MUS 2054- III

5/3/13 5:31 PM

Monday, April 8, 2013 Charles Ives (1874-1954) o Worked mostly in isolation in New England, with no contact with Europe o B. in Danbury, Connecticut o Father, George Ives was the town band leader ! Father served as band leader in the Union Army in the Civil War ! Charles Ives played bass drum in his fathers marching band " He experimented at the keyboard and tried to o come up with sonorities that resembled a drum Received extensive musical instruction from his father ! Composition, piano, organ ! Soon became a virtuosic pianist Took his 1st job as church organist at the age of 14 ! Played a lot of progressive music here, dissonant, and experimental ! The congregation was very passive and politely listened to these progressive works (many of which were his own compositions) Studied @ Yale with Horatio Parker ! Parker was one of the 1st music professors in the country ! Ives could not major in music at this time, but music classes were offered ! Post-grad, Ives composed The Celestial Country, a cantata based on a piece of Parkers, Hora Novissima " Its premieer was highly unsuccessful and was torn apart by critics Resigned his last organist position in 1902- gave up music, at leats publically Became very wealthy selling life insurance Continued to compose prolifically in private ! No societal pressures ! No job pressures

o o o

Total freedom to write what he wanted since he did not have to compose for an audience o Was later discovered by American modernist composers, such as Henry Cowell ! He was able to self-publish his works and get it out into the public with his own funds due to his great wealth o Composers after Ives began considering him to be the Father of American Music ! Ives established a distinctly American style ! Why? Ives was writing very originally. Previous composers were (intentionally) writing music in a ! conservative style in the struggle to be accepted as composers to a wider audience o Charles Ives- Works ! 200+ songs " 114 Songs, pub. 1922 " These songs ranged the gamut from conservative art songs to experimental music " He placed a number of these works of his into this collection and self-published ! Ca. 1910 Ives began setting arrangements of American folk songs ! The Majority. Highly experimental, pretty difficult to listen to ! 2 piano sonatas " *Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., 1840-60 movements based on his impression of American Transcendental writers o published with Essays Before A Sonata o mvmt 1: Hawthorne o mvmt 2: ??? o mvmt 3: (Halcott?) ! most accessible of the movements. More tonal, and

less rhythmically/harmonically challenging ! theme based on the da-da-dadaaaaa (SSL) motive from Beethovens 5th symphony o mvmt 4: Thoreau Ives resonated strongly with the writings of Thoreau and Emerson 6 Symphonies; 3 Orchestral Sets " Sets are 3-mvmt works, with programmatic titles for each work and individual movements

Single-movement works for orchestra " The Unanswered Question " Central Park in the Dark o Ives and his use of Borrowed Music ! Drew upon tunes he knew or found: hymn tunes, classical works, popular songs, marches, ragtime, folk tunes ! Usually heard thematically, and used in a distorted fashion o Modernism ! Polytonality, atonality, complex rhythms, alternative scales ! He developed these traits independently of other composers " When Ives was 50 he stopped composing and spent this last period of his life revising and publishing. He also heard (Stravinsky?) for the first time in this period ! His father would have him play a piece in one key on the piano whilst singing it in another simultaneously o Juxtaposition of the old and the new; modern and traditional; high and low General William Booth Enters into Heaven o NAWM p. 206, v. 3 (1914) o Gen. William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army !

! Active in serving the poor, downtrodden o @ the beginning the piano is meant to sound like a bass drum in a clear reference to the text o Are You Washed In the Blood hymn is quoted by the poet ! But, Ives does not quote this musically. Instead, he quotes There is a Fountain. The text is similar between the two. He seeks to create more complex associations. ! Each time it is heard is becomes more distorted and less recognizable o Bottom of p. 208, Big-voiced lassies Ives quotes a popular o (piano?) piece P. 211, 1st system ! Bass drum sounds we heard at the beginning return ! Track 78 in the score: the hymn tune is quoted in full Increasingly distortion of melodies quoted until the original theme is stated at the end of the piece: Cumulative Form. Often compared to a reverse sonata form. He begins with the development and ends with the exposition Halleluyah- Ives may have been referencing Camp Revival Meetings held by travelling preachers that he played at as a musician Ives drew upon multiple genres, techniques, etc. for a distinct reasons

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 The music of Charles Ives o Incorporation of many genres in his music- hymn tunes, popular music, classical music, etc. They are often QUOTED. ! It is referential. Called Sampling in modern pop music. ! Earlier quotation- Clausulae way back then ! Quotation- taking a specific chord progression, melody, etc. that is clearly recognizable. The listener must be informed to an extent that the quotation/reference is heard o Cumulative Form

o Central Park in the Dark ! Intended to sound like Central Park at nighttime. Sounds of quiet, stillness, but with underlying hustle and bustle of NYC ! Hello my baby, hello my darling quoted a Tin Pan Alley work o a street in NY that was a huge producer of sheet music and recordings o popular songs ! make references ton topical events, or events going on at the time o Hello ma Baby ! piano introduction ! verse (functions like recitative in opera) " lyrics here set the scene before the catchy melodic section- the ! Chorus " This section would frequently break into 4-part harmony. The name stuck regardless of whether or not it was sung in harmony or not ! These songs were not intended to be performed one way. They were used as springboard and vehicles of creativity ! Many different sheet music arrangements were published simultaneously " This is very different from the very specific scores and instructions in classical music at the time ! Musical Aspects: " Borrows musically and in subject matter from Ragtime Syncopation " Many types of music in USA borrowed from African-American musical backgrounds " Things like ragtime, popular dances, jazz, and even classical music were incorporated and

adapted and subsequently dispersed to a wider audience Vaudeville Revues o A variety of show of music. Musicals*** o Surpassed the others as most important The Player Piano gave birth to recorded music o Piano rolls could be bought and played in these player pianos at home and at taverns o The rise of the phonograph caused the decline of the player piano Tin Pan Alley o Nickname for West 78th Street in NYC ! Had tons of music publishers installed there at the turn of the century ! Were in fierce competition for $$$ and music ! Exposed audiences to the performers, the sheet music, etc. to drive sales o This term also refers to the music industry as a whole- both business and artistic ! Breakneck competition to write the next big hit o Pluggers- someone who played music to promote it. They also tried to get star performers onboard to perform it and lead to greater profits o Heres the good stuff: o $$$: ! sheet music in multiple arrangements ! recordings (piano rolls, later records) ! rights sold " role of pluggers o Verse/Chorus structure ! Structure of Chorus: 32-bar song form " Most common: A A B A ! Verse serves as introduction, like opera recit sets up the aria

Chorus is repeated, with different lyrics " So, strophic form here ! w/in each chorus was additional from (A A B A) " w/in each 32-bar chorus Genres of light stage music, early 20th century o Vaudeville ! A collection of acts o Operetta ! Light stage music that is very close to opera, but lighter in subject matter and involves spoken dialogue o Musical revues ! ! Musical throughout, not necessarily a coherent story o These above three developed into The Broadway Musical (1920s-present) ! Used spoken dialogue and the styles of singing nd popular music of the day. ! Singing is very un-operatic George Gershwin (1898-1937) o Girl Crazy (1930) ! Among its songs: " I Got Rhythm " Embraceable You " But Not For Me o NAWM, p. 214- I Got Rhythm, from Girl Crazy ! George Gershwin ! Begins with verse ! The music is not performed strictly to the music- it is adapted by the performer at will " Swung rhythms " Scooping into and out of notes " Changing some lyrics " Called: Performance Practice! ! This piece is steeped in ragtime syncopation ! 32-bar song form (AABA) ! uses sequences of chords that cycle over and over ! Old Man

 Friday,

" BbM modulates to ____? " This is common in AABA song form " Became known as the Bridge NAWM, p. 240- by Duke Ellington o Chords are the exact same as the piece above by Gershwin Songs would frequently become detached from the musicals they were part of and performed independently April 12, 2013 Blues & Topical Songs o Unlike hello ma baby, which is about the invention of the telephone, the Blues often provide a window into society and events going on at the time The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 o Changes USA history. Also, the worst river flood in USA history o When The Levee Breaks song about it o refugee camps o socioeconomic levels can be directly related to their proximity to flood levels ! places with cheapest land values live closest to the river. High land is more expensive and belongs to upper classes o Huey P. Long was elected governor soon thereafter o FDR elected president around this time as well Memphis Minnie & Joe McCoy o Married couple- blues musicians The Blues o Ex: Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy ! When The Levee Breaks (1929) ! Bessie Smith, Back Water Blues (1927) " NAWM p. 219 o Roots in African-American oral traditions; notated/recorded in the 1920s o Themes of lyrics o Vocal/instrumental timbre ! Lots of scooping and bending of notes (vocal)

o Rhythm- singer is playing with the beat. Approaches to downbeats are delayed o It is in the performance, not the notation that the (mastery) is o New electronic recordings enabled better, more accurate recordings of music, especially vocalists o blues notes- flatted 3rds and 7ths o call and response ! built into musical forms among African slaves, etc. ! African musical traditions were gradually transformed stateside " Integrated with Western harmonies, etc. ! responsorial in Western music o 12-bar blues form KNOW FOR TEST- also in textbook Measure Harmony Poetic Strctr: ! 1 2 A 3 4 5 6 A 7 I 8 9 10 11 12 V V(IV) I I B I I(IV) I I IV IV I

mm. 11-12 often features a turnaround to generate energy to come back to the top of form (since the last bit is all on tonic) " each pass through the 12-bar phrase can be referred to as the chorus o Delta Blues ! More loosely structured more personalized ! Mostly male singers, accompanied only by themselves on guitar ! Ex: Robert Johnson, Crossroads Blues (rec. 1936) ! Probably used the same rough 12-bar blues form, though the treatment of the chord progression was different " This guys guitar technique was eyeopening/progressive, and influenced further generations of guitar players in many different, unrelated genres NAWM p. 219- Back Water Blues, 1927, Bessie Smith (1894-1937)

o Classic Blues o Text is often more significant than merely what is written. ! Conveys suffering, mistreatment, and a search fro freedom form the troubles of life o Pianist in out recording: James P. Johnson ! An equal partner in a lot of ways in this piece o Like ragtime, blues and other pieces like this did not appear exactly as it is in our reduction in performance ! It was discovered that there was a large white audience for notations of the music ! Our example is simply a transcription of Bessie Smiths interpretation ! Stanza 2- word door rhymes with go o About the scooping were hearing in here ! It is used to especially emphasize the Blues Notes " So, Smith places the scoop/inflection on Eb and Bb especially " Also, flatted 3rds and 7ths o Back to what James Johnson is doing in the recording ! When the vocalist cuts out, Johnson adds in some (improve?) to add interest until the vocalists reenters o Harmonies used in this example are almost entirely I, IV, or V ! However, they are often augmented with added dominant 7ths Monday April 15, 2013 Blues, and the difference between notation and performance o West End Blues- is the piece Olivers music as it was in his head, by Louis Armstrong & The Hot Five, etc. o These ideas are thrown in the air with popular music Joe King Oliver (1881-1938) o One of the earliest and most important figures in New Orleans jazz o Led small bands playing in often seedier (black) areas of NOLA o Louis Armstrong was his protg o Originally played with coronets. Switch trumpets added later

o Use of mutes, etc., to create new timbres ! Called extended techniques in classical music West End Blues, as performed by Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five o Recorded 1928 o NAWM p 223 o This is a 2-strain piece (2 different sections ! Each uses the 12-bar blues form New Orleans Jazz (traditional jazz) o 1910s-1920s o earliest type of jazz we know of o also (less commonly) referred to as Dixieland jazz o rooted in blues, ragtime, popular song ! also, EUR dance music from the 19th century ! these bands originally played polkas, waltzes, etc. but played in a way very different from the (white) European roots o small combos; front line/rhythm section ! rhythm section: tuba, banjo, and drum set ! banjo used initially, but fell out of favor to the guitar/piano ! front line consisted of coronets, trombones, clarinets " this combination fell out of favor later o ensemble polyphony ! ??? o improvisation ! not all improvised ! however, they usually play a type of prescribed part or the melody. ! Back-and-forth between open improve and set parts o Ex: Joe King Olivers Creole Jazz Band, Dippermouth Blues (rec. 1923) ! Very polyphonic. Parts intertwine with one another ! 12-bar blues structure ! begins with and introduction ! clarinet decorates the main melody with trills and flourish figures

! ! !

! o Louis !

(The coronet plays the melody?) At the chorus, most of the ensemble comes together, except the clarinet Every time they cycle through the set form, something different happens and a different instruments plays a solo/flourishing line Different group members are largely musical equals in this type of music. A lot of every instrument is heard Armstrong (1901-71) Surpassed Oliver in fame and started his own groups " Why? He was a star and a virtuosic musician.

When his groups played, it was obvious that he was the star ! Grew up very poor, and in a black orphanage ! Played in the street, and eventually joined Olivers group NAWM p. 223, West End Blues, in the style of NOLA Jazz o Rec. by Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five o P. 226 has another transcription of the same recording o Why? Because Armstrongs band did not play from notation. They knew it as a tune over a blues progression ! They would rehearse and come up with a loose sense of what they were going to do prior to performance o Armstrong uses trumpet in this example o When playing the melody Armstrong is more alluding to it than explicitly playing it ! (The West End Blues) melody o trombone (p. 229) plays something akin to the 2nd strain of WEB o p. 231 Armstrong sings on nonsense syllables o p. 233 there is a piano solo (perf. Earl Hines) ! despite the flourishing RH melody, the LH and overall solo still follows the blues progression o earliest recordings have corny humorous stuff, etc., to help the record sell by adding novelties ! also, it had to fir on a 3-4 minute 78 RPM record

Louis Armstrong revolutionized improvisation in jazz o In the solo bits, there is not really much of a trace of the original melody o The progression used only as a template/outline NAWM p. 240 o Cotton Tail by Duke Ellington o 1940, contrafact jazz composition Big Band Era o 1930s-1940s o peak of jazzs mainstream popularity; closely associated with dance (swing) o ! listened to by a broad array of Americans 12-18 musicians; sections: reeds/trombones/trumpets/rhythm ! rhythm also includes a harmonic backbone " so, piano and upright bass ! singers would often sing romantic ballads " Crooners- Frank Sinatra, etc. increasing use of notation ! why? Very difficult to put so many musicians together " also, more of these musicians were white and had classical training that would play in white venues for white audiences " but black bands were too ! fallout: decreasing opportunities for improvisation " virtuosic improvisers who could not read music were increasingly left by the wayside. Small windows for improve as well role of segregation ! very few integrated bands Ellington (1899-1974) One of the most famous big band leaders and jazz composers Performed at the cotton tail club in Harlem, NY, NYC Ellingtons compositional approach to his band was based on the makeup of his group at the time, and wrote pieces based on his performers

o Duke o o o

Ellington, Cottontail, (1940), NAMW p. 240 o Uses the progression of Gershwins I Got Rhythm and plays a new melody on top ! Called: Contrafact o Far more angular, jumpy melody o P. 244 ! Bridge section improvised ! Tpt. 2 melody would not have been written (were looking at a transcription) ! Gtr. Part just has chord ID written down, with/ / / / for the rest. So, free rhythmic improvisation

" comping- a light accompaniment " also happens on the piano part o Swung rhythms ! Central part of a lot of this music. Between ragtime and jazz, ? Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) o Russian composerOR IS HE? ! Stravinsky was. But Shostakovich was not- the czarist era ended with the Bolshevik revolution and the USSR was created ! Nation=cultural state=political o Stravinsky left Russia before the USSR was created and distanced himself from it whereas Shostakovich grew up in the USSR and had to be diplomatic and live/write in a dangerous atmosphere (censorship) o His real relationship with his Soviet bosses is still in question today o Following the Bolshevik revolution and purges o Timeline ! 1919-25: Student Years " Symphony No. 1 (1925) " Lots of freedom despite radical political movements.

1st symphony is conventional and tonal but still very successful and well-received " life as composer or piano performer? Soviet travel restrictions ended the dilemma for him 1926-35: embrace of Western modernism " The Nose (1928) Opera in the vein of musical modernism, upsetting audience expectations Intentionally absurd story about a man who wakes up without his nose and discovers " that it has taken on a life of his own Music is not conventionally operatic; rather, it is a stew of atonal, dissonant, elements of jazz, etc. Staged @ the MET opera a few years ago Like other opera from the 20th century, opera, etc. is suffering-if it only appeals to a niche audience, is it worth the $$$ to stage it? Interlude: written exclusively for percussion. This medium was later exploited by other composers, but very rare at this point Macbeth of the Mtsensk District Set in 19th century Russia. It is exceptionally bleak and dark Influenced by 2nd Viennese school expressionism Protagonist lashes out against her life, husband, etc. A huge hit. There was an appetite for stories that told the dark side of life Performed for years in USSR and in the West, but got a huge audience

"

Lady

Very explicit, uncomfortable sex scenes that border on sexual assault o Music for these scenes attempts to represent sex through music in one of the most vulgar, explicit ways ever o pornophony 1936- Pravda denunciation " Shostakovich was still a pretty loyal communist at this time " A review of Lady Macbeth denounced it on strong, certain terms, probably written by Stalin, who had seen it just a few days previously Title: Chaos Instead of Music " Soviet cultural ministers saw western modernism as something to be avoided, and saw it as being linked to individuality and expression- a symptom seen as afflicting Western society. Individuality over care for the group as a whole Shostakovich was essentially given a death threat 1937-53: retrenchment " Symphony No. 5: (1937)- creative answer to just criticism? Did Shostakovich actually feel the criticism was just, or was he putting up a faade? " The Work: 4 mvmt. Work o large, opening mvmt in sonata form o lighter scherzo, a reprieve from the first o slow third mvmt o 4th movement ends triumphantly " @ beginning of 1st movement, the strings enter with a strong, dark theme " Piece is mostly in dm. Clings to a tonal center, even if it plays fast and loose with it

"

"

1st violin melody around square 1 has many awkward leaps, such as TT and other augmented intervals- a hallmark of many of Shostakovichs works Mvmt 1, Development The violin melody named above is heard in the brass, in a low register Music changes itself into a diabolical sounding march, which will have implications later in the work o Sounds like a Russian funeral

march(?) Mvmt 4 does not begin in major key, but rather with the dark, dramatic march topic o This theme might as well symbolize the Soviet army invading and subjugating people, artists, composers, etc. o At the end of the last movement, there is a sudden rapid pivot to Major ! Shostakovich soon became simultaneously an image both of a loyal Soviet artist and that of a suppressed artist " His music is indeed very ambiguous. Like, Mahler, there is not an explicit meaning. o NAWM p 320 ! Symphony No. 5, II- Scherzo, 1937- Shostakovich ! What is a Scherzo? " Light, upbeat, playful " ABA form Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo Reprise Each section is in binary form o Repeats are written out- no repeat signs Track 18- musical content changes and sounds more Russian to our ears

P. 25, a 4/4 mm. interrupts the time o Also, we have been in cm and the horns interrupt with a figure in Major Trio: instrumentation is pared down (Track 20) o A dainty waltz tune in solo violin 1. Sounds a little TOO light and cute for the rest of the symphony o Echoed in flutes after o P. 337: Scherzo returns again. Begins with same string figure

Friday, April 19, 2013 Shostakovich Recap What does it mean for music/art to be accessible or inaccessible to an audience? o This distinction greatly affects music throughout this time period, especially USA ! Tin pan Alley was all about making consumers hear and immediately want music " A desirable consumer object ! Classical US composers were in a field where in order to define themselves as modernist composers who needed to experiment and push the envelope for the sake of their art " Found themselves increasingly at odds with audiences and popular music During 1st part of is career, Shostakovich was indebted to the Western musical tradition and was a modernist composer o The Bolsheviks (SOCIALIST REALISM) wanted music to not feature distortions of reality (like expressionism) and nor should it distort audience expectations ! Art/music should speak to the beliefs and ideologies of Communism/Socialism 1920s was very crazy for both classical and popular music o also, prohibition! PARTY!!! (Apparently) o jazz, modernism

The Ultra-Modernists o Composers in USA during the 1920s oriented toward musical experimentation ! Ives did not actually set the stage for this since other composers were not aware of him ! However, he did set the stage for it o An American experimental tradition, continued by Ives (Though not actually) o Edgard Varse (1883-1965) ! French-born Composer who lived in USA from 1915 to his death USA classical mindset (Beach, Parker, etc.) was gradually changing to having a greater appetite for experimentation ! Varse referred to music as organized sound " Meaning: a wider palette is available for use " Isnt music all just organized sound? " Looking at available material for composition in a much larger frame By 1915, the instruments in the Western orchestra had been in place for about 100 years o A point of balance, stagnation ! He spoke about wanting to liberate sound " Schoenberg spoke of liberating something else? " Liberate sound, but liberating WHAT, exactly? NAWM p. 402 o Hyperprism, Varse, 1922-23 o Half of the ensemble is percussion ! Percussion technically have a complex arrangement of overtones that make a distinct pitch difficult to discern o Musical instruments are just decorating 1 note 9G#) @ beginning o Pitch Space ! Highness v. lowness ! Varse treated notes with a strong sense of verticality !

One pitch, (G#) here is treated as a center of gravity that notes higher and lower return to o Percussion not treated seriously for the most part- it was used mainly for sound effects at the time Henry Cowell (1897-1965) o infamous for experimental works for piano (1920s) o exploration of Extended Techniques o book New Musical Resources (1930) describing new theoretical ideas ! published New Music Quarterly, a journal with scores " a journal more about featuring modernist musical ! o o scores for perusal and exposure modernist composers became music theorists not describing past music but how future music could be devised NAWM p. 420 ! The Banshee, 1920, ! Very specific instructions provided with the score and new notation ! Liberation of sound from the enslavement of the tonal system, instrumentation, notation, etc. Pitch clusters! Crawford Seeger (1901-53) Associated with the concept of dissonant counterpoint (as was Cowell) ! Traditional theory balances dissonance and consonance ! Dissonant counterpoint flips the relationship: dissonance eon strong betas and treated as consonance and consonance is used on passing notes/beats ! Studied with & married to Charles Seeger NAWM p. 424 ! String Quartet 1931: Mvmt IV, Allegro Possible, 1931, Seeger " Seeger was an experimentalist, and this work is highly experimental " Features same 4 movements as the traditional string quartet, but turns a lot else eon its head

o Ruth o

! !

! !

Previously, dynamics are added in as an afterthought " Seeger experiments with Counterpoint in Dynamics- so, dynamics 1st, not an afterthought MVMT IIIBeginning has fugue-like entrances Long, sustained, dissonant pitches- dynamics are the primary characteristic " Dynamic swells- no 2 instruments reach a peak on the same beat " In performance, performers are more spread out than usual, creating a stereophonic effect Every movement is constructed differently MVMT IV: " Only 2 musical lines: 1st violin and every other instrument, all of which play in unison throughout " Vln. 1 and trio have precise opposite parameters " A musical palindrome This piece has a kind of mirror effect " Mm. 58 is the center of the mirror form 1-58 Vln 1 ff>pp Note groupings, 1-20 Prime form of melody 58-116 Pp<ff 20-1 Retrograde of melody, transposed up a m2 retrograde

Trio is exactly Prime inverse of this "

Prime form of melody (Trio) is a 10-note row, repeated over and over for 1st-half of the work (p. 432 NAWMv3) Use of a rotation. See p. 432 for example

Monday April 22, 2013 Shostakovich, Seeger, Copland

Seeger Recap Issue of accessibility of music in the 20th century. Does composer have the responsibility to reach out to the audience o Affected Shostakovich: official USSR doctrine was that music ought to be acceptable to the masses and ought to speak to communist ideologies ! Post Lady Macbeth, and when writing 5th symphony he wrote a symphony that was more accessible. 4 mvmts, etc. Crawford Seeger o USA composers were not oriented to accessibility ! ! Varese, Cowell, Crawford Seegers String Quartet 1921 was challenging, dissonant, atonal

1930s Shift o growing concern among modernist composers about accessibility in music. Had music placed itself into a corner so it was speaking to no one but a few musical elites? o Impetus: Great Depression, beginning 1929 and worsened ! Affected every aspect of USA social life ! Devastated USA economy, especially for middle classes o Composers were falling under sway of socio-political thinkers? o Economic reforms ! Addressing of widespread poverty and joblessness o Many composers (like Seeger) underwent a huge shift ! Crawford and her husband decided their abilities as composers would be better suited to recording, writing, and compiling USA folk music for entertainment and escape ! Crawford became and advocate for music and musical language, as well as music-making by a broader swathe of USA community o Crawford and her husband became leading folk music advocates ! Simple arrangements and harmonies of USA folk songs

! !

With assistance of (_______________?), they recorded music that people knew and played MUED ramifications: " Elementary music-making grew out of theories developed by people such as these. " Kids should be making music with simple songs as early as possible singing simple, common tunes Like Shostakovich, Seeger & Co. took a turn for accessibility, though Shostakovichs was forced by the Soviets

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) o Copland also made a move toward accessibility ! Copland + Shostakovich responded to politics sweeping their era- a focus on community, etc. and not elitist works, etc. o Early 1920s- studied in Paris w Nadia Boulanger ! Stravinsky was present in Paris in the 1920s and was a massive influence ! Boulanger was a notable pedagogue " Famous for being a Parisian teacher who taught an number of USA composers " Belief that EUR offered a better music education than USA " Copland was exposed to the modernist EUR idiom, S especially Stravinsky o 1925: Copland returns to NY; quest for American musical identity ! how to sound American? o Early compositions influenced by jazz and popular music ! Music for the Theatre (1925) " Spiky dissonances that arise unexpectedly " Unpredictable shifting of meter. Sounds spunky, happy, though is still very metrically sophisticated ! Coplands music was fashionable and influential for other composers in USA at the time..thus the

cartoonish or movie-like sound in their writings (they reflect Copland) o Writings about Music ! Rising tendency for composers to write about what they are doing in prose ! Copland cast himself s the voice of USA composition o Other compositions reflect tendencies of modernist composition in EUR ! Piano variations (1930) " Both this and Seegers 1931 String Quartet are both just as challenging and intellectually rich as music EUR composers at the time " Piece opens with what is IDd as a them. Not a melodic theme, but a collection of pitches Compare to Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg)*** Intervals in the motive used a s a seed for the rets of the movement to arise from Notes: E C D# C# ? " Not used in the same rigorous way as Schoenbergs tone rows " Borrowing idea/use of shifting meters from Stravinsky Came to be seen as a distinctive USA trait o Great Depression affected his writings ! Rather than taking Seegers route of folk song collection ! Decided that austere, modernist music was not beneficial for the American people at the time ! Populist- aspirations to speak or relate to a broad audience, the common man ! The Composers Collective ! Visit to Mexico (mid 1930s) " Copland felt that the MEX had a better social system o El Salon Mxico (1936)- a new approach ! Meant to celebrate MEX & MEX people

Leads to music geared toward wide appeal, accessibility, etc. ! Quotation of American folk material " Cowboy tunes " Folk fiddling " Cold be embraced by a wide audience o Copland Populist Ballets of the late 1930s and 1940s ! Billy the Kid (1938) ! Rodeo (1942) " Music is indebted to folk fiddling and can often be played on open strings ! Folk fiddle tune taken from a collection of folk tunes ! Appalachian Spring (1944, with Martha Graham) o Appalachian Spring, NAWM p. 433 ! Suite at this time becomes a looser term for a collection of pieces grouped together ! Creative application of rhythm ! Roughly in Eb, but there are lots accidentals " Middle of p. 434- trombone outburst ! P. 435 " Vln 1 after circle 37 starts a new motive " In C, but there is little functional tonality Treated more as a tonal collection played on white notes of the keyboard ! Could be seen as a popular version of Stravinskys Rite of Spring " Light and fun instead of unnerving ! P. 454, meno mosso " Slow section written in a style closely IDd with Coplands sound, and USA music as a whole Built on open intervals Look @ solo oboe- see how many P intervals there (4ths and 5ths) ! P. 457 " Rehearsal 55- variations on a tune "

Aim to make sound like classical music using traditional music as its basis " Shaker tune Theyre a little like the Amish " Every time the tune is repeated it is in a new key " VLA melody presented in augmentation, then vlns enter with imitation P. 468 " New bass line: recontextualizes melody @ end of the piece Copland knew how to transform a theme " into many different guises so it was endlessly refreshed

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 Review o Accessibility! Again! ! The composer who wrote modernist music was one who did not sell-out as a musician and artist ! This modernist approach pushed audiences farther and farther away, and music was written for one another and a small, select intellectual audience ! Totalitarian governments ordered composers to write music that was accessible and spoke to ideologies ! Some USA composers turned from modernism to a more accessible idiom- they saw it as their duty to reach out to audiences " 1950s USA- some composers made the change back to modernism and avant-garde " there is a lot of variety in USA music at this timeboth experimentalism, avant-garde, and accessible composers John Cage (1912-1992) o mid-1930a: Cage studies briefly with Schoenberg in California ! Schoenberg had fled anti-Semitism in GER/EUR in the 1930s

The flood of artists, composers, and scientist fled EUR due to persecution because their race, political views, etc.- enabled USA to rise as a powerhouse in the 20th century o Subsequently develops reputation as composer for percussion ! Sidebar: Seeger- serialism, but ot Schoenbergs 12tone method " She used 10 tones, and a (cycle?) of pitches " Check this ! Cage wanted a third way- not serialism, not neoclassicism ! " He seeked new sounds and ideas ! Works: " First Construction in Metal (1939) " Second Construction in Metal (1940) " Living Room Music (1940) ! Construction indicates Cage was thinking of music in a different way- maybe like a sculpture ! for Living Room, it could be performed any way, so long as the instruments came form the performer(s) living room(s) ! Cage was a leader in growing/finding new, different percussion instruments " found instruments- onus is on the performers to create the timbre, sound, and feel of the ensemble o Develops Concept of Rhythmic Structure ! Schoenberg was concerned with how row forms could mark and form different sections of a piece ! Cage believed a composer could not just come up with ideas to hold a piece together through logic and intellect " How could he structure si music when his models from before are based on PITCH organization? " He developed Rhythmic Structure- he decided that the basic organization of music is TIME Say there are 3 large sections

o Each section has a Big-Small-Big subsection o Each unit could be broken down further as desired o Write about music, developing upon ideas of earlier experimentalists (e.g. Varse) ! The Future of Music: Credo (ca. 1940) ! Cage questions how we distinguish between noise and musical sound " The sounds we hear today were not considered to be musical in earlier periods noise is cultural, and changes over time he imagined that composers of the future would use electronic instruments to produce sound " Cage di not have this available in his time period, but he was able to modify the sound of current ones. Thus The Prepared Piano o Prepared Piano (inv. 1940) ! Was writing a piece for a dance recital with a large percussion ensemble, but there was not enough space for the whole ensemble " But a piano was available, and he started placing objects in the strings to create different sounds ! Work(s): " Bacchanale " Sonata and Interludes for Prepared Piano (194748) ! Later wrote works for standalone prepared piano, not just dance works ! Around this time, Cage was travelling the world with ___________ and listening to and collecting different sounds from around the world NAWM p. 539: Sonata and Interludes: Sonata V o Detailed instructions for piano preparation ! Cage eventually realized that every piano, and thus every performance of his prepared piano pieces would " "

sound differently because small differences in piano constructions " Gradually accepted it as what made this piece interesting o Music on the page looks like standard notationbut it sounds very different o Rhythmic Structure ! (more complex than rhythm, has to do with time organization as as well) ! 2_2_2 _2 ! groupings of 9 bars that correspond to the #s above " 9 measures= 2 somethings? ! Look @ p. 544-545 for more explanation o Binary form o Sonata Form- this piece is in Sonata Form, and Cage writes his in an older definition of Sonata form, such as used by Scarlatti (which is ABA) Cage was growing infamous in most circles o He was treated as a kook, a curiosity by many, including music critic and by writers in articles about him o In the late 1940s, he was going through a great deal turmoil ! He was gay and his marriage (to a woman) was falling apart ! His music is subsequently very emotional and represents his emotions and feelings at the time o Occurred to him that music should be about expression at its core? Cage met and befriended composer Morton Feldman o Feldman designed a system of notation that left the pitches up to the player ! Graphic depictions of music instead of standard notation NAWM p. 557 o Little box= player makes a sound o Stratum of score dictates how sounds are played

o Feldman essentially tied one hand behind his back as a composer so he did not choose specific pitches for the performer ! It is difficult for composers not to repeat gestures an d ideas that have already been used, and this provided a way to avoid doing so o A bid to create more active listeners and performers and to shake up expectations Ca. 1950: Cage exposed to new philosophic ideas o Cage decided that music would be better if a composer did not try to express themselves or a specific emotion in their

music o Removes control from the composer o Exposure to eastern philosophy ! Letting go of desires and egos (such as of the composers) ! Happiest when we are not trying to shape ourselves, the world around us, and our destinies 1951 & Forward o embraces techniques of chance in composition o NAWM p. 546 o For regular piano, written with specific notation o The composition of this piece leaves much to chance- by flipping coins through an elaborate method. Decisions about pitch, rhythm, etc. were left to the flip of a coin o Music to the listener could just be about the listener only paying attention to the sounds of the music Friday, April 26, 2013 John Cage Recap o 2 parts of career o transition happened in the 1950s- 1951 and forward, his music focused on chance and indeterminism o NAWM p. 546 ! Certain aspects were chosen by Cage, and the others were randomized results ! Cage was inspired by a work by Feldman

! ! !

Composition: Cage created tables of chords, motives, dynamics, rhythms, etc. He flipped coins to decide how to proceed Result: piece does not sound continuous, but rather as disconnected sounds in time " This is hat he wanted: individual sounds, appreciated for themselves Unlike ___________ who used graphic notation, cage explicitly writes what is wanted " Cage used a type of notation that is spatially oriented towards time- space in measures directly

o o

relates to the beat as notated at the top Cage saw a flaw in music (and art): that music ought to be a vehicle for the conveyance of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. He wanted listeners to be JUST listeners who cleared their minds and simply listened to the music, the sound, and not compare it to other music or who sounds relate to one another or association to their emotions, psychology. Last 40 years of his lives, he sought new ways to create sounds for listeners: sounds for sounds sake ! Did so by hobbling himself as a composer, so his ego, tastes, desires, etc. were removed from the final result ! Huge change for us- previously, music had been a vehicle for conveying some kind of meaning Nevertheless, very few people followed Cages example Indeterminacy of notation: ! Leaving up to the performer certain elements of the piece and its performance 1950s- Cage also became involved in electronic music as well (that he had predicted in 1939) ! composers were able to get their hands on electronic hardware to realize their music ! wrote electronic versions of pieces (Like Music For Changes)

scores for this music contained instructions for how the tape would be cut to create discontinuous streams of sound Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) o John Cage of Europe o constantly challenging ideas and expectations o education in Nazi Germany ! a damaged generation ! psychological damage possible ! Stockhausen was highly eccentric o Post-WWII, he studied music in college while performing jazz " o as a night club pianist total Serialism: entails systematic regulation of pitch, but also other musical parameters ! Stockhausen and many other composers at the time wanted to reinvent music form the ground up, music free of the taint of politics, etc. ! Like a rebellion or distancing from their fathers and forefathers Subsequent career: continual reinvention Schoenbergs serialism was taken and expanded to create Total Serialism ! Serialism= a series of elements (Pitches) treated in a specific way ! Total serialism: more elements of the piece serialized than just pitch- like dynamics, rhythm, etc. NAWM p. 561 ! Kreuzspiel: Part 1. 1951. " Crossplay (ENG) " vertical space= pitch space " lots of voice crossings between parts- no oboe or clarinet @ beginning- just the piano with extremes of ranges. Registers gradually cross in the piece. The WWs come in as pitches rise/descend

o o

! ! !

p. 561: Part 1, (86) specific pitches migrate (Eb)its starts @ top of register, and is eventually heard at the lowest registers of the piece. All other voices/notes behave similarly also, crossings of dynamics, articulations, etc. kinda like an algorithm or a computer program, where the computer follows the algorithm and spits out the result pitch, rhythm, dynamics, articulation are all serialized scored for piano, 2 winds, & percussion "

rejection of the idea of expression and thread of continuity ! Pointillistic: music sounds like points of music/sound in time ! Tech Specs: " Total serialism " Pitch Content: P. 568 " Fig. 2, p. 569 Basic note units are in the conga Ex: Eb=11 durations (in the percussion) o Beginning of Part 1, CD square 86 o Back to Stockhausen ! 100% control of music through total serialism was just one part of Stockhausen: he soon reinvented himself again. He wrote like John Cage, then changed. He wrote electronic music, then changed and so on. ! He was very well known to the Beatles, and his face was included on the album cover of Sgt. Peppers Whatever Monday, April 29, 2013 Modern/Experimental Recap o Challenging audience expectations o Gradually came to be referred to as New Musiceven though it is over half a century old now

Why? It was never embraced by a mainstream audience If it has been rejected as a whole, why is it important to us? o Post WWII fragmentation of styles ! No one kind of music that represented the main thrust of what composers were doing o Serial movement was one of the most potent ! Born with Schoenberg between in the 19-teens ! Used primarily by Schoenberg and his students ! Post-WWII, serialism caught on with a wider selection of composers ! ! " Total serialism developed ! Also, composers who had once rejected serialism later converted to it after Schoenbergs death " In the 1950s, the populist Copland retreated back to his earlier, thornier experimental/modernist works. Embraced serialism ! It was one the most potent in USA universities, and was taught as the music of the future " Milton Babbitt, Princeton " He and his students led a school of serialism in the USA Music Since WWII splintering of audience base ! 1st half of 20th century was split by musical modernism " audiences had a choice between Swan Lake and Rite of Spring or Brahms/Schoenberg formation of specialty ensembles, specialty performers devoted to new music. Also, performers specialized in early music ! bulk of musicians learned/were able to perform from Bach to Stravinsky The Role of Patronage ! USA: Universities ! EUR: state support Stylistic Atomization

New o

Fragmentation of styles " Each composers feels that s/he is writing the music of the future ! Relationship to classical music as its exists in the concert hall " How do you write music in the classical tradition when the goal is to sweep away all explicit connections to the past? o Why would someone listen to this music? ! The desire of artists to create works that: " -say something new, or ! -make a contribution to music history (even through rejection), or " -seem relevant to contemporary life, or " -feel personally honest, or " -they themselves simply ENJOY- even if a mainstream audience doesnt. Even if we change COMPOSERS to LISTENERS, the list would stay primarily the same "

Minimalism o 1960s o proved to be a movement that ruptured the classical music world by opening up new avenues o USA movement that began in the 1950s, grew popular in the 1960s, and became VERY widely popular in the 1970s o Influenced by visual art, especially culture ! Actually, an exchange between music and art o Visual artists were grappling with the same issues musicians and composers were ! Abstraction had been the norm for a while ! Sought to create art the was objectively cold, sterile, industrial o Repetition: a definitive aspect of most minimalist art o Does art need to express/tell us something? o Sometimes minimalist works were massive ! Works like this are often installed in public spaces

Goal: to dwarf the viewer Like: ______________ " Its giant metal arcs o Minimal variation of color, form, materials o Music: crossover appeal to non-classical audiences o Early minimalist composers: ! La Monte Young 1935! Terry Riley 1935! Steve Reich 1936! Philip Glass 1937! All of theses composers were trained in serialism in USA ! ! universities ! Instead, they were interested in music that would draw the listener into the aural experience " Serialism seems more interest in how it works on paper than how it actually sounds o Riley initially made use of Long Tones ! Drones! Individual notes sustained for long periods of time ! Subversion of serialism- makes the experience about the notes o Simplistic, yet huge and monumental o Most minimalist composers were interested in repetition (like we see in minimalist art) ! Repetition not for groove, but a reduction elementals (like rhythm) Minimalism: traits o minimal sonic materials ! explored the raw material of music, often through patterned repetition ! or through the sue of sustained drones ! minimal pieces were often less chromatic than the music of the preceding generation ! unfolded over long stretches of time o most of these minimalist composers had gotten sick of atonality

Steve Reich (1936-) o Studied with Luciano Berio, among others; infl. By NY school, jazz, West African drumming o Concerned with audible musical process ! What can you hear v. what can you see on the page? ! Processes: just as visual artists created patterns across space, Reich wanted his works to unfold over time in a way audiences could easily hear o Early Phase Works: ! Come Out (1966) ! Piano Phase (1967)

! Phasing: kinda like counterpoint, fugal Wednesday, May 1, 2013 Post-WWII recap, minimalism recap, and Steve Reich recap Reich and musical processes o Not sure o Quote Reichs Come Out o Only one musical process ! No variety of technique, styles, etc. ! Only two tape recorders ! One thing is unfolding over time Minimalist music was much more consonant than other modernist/experimental music Reich, Piano Phase o Work for two pianists 1967 o With this, Reich began writing more music for conventional instruments and ensembles o Score instructions: ! Piano 1 plays a motive over and over ! Piano 2 enters after a while, playing in time with piano 1 ! 2nd player gradually comesout of phase!... with piano 1 by gradually pushing ahead of piano 1 until piano 2 gets 1/16 note ahead

after even more repetitions, piano 2 gets 2 1/16 notes ahead ! & etc. Since 1970s, Reich works increasingly with larger ensembles, more variety, and less purity in compositional approach o approaching the role of an established classical music composers, seeking to be established with the greats Reichs music was a reaction to serialism, but he and other composers following the romantics were all rebelling against the romantics and their idea of expressivity NAWM p. 670 ! o o o o o o o Tehillim: part IV, 1981; Reich Sung in Hebrew! Very few Jewish composers through history Role of the Christian church loomed large in western music ! Composers like Reich made statements in their music This work represents Reichs move toward mainstream classicism later in his career Commissioned for GER State Radio Piece: ! 4 mvmts, Fast-Fast-Slow-Fast ! each mvmt sets a different psalm text (IV: psalm 150) " this psalm makes specific allusions to songmaking ! voices treated differently in each movement " IV includes a sampling of all treatments used in the work ! Instrumentation: " Voice, organ, percussion, WW ! Relating to Piano Phase, etc,: steady pulse, but complex rhythms Musical: ! Diatonic harmonies, cling to a tonal center " Dm, FM- ambiguous, but chords return to these two harmonies ! P. 674, t.27, rehearsal B

! ! !

" 2 voices singing are treated in 2-voice canon rehearsal C introduces more instruments, and all 4 voices " expanded sense of canon/imitative polyphony " overall melodic contour is the same p. 686, the 2nds half of the melodic material is treated in canon (like 1st was just before) p. 690, 3rd part treated in canon why do voice parts sound phased? " Phasing is imitation! " Canon is imitation, therefore " Imitative polyphony P. 695: voices slowed down, pitches altered " Back to homophony

Friday, May 3, 2013 Waxing Poetic o In history, one thing necessarily follows the otherunless youre doing the wrong thing, a fear that plagued composers. ! Music doesnt get BETTER over time, it CHANGES o 1970s-80s- more apparent that there would not be one dominant mainstream music of the future ! composers increasingly recognized that the tributaries of musicals style were all legitimate in their own right. o Western Intellectual Changes o Pluralism ! tolerance, acceptance, and celebration of difference o dichotomy between pop and classical/concert music ! increasingly, composers were influenced by music outside of the classical sphere, and by world music or pop music ! Reichs music has a beat, or a pulse- a hallmark of most popular music Michael Daugherty (1954-Present) o Like many contemporaries, he is associated with a Universitycurrently the University of Michigan o Raised in Iowa; family of musicians

Dad was a jazz drummer, grandmother was a pianist, and all his siblings were musicians, though not necessarily classical musicians ! Siblings formed a band that played cover songs o Breadth of musical experiences o Education: ! University of North Texas ! Manhattan School of Music ! Yale University ! Worked with Bernstein who taught him that it was OK to blend pop and classical, and Avant-Garde USA & EUR ! o o composers Contact/study with wide range of contemporary composers Pluralism: ! Embrace of multiple approaches to composition, multiple styles of music ! Implies acceptance/tolerance for difference; no one single music of the future Pluralistic approach to composition Reflects greater accessibility of (some) recent music ! Daugherty wanted to compose music that would draw a large variety of people Since the 1990s, many of his compositions tie in to TV, movies, comic books Dead Elvis, 1993- Michael Daugherty- NAWM p. 890 ! Quotation: actively engaging listener by quoting older music that blends the old and the new- layering the old and the new ! A (loose) set of variations on the chant Dies Irae " A clich in music, and Daugherty knows it ! Allusions to Stravinskys Faustian chamber piece The Soldiers Tale (1918) " A twist on the story of Faust " Ties in the story of Faust to Elvis Presley

o o

o o

! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Late 70s-80s, after Elvis died, a cult of diehard fans arose that thought he was still alive and had faked his death Reflects the composers love of pop culture(music?) NAWM p. 925- Daugherty program note References to Latin (Pop?) music Dies Irae 1st appearance, p. 891 " Violin sounds scratchy, like in Soldiers Tale Music is very repetitive and grooving Letter M- Elvis entrance Bassoon is in a higher register- like Stravinskys Rite of Spring