Listening Assignment 5
Early Twentieth Century
Notes on the Early 20th Century Quiz
For the Listening/Scores portion of the Early 20th Century Quiz, you will see score excerpts from several works on the Encounter 5 Listening List below. All Encounter 5 listening examples below are fair game. Recordings are from NRAWM unless otherwise indicated. For each excerpt you will identify:
-
Composer, title, & section
- Genre—ballad? ballet? ballet suite? cantata? large chamber work? character piece? choral symphony? film score? jazz fugue? melodrama? opera? orchestral set? sonata? song cycle? string quartet? suite? symphonic poem? symphony? vocalise?
-
Style (American Modernism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Neoclassicism, New Nationalism, Primitivism, Twelve-Tone School)
-
Important musical features (heard in the excerpt) of:
-
the style
- the composer’s music
-
the work itself
Remember: Style features describe how a historic style, composer, or musical work typically use specific elements of music—melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, color, instrumentation, form, etc.—simply saying “rhythm” or “texture” is not an answer!
-
Answer Study Questions adapted from Listening Assignment 5 Study Questions below
-
For any work with words, dance, or a program, this is the place I might about the story or the “dramatic situation”!
Study Questions
The best way to do well on quizzes, exams, and other assignments in this course is to know the assigned listening well. Listen to each work below as often as you can, study the scores, and learn what the NAWM notes say about each one. For each work you want to be able to answer the following Study Questions:
- What is the genre?
- What is its form?
- Is this a modernist work or not?—Modernism, rooted in the conviction that older forms and genres are no longer valid or viable in the modern age (as Ezra Pound famously said, “Make it new!”), was a significant movement in music and other arts starting in the early 20th Century.
- What is the name of the style in which it is written?
- How does the composer use the elements of music? What features of the work are typical of the style? What features are not? Are any modernist features present?
- To answer this, look at the ways the composer uses melody, harmony, rhythm, dynamics, texture, color (timbre), form, text setting, and so on
- What features of the work are unique or unusual?
- How does the work compare with other works in the listening assignment (especially those in the same genre)?
- For any operas, songs, and program works on the Listening List, what is the story? How does each composer use the music, voice(s), and orchestra to tell the story. Which was most important for each composer: music, voice, or orchestra? Consider specific musical elements where necessary, such as melody, accompaniment, tempo, texture, vocal or instrumental effects, and so on.
Additional Study Questions below will draw attention to especially interesting, unique features of particular works. These Study Questions, scores, and recordings together will help you prepare for the Early 20th Century Quiz. They require no written report.
Encounter 5 Listening List
As traditional tonality broke down in the early 20th century, different composers followed different paths, and a diverse range of new musical styles emerged—Impressionism, Expressionism, Twelve-Tone School, Primitivism, Neoclassicism, the New Nationalism, and American Modernism are the ones we will focus on. Before you listen, do the Burkholder readings above and create lists (for your own use, not to hand in !) that identify characteristic features for each style, each composer, and each work on the Exam Listening List. Challenge yourself to identify these features by ear as you listen to these works. The listening materials below will give you practice recognizing these styles, composers, works, genres, and their style features. As always, you really want to read the NAWM notes and follow the score for every work from NAWM.
A. Impressionism
A1) NAWM 172—Claude Debussy, Nocturnes
- No. 1: Nuages (symphonic poem)
-
Alternate Recording—Music of the 20th Century DVD (chapter 4)—RESERVE VIDEO 738.12 M987
- Alternate Recording—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Debussy, Nocturnes video
A2) NAWM 173—Maurice Ravel, Rapsodie espagnole (orchestral suite)
- Prélude à la nuit (prelude)
- Malagueña (malagueña)
A3) NAWM 179—Erik Satie, Embryons desséchés (Dessicated Embryos)
- No. 3. De Podophthalma: Un peu vif (character piece)
Study Questions on Group A:
- Debussy’s music often seems to live in the moment, following its own internal logic. In Nocturnes, what is unusual about the composer’s use of ternary form (ABA)? Is the return of the the first section literal? vague? clear? like a distant memory? What further insights into Debussy’s music do the readings from Weiss & Taruskin provide? Can you hear the sense of “pleasure” Debussy describes as his guiding principle?
- What features of this work point to the Spanish influence implied by Ravel’s title? Are there any similarities between Ravel’s rhapsody and Debussy’s Nuages? How does Ravel use tone color in this work? What role does the octatonic scale play in the first movement? How does Ravel create ambiguity?
- What features of Satie’s work fit uneasily in an Impressionist framework? What makes his music unique?
B. Expressionism
B1) NAWM 171—Richard Strauss, Salome, Op. 54 (opera)
- Scene 4, conclusion: Ah! Ich habe deinen Mund geküsst
- Alternate Recording—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Strauss, Salome video
B2) NAWM 180—Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (song cycle)
- a)
No. 8: Nacht (Night) (melodrama)
- a)
No. 13: Enthauptung (Decapitation) (melodrama)
-
NAWM 180b
- Alternate Recordings of both songs—Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire & Kammersymphonie CD—RESERVE MCD S365/21e—tracks 8 & 13
- Alternate Recordings of both songs—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire video
B3) NAWM 182—Alban Berg, Wozzeck, Op. 7 (opera)
- NAWM 182a—Act III, Scene 2 (Invention on a note)
- NAWM 182b—Act III, Scene 3 (Invention on a rhythm)
- Alternate Recordings of both scenes—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Berg, Wozzeck video
Study Questions on Group B:
- Expressionism (to paraphrase Burkholder) is a modernist style tht uses exaggeration and distortion to express personal feelings and emotional reactions, favoring highly emotional subjects that evoke terror, anguish, and even psychosis. Far from objective, Expressionism paints very personal (often near-hysterical), interior landscapes. Of all of the pre-WW1 revolutions, only Expressionism is truly atonal. Why did composers choose to write music like this?
- For Nacht from Pierrot lunaire: Read the poem first. How does Pierrot feel about these “gloomy, black moths”? What is the mood of this piece? How is that mood achieved? Does the music fit the text? What is the effect of Schoenberg’s Sprechstimme technique? Can you hear the “unifying motive” Burkholder identifies?
- Before you listen to Berg’s Wozzeck, read The Making of Wozzeck (Weiss & Taruskin). Bear in mind that Wozzeck is NOT a twelve-tone work, though it is clearly atonal and expressionistic. What was Berg’s motivation for writing Wozzeck? Is there a social message? How does Berg use the rhythmic motive in Scene 3? What is its effect?
C. Twelve-Tone School
C1) NAWM 181—Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Suite, Op. 25 (piano suite)
- a) Prelude—NAWM 181a
- b) Minuet and Trio—NAWM 181b
C2) NAWM 183—Anton Webern, Symphonie (symphony), Op. 21
- Mvmt. i: Ruhig schreitend (sonata form)
Study Questions on Group C:
- What insights into Schoenberg’s music are provided in the composer’s essay in Fisk?
- How do Schoenberg and Webern differ in their approach to the twelve-tone method?
D. Primitivism
D1) NAWM 184—Igor Stravinsky, Le sacre du printemps (ballet)
- Part I—Adoration of the Earth
- NAWM 184a—Les augures printaniers: Danses des adolescentes (The Augers of Spring: Dances of Young Girls)
- Part II—The Sacrifice
- NAWM 184b—Danse sacrale (Sacrificial Dance)
- Alternate Recording for these excerpts—Le sacre du printemps DVD (chapters 4 & 16)—RESERVE VIDEO 784.184 S912
- Alternate Recording for these excerpts—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Stravinsky, Rite of Spring video
Study Questions on Group D:
- With Rite of Spring Stravinsky created a work that is sui generis, a genre unto itself. After Debussy heard Rite of Spring, he wrote/said the following: “It is a special satisfaction to tell you how much you have enlarged the boundaries of the permissible in the empire of sound.” What did Debussy mean by this? What musical features make this piece unlike any other work we have heard so far in this course? Why did the first performance caused a riot?
- What insights do the Stravinsky readings from Weiss & Taruskin provide?
E. Neoclassicism, The New Nationalism, Music & Politics
Stravinsky
E1) Naxos—Stravinsky Conducts Symphony of Psalms album (Stravinsky & CBC Symphony)
- Igor Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms (choral symphony)
- Part I—track 1
- Alternate recording and translation: See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms
- Score available on Classical Scores Library database
E2) NAWM 185—Igor Stravinsky, Octet for Wind Instruments (octet)
-
Mvmt. i: Sinfonia (sonata form)
France—Les Six
E3) NAWM 194—Darius Milhaud, La Création du Monde (ballet)
- 1st Tableau excerpt (jazz fugue)
- Alternate Recording—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Milhaud, La Création du monde video
Germany
E4) NAWM 196—Paul Hindemith, Symphony Mathis der Maler (symphony)
E5) NAWM 195—Kurt Weill, Die Dreigroschenoper (opera)
- Prelude, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (ballad)
Hungary
E6) NAWM 187—Béla Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (symphonic suite)
-
Mvmt. iii: Adagio (arch form)
Russia
E7) Eisenstein: The Sound Years (Alexander Nevsky/Ivan the Terrible) DVD—VIDEO 947.03 E36
- Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky (film score, 1938)
- “Arise, Ye Russian People” (chorus)—DVD chapter 8, at 35:06
- Alternate recording—NAWM 197
- “The Battle on Ice”—DVD chapter 13, at 55:45
- Alternate recording—See Assignment Resources/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky
E8) NAWM 198—Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op. 47 (symphony)
- II. Allegretto (scherzo)
- Alternate Recording—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 video
Study Questions on Group E:
- Stravinsky describes his neoclassic ideals in the Octet article in Weiss & Taruskin. Which of those ideals can you find in Symphony of Psalms? What further insights into the music are provided by the excerpts from Dialogues and a Diary?
- What neoclassic features do you hear in the works of Stravinsky, Milhaud, Hindemith, Weill, Bartók, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich? What modernist features are present? Based on these examples, what are the important differences between French, German, Hungarian, and Russian neoclassicism?
- Look at Bartók, The Significance of Folk Music to Modern Music (Fisk), before listening to Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. If the two major compositional trends in the 20s were serialism and neoclassicism, does Bartók fit with one of these “schools” or does he propose yet another compositional approach? Whom does he use to justify the use of folk materials in “modern” works? And what is the relation between folk music and modernism, according to Bartók? Finally, can you hear the folk elements/techniques described in NAWM? What do they add to the music?
- In 1936 Stalin was in the audience for a performance of Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Shortly after, a scathing review appeared the Communist Party newspaper, Pravda (see Burkholder, p. 883). In danger of losing his favored status as the leading Soviet composer, Shostakovich had to make a positive impression with his next piece, Symphony No. 5, which was subtitled “a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism” (exactly who provided the subtitle is open to debate!). The Scherzo movement from that symphony is representative of the neoclassicism practiced in the Soviet Union under Stalin, but it also reflects the tension experienced by creative artists trying to balance artistic integrity with oppressive state censorship. Mstislav Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist and conductor and one of Shostakovich’s friends, spoke of a quality of bitter sarcasm in this symphony. Take a look at Burkholder’s NAWM notes (especially his explanation of the ironic touches in the Scherzo), A Composer on Trial (Weiss/Taruskin), Shostakovich’s brief essay on his Fifth Symphony (Fisk), and the review included in the textbook (Burkholder, p. 883). What insights do these readings provide?
F. African-American Traditions—Jazz Roots & Early Jazz
March
F1) NAWM 168 (NAWM Vol. 2)—John Philip Sousa, The Stars and Stripes Forever (march)
Ragtime
F2) NAWM 169—Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag (piano rag)
- NAWM 169a—Piano roll performance by Scott Joplin
- Alternate Recording—Maple Leaf Rag on player piano, piano roll recorded by Scott Joplin
Blues
F3) NAWM 191—Bessie Smith, Back Water Blues (blues song)
- Performed by Bessie Smith and James P. Johnson (rec. 1927)
Early Jazz
F4) NAWM 192—King Oliver, West End Blues (blues)
- Performed by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (rec. 1928)
Study Questions on Group F:
- Originating at the tail end of the 1800s, ragtime reached the peak of its popularity in about 1910-1915, when countless popular songs employed raggy rhythms and used the word rag in their titles. Based on your readings and listening, what are the typical features of ragtime and rag rhythms? What similarities do you hear between the music of Sousa and Joplin? What do Martin Williams’s comments in the SCCJ booklet add to your understanding of Joplin’s music?
- What features of Louis Armstrong’s work are typical of New Orleans jazz? Can you hear examples of collective improvisation here? What makes Louis Armstrong’s playing so different from the other musicians on these tracks? What do Martin Williams’s comments in the SCCJ booklet add to your understanding of West End Blues? What similarities and differences do you hear between Bessie Smith’s and Louis Armstrong’s treatment of the blues?
G. New Traditions & American Modernism
The United States—Radical Modernism
G1) Naxos—Charles Ives - Three Places in New England album (Tilson Thomas & Boston Symphony Orchestra)
- Charles Ives, Orchestral Set No. 1 - Three Places in New England (orchestral set)
- Mvmt. ii: Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut (symphonic poem)—track 2
- Mvmt. iii: The Housatonic at Stockbridge (symphonic poem)—track 3
- Alternate Recording for these two movements—Ives, They Are There! CD—RESERVE MCD I95t—tracks 3 & 4
- Alternate Recordings for these two movements—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Ives Putnam’s Camp & Ives Housatonic at Stockbridge
- For Ives’ program for these movements see Assignment Resources/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Ives Three Places in New England program notes
G2) NAWM 188—Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question (symphonic poem)
- Alternate Recording—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Ives, The Unanswered Question video
G3) NAWM 189—Charles Ives, Piano Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass. 1840-60” (piano sonata)
- Mvmt. 3: The Alcotts (cumulative form)
- Alternate Recordings—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Ives Alcotts
G4) NAWM 200—Edgard Varèse, Hyperprism (large chamber work)
G5) NAWM 201—Henry Cowell, The Banshee (character piece?)
G6a) Naxos—Ruth Crawford Seeger - Portrait album (Knussen & Schönberg Ensemble)
- Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931 (string quartet)
- Mvmt. iii: Andante—track 12
- Score—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Seeger String Quartet
G6b) NAWM 202—Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931 (string quartet)
- Mvmt. iv: Allegro possibile
The United States—Neoclassicism & the New Nationalism
G7) Of Mice and Men DVD—VIDEO 813.52 S819o
- Aaron Copland, Of Mice and Men (film score, 1939)
- “Lennie fights back”—DVD chapter 15
- “The dream is over”—DVD chapter 23
- Alternate Recording of these excerpts—See Assignment Resources module/Encounter Listening/Encounter 5/Copland Of Mice and Men
G8) NAWM 203—Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (ballet suite)
- Sub. Allegro & Variations on ’Tis the Gift fo Be Simple
G9) NAWM 204—William Grant Still, Afro-American Symphony (symphony)
- Mvmt. i: Moderato assai (sonata form)
Latin America—Neoclassicism & the New Nationalism
G10) NAWM 199—Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (suite)
- No. 1: Aria (Cantilena) (vocalise and song)
Study Questions on Group G:
- What modernist features do you hear in these works? Which composers are most modernist? Which ones are most traditional?
- What role does memory and quotation play in Ives’s music? What insights do Ives’s comments provide (on pp. 425-26 of Weiss & Taruskin)?
- For the movement from Three Places in New England, read the program first. Does this music express what the program describes? Especially toward the end, is the confusion and dissonance explained by the program in any way? Do you hear any influence of the American hymn tradition? Does the music bear any relation to the form of a hymn?
- For The Alcotts movement of Ives’s Concord Sonata, read the excerpt from Essays before a Sonata first. How does this essay relate to the music?
- How do you explain the frequent 1920s performances of Varèse’s works by top-rank ensembles like the Philadelphia Orchestra? Do you hear any evidence here of his fascination with the sounds of the big city? What does Varèse borrow from Stravinsky?
- What is a banshee? In what ways does Cowell’s music depict a banshee?
- The string quartet movements by Ruth Crawford Seeger contain none of the political references that dominate her later music, and they cannot be considered nationalist music in any sense. In this early phase of her career, her music steers a modernist course that incorporates influences from Skryabin, the neoclassicists, and the twelve-tone school, yet it remains individual. What features sound neoclassical, if any? What features remind you of the Twelve-Tone School, if any? Does this music strike you as tonal or atonal? How does her concept of a “melody of dynamics” work in mvmt. iii? How does the quasi-serialism and palindrome work in mvmt. iv? What insights does her Credo provide (in Fisk)?
- Concerning Appalachian Spring, musicologist Robert Morgan says, “Caught up in the general climate of social consciousness, he [Copland] began to consider his music in relationship to a larger and more diversified audience.” Also take a look at Copland’s article in Music and the Social Conscience (Weiss & Taruskin) where he said he wanted “to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.” So how might this music be viewed as accessible to a wider audience? How do Copland’s ideas compare with those expressed by Shostakovich & Pravda above? Does his use of an American folk tune fit with Bartók’s aesthetic regarding the use of folk music (see above)? Finally, what elements make this music neoclassical? What elements make it nationalist?
- “Third Stream” was a term invented in the 1950s by Gunther Schuller to describe music that fuses jazz and classical music. A number of composers, arrangers, and performers on both sides of the classical/jazz fence created music in this idiom, especially in the 1950s when jazz came to be regarded as an almost respectable art form (why then?). William Grant Still was a serious black composer associated with the Harlem Renaissance (and an arranger for Paul Whiteman!) who sought to reflect his heritage in his music long before 1950. How did he do that? Why does Burkholder say that Mr. Still “incorporated specifically American idioms” into this symphony? What insights do the the Still RESERVE reading (from Fisk) provide? Which musical elements sound classical? Which elements sound jazzy or bluesy?
- Which features of the works by Villa-Lobos and Revueltas sound neoclassical? Which features sound nationalistic? Do you hear any features that sound specifically Brazilian or Mexican, respectively? What do these works depict?
|