For
the most part, my listening through chapter 6
("Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America") began as a review of many of the
pieces I loved as a composition student. Beginning with composers such as
Mahler, Debussy and Scriabin then moving on to Schoenberg and Stravinsky, of
course Ravel and Satie had to be accounted for as well as Bartok and Janacek. I
was delighted in reacquainting myself with this music as there was so much more
available through technology such as YouTube or MP3 downloads through
Amazon.com than there ever was 8-14 years ago. Because of this (as well as your
remarks and guidance) I was able to hear a much more in depth survey of
examples.
The
first listening was intended for setting up a context for the music of the 20th
century primarily as experimenting with sounds either prohibited or unavailable
to earlier composers. When we look through the more experimental music of
Mozart or Liszt, it is easy to see that both the Classical and Romantic periods
had their share of writing dissonances. Indeed, if we search back further back
to the music of Don Carlo Gesualdo or very early counterpoint of the Middle
Ages we see that dissonance is really nothing new but rather something that has
been examined by every generation in one way or another. What seems to have
happened with the music of Mahler, Debussy and Scriabin (as well as many
others) was that the late Romantic notion of challenging “traditional” tonalism
was finally the norm rather than the exception. What is so interesting is that
music from this period is still particularly popular. Whenever I have an adult
student wanting to learn the piano the goal is often to play some sort of late
Romantic piece or often Satie and Debussy (the Gymnopodies and Clare de Lune
are common goals) very rarely does someone come in and request learning Alberto
Ginistera’s Twelve American Preludes or Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces.
Prelude
to the Afternoon of a Faun was a piece that was especially moving, not only did
the choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky break many norms in dance, the whole
concept of the through composed music moving through lush beautiful themes
seemed very liberating. I tend to think of things in a very compositional
mindset and I am the personality type who easily gets bogged down in
considerations such as form or modulation (I am actually a pretty traditional
writer in many respects) and the idea of being able to justify movement in a
piece based on the music telling a story seems like a large weight off the shoulders
of the composer.
Debussy’s
“Prelude” naturally led me to listen to Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe which I have
always felt was a monument of orchestration. The use of choir achieved a sense
of the outer-worldliness that seemed very natural yet foreign. Again, this was
program music but tempered by the fact that it was meant to accompany dancers
(as much of this very forward looking music was). The orchestra itself was
employed in a way where the fluttering flutes and largely voiced strings worked
to achieve what many must think of as the height of “romantic” music
composition. I found your comment very interesting about La Valse being a “slap
in the face to the Viennese who had just lost the war. I have listened to that
piece more times than I could possibly recollect and have never thought of it
in that context. I wonder if it were possible for you to expand on that point
as I always thought that Ravel had not expressed any sincere hatred toward the
German people and even went so far as to not participate in the signing of a
German music boycott (this I read in the Ravel biography Man and Musician by Arbie Orenstein published by Dover 1991). I
would be very interested if Ravel had any political leanings to cause him to
mock the German waltz.
Moving
on to the Schoenberg and Webern pieces, the character of the listening experience
changed drastically. Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony was not only “so tonal it
hurts” but to be honest, the disconnected phrases just “hurt” in general. It is
very difficult for me to come out against a composition by an individual so
beloved by many of my colleagues, in many ways Schoenberg has become a very
mythical figure for many musicians and to criticize his works is to almost blatantly
label yourself as an unsophisticated music lover. In considering the music of
Schoenberg (in general) I considered the notion that perhaps my friends and
fellow music students were able to hear something in his pieces that I was not
able to hear, a special beauty available only to those with some heightened
intelligence or ability in music which, alas, was lacking in me. I have given
this period of Schoenberg’s output repeated opportunities to move me and it has
not, I must therefore reconcile myself that I will never find works such as the
Chamber Symphony beautiful or moving. I would have appreciated this music very
much with some kind of visual stimulus though, I believe as a film score or
ballet, this could be very effective at drawing an audience in, but as it is,
it is completely forgettable (for me). I did find the very pointalistic
approach of Agamemnon somewhat more captivating to my ears, somehow when the
abstract melodic lines are freed from the constant clusters of sound they are
much easily more appreciated. The brevity of Webern’s music in general makes it
much more palatable as it is able to be experienced and left behind in a
relatively short period of time.
The
main Schoenberg piece for which I have always made an exception to my previous
criticisms has been Pierrot Lunare. This was a piece which I admired so much I
often listened to it on long drives out of town. This leads me to an
interesting point regarding the use of the human voice. Once a piece of music
that would otherwise be a very challenging listen is codified with use of a
singer, it all of a sudden takes on a different context. The addition of the
singspiel in Lunare was probably the most brilliant aspect of its creation,
fusing poetry with the new surrealistic sound was a way of tapping into the
commonly held interest in psychology and Freud that would have been lost on an
audience in a purely instrumental work.
I
don’t think that it is too far of a stretch to say that Stravinsky is best
known for The Rite of Spring (on YouTube there is an excellent rendering of the
ballet with the original Nijinsky choreography), as an orchestration it is an
incredible achievement in the way he manages the almost obscene complexity of
many of the portions. I very much enjoyed the ER analogy for the way his
musical “phrases” are set up, it is probably the best one I have heard. I
always tried to liken it to a flip book of related photos, all of the photos
make up the one “book” but they are also individual ideas all their own. I like
the television show idea better though. In terms of pieces by Stravinsky other
than The Rite of Spring, the other ballets stand out as very good examples of
his orchestral voice. Petrushka as well as the Firebird are standards for
students of orchestration. The Firebird is especially memorable for its Lullaby
and Finale as themes that are very effective and repetitive; it is not
difficult to hear an audience humming the final fanfare upon leaving a
performance of that piece. As far as Stravinsky’s non orchestral music, one
section of his compositions with which I was not familiar was his works for
piano. I was unable to locate the piece that was discovered after his death but
I did spend some time listening to the 1924 sonata as well as a handful of
others. I found them to by varying degrees of interesting, especially the
dramatic and forceful use of ornaments which sounded very Baroque to me (as
noted in the Morgan text, the term neo-classical could very well have been
called neo-baroque).
This
final listening for this portion of the reading dealt with the composers Bartok
and Janacek and their contributions to both the string quartet form and opera.
The Bartok String Quartet in C# minor sounded (as was noted by both you and the
video) very similar to the contrapuntal style of Beethoven. This is not so surprising
to me, as the legacy of Beethoven is something that seems quite inescapable (we
only have to consider that the textbook; Concise
History of Western Music By Dr. Margaret Hanning devotes a full chapter to
Beethoven while other great composers such as Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart and
Haydn must share chapters with each other).
Therefore any comparison to Beethoven, I imagined worked in Bartok’s
favor. On the subject of Janacek, I found the Opera Jenufa to be very moving
and the lyrical speech-like patterns in the soprano voice were very enjoyable
to hear. The Morgan text did not include any mention of the murder of Janacek’s
classmate and the possible psychological effects it had on him or his
compositions, it would have been interesting if this event were noted in the
textbook to give a more complete picture to this composer’s life and works. The
Cunning Little Vixen cartoon was absolutely fascinating and I did a little
research on the project and Amazon.com turned out to have a few really good
write-ups in the order section for the DVD.
I read that it originally aired on the BBC to relatively high acclaim
and itself was based off of a 1920’s cartoon strip. This stylization was very evident
in the clip on YouTube and I think I might order the video as I have many young
students who might benefit from seeing this kind of accessible art especially
since it only last for about an hour.
It
goes without saying that many pieces had to be omitted from this discussion
paper. I tried to stay with the works that sparked the most thoughts from me
and would therefore make the most interesting points. I feel as though the
repertoire that I have heard thus far will enable to make very detailed
comparisons with the music in the next 6 chapters including thoughts and
reflections on political circumstances and how they affect composers and their
craft. It is very interesting to me though, that when we consider music of the
20th century many CD compilations what feature that title stop with
the composers mentioned above. It is perhaps due to the fact that it appears we
are moving farther and farther away from what many would consider “listenable”
music. It could also be symptomatic of the intrusion of “popular” music into
the art music world. It would also be foolish to think that these two
circumstances (among many others) were unrelated.
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