# Music to the Present [Module 9 YouTube Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQY0zQBqYyrXDlra6-abpL9-x2nVh8gx_) ## Impressionism | German Romanticism | Frensh Impressionism | | :-------------------------: | :----------------------------: | | 1820-1900 | 1880-1920 | | Symphonies & Concertos | Tone poems types (mood pieces) | | Narrative music | Mood music | | Goal oriented (chord prog.) | Stasis (ostinato) | | Contrary motion | Parallel motion | | Major & minor scales | Whole tone & pentatonic | - _Clair de Lune_, Claude Debussy - No pulse, suppressed beat and meter - Descending melody - 7th chords = triad + 3rd - Parallel motion, as opposed to German style contrary motion - Augmented triad - _Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_, Claude Debussy - "A sequence of moods" - Anti-climax - _Voiles_, Claude Debussy - Whole-tone scale + Parallel motion + Ostinato - Glissando on Pentatonic scale -> Non-western style - Exoticism - Paris world exposition - From Spain style - _Recuerdos de la Alhambra_, Francis Terraga - Instrumental color independent of melody, as in impressionism arts, the color overrun the lines between objects - In this period, the color is still subservient to the line. Melody enters with a new instrument. ## Modernism - Starting around 1900, until after WWII - Modernism = A radical departure from classic traditions - Igor Stravinsky - Hyper-Romanticism by Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky's teacher - _Firebird_ 1910 -> _Petrushka_ 1911 -> _The Rite of Spring_ 1913 - Sound signature of Modernism - Syncopation - Polymeter and Polyrhthm and Polychord - Violin played using down bow, so that it becomes a percussion - Percussive and woodwind, brittle bright "metallic" sound > [!summary] Stylistic Elements of Musical Modernism > > - Great percussion (xylophone, glockenspiel, celeste) > - Use of strings as percussion instruments (not lush) > - More woodwinds to create bright, brittle orchestration > - Irregular meters and polymeters contribute to disjointed sound > - Heavy dissonances created by polychords (chords slightly off center) - Arnold Schoenberg - His family is now prominent is LA law profession, even played a role in OJ Simpson trial - Impressionism vs Expressionism - Sprechstimme = Speech/Song - Twelve-tone Music, Serial Music - "The Emancipation of Dissonance" - Atonal Music - Western scales removed - Triads removed - Chord progressions removed - Plus octave displacement - Twelve-Tone Music - Composer choses any pleasing sequence of pitches, but all twelve (all chromatic tones) within the octave have to be used and come in a sequence of twelve=the row. - The row may start on any pitch. - The pitches in the row may sound vertically as a chord. - Rows may overlap. - The row may go backward=retrograde motion. - The row may go upside down (be inverted)=inversion. - The row may go upside down and backward=retrograde inversion. - Composer can use any meters and rhythms (rhythm not the primary issue). ## Post Modernism: Music for Everyone - Aaron Copland - "It made no sense to ignore them (the general public) and to continue writing as if they did not exist." - _Appalachian Spring_ - _A Gift to Be Simple_ - _Fanfare for Common Man_ - To understand Copland, it is best if we know some about the traditions. - Postmodernism asks to pay attentions to the minimal things around us. - Minimalism = a subset of postmodernism. Not teleological, no apotheosis climax. It has no where to go, listeners get lost in it. - _Glassworks_ and _Floe_, Philip Glass - John Adams and beyond Minimalism - _Short Ride on a Fast Machine_ - Opera _Nixon in China_ ## Office Hours