Download 20th Century Music Week

20th Century Music Week
20th Century music refers to the time from 1900.
The 20th century became a period of ‘isms’ and ‘alities’.
Nationalism
 Impressionism
 Serialism
 Neo-classicism
 Minimalism
 Polytonality
 Atonality
 Microtonality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BryIQ9QpXwI

Technology
Developments in technology opened many
doors for composers to experiment with
new sounds in the 20th century. Advances
in recording equipment allowed composers
to stretch the realms of traditional music.
Atonality
Atonal music has no feeling of key, major
or minor. It is very dissonant, and it will
lack a 'nice' melody and accompaniment.
Listen to Arnold Schoenbergs "Pierrot lunaire” which is an atonal
drama.
"Pierrot Lunaire" consists of three groups of seven poems. In the first group,
Pierrot sings of love, sex and religion; in the second, of violence, crime, and
blasphemy; and in the third of his return home to Bergamo, with his past
haunting him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-zW10__i4M
A Cluster is a group of notes, which clash,
played together.
Minimalism
Minimalism is a style of music which
originated in the west coast of America in
the 1960’s by composers such as Steve
Reich, Terry Reilly and Philip Glass.
This group of American composers distilled music
down and experimented with simple pitches and
increasingly complex rhythms, creating beautifully
hypnotic music.
Main Features of Minimalist music
Layers of ostinati
 Constantly repeated patterns that are
subjected to gradual changes
 Layered textures
 Interlocking repeated phrases and rhythms

Ostinati are rhythmic,
melodic or harmonic
patterns which are repeated
many times.
Minimalist music is
often very long works
Steve Reich
Composers like Schoenberg and Boulez stripped away the idea of
harmony and wrote music according to mathematical principles.
Reich went back to basics and re-adopted the age-old formula:
rhythm + pitch = music.
Listen to Reich’s “ Music for 18 Musician”
Listen to how long it takes to for the harmony to change and new
ostinato to be introduced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXJWO2FQ16c&list=RDZXJWO2FQ16c
#t=28
Now listen to Reich “Different Trains” a work for String Quartet and Tape. The
speech is taken from interviews recorded in Europe and America during and
after WW2. The speech is a source for the melodies which appear in the string
parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYEwsIW-zsQ&index=1&list=PL86344FF0F7ACFC84
Musique Concrete
Recorded natural sounds which are
transformed using simple editing
techniques such as cutting and reassembling, playing backwards, slowing
down and speeding up. The technique
was developed about 1948 by the French
composer Pierre Schaeffer.
Listen to Poème électronique (1958) by Edgard Varese. It was written for the
Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.
Try to write down as many recorded sounds as you can as you listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmrchX7qYpU
Impressionism
This style borrowed its name from the artists
such as Degas and Monet from the end of the
nineteenth century. Like the artists of this
movement composers tried to create
‘impressions’ in their music.
“Sunrise” by Claude Monet
Features of Impressionism

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Vague and hazy outlines of melody
Colourful and rich orchestration (e.g sometimes pp by the whole
orchestra)
Exploitation of timbral effects - glissando, con sordino, pizzicato,
harmonics, tremolando.
Rhythmic flexibility and fluidity resulting in music which obscures
the pulse.
The use of rubato
Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune

Work by Claude Debussy (1862 1918)

It is based on a poem by the
Symbolist poet Stephane
Mallarme.

Like the poem the music
describes a faun in the forest
playing his pan-pipes. He is
disturbed by passing nymphs and
he pursues them. He is
unsuccessful in the chase and falls
asleep resulting in vivid dreams.

Debussy has often been
described as an
‘Impressionist’ composer due
to the similarities which his
music had (blurred/hazy lines,
no clear centre or focus) with
the Impressionist artists and
movement.
 The
work is in Sonata Form;
Exposition
Development
Recapitulation
Opening Flute Theme
In addition to the Atonal feel the rhythmic
pattern adds to the overall ambiguity of the work
through incorporating long notes, semiquavers, a
semiquaver triplet and dotted quaver all within
the opening bar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYyK922PsUw
Whole Tone scale
Another harmonic feature used widely by Debussy and other
impressionist music is the whole tone scale. Here is an example from
the clarinet.
Stepwise
Whole Tone Scale
A Whole tone scales is a
scale which is built up by
tones.
The whole tone scale is then played by the flute, what is this an example
of?
Example: 3’26