Program Symphonies
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Romanticism
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Realism
turned to realism in the 1850s.
Symphonic Poem
One movement orchestral composition with a program in free musical form.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Wrote early popular symphonic poems, one on Hamlet. Composed Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.
Overture Fantasy
AKA Romeo and Juliet. Consists of a slow introduction (andante), allegro, and coda.
Nationalism in Music
Incorporation of national folk music into concerts, songs, and operas.
Exoticism
Emphasizing the unique qualities of different nations through music. French composers wrote Spanish music, Italian composers wrote German music..etc.
The Russian Kuchka
A group of five Russian nationalist composers. Their determination to make Russian music "Russian" and improve themselves as composers held the group together. Only one of them was a trained musician.
Modest Musorgsky
A navy member of the Russian Kuchka. He wrote Pictures at an Exhibition. His goal was to produce truly Russian music. His life was filled with self doubt and insecurity which led to his alcoholic tendencies and eventually death from alcohol and epilepsy.
Johannes Brahms
Gravitated to Vienna where he went back to classical styles. He combined the emotion of the Romantic period with the traditional classical style. He cultivated the miniature- the lied and the character piece for piano. Brought a strange romantic yearning
Gustav Mahler
Connected most closely with early Romantics. Uneasy quality in his music sets him apart. Also makes distortions in melody, harmony, and motive. Born in Bohemia to an abusive father. All of his siblings died of Diphtheria, suicide, or mental illness. Spent
Impressionism
A French artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People were astonished by the flickering network of color patches used by impressionist painters to render simple scenes from everyday life.
Symbolism
A late 19th century movement that emphasized suggestion rather than precise reference.
Expressionism
An early 20th century movement in art, literature, and music in Germany and Austria. Sought to express the most extreme human feelings by divorcing them from everyday literalness.
Pentatonic Scale
Five note scale that can be played on the black keys.
Octatonic Scale
Fits eight pitches into the octave by alternating whole and half steps.
Serialism
The "new language" for music invented in the 1920s. Creates something like a special scale for every serial composition. Created by Arnold Schoenberg. Technique of composing to a series, generally a twelve-tone series.
Emancipation of dissonance
Freeing from the rule that dissonance must return to consonance.
Atonality
No tonal center can be detected at all.
Claude Debussy
Went through the strict curriculum of the Paris Conservatory of Music at ten years old. Won a three year fellowship to study in Rome. Famous for his innovations in orchestrations and piano work. He died of cancer while the city was being bombarded by Germ
Igor Stravinsky
Revealed a fascinating progression towards a more and more abstract use of folk tunes. Music stands out as it sounds unemotional compared to romantic music. Wrote the rite of spring which caused a riot due to its violent and dissonant sounds. Studied law
Neoclassicism
A twentieth century movement returning to the style and form of older music, particularly 18th century music. Music modeled on pre romantic composers such as Bach and Mozart.
Arnold Schoenberg
Leading expressionist in music before world war 1. He pioneered the emancipation of dissonance. His music lacks tunes that one might expect to find in songs. Produced important books on musical theory, painted expressionistic paintings, and wrote books on
Sprechstimme
A vocal style developed by Shoenberg that is in between singing and talking. Example of an Avant-garde composers search for new expressive means.
Expressionism
exploitation of extreme states extending all the way to hysteria, nightmare, and even insanity
Twelve Tone System
Developed by Arnold Schoenberg also known as the serial system. Composing in a relationship to each other rather than to a tone.
Anton Webern
His compositions are brief and concentrated. He was a link between world war 1 and world war 2.
Alban Berg
Student of Arnold Schoenberg. Most powerful exponent of expressionism. Died from an infected insect bite.
Charles Ives
First important nationalist composer. Bold experimenter. Radical ideas about music. The sound of music counted less than the idea of making music as a natural human. Studied at Yale with a D+ average. His vision was of a much more vigorous, rough-grained,
Maurice Ravel
His music was marked by refinement, hyperelegance, and a certain crispness. He found a modernist voice in musical exoticism. Born in the south of France but was attracted to Paris. Above all he aimed for clarity. Carved out a place for himself between imp
Bela Bartok
Man of many careers. Pianist, educator, and musicologist. Earthy folk dance swing feel to his music. Mikrokosmos (153 graded piano pieces). Introduced many pianists to modernism. prominent music educator at the Budapest Academy of Music.
American Musical Modernism
Did not take of until the 1920s.
Ruth Crawford
One of the earliest american avante garde modernists. Woman working in a mans field. Her musical output is relatively small. Music is dissonant and atonal. First woman to earn a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition. Studied in Paris and Berlin where she m
Aaron Copland
An American modernist. Most influenced by Igor Stravinsky. Composed Appalachian Spring which was choreographed and danced by Martha Graham. His most famous works draw on American Folk material. He studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Taught at Tanglewo
Musique Concrete
Music composed with natural sounds recorded electronically
Anton Webern and postwar avante gard
intense experience of time made him a major influence in the postwar years
Chance Music
A type of contemporary music in which certain elements, such as the order of the notes or their pitches, are not specified by the composer but are left to chance
Edgar Varese
Wrote some of the most radical music of the time in the 1920s.
Poem Electronique
Written by Edgar Varese. Known as one of the masterpieces of the genre. Produced completely electronic with only tape and no live performers. Written for an exhibit sponsored by Philip's Radio Corporation. Housed in a pavilion designed by Corbu.
John Cage
Most consistent radical figure of postwar music. Father of chance music. His study of Buddhism led him to fresh ideas about music and life. Followed in the footsteps of Ives.
Minimalism
A late twentieth century style involving repetitions of simple musical fragments many many times. long slowly changing blocks of musical time. Steve Reich acknowledged master of minimalism, wrote music for 18 musicians.
New Expressionism
Direct emotional expression. often highly dissonant, atonal, and venturesome
Tania Leon
Refugee from Cuba. Musical director of the dance theater of harlem. Teaches conducting and composition at Brooklyn college. Her harmonies tend to be dissonant and atonal. Angular and modernist melodies but can break out in jazzy tunes. Enormously dynamic
Jazz
Performance style grew among black musicians in 1910. Improvisation. highly developed syncopation. beat syncopation derived from african drumming. First center for jazz was in New Orleans.
Blues
A type of African American vernacular music, used in jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, and other styles of popular music. category of black folk song whose subject is loneliness, trouble, and unhappiness of every shade. Expressions of African American experie
Call and Response Singing
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Spirituals
A religious folk song that develops outside an established church is known as a
Beat Syncopation
In jazz, the fractional shifting of accents away from the beats
Breaks
In jazz, a brief solo improvisation between song phrases
Scott Joplin
Leading rag composer. son of an ex slave.
Ragtime
A style of American popular music around 1900, usually for piano, which led to jazz. developed by black musicians playing in bars, dives, and brothels. rag meant to play in a syncopated style.
Gospel Music
Genre of African American choral church music, associated with the blues
Big bands
The big jazz bands (10 to 20 players) of the 1930s and 1940s. Improv was limited with so many musicians.
Swing
Big band jazz. Variety of tone color and instrumental effects.
Duke Ellington
Conga Brava. born in D.C. aristocratic bearing=called duke high standards of innovation and stylishness. His band plate at the Cotton Club and upscale Harlem night spot. wrote jazz compositions, ballets, movie scores, and operas. Presidential medal of fre
Bebop
1940s jazz style. trumpet, saxophone, and short part for piano. Return to improvisation. fantastic melodies. chord changes hard to follow.
Miles Davis
a trumpet player. most innovative figure in the history of jazz. his style changed frequently depending on who he was playing with. Wrote bitches brew (blend jazz with rock).
Charlie Parker
Bebop greatest genius. wrote "out of nowhere". used as the basis for swing and bebop. On drugs from age 15. died after a suicide attempt at the age of 35.
George Gershwin
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Leonard Bernstein
West Side Story (story line from Romeo and Juliet). Most brilliant and versatile musician from America. He wrote musicals, classical symphonies, was a pianist, conductor, etc.
Rhythm and Blues
Early rock and roll. African American version of rock in the early 1950s. pronounced driving rhythms and electric guitar accompaniment.
Rock and Roll
More emphasize on rhythm. blending of black and white styles in the 1960s.
Sippie Wallace
If you ever been down. legendary woman blues singer.