Download Modernism In the arts, a radical break with the past and at the same

Modernism
In the arts, a radical break with the past and at the same time a search for new modes and means of
expression. Abandoning and outward rejection of prior practices in favour of experimentation.
Increasingly evident in the years during and after World War I (1914-18)
Influences from and results of (among other things):
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Industrialization and embracing of technology
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Advances in the sciences
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Advances in the social sciences (e.g., Freudian theory)
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Alienation from Victorian morality, optimism and convention
Literature: Breaks with narrative story-telling by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Gertrude
Stein, T. S. Eliot
Visual Arts: Impressionism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism
Music: Impressionism, Expressionism, Atonality, Serialism, Electronic music, Aleatoric Music
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Example: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, third movement (1936)
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Ethnomusicology and non-western influences
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Percussion and percussive techniques
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Arch form — ABCB’C’
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Musical Palindromes
Expressionism
Term, applied originally to painting and literature, used for the intensely emotional manner used in the
arts from the second decade of the 20th century. Seen in the works of Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Munch.
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Der Schrei (The Scream) (1895)
The term is applied to music ca. 1918. Represents the avoidance of traditional forms of the beautiful in
order to express feelings in the most powerful, personal, sometimes violent and extremely intense way.
Most often related to atonal and 12-tone composition
Otto Dix (1891-1969), Portrait of journalist Sylvia von Harden
Second Viennese School
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
Atonality: Music that lacks any kind of tonal centre. Uses all notes in a chromatic scale equally in order
to avoid emphasis on a single pitch. Schoenberg preferred the term pantonality.
Sprechstimme, Sprechgesang: meaning “Speaking Voice” or “Speaking Song”, an expressionistic vocal
technique between speech and song in which pitches are only approximately notated.
Example: Arnold Schoenberg, “The Moonfleck” (no. 8) from Pierrot Lunaire (1912)
Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes
Auf dem Rücken seines schwarzen Rockes,
So spaziert Pierrot im lauen Abend,
Aufzusuchen Glück und Abenteuer.
Plötzlich stört ihn was an seinem Anzug,
Er beschaut sich rings und findet richtig Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes
Auf dem Rücken seines schwarzen Rockes.
Warte! denkt er: das ist so ein Gipsleck!
Wischt und wischt, doch - bringt ihn nicht herunter!
Und so geht er, giftgeschwollen, weiter,
Reibt und reibt bis an den frühen Morgen Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes.
With a snowy fleck of shining moonlight
On the shoulder of his black silk frock-coat
So walks out Pierrot this languid evening,
Seeking everywhere for love's adventure.
But what! something wrong with his appearance?
He looks round and round and then he finds it -- Just a snowy fleck of shining moonlight
On the shoulder of his black silk frock-coat
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Wait now (thinks he), 'tis a piece of plaster,
Wipes and wipes, yet cannot make it vanish.
So he goes on poisoned with his fancy,
Rubs and rubs until the early morning
Just a snowy fleck of shining moonlight.
Alban Berg (1885-1935), Wozzeck (1923)
Based on a fragmentary play by Georg Büchner (d.1837)
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Violent savagery
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Social oppression
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Paranoia
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Jealousy
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Immorality/Amorality
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Infidelity and Lust
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Basest of instincts
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Deceipt
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Hopelessness and Despair
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Compare to the principles and traits of romanticism
Musical language of extremes
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Distortions and extremes
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Instances of ultra-realism (e.g., the out-of-tune piano)
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Extreme dissonance
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Sprechstimme, spoken, and sung
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Abrupt changes of music materials
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Juxtapositions of old and new
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Tonal, extreme chromaticism and atonal
Serialism
A method of composition in which one or more musical elements is subject to ordering in a fixed series.
Most commonly the elements so arranged are the 12 chromatic pitches within the octave — 12-tone
music. First used by Schoenberg in the early 1920s, and later applied to other elements of composition.
Example: Anton Webern, Five Orchestral Pieces, IV, Op. 10 (1911-13)
Example: Anton Webern, Five movements for String Quartet, Op. 5 (1928-29), Third Movement
Neoclassicism
Return to forms, genres and ideals of the 18th century and earlier — symphonies, sonatas, etc. —
though with modifications to stories (in opera), harmony, rhythm, etc. Transparency, clarity, a degree of
accessibility.
Example: Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953), Classical Symphony (Symphony No. 1; 1917), First Movement
Eric Satie (1866-1925)
Example: “Gymnopédie No. 1”, Trois Gymnopédies, no. 1 (1888)
Example: Parade (1917)
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Use of unconventional instruments
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Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Born in southern France near the Spanish border and studies at the Paris Conservatoire.
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Spanish influence (e.g., Bolero)
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Impressionism (e.g., Jeux d’eau)
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Ragtime/Jazz
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Neo-Classicism (e.g., Sonatine)
Example: Piano Concerto in G (1931), excerpt
Aaron Copland (1900-90)
Example: Appalachian Spring (1944)
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Pandiatonicism (cf. Atonality or Pantonality)
Dance number from Appalachian Spring. Choreography by Martha Graham (1894-1991
Krzysztof Penderecki (1933- )
Example: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)
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Microtonal music
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Extended performance techniques
John Cage (1912-92)
American composer, performer, graphic artist, poet, and writer
Example: Sonata No. 5, Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-48).
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
Example: Poème électronique (1958)
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Musique concrète
Daniel Arfib (b. 1949)
Music for computer
Example: Le Souffle du Doux (1979)