captured “in the wild” and played back
•Altered by looping, changing speed, cutting/splicing, etc.
•Early sampling
•Can be played on its own or with live musicians
SYNTHETIC SOUND
•Sound generation – electronic equipment producing new sounds
•SYNTHESIZER: machine that can produce custom sounds and pitches through modules
•Evolved into Computer Music
•Can be played on its own or with live musicians
Reflections (Piano & Electronic Tape 1974) - Milton Babbitt
CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS
JOHN CAGE
•American composer, aleatorist, music philosopher
•Questioned the difference between music and sound/noise
•Had a variety of interests including art, dance, mycology, Buddhism, and performance art
•Wrote “4’33” – a piece of 4 ½ minutes of silence
•Wrote for PREPARED PIANO: attach objects to piano strings to make unique new sounds
Sonata No. 5 (Piano Sonata 1946) - John Cage
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
•French Impressionist composer and pianist
•Studied in the Paris Conservatory of Music
•Works were considered cutting-edge for the time but quickly accepted and appreciated
•Wrote tone poems, ballets, music for piano, chamber music, and one opera
La Mer (Tone Poem 1905) - Claude Debussy
PHILIP GLASS
•American Minimalist composer and pianist
•Has composed (to date) 12 symphonies, 11 concerti, 8 string quartets, 14 operas, numerous film & television scores
•Music explores time, depth, and space
•Operas deal with real life modern and historical figures but diluted into the framework of human existence
Metamorphosis V (Piano Solo 1988) - Philip Glass
CHARLES IVES
•American composer, organist (and insurance salesman)
•Did not sell compositions in his lifetime; instead, composed for “fun,” and published in a magazine he paid to print
•Experimented with chaotic polyphony (multiple sources of music, key, rhythm, styles at once)
•Captured American Transcendental movement in music; was not concerned with music sounding good or being performable (even though he could write conventionally-beautiful music)
SCOTT JOPLIN
•American composer and pianist
•“King of Ragtime” – invented RAGTIME, a style of music between strict classical march and rhythmic, syncopated African American folk music
•Was never taken seriously in lifetime and made money off Rags, but not more “serious” art music
•“The Entertainer” reached No. 3 on Billboard charts in 1974 thanks to the movie, The Sting
The Entertainer (Piano Rag 1902) - Scott Joplin
PAULINE OLIVEROS
•American experimental composer and accordionist
•Experimented with tape music, electronic signal processing, and environmental music
• DEEP LISTENING: “an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation.”
•SONIC AWARENESS: “the ability to consciously focus attention upon environmental and musical sound” due “to be always listening”
Bye Bye Butterfly (Electronic Tape 1965) - Pauline Oliveros
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
•Austrian composer and music theorist
•Part of the “Second Viennese School”
•Developed Serialism
•Wrote chamber music, songs, and orchestral music
•Immigrated to America as a Jewish refugee (taught at UCLA)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Concerto 1942) - Arnold Schoenberg
CAROLINE SHAW
•American composer, vocalist, violinist
•Youngest winner of Pulitzer Prize in Music for Partita for 8 Voices (2013)
•Redefines classical genre with folk and pop elements as well as extended techniques for voices and instruments
“Say You Will” (Song 2015) - Kanye West feat. Caroline Shaw
Valencia (String Quartet 2019) - Caroline Shaw
WILLIAM GRANT STILL
•American film and classical composer and pop arranger
•Part of Harlem Renaissance movement in 1920s
•First African-American composer to gain acceptance as classical composer
•Infused classical music with blues, jazz, African American spirituals, and Black storytelling
Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American Symphony” (Symphony 1931) - William Grant Still
IGOR STRAVINSKY
•Russian (French/American) Neoclassical composer
•Wrote ballets (which became orchestral suites), orchestral, choral, opera, and chamber music
•Wrote in three phases: “Russian”, NeoClassical, Serial
•Believed in objectivity of music – devoid of emotion
•Extended rhythmic complexity