MAPEH
MAPEH
MAPEH
MUSIC
Characteristics of 20th Century Music:
Melody
o Have more angular contour due to alternating upward and downward direction of melody
o Difficult to sing
o Feature disjunct progression – wide leaps from one note to the next
o Some composers used microtones – intervals less than a semitone
Meter and Rhythm
o Unusual Meter – used unusual time signatures
o Multimeter – frequent changes in meter or time signature
o Unconventional Meter – asymmetrically grouping of beats or notes within a measure
o Polyrhythm – two or more meters are used at the same time
Harmony
o Chord Structures – chords were expanded by adding thirds resulting in seventh, ninth, eleventh, and
thirteenth chords
Quartal Harmony – chords in intervals of fourths
Polychords / Mixed Chords – two or more chords combined together
o Chord Progression -chords unrelated to the key are included in the progression
o Dissonance and Consonance
Consonant Chord – stable, the usual chords
Dissonant Chord – unstable and signifies tension
Tonality
o Modulations (changes in key) and chromatic harmony overshadowed the tonal centre
o Uses microtonality or the use of microtones, new modes, and longer dissonance
o Atonality – absence of any key centre
o Polytonality – simultaneous use of two or more keys
Texture
o Homophonic textures commonly
o Predominance of counterpoint- composed of two or more melodic lines
Debussy and Impressionism:
Impressionism – 1st important stylistic trend in music, a term borrowed from the visual arts
Symbolists – people that break from traditional ways in relation to the arts
Characteristic of Impressionistic Music:
Programmatic
Describes emotions based on what is seen
Vague sounding scales, clouded tonality, and luminous quality
Neomodality – uses church modes
Open chords – chords have fifth and octaves but no thirds
Whole tone mode – scale with six whole steps to the octave
Parallelism – two or more melodies moves at the same time, same direction, and by the same interval
Free rhythms and less use of regular rhythms
Wide intervals and extreme registers
Claude Debussy – foremost impressionist composer
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894) – hallmark of impressionism
Orchestral works: La Mer (The Sea), Nocturnes
Piano Compositions: Petite Suite, Suite Bergamasque (includes Claire de Lune), Children’s Corner, Estampes,
Images
Jeux – Debussy’s ballet
Pelleas and Melisande – Debussy’s only operas
Maurice Ravel- one of Debussy’s contemporary who used impressionist techniques also
Schoenberg and Expressionism:
Expressionism – emphasizes intense and subjective emotion rather than portraying the outward appearances
Characteristic of Expressionistic Music:
Emotionally oriented
Harshly dissonant
Without a stable sense of key signatures
Atonality – no tonal centre or underlying key
Twelve-tone System – music based on the manipulation of the 12 chromatic pitches
On this rigid system, the basic musical unit is called a tone row
Tone row – contains all 12 tones of the chromatic octave
Multiple Serialization:
Serialism – only the pitches of the tone row are manipulated in the series
Arnold Schoenberg – most influential composer of the 20th century
Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 (Moonstruck Pierrot) – a cycle of 21 songs from female voice and chamber group
accompaniment played by 5 musicians
A Survivor from Warsaw. Op. 46 – twelve-tone technique and Sprechstimme were used in the cantata
The Violin Concerto, Op. 36 and Piano Concerto, Op. 42
Sprechstimme or sprechgesang – a gliding speech-song
Electronic Music:
Musique Concrete – French term for “concrete music” which combined recorded sounds in different ways
Features of Electronic Music:
Not limited to the human performance because composers can manipulate various sounds
There was a need for a new way to notate their work, the traditional way does not provide an exact means of
notating electronic music
Some composers have forsaken the elements of beat and meter and considers time instead
Developmental Stages of Electronic Music:
Tape Music Stage: 1940 – 1950
Germans used magnetic audio tape at the same time as Italian musicians were using it to explore possibilities
in music
Live or concrete sounds are recorded
The recorded sounds can be treated by altering the speed, reversing its direction, cutting and splicing to form
new combinations, and combinations of the previous procedures
The results are called musique concrete
Role of the human performer is diminished or eliminated
Melodic and harmonic elements are of less importance
Rhythm is important
Composers:
Germany – Karlheinz Stockhausen
France – Pierre Schaffer, Pierre Henry, Pierre Boulez
Italy – Luciano Berio
United States – Edgard Varse, Mel Powell, Otto Luening, John Cage