- •Music in the Modern World western music of the twentieth century (general survey)
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Additional Assignments
- •Some twentieth-century composers arnold schoenberg (1874-1951)
- •The composer speaks: arnold schoenberg
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Bela bartok (1881-1945)
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Bartok
- •Discussion Points
- •Paul hindemith: his life and work (1895-1963)
- •The composer speaks: paul hindemith
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Electronic music
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Stravinsky
- •Additional Assignments
- •Britten's operas
- •The composer speaks: benjamin broten
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Britten
- •Additional Assignments
- •Menotti. The opera composer
- •The composer speaks: gian carlo menotti
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Michael tippett: a child of our time
- •30 Questions on the Text
- •Experimental (avant-garde) music
- •Olivier messiaen
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Additional Assignments
- •George ligeti (b. 1923)
- •Karlheinz stockhausen
- •35 Discussion Activities Questions on the Text about Ligeti
- •About Stockhausen and Experimental Composers
- •Questions about Western Music of the 20th Century
- •Points for Discussion and Written Compositions
- •Popular music rock
- •Points about rock
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Elvis presley - story of a superstar
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The beatles
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •English and American Musical History english music (general survey)
- •1. Opera.
- •2. Performing groups.
- •3. Festivals.
- •4. Education.
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •The golden age in england
- •The english virginal school
- •Virginal music composers. William Byrd (1542-1623)
- •Byrd in his time and ours
- •English madrigalists
- •"The british orpheus"
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •56 American music (general survey)
- •61 Charles ives, the first truly american composer (1874-1954)
- •Charles ives and american folk music
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The relation of jazz to american music
- •Louis armstrong
- •The swing era (duke ellington)
- •Spirituals
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The Art of Musical Interpretation the problem of interpretation
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Conducting
- •The art of conducting
- •Questions on the Text
- •Some musical encounters
- •Questions on the Text
- •86 Leonard bernstein
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Herbert von karajan
- •Interview with herbert von karajan
- •The art of piano playing: glenn gould
- •Interview with glenn gould
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The art of violin playing: eugene ysaye
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The world of opera handel in performance
- •Franco zeffirelli: the romantic realist
- •La divina: maria callas
- •Callas remembered
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Peter pears: ronald crichton speaks
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Notes Page 5
- •Page 21
- •Page 31
- •Page 32
- •Page 34
- •Page 35
- •Page 37
- •Page 39
- •Page 46
- •Page 47
- •Page 48
- •Page 49
- •Page 52
- •Page 53
- •Page 54
- •Page 57
- •Page 58
- •Page 59
- •Page 60
- •Page 61
- •Page 62
- •Page 63
- •Page 65
- •Page 66
- •Page 111
- •Page 112
- •Sources
- •Contents
30 Questions on the Text
1. Name the most important compositions by Tippett.
2. Discuss Tippett's treatment of musical tradition.
3. When was the oratorio A Child of Our Time written? When was it first' performed?
4. What are the literary and philosophical sources of the libretto?
5. What message does the oratorio convey?
6. Briefly outline the plot of the oratorio.
7. Find in the text the passage which describes the resemblance between Tippett's oratorio and Bach's Passions. What features are characteristic of Tippett's style?
8. Make a summary of the texts and use it to reproduce the main points orally.
Experimental (avant-garde) music
Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky opened up certain pathways to modern music. Although we have discovered that each had important connections to the European notated tradition, their musical languages represented a distinct break with long-established practices. Their music exemplified the single most important trait of modernism: Anything is possible. No tradition is sacred; it is the composer (or artist, or writer) who makes his or her own rules. As trailblazers,* they may be considered first-generation moderns (although both Stravinsky and Schoenberg continued to compose and influence the musical culture for some time). But what happens with the second and third generations, for whom the music of Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg represents the traditional? It is in these composers' works that the full impact of modernism is felt. We will consider three later moderns - Messiaen, Ligeti, and Stockhausen - chosen from a field of many possibilities.
From: Music: A Living Language by T. Manoff
Olivier messiaen
Messiaen (b. 1908) à French composer, organist, and teacher, was born into a literary family: his father was a professor of literature and translator of Shakespeare, and his mother a poet, Cécile Sauvage. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Dukas* (composition) and Dupré* (organ) and himself became a teacher at the Ecole Normale de Musique and the Schola Cantorum. Since 1931 he has been organist at La Trinité, Paris. In 1936 with Baudrier,* Lesur* and Jolivet* he formed the group known as La Jeune France.* In 1940 he was imprisoned by the Nazis (his Quartet for the End of Time reflects his period in a concentration camp) but he was subsequently repatriated and in 1942 he became a teacher of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire (later he taught analysis and composition). His pupils have included Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Goehr. Though his musical roots seem to lie in César Franck
31
and to some extent in Berlioz, Messiaen is one of the most original of modern composers, and one of the most influential. His musical language makes use of diverse but (in his case) surprisingly compatible sound sources - birdsong, Indian music, plainsong, the timbres of oriental percussion, Franckian harmony, Bartokian night-music - which he employs to immensely spacious and powerful effects. A lifelong Catholic, he uses nature (birds, mountains, etc.) as symbols of divinity in works such as Oiseaux exotiques* (1956) for piano and wind instruments, the vast Catalogue d'oiseaux* (1956-58) for piano and Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorem (1964) for woodwind, brass and percussion - a work designed to be performed in the open air, on mountain slopes, where its great gong-strokes and silences would surely find the surroundings they deserve. Messiaen gave a new dimension of colour and intensity to organ music, making special use of acoustic reverberations and contrasts of timbres. His harmony, rich and chromatic, derives from Debussy's use of the 7ths and 9ths and modal progressions of chords.* In his orchestral works he makes use of the ondes Martenot* in the vast Turangalila-symphonie* and exotic percussion instruments, giving an oriental effect. Birdsong is also a major feature of his music. His treatment of rhythm is novel, involving irregular metres, some of them originating in ancient Greek procedures.
From: Collins Encyclopedia of Music; The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music