How did each deal with the past in music?
Taruskin states, “Modernism is not just a condition but a commitment (Taruskin, 1).” This commitment to modernism is what each composer is bringing with them as we are “observing a symbiotic process of highly self-conscious technical innovation and expanded technical resources over the whole course of the nineteenth century (Taruskin, 2).” Richard Strauss, an innovative German Romantic composer and conductor, to many historians can receive such a label as the heir of Richard Wagner. Born into a musical family, father being a principal horn player with the Munich Court Orchestra, his compositional influences find root in Wagner’s opera’s and Liszt’s symphonic poems. Similar to Strauss, the French
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Stravinsky’s “Right of Spring” is such an example. The harmony in The Rite of Spring is a direct continuation of “Petrouchka.” “Petrouchka” appearing on the musical scene in 1911, and its prevailing musical language ran from an "impressionist haziness to the boisterousness of the post-Wagnerian symphony a la Strauss.” Against this background, "unleashing of the crude, spiky, and the incisive sonorities we find in Petrushka was bound to appear startlingly revolutionary" (Vlad,1978, p.18). One of the most immediately striking features of Petrouchka is the use of the piano; not as a featured soloist but as an integral part of the orchestral sound; which imparts a distinctive flavour to the ensemble (Austin, 1966, p.251). The Russian Dance which features a toccata-like character is dominated by the percussion instruments and the "percussive intonations of the piano" …show more content…
Taruskin elaborates, “Strauss’s music raised eyebrows even higher than the play (Salome), both for the obvious ways in which it intensified the play’s challenge to conventional morality, and for the novelty of its technical procedures (Taruskin, 37).” Embracing nontraditional scales and tonal structures, Claude Debussy comments, in Taruskin, “There is no theory. You merely have to listen. Pleasure is the law (Taruksin, 356).” Was it the nontraditional scales and tonal structures that brought that Debussy was referring? Is there no theory to his nontraditional scales? Or, was Debussy merely focusing on pleasure rather than the theory behind his compositions? Perhaps it was, in his later works, incorporating the elements of the gamelan into his existing style to produce a wholly new kind of sound that he was referring. Maurice Rave, according to Taruskin, “Ravel was not a major essayist… (Taruskin, 86).” But Ravel’s “main thesis is that all great works are shaped by two types of influence – the national and the individual (Taruskin,
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
middle of paper ... ... However, the genius executes not without purpose, “despite the discontinuity, the three elements are thematically linked” with the linked element of descending contours in the first two themes and a neighbour figure being shared between the first and third themes (see example 2) (“The Four Symphonies” 129). Brahms implementing development not only on large scales, but also through well-executed fragmentation while still maintaining unity, reaffirms Schoenberg’s view of his astounding grasp on development. Brahms’ subtly transitions to a progressive romanticist by the virtue of expanding and projecting his own characterized style into the musical world.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven are very famous past composers that have created many pieces that have influenced not just people of their time, but people in modern times as well.
The dynamic levels at the beginning were in piano, but it did not stay that way, there were changes in the sound there were crescendos and decrescendos but mostly toward the end. The harmony was very polyphonic it had many sounds play at one and the texture was also thick it had many layers of sounds because of the number of instruments and the variety of instruments playing simultaneously. The instruments played in this composition were strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion like, cello, flute, French horn, and timpani and they for the tone color the instruments did have a high pitch range. The form for this was theme and variation because he had a theme and variation he took the melody and used it over and over and over again by changing different elements. Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 16 rhythm was a medium walking pace and the steady beat was recognizable. For dynamics, the composition started off mezzo and had changed where it was forte and had crescendos. The melody seemed to be in minor scale
Fay, Laurel E. ‘Shostakovich vs. Volkov: whose Testimony?’ The Russian Review (October 1980), pp. 484-93.
Some of the most well known composers came to be in the in the classical music period. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the composers, along with other greats of the time like Haydn and Mozart, which helped to create a new type of music. This new music had full rich sounds created by the new construction of the symphony orchestra.
Classical music can be best summed by Mr. Dan Romano who said, “Music is the hardest kind of art. It doesn't hang up on a wall and wait to be stared at and enjoyed by passersby. It's communication. Its hours and hours being put into a work of art that may only last, in reality, for a few moments...but if done well and truly appreciated, it lasts in our hearts forever. That's art, speaking with your heart to the hearts of others.” Starting at a young age Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven have done just that with their musical compositions. Both musical composers changed the world of music and captivated the hearts of many. Their love of composing shared many similar traits, though their musical styles were much different.
Richard Wagner was one of the most influential and controversial classical composers of all time. Most of his works were operas and they addressed many aspects of his personal feelings: society, politics, religions, etc. Though many hated (and still hate) him and his work, most revere him to be a multitalented genius that brought 19th Century music to higher levels.
piece a modernist one. The play’s dialogue, technology, and the fragmentation of the piece, are
In the early 20th century, modernist writers broke free of the consistent pattern on the themes of religion, marriage, and family values, branching out with their actual opinions and observations on society, making more readers aware of the corruption of the traditional morality in America. It became evident that the American people were placing lust, wealth, and material prosperity over their marital vows and traditional values. This idea of amorality is noticeably identified in the literary works, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Major characters in both novels show signs of demoralization, in regards to Tom Buchanan, for example, whom openly cheated on his wife, broke the nose of his mistress, and sold Gatsby’s fate down the river, and Abigail, whom slept with a married man and killed an entire village in spite of the deteriorated affair. In this new, cutting-edge society the concept of materialism is prevalent. Materialistic power became a goal for many Americans in modern America, which is identifiable in The Great Gatsby. People of East and West Egg indulged themselves with parties, pricey automobiles and the latest fashions, meanwhile, the people in the Valley of Ashes merely scraped by. Jay Gatsby out of his desire to 'own' Daisy went to great lengths to appear as a man of great fortune.
"There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice." (F. Scott Fitzgerald).
In the beginning of the twentieth century, literature changed and focused on breaking away from the typical and predicate patterns of normal literature. Poets at this time took full advantage and stretched the idea of the mind’s conscience on how the world, mind, and language interact and contradict. Many authors, such as Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Twain, used the pain and anguish in first hand experiences to create and depict a new type of literature, modernism. In this time era, literature and art became a larger part of society and impacted more American lives than ever before. During the American modernism period of literature, authors, artists, and poets strived to create pieces of literature and art that challenged American traditions and tried to reinvent it, used new ways of communication, such as the telephone and cinema, to demonstrate the new modern social norms, and express the pain and suffering of the First World War.
Beethoven is viewed as a transitional figure between the classical and romantic eras and from 1800 to 1809 he wrote some of the most revolutionary compositions in the history of western music. This essay therefore will aim to discuss the numerous ways in which Ludwig Van Beethoven expanded the formal and expressive content of the classical style he inherited. From the early 1770s to the end of the eighteenth century the concept of the symphonic style and sonata style dominated most of the music composed. These forms, employed countless times by Mozart and Haydn, stayed relatively constant up until the end of the eighteenth century, when Beethoven began to extend this Viennese classical tradition. Many musicologists have put forward the idea of Beethoven music falling into four periods.
Contemporary Music Seminar Assignment 2 Consider Stravinky’s use of Neo-Classicism in his compositions. Kieran Parker Class: AMUS3A DKIT ID: D00150236 Tutor: Dr. Aisling Kenny To consider the use of Neo-Classicism in Igor Stravinsky’s (1882 – 1971) works, one must take a look at how this particular genre encapsulated Stravinsky’s taste for the classical styling’s of J.S. Bach and others. One will discuss the important functioning of the builds in his writing such as the implementation of the traditional musical forms such as the fugue and the symphony among others. Reference will be made to specifically to his Octet For Winds (1923) and give a brief insight into his other Neo Classical compositions.
Roughly from 1815 to 1910, this period of time is called the romantic period. At this period, all arts are transforming from classic arts by having greater emphasis on the qualities of remoteness and strangeness in essence. The influence of romanticism in music particularly, has shown that romantic composers value the freedom of expression, movement, passion, and endless pursuit of the unattainable fantasy and imagination. The composers of the romantic period are in search of new subject matters, more emotional and are more expressive of their feelings as they are not bounded by structural rules in classical music where order, equilibrium, control and perfection are deemed important (Dorak, 2000).