Listening Assignment 5
Early Twentieth Century
For the listening portion of the Early 20th Century Quiz, I will play excerpts
from Early 20th Century Quiz
Listening List. For each excerpt you will identify:
-
Composer, title, & section
- Genre—ballet? choral symphony? opera? sonata? song cycle? string quartet? suite?
symphonic poem? symphony?
-
Style (Impressionism, Primitivism, Expressionism, American Modernism, Twelve-Tone School,
Neoclassicism, “New” Nationalism)
-
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.)
-
Answer further questions drawn from Study Questions for this encounter
-
For any work with words, dance, or a program, this is the place I might about the “dramatic
situation”!
Before you listen, use Encounter 5 readings to create lists
that identify characteristic features for each style, each
composer, and each work on the Quiz Listening List.
Use these lists to help you identify these style features by ear while you listen. NOTE: These are for your own use, not to hand in!
Each cluster of
works listed below
is accompanied by
a set of Study Questions.
The Study Questions
and recordings together will halp you prepare for the Early 20th Century Quiz. They require
no written report. As always,
you really want
to read the NAWM notes and follow
the score for every work from NAWM.
Encounter 5 Listening List
Impressionism
A) Music of the 20th Century
DVD—RESERVE VIDEO 738.12 M987
-
Claude Debussy, Nocturnes
- No. 1: Nuages (symphonic poem)—DVD track 4
-
Alternate Recording: NAWM 156—CD12, tracks 9-16
- Follow the NAWM 156 score as you listen to Nuages!
B) NAWM 159—Erik Satie, Embryons desséchés (Dessicated
Embryos)
- No. 3. De Podophthalma: Un peu vif (character piece) —CD12, track 31
Study Questions on A-B:
- 1. What features make A a good example of Impressionism?
- 2. Debussy’s music often seems to live in the moment, following its own internal
logic. As you listen to the first movement of Debussy’s Nocturnes, can you easily
follow its ternary structure (ABA)? How does Debussy treat the return of
the the first section? Is it literal? vague? clear? like a distant memory? Explain. How does
this nocturne differ from the Chopin nocturne in Encounter 3?
-
3. The titles for A and B suggests at least vague programs
for this music. What do you think these works express?
-
4. Do the Debussy readings from Weiss & Taruskin help you understand his music better?
How? Can you hear the sense of “pleasure” Debussy describes as his guiding principle?
Expressionism
C) Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (song cycle)
- a)
No. 8: Nacht (Night) (melodrama)
-
NAWM 160a—CD12, tracks 32-34
-
Alternate Recording—Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire & Kammersymphonie CD—RESERVE MCD S365/21e—track 8
D) NAWM 162—Alban Berg, Wozzeck, Op. 7 (opera)
- Act III, Scene 3—CD11, tracks 12-14
Study Questions on C-D:
- 5. Expressionism (to paraphrase Burkholder)
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.
- What Expressionist features do you hear in Pierrot lunaire?
- What is the effect of the Sprechstimme Schoenberg uses in these works?
- Do you think Schoenberg captures the poetry’s irony in this music?
- Which do you think plays the bigger role in the poetry of Pierrot lunaire:
irony, satire, or hard-core Expressionism? Why?
- Is there room for irony and satire in Expressionism?
- 6. Of
all of the pre-WW1 revolutions, only Expressionism is truly atonal.
How do you respond to atonality, to the lack of a tonal center? Is there
anything you can find to enjoy in this music, or does it turn you off completely?
Why would composers choose to write music like this?
- 7. For Nacht from Pierrot lunaire: Read the poem first. How does Pierrot
feel about these “gloomy, black moths”? Can you hear the “unifying
motive” (that Burkholder identifies)? What is
the mood of this piece? HOW is that mood achieved? Does the music fit the text?
- 8. 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? Okay,
having experienced portions of this opera (in class scenes and the NAWM excerpt), how do
you feel about this opera? What about the forms? The compositional coherence? The social
message (is there a social message?)? Can you follow the statements of the rhythmic motive
in the NAWM scene? What effect do they have in this scene?
Twelve-Tone School
E) NAWM 161—Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Suite, Op. 25 (suite)
- a) Prelude—CD11, track 8
- b) Minuet and Trio—CD11, tracks 9-11
F) NAWM 163—Anton Webern, Symphonie (symphony),
Op. 21
- Mvmt. i: Ruhig schreitend—CD11, tracks 15-18
Study Questions on E-F:
- 9. Do you hear Schoenberg’s music differently after reading his essay in Fisk?
Why or why not? What’s required to listen to this music? Analysis? Repeated listenings?
An emotional connection? Nothing? How do you listen to this music?
- 10. As you listen to Webern’s Symphonie, how does his music compare with
Schoenberg’s? with Berg’s? Whose music is more “expressive”? Can
you hear the canons in this work? the sonata form? Why or why not?
Primitivism
G) Igor Stravinsky, Le sacre du printemps DVD—RESERVE
VIDEO 784.184 S912
- Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (ballet)
- Part I—Adoration of the Earth
- Les augures printaniers: Danses des adolescentes (The Augers of Spring:
Dances of Young Girls)—DVD track 4
- Part II—The Sacrifice
- Danse sacrale (Sacrificial Dance)—DVD track 16
- Alternate Recording: Stravinsky, Rite of Spring CD
(RESERVE MCD S912/004j)—CD track 14
- Follow the NAWM 164 score as you listen to these excerpts!
Study Questions on G:
- 11. With Rite of Spring Stravinsky created a work that is sui generis,
a genre unto itself. What musical features make this piece unlike any other work we have
heard so far in this course? What features make this a good example of fauvisme (or
primitivism)? Why do you think the first performance caused a riot?
- 12. 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.” (a great quote!!) What do you hear in this work
that explains why Debussy said this?
- 13. Do the Stravinsky readings from Weiss & Taruskin help you understand Rite
of Spring better? How?
Neoclassicism, The New Nationalism, Music & Politics
Stravinsky
H) NAWM 165—Igor Stravinsky, Symphony
of Psalms (choral symphony)
-
Mvmt. I—CD12, tracks 59-63
France—Les Six
I) NAWM 173—Darius Milhaud, La Création du Monde (ballet)
- 1st Tableau excerpt (jazz fugue)—CD13, tracks 7-9
Germany
J) NAWM 174—Paul Hindemith, Symphony Mathis der Maler (symphony)
- II. Grablegung—CD13, tracks 10-13
Hungary
K) NAWM 167—Béla Bartók, Music
for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (symphonic suite)
-
Mvmt. iii: Adagio—CD12, tracks 66-71
Russia
L) NAWM 175—Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky (cantata—film score)
- IV. Arise, Ye Russian People (chorus)—CD13, tracks 14-16
M) NAWM 176—Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony
No. 5, Op. 47 (symphony)
- II. Allegretto (scherzo)—CD13, tracks 17-24
Study Questions on H-M:
- 14. What is neoclassic about Symphony of Psalms, according to Stravinsky’s
neoclassic ideals (see Octet article in Weiss/Taruskin)? Is there any emotion happening?
Any examples of text painting? Do the excerpts from Dialogues
and a Diary help
you understand this music better? Explain.
- 15. What neoclassic features do you hear in the works of Milhaud, Hindemith, and Prokofiev.
Based on these examples, what are the important differences between French, German, and
Russian neoclassicism?
- 16. 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 seem to fit with one of these “schools” or
does he seem to be proposing yet ANOTHER compositional approach? Whom does
he use to justify the use of folk materials in “modern” works? Anything
weird about that? And what is the relation between folk music and modernism,
according to Bartók? Finally, can you hear the folk elements/techniques
that the NAWM commentary discusses? What strikes you most about this movement?
- 17. In 1936 Stalin was in the audience for a performance of Shostakovich’s
opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Shortly thereafter
a scathing review appeared the Communist Party newspaper, Pravda (see
Burkholder, p. 891). 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 often oppressive
state censorship. What elements of this Scherzo sound neoclassical? 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. 891). Do these readings change
the way you listen to this music? What do you think
Shostakovich is trying to express in this music?
Jazz Roots & Jazz
March
N) NAWM 154—John Philip Sousa, The Stars and Stripes
Forever (march)—CD11, tracks 70-74
Ragtime
O) NAWM 155—Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag (piano
rag)
- Piano roll performance by Scott Joplin—CD12, tracks 1-4
Blues
P) NAWM 170—Bessie Smith, Back Water Blues (blues
song)
- Performed by Bessie Smith and James P. Johnson (rec. 1927)—CD12, track 82
Early Jazz
Q) NAWM 171—King Oliver, West End
Blues (blues)
- Performed by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (rec. 1928)—CD12, tracks 83-87
Swing
R) NAWM 172—Duke Ellington, Cotton
Tail (big band jazz composition—contrafact)
- Performed by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra (rec. 1940)—CD13, tracks 1-6
Study Questions on N-R:
- 18. Stars and Stripes Forever is now so iconic that it’s difficult to
appreciate the freshness and vitality Sousa’s music once possessed. What musical
features make this an effective march? How would you describe the form of Stars and
Stripes?
- 19. 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 rag rhythms? How would you describe the form of Maple Leaf Rag?
Do you hear any similarities between the music of Sousa and Joplin? Explain.
- 20. What musical features make this Bessie Smith work a good
examples of early blues (not just the form!)? What features do these examples
share? How do they differ? What factors contribute most to these
differences? Audience? Performing style? How do you explain it?
- 21.
What features of Louis Armstrong’s work are typical of New Orleans
jazz? What form does this work use? Can you hear examples of collective improvisation here?
What
makes Louis Armstrong’s
playing so different from the other musicians on these tracks?
- 22. What musical features
make the Ellington work a good example of big band swing? What form does this
work use? Can you follow the Rhythm changes in Cotton Tail?
What is the relationship between this work and Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm? How does Ellington’s
music break away from the typical swing era formulas?
New Traditions & American Experimentalism
S) The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives CD—MCD
I95om
- Charles Ives, Three Places in New England (orchestral set)
- Mvmt. ii: Putnam’s Camp (symphonic poem?)—track 14
- Alternate Recording—Ives, They Are There! CD—RESERVE
MCD I95t—track 3
- Alternate Recording—See Assignments module/Encounter
Listening/Encounter 5/Ives Housatonic
- (For Ives’ program for this movement see Assignments: Support
Materials: Encounter 5 Stuff)
T) Development of Western Music Anthology, Vol. II
(DWMA)—MCD D489 1998
- DWMA 175—Charles Ives, Piano Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass. 1840-60” (piano sonata)
- Mvmt. 3: The Alcotts—CD5, track 11
- Alternate Recording—See Assignments module/Encounter
Listening/Encounter 5/Ives Alcotts
The United States
U) NAWM 178—Edgard Varèse, Hyperprism (large chamber ensemble work)—CD13,
tracks 34-37
V) NAWM 179—Henry Cowell, The Banshee (character piece?)—CD13,
track 38
W) Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931 (string quartet)
- Mvmt. iii: Andante—Blackboard RESERVE
- See Blackboard Assignments module/Encounter Listening/Encounter
6/Seeger String Quartet
- Mvmt. iv: Allegro possibile—NAWM 180, CD13, tracks 39-41
X) NAWM 181—Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (ballet
suite)
- Part 5: sub. Allegro—CD11, tracks 86-90
- Part 6: Variations on ’Tis the Gift fo Be Simple—CD11, tracks 91-95
Y) NAWM 182—William Grant Still, Afro-American Symphony (symphony)
- Mvmt. i: Moderato assai—CD12, tracks 1-7
Z) NAWM 177—Silvestre Revueltas, Sensemayá—CD13,
tracks 25-33
Study Questions on S-Z:
- 23. What modernist features do you
hear in Ives’s music? What role does memory and quotation play here? How do Ives’s
comments on pp. 425-26 of Weiss & Taruskin affect your understanding of this music?
Could this music have been written anywhere besides the United States? Why or why not?
- 24. For the movement from Three Places in New England, read the program first. Does
this music express what the program describes? Is the confusion and dissonance of the climax
explained by the program in any way? Do you hear
any influence of Sousa or Joplin? Does the music bear any relation to a march? How would
you explain your answers. How do you listen to a work like this??
- 25. 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?
- 26. What modernist features do you hear in the music of Varèse? How do you explain
the frequent performances his works received in the 1920s 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?
- 27. What modernist features do you hear in the music of Cowell? What is a banshee? In
what ways does the music depict a banshee? How do you feel about this music?
- 28. 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.” And 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 (get specific)?
How do Copland’s ideas compare with those expressed by Shostakovich & Pravda above?
Does his use of a real American folk tune seem to fit with Bartók’s aesthetic
regarding the use of folk music (see above)? What do you think—was this a compositional
copout? Do you like the result? Finally, what elements make this music neoclassical? What
elements make it nationalist?
- 29. The string quartet movements by 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 remains individual. What features sound neoclassical, if any? What features remind
you of the Twelve-Tone School, if any? Does this work strike you as tonal or atonal? Do
you think she’s successful in creating a “melody of dynamics” in mvmt.
3? How do you respond to the quasi-serialism and the palindrome in mvmt. 4? How does her Credo (Fisk)
help you understand her music better?
- 30. “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 (and an arranger for Paul Whiteman!) who
sought to reflect his heritage in his music long before 1950. How did he do that? What
made Burkholder say that Mr. Still “incorporated specifically American idioms” into
this symphony? How does the Still RESERVE reading (from Fisk) help you understand this
music better? Which
musical elements sound classical? Which elements sound jazzy or bluesy?
- 31. Which features of the work by Revueltas sound neoclassical? Which sound primitivist?
Which sound Mexican? Which reflect the influence of Stravinsky? (Which specific work by
Stravinsky?) What does the music depict?
|