Download Use of dissonance and less obvious structural devices

“It is fitting that the body simultaneously with the
soul repeatedly sing praises to God through the
voice . . . Therefore, those of the Church who have
imposed silence on the singing of the chants for
the praise of God without well-considered weight
of reason so that they have unjustly stripped God
of the grace and comeliness of His own praise,
unless they will have freed themselves from their
errors here on earth, will be without the company
of the angelic songs of praise in heaven.”
LIBBY LARSON (b. 1950)
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represents typical 20th-C composer
Born 1950
Rec’d college ed.
Earned BA, MM, and DMA degrees from Univ. MN
Gained popularity in a time when both male and
female composers have trouble “selling” their works
Work encompasses wide variety of genres:
Chamber music
Dance
Opera
Works for orchestra and chorus
• Texted works receive the most documentation
• Best suitable for the Western canon’s “feminine”
compositional sphere
• Feature: beautiful melodies, transparent textures,
gentle timbres, and simple forms
• She allows the text to guide the music
Missa Gaia: A Mass for the Concert Hall
• Good example of a late 20th Century mass
• Work that is regarded as an EXAMPLE of a
composition by a woman, while at the same
time respected by the general concert-goer
• Uses traditional Latin titles: Kyrie, Gloria,
Credo Agnus/Dei/Sanctus, Benediction
• Remaining text IN ENGLISH, avoids traditional
liturgical language entirely
TEXT
•From a variety of sources:
Works of Dominican mystic Meister
Eckhart
Jesuit priest - Gerard Manley Hopkins
Native American poet – Joy Harjo
Bible
Chinook Psalter
•All movements are unified
•Focuses on relationship between individuals
and the earth
•Theme of circles are used throughout the
piece—identifying at times with the circular
rhythms of the life cycle
•She does this musically in a variety of ways,
including the use of OCTAVES (notes spaced
eight tones apart – C-C)
FORM
•Simple (like the Kyrie of the Mass)
Two repetitions of unison melodic lines that
expand to harmonized sections
•Use of oboe (pensive, nasal eerie sound) in brief
intro and slow tempo to allow for reflection on
the traditional penitence of the Kyrie
•Uses DISSONANCE (combination of tones that
sound unstable—need resolution) for text setting
Depict words “suffer” and “mock”
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Sofia Gubaidulina
SOFIA GUBAIDULINA (b. 1931)
•Russian composer by birth
• Born 1931
•Studied piano and composition at the Kazan
Conservatory
•Rec’d graduate composition degree from the
Moscow Conservatory
•When ready to leave the Conservatory, Russian
composer Dimitri Shostakovich encouraged her to
continue on her “mistaken path”
•“To the Soviets, extreme dissonance was as
aesthetically unacceptable as the religious themes
that Gubaidulina favored, but kept hidden from
view.”
•Spent much time working under the artistic
limitations of communism
•Makes BIG headway after she leaves Russia
•Like Hildegard: works written in a restricted
environment that could not contain the
expression of her deep spirituality
•Regarded by the Soviet public as a composer of
film music
•Her innovative work is in the field of art music
•She expresses her spirituality using dissonant
harmonic language—quite different from Larson
•Compositional style:
•Formally complex
•Highly symbolic
•She places her work along the same lines as J. S.
Bach—connects her compositions with personal
spirituality
•Underlying mathematical structure form
•“Frequently uses the quarter-tone as a
metaphor of an image and its shadow”
Seven Words of Christ from the Cross
(1982)
• Work that focuses on the seven final phrases that
Christ speaks when He is on the Cross
• Taken from the four Gospels of the New Testament
• “Father, forgive them, they know now what they do”
• “My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me”
• “It is finished”
• Gubaidulina portrays the agony and horror of the
crucifixion only using instruments—NO text
References to the crucifixion:
• 1st and last mvts: expands musical texture from a single
note to over six octaves
• In the music notation, this looks like a cross
•MVT VI “It is Finished” – uses three different layers of
sound: string orchestra, cello, and bayan (Russian button
accordion)
•References to Christ’s struggle between death and life:
•Use of dissonance and less obvious structural
devices
“The bayan soloist, for example, creates a dissonant
sound by performing a glissando with the bellows
while holding down neighboring buttons on the
instrument, but is also symbolically ‘crossing’ one
sound over the other. The cellist alludes to the
crucifixion by ‘crucifying’ the string with the bow, and
by ‘cutting through’ the texture of the music with
chords. By the start of the final movement, the cellist
gradually moves the bow until it rests just under the
bridge, symbolizing the transition of Christ out of this
world.”
SUMMARY
How do gender qualifications affect women
composers?
• Larson – work is associated w/feminine side
• Gubaidulina’s work with the male side (harsh
dissonance, mathematically structure form,
overall complexity)
• Subject matter: Seven Last Words – terror,
death, ugliness – aligned w/male gender
• Women have been assigned gender roles
regarding types of instruments they chose to
use, forms, and less aggressive rhythms
• Spirituality:
•Western music deeply rooted in spiritual
traditions
•Women have always expressed their
spirituality through music
•Because it has not been documented
w/reference to women, it appears they either
were incapable or uninterested