UNIT I : MUSIC

Lesson 2 – Week 2
AVANT GARDE
❖ closely associated with electronic music, the avant garde movement dealt with the
parameters or the dimensions of sound in space
❖ The avant garde style exhibited a new attitude toward musical mobility, whereby the order
of note groups could be varied so that musical continuity could be altered.
❖ Improvisation was necessarily followed as written

GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)

Born in New York to Russian Jewish immigrant

❖ His older brother Ira was his first artistic collaborator who wrote the lyrics of his songs.
❖ His first song was written in 1916 and his first Broadway musical
“La La Lucille in 1919”
❖ From that time on, Gershwin name became a fixture on Broadway.
❖ His musical compositions total 369 w/c include orchestral music, chamber music, musical
theatre, film musical, operas, and songs
❖ He died in Hollywood, California on July 11, 1937
✓ Other compositions includes the following:
• Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and American in Paris (1928) – w/c incorporated jazz rhythms with classical
forms.
• Porgy and Bess (1934) – remains to this day the only American opera

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918 – 1990)

Born in Massachusetts, USA.

❖ His philosophy was that the universal language of music is basically rooted in tonality.
❖ He turned to conducting and lecturing in order to safeguard his principles as to what he
believed was best in music.
❖He achieved preeminence in two fields: conducting and composing for Broadway musicals
dance, shows, and concert music.
❖He is best known for his compositions for the stage.
❖He is fondly remembered for his television series “Young People’s Concerts” (1958 – 1973)

 Bernstein’s compositions:
 Westside Story (1957) – a Broadway musical
 Romeo and Juliet, an American adaptation which displays a tuneful,
off-beat, and highly atonal approach
 Candide (1956) another Broadway musical
 PHILIP GLASS (Born 1937), New York, USA

❖He is an avant-garde composer.

❖A successful commercial minimalist composer.
❖His distinctive style involves cell-like phrase emanating from bright electronic sound from
the keyboard that progressed very slowly from one pattern to the next in a very repetitious .
fashion

 His works include:

 Philip Glass Ensemble
 Music in Similar Motion (1969)
 Music in Changing Parts (1970)
 Einstein on the Beach (1976), a four-hour opera collaboration with
theater conceptualist Robert Wilson
 Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1984) a trilogy based on the lives of
Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King and an Egyptian
pharaoh

(New Musical Styles)

MODERN NATIONALISM
A looser form of 20th century music development focused on nationalistic composers and musical innovators who
sought to combine modern techniques with folk materials. However, this common ground stopped there, for the
different breeds of nationalists formed their own styles of writing. In Eastern Europe, prominent figures of this style
included the Hungarian Bela Bartok, and the Russian Sergei Prokofieff, who were neo-classicists to a certain extent.
Bartok infused Classical techniques into his own brand of cross rhythms and shifting meters to demonstrate many
barbaric and primitive themes that were Hungarian – particularly gypsy – in origin. Prokofieff used striking
dissonances and Russian themes and his music was generally witty, bold, and at times colored with humor. French
composer and pianist Erik Satie was a colorful figure in early 20th century music, specifically avant-garde and
modern nationalism.
 THE “RUSSIAN FIVE”

1. Modest Mussorgsky

A Russian composer, an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic Period. Many of his works were
inspire by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other national theme. Such works include the opera
Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an
Exhibition.

2. Mili Balakirev

A Russian composer, pianist, and conductor known today primarily for his work promoting musical
nationalism and his encouragement of more famous Russian composers, notably Peter Tchaikovsky.
Balakirev developed musical Patterns that could express overt nationalistic feeling.

3. Alexander Borodin

A Russian chemist and Romantic musical composer. He was one of the prominent 19th century
composers known as “The Mighty Handful”, a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of
classical music rather than imitating earlier Western European models. Borodin is known best for his
symphonies, his two strings quartet, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera
Prince Igor.
4. Cesar Cui

A Russian composer and music critic, one of the members of the Russian Five a group of composers
combined by the idea of creating a specifically Russian type of music. He was also an officer of the
imperial Russian Army and rose to the rank of Engineer-General (equivalent to full general)

5. Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov

A Russian composer and a member of the “Russian Five”. He was a master of orchestration. His best-
known orchestral compositions – Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the
symphonic suite Scheherazade – are staples of the classical music repertoire.

Electronic Music

Electronic Music is music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, and
circuitry-based music technology. The capacity of electronic machines such as synthesizers,
amplifiers, tape recorders and loudspeakers to create different sounds was put to creative use by 20th
century composers like Edgar Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

EDGARD VARESE (1883-1965)

Edgard (also spelled Edgar) Varese was born on December 22, 1883. He was considered an
“innovative French-born composer.” However, he spent the greater part of his life and career in the
United States, where he pioneered and created new sounds that bordered between music and noise.

Varese’s musical compositions are characterized by an emphasis on timbre and rhythm. He invented
the term “organized sound,” which means that certain timbres and rhythms can be grouped together in
order to capture a whole new definition of sound.
Varese’s use of new instruments and electronic resources earned him the title “Father of Electronic
Music.”

Varese’s works include:

Un Grand Sommeil Noir, song to a text
Ameriques for large orchestra (1918-1921)
Offrandesfor soprano and chamber orchestra
Hyperprism for wind and percussion (1922-1923)
Arcana for large orchestra (1925-1927)
Poem Electronique for electronic tape (1957-1958)

KARLHEINZ STOCHAUSEN (born 1928)

Karlheinz Stockhausen is a central figure in the realm of electronic music. Born in
Cologne, Germany, he had the opportunity to meet Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg, and
Anton Webern, the principal innovators at the time. He drew inspiration from these composers
as he developed his style of total serialism. Stockhausen’s music was initially met with
resistance due to its heavily atonal content with practically no clear melodic or rhythmic sense.
Still, he continued to experiment with musique concrete.

Some of his works include:

Gruppen (1957), a piece of three orchestra that moved music through time and space
Kontakte (1960), a work that that pushed the tape machine to its limits
Hymnen (1965), an ambitious two-hour work of 40 juxtaposed songs and anthem
Licht (Light) (1977), a seven-part opera (one for each day of the week) for a gigantic ensemble
of solo voices, solo instruments, solo dancers, choirs, orchestras, mimes, and electronics.
 (New Musical Styles)

Chance Music

Chance music refers to a style in which the piece sounds different at every performance
because of the random techniques of production, including the use of ring modulators or natural
elements that become a part of the music. Most of the sounds emanate from the surroundings, both
natural and man-made such as honking cars, rustling leaves, blowing wind, dripping water, or a ringing
phone. As such, the combination of external sounds cannot be duplicated as each happens by chance.

JOHN CAGE (1912-1992)

John Cage was known as one of the 20th century composers with the widest array of sounds in
his works. He was born in Los Angeles, California, USA on September 5, 1912, and became one of the
most original composers in the history of Western music. He challenged the very idea of music by
manipulating musical instruments to achieve new sounds. He experimented with what came to be
known as “chance music.”
In one instance, Cage created a “prepared” piano, where screws and pieces of wood or paper were
inserted between the piano strings to produce different percussive possibilities. The prepared piano
style found its way into Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes (1946-1948). Cage was considered more of a
philosopher than a composer.

John Cage’s works include:

Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds (4’33”), a chance musical work that instructed the
pianist to merely opens the piano lid and keeps silent for the length of times indicated by
the title. Amidst the seeming silence, the audience hears a variety of noise inside and
outside the concert hall. Cage became famous for this composition.
Sonatas and Interludes (1946-1948) a cycle of pieces containing a wide range of sounds,
rhythmic themes and hypnotic quality
Music of Changes (1951), written for conventional piano that employed chance compositional
processes