20th Century Music

20th CENTURY MUSIC

1. INTRODUCITON2. FIRST HALF OF 20TH CENTURY:2.1. Impressionism2.2. Expressionism2.3. New Sonority and Neoclassicism2.4. Futurism2.5. Dadaism3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS3.1. Serialism3.2. Musique Cencrète3.3. Electroinc music3.4. Electroacustic music3.5. Sthocastic music3.6. Live electronics3.7. Aleatoric music3.8, Minimalistic music

Common characteristics: innovation and experimentation with instruments, orchestra, rhythm, harmony and melody. No desire of expressing feelings, fun, beauty; turn to reflect the horror of war, the destruction and lack or freedom of dictatorships. Reinvented music that and empathize with the situation.

Breaking off with the previous concept of composition. Influence of the consequences of the world wars Idestruction, lots of deaths… Division of the world between the development in the north and poverty in the south and the Wester block under USA influence and the Eastern block under URSS influence. Important advances in science, technology; and the recording of sound.

1.INTRODUCTION

Composers: Claude Debussy (“Le mer”, “Prelude to the afternoon of a faun”, "Clair de lune"), Erik Satie (“Gymnopedies”) and Maurice Ravel (“Bolero”)

2.1. IMPRESSIONISM: French movement that looked for the pleasure of sounds by means of faded melodies, free chords and their sonorities, a new concept of timbre, which approaches instruments individually and not as an orchestral group; suggestion of images, atmospheres or impressions through music.

2. HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

Composer: Arnold Schoenberg (“Pierrot Lunaire”) His Dodecaphonism: technique uses the 12 notes of the chromatic scale at a distance of a semitone placed in a series, all of them with the same importance. Very close to Expressionism. Series presented in any register or timbre. Disciples of Schoenberg: Alban Berg and Anton Webern

2. HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

2.2. EXPRESSIONISM: German, birth just before the World War I, a dramatic and pessimistic point of view by using notes and chords in a free way, without rules, breaking the traditional structures and introducing dissonances, the atonalism.

2.3. New sonority and Neoclassicism: Baroque and Classical forms, beautiful and simple melodies to retake deep emotions and meanings; new simplicity with a tonal music style. Composers: Erick Satie and the so-called “Le Six”; Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Carl Orff (“Carmina Burana”) and Sergei Prokofiev (“Peter and the Wolf”).

2. HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

Igor Stravinsky mixes these characteristics with the use of rhythm in a violent way, dissonances and more importance to percussion and brass instruments. Composed music for The Russian Ballets as “The Rite of Spring”.

2.4. Futurism: Italian style thath defends a new modern era characterized by machines and movement. It uses of noises in its compositions, with importance in contemporary composers. The most important composers are Luigi Russolo, Edgar Varèse (“Ionisation”) and Arthur Honegger (“Pacific 231”).

2. HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

2.5. Dadaism: this style, whose meaningless name was suggested by Tristan Tzara, looks for the ugliness and the radical protest that sought public scandal by rejecting established art in its values. It is related to Futurism and anticipated later avant-garde movementes like Aleatoric.

2. HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

Composers found new languages by widening the concept of music and using technological improvement in technology and science of that time. Also, the development of mass media made the broadcasting of all these innovation easier.

After the World War II, new avant-garde trends emerge with a great huge vitality to create new musical works that contributed to reconstructing culture.

3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS

3.2. MUSIQUE CONCRÈTE: it uses sounds and noises taken from particular objects that are tape-recorded and manipulated in a laboratory. Traditional instruments were not used. There are no scores or performers because the work of the composers is finished and objectively shown in a recording. Composers: Pierre Schaeffer and Pierry Hendry (“Variation of a Door and a Sigh”).

3.1. SERIALISM: (or Integral Serialism) it applys the Dodecaphonic series to all parameter of sound: pitch, duration, tempo and dynamics. Composers are Olivier Messiaen (“Modes of Value and Intensity”) and Pierre Boulez (“The Hammer Without a Master”).

3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS

3.4. ELECTROACUSTIC MUSIC: it combines recorded and manipulated sounds from concrete together with purely electronic sounds. Stockhausen, in “Song of the Youths” by , combined material generated by electronic oscillators with the voice of a child, recorded and manipulated on a tape.

3.3. ELECTRONIC MUSIC: it only uses sounds produced by electronic devices, (synthesizers). Its influence is seen in academic and popular urban music that came later. Traditional performers and scores are eliminated. The most important authors are Karheinz Stockhausen (“Study I” and “Study II”).

3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS

3.6. LIVE ELECTRONICS: its works combined live performances of voices and conventional instruments with recorded music composed in the lab. Luciano Berio composed “Differences, for chamber ensemble and tape”, in which the same electronically manipulated instruments were contrasted.

3.5. STOCHASTIC MUSIC: It introduces computers to compose using algorithmic composition, statistical and mathematical calculations, in order to generate all the details of the piece from some specific instructions. Composer: Iannis Xenakis who worked with the architect Le Corbusier.

3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS

3.8. MINIMALISTIC MUSIC: reaction to complicated styles with a simple music, easy to understand, with repetitive rhythms and a succession of short musical phrases. Philip Glass (“Mishima” VI)

John Cage, invented the prepared piano changing its sound by placing different objects (made of paper, wood, rubber, metal…) between its strings. The result is unpredictable. Also, he introduced the silence as another compositive material .

3.7. ALEATORY MUSIC: this kind of indefinite music depends on the chance and the freedom of the performer. The plays are not completely written and the composer relies on the musician’s creativity and independence to turn each performance into a unique piece. So, it uses suggestive alternative graphic notation or texts.

3. NEW AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS

KRZYSZ PENDERECKY; THRENODY TO THE VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA

GYÖRGY LIGETI: "POÈME SYMPHONIC FOR 100 METRONOMS", "ARTIKULATION"

STEVE REICH: "MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICISANS", "SEXTET" and "CLAPPING"

OTHER COMPOSERS