Chapter 20

Question 1

Claude Debussy

Answer 1

• wrote Prelude a l’Apres-midi d’un faune
• impressionist
• piano “instrument without hammers”
• wrote Voiles (use of WT and Pentatonic scales)
• absence of style
• regarded as the first great composer of the 20th century

Question 2

Whole Tone

Answer 2

• six notes

- succession of whole steps

Question 3

Octatonic

Answer 3

• succession of notes that follow the half-whole pattern or the whole-half pattern
• example found in Bela Bartok’s Diminished Fifth from Mikrokosmos Book 4

Question 4

Pentatonic

Answer 4

• series of five notes that can be found in any Western “folk” songs and associated with East Asian music
• example found in Voiles (Debussy)

Question 5

Quartal Harmonies

Answer 5

• chords built on the interval of a fourth rather than a third
• example can be found in Charles Ives “The Cage” (1906)

Question 6

Bela Bartok

Answer 6

• set out to collect folk songs by Hungarian peasants. Believed folk music was “pure”
• Mikrokosmos, Book 6: Incorporates the irregular meters of eastern Europe
• primitivism

Question 7

Charles Ives

Answer 7

• “The Cage” (chords built on fourths instead of thirds known as Quartal Harmony)
• “The Unanswered Question” (juxtaposition of tonal and atonal)

Question 8

Primitivism

Answer 8

• rejection of the self-imposed, arbitrary conventions of Western culture
• role of rhythm elevated
• abandoned traditional rules of voice-leading and harmony
• example “Le Sacre du printemps” Stravinsky (1913) which also had use of polytonality

Question 9

Igor Stravinsky

Answer 9

• wrote Le Sacre du printemps
• elevated rhythm abandoned voice- leading, triadic Harmony and major/minor
• primitivism

Question 10

Polytonality

Answer 10

• two distinct triads sounding on top of each other

- exhibited in Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)

Question 11

Henry Cowell

Answer 11

• American composer
• “The Banshee” which involves direct contact with the strings of a piano to simulate the screaming of a Banshee
• pioneered tone cluster

Question 12

Impressionism

Answer 12

• first used to categorize painters who used short brush strokes and emphasized color above all else
• Claude Debussy and Ravel
• timbre (color) over melody
• blurring of distinct harmonies (9,10,13, WT, Oct. and Pent.) rhythms (avoids definite meter) and forms (not goal oriented)