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CHAPTER 27
1. What is meant by “maximalism”? How is it evident in the works of Mahler and Strauss?
“Maximalism” refers to the rapid intensification of expressive means employed by Modernist
composers in 1890–1914. Aesthetic dimensions that received this treatment include emotional
expression, sublimity, and metaphysics, and composers intensified these areas by broadening the
length of their musical works, expanding the size of the orchestra, and pushing Wagnerian
harmony into greater levels of dissonance. Mahler’s music expresses this tendency in his
incredibly long symphonic structures, vast orchestral forces, and emotional directness reflective
of the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis. Strauss’s music likewise employs huge orchestras;
further, his tone poems often deal with lofty philosophical concepts (e.g., Also Sprach
Zarathustra, but they just as often deal ironically with commonplace issues, another distinctly
Modernist position), and his early operas are expressionistic.
2. Describe some of the reasons for Mahler’s attraction to folk poetry. In what ways do
Mahler’s settings of these poems express an ironic attitude toward folk elements?
Mahler was drawn to folk poetry because of its link to supposedly simple, idyllic, close-tonature, authentic times. His settings, which utilize the most hyper-modern musical techniques of
the day, highlight the contrast between an imagined folk from an imagined past and the present
reality. It thus conveys an impression of innocence lost, and in this way expresses an ironic
position toward folk elements: The Modern, urban composer nostalgically represents untarnished
simplicity, but at the same time implies that this simplicity is impossible to actually attain in the
modern world.
3. Describe Mahler’s ambivalent attitude toward program music. How is this ambivalence
reflected in the history of his symphonies?
The dual heritage of programmatic music (exemplified by Berlioz and Liszt) and the symphony
(exemplified by Brahms) is evident in Mahler’s symphonies, which fuse the two. Many of his
symphonies feature vocalists, though his texts never tell a coherent narrative story; some bear
poetic titles while others do not (though the music suggests a back-story). His relationship to
program music was indeed illusive: Mahler sometimes acknowledged his programmatic sources,
and sometimes denied them. This ambivalence is reflected in the history of his Symphony No. 1
(“Titan”). While originally conceived as a symphonic poem called Titan complete with a
bipartite organizational scheme and carefully construed movement–program correspondences,
after the first couple of performances he gave this up, opting for the neutral title “Symphony in D
Major” and a standard four-movement structure. This baffled many listeners—without a program
to aid in interpretation, it was perceived as a “strange symphony.” Mahler later declared, “down
with programs!” but this ambivalence continued throughout his symphonic output.
4. Discuss the third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 as an example of his mixture of
the “high” and “low,” as well as of seriousness and parody.
The third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 features the familiar tune Frére Jacques (or
Bruder Martin in German). By warping it into a minor key and placing the melody in a dolorous
solo double bass, it feels like a plodding funeral march. After presenting the theme as a round,
the orchestra erupts into playful Bohemian-style dance music, completely contradicting the
somber mood. The movement mixes the “high” of advanced symphonic compositional
techniques with the “low” of popular and rural music. It reflects seriousness in its funeral mood,
but parodies this same quality with its source materials (a children’s song) and startling
juxtaposition.
5. How does Strauss’s Salome exhibit decadence and Freudian psychology? What musical
and dramatic techniques does Strauss use to express desire?
“Decadence” is a fin de siècle literary concept that glorifies and eroticizes the self-destructive,
including drug abuse, risky sex, and repulsive objects and acts. This acceptance of perversity has
its roots in Freud’s idea of eros and thanatos, the erotic drive and the death drive. Strauss’s
Salome exhibits these qualities in droves, with a plot that revolves around a girl’s sexual
infatuation with a man that can only be consummated through decapitation. Sex and death merge
in the final act, when Salome kisses the bloody head. To express this illicit desire, Strauss draws
on orientalist tropes, but distorts them with a dissonant harmonic treatment. This dissonance
reaches its peak in the ending, with a blaringly loud, ugly chord that immediately precedes the
final resolution.
6. Taking Verklärte Nacht as an example, describe how Schoenberg’s music combines
principles inherited from Brahms and Wagner.
Verklärte Nacht is a fusion of Brahmsian and Wagnerian influences. Its scoring—for string
sextet—references the chamber-music tradition at which Brahms so famously excelled; however,
it is a tone poem, a quintessential New German genre. Bucking the conventional wisdom,
Schoenberg publically advocated for the progressive qualities of Brahms’s music, particularly his
treatment of motivic development (“developing variation”). This quality of motivic saturation
proved a decisive influence on Schoenberg’s concept of Grundgestalt (“basic shape”), which is
patently evident in the motivic economy of Verklärte Nacht. Schoenberg’s modernist harmonic
sensibilities, however, were purely Wagnerian, drawing especially from the Bayreuth master’s
“roving harmony” technique.
7. What is “atonality”? What did Schoenberg mean by the “emancipation of dissonance?”
Atonality is not entirely a matter of dissonance over consonance, chromaticism over diatonicism.
Rather, it refers to the abandonment of a functional hierarchy between the scale degrees: atonal
music treats each pitch as functionally equal. Schoenberg came to question the categorical
distinction between consonance and dissonance, arguing instead that the difference was relative.
“Dissonances,” to him, are “the more remote consonances.” When he called for the
“emancipation of dissonance,” therefore, he meant that dissonance should not have to resolve to
consonance, since chords not bound to functional harmony are to be organized instead around
the coherence of the thematic material.
8. What is Expressionism? In what respects is Schoenberg’s Erwartung an Expressionist
work?
Expressionism is a fin de siècle aesthetic movement closely tied to Freudian psychology that
sought to liberate the unconscious by translating, as directly as possible, the irrational workings
of the individual psyche into art. Artistic expression could serve as a medium for psychoanalytic
exploration. Schoenberg’s Erwartung epitomizes many of the features of expressionism. The
piece dramatizes the reflections of a madwoman with a stream-of-consciousness text that lays
bare the “inner occurrences” of the character. This casts the mono-drama as a hazy, hallucinatory
dream-world where the dark interior of a troubled person is made public. Schoenberg set this
premise to uncompromisingly dissonant music, reflecting the unpredictable, disturbing contents
of the woman’s mind.
9. What examples of irony do you find in Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire?
Pierrot lunaire is shot through with different levels of irony. On the surface, the topic (the
ravings of a clown) and archaic poetic form are incongruously matched with its atonal musical
palette. Stylistically, the piece is a melodrama (dramatic recitation with music) that calls upon a
chamber orchestra modeled on the small ensembles common to the cabaret theater. This
modernist work thus apes popular entertainment. The score of the piece is filled with jests as
well, including a meticulous notational practice that completely belies the sound (the vocalist,
employing Sprechstimme, does not abide precisely by the notes on the page anyway), and some
quite elaborate musical jokes (e.g., setting a text about meaningless frenzy to a garishly complex
musical texture complete with a fugal theme that is rendered absurd in an atonal setting).