Final Flashcards

Question

What's primitivism?

Answer 1

* Artistic style and movement that imitated and emulated the artworks of various non-European cultures, particularly those considered to be in a ‘lesser stage’ of cultural development, in an attempt to express less refined and more genuine feelings, a vision of ‘humanity in its infancy’ * Basically a subcategory of exoticism * Combined escapist fantasy with rejection of modern European society ~1900, where egalitarian visions of the Enlightenment and promised prosperity of the Industrial Revolution had resulted in an urban landscape many found bleak, dehumanizing, unhealthy, and ‘unnatural’ * Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes (1912) provides an example in literature * Paul Gauguin was an innovative French painter and sculptor, and an important representative of primitivism in the visual arts -> style of painting that abandoned perspective and realism, and employed block-like forms in simple, often surreal colors. The apparent crudity of the technique (ex: the roughly sketched, darkly outlined images) represents a self-conscious renunciation of the refined, photo-realistic techniques and tastes of urban, industrial Europe * In music, primitivism is primarily about rhythm -> percussions play an important role * Stravinsky's pieces include primitivism * Primitivist characteristics in music: title referring to “primitive” peoples, emphasis on rhythm, prominent dissonance throughout, dancing as typical activity in exotic depictions, extreme dynamics (particularly very loud), use of extreme piano range, etc.

Answer 2

- Avant-garde aesthetic: in search of the new - Avant-garde art often questions fundamental assumptions or serves as an example of a particular philosophical stance - Some styles of new art can be very challenging for both performers and audiences, and radical new works have often alienated both - Sometimes, the point of a work of art can be to pose a question that has never been asked before, to make the viewer and/or listener aware of their own preconceived notions of art and beauty, to push boundaries - John Cage = guru of the Avant-Garde - Examples of avant-garde techniques: atonality, aleatory, graphic scores, minimalism, etc.

Answer 3

- Style term - Desire among composers and other artists to recreate, represent, and/or celebrate a foreign ethnic or national identity (or scene) within their artistic creations - Exotic works provide reductive and voyeuristic fictions based more on the expectations of the audience than on real knowledge of the foreign peoples fictionalized - Despite post-colonial criticisms, exoticism has long been and remains very compelling and popular in all genres of instrumental music and opera (and film) - Ex: Lili Boulanger’s Vielle prière bouddhique, Verdi’s opera Aïda, Puccini's Madama Butterfly

Answer 4

- 1882-1971 - Russian-born composer - Became famous in Paris just before WWI for his ballet scores - Later became an American citizen (1945) - Arguably one of the 2 or 3 most important and influential composers of Western art music in the 20th century - Commissioned by the great impresario Diaghilev to write 3 important ballets for the Ballet Russe (Russian Ballet) who were at that time dominating the ballet scene in Paris: - Wrote The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), & Le sacre du printemps (1913) - Stravinsky and his family sought refuge in Switzerland in 1914 (start of WWI), then moved back to France until the outbreak of WWII (1939), at which time he was forced to flee again - Due to the success of his ballet scores and later works, he was an international celebrity in the 1920s & 30s, traveling in both Europe and the US, composing on commission and conducting his own works - At the start of WWII he moved to the US, where he lived for the rest of his life, settling near LA and becoming a US citizen - He experimented with neoclassicism in his works composed after ~1920

Answer 5

* 1913 * Genre: ballet score * Uses block form * Part of the Ballet Russe (Russian Ballet) * Choreographed by progressive Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky * The Ballet Russe performed the world premiere of Le sacre in Paris (1913) before a shocked and scandalized audience, who were more accustomed to the refined grace and accessibly exotic music of French, late romantic ballet in the classical style (ex: Tchaikovsky) * The premiere resulted in a very famous riot, which enraged Stravinsky and culminated in various lawsuits for acts of petty violence, but subsequent performances elsewhere were received more decorously

Answer 6

- Proper term (genre designation) for the music alone in the ballet genre - Ex: The Rite of Spring

Answer 7

- Structure of the work is comprised of abrupt juxtapositions of differing musical tableaux, purposefully suggesting a "crude” craftsmanship - Sometimes the contrasting musical material is simply layered one atop another

Answer 8

- Genre - As a genre, it includes both the dance (choreography) and music

Answer 9

- The proper term (genre designation) for the dance alone in the ballet genre - The choreographer is responsible for creating the dance itself (the actions of the dancers)

Answer 10

- Sum of money paid to an artist (composer) in advance to facilitate the creation of a new work for a specific ensemble, performance, occasion, etc. - ‘Commissioned work’

Answer 11

- String-playing technique - AKA Bartók pizzicato - Plucking the string of a bowed-string instrument so hard that it snaps back against the fingerboard, making a percussive sound

Answer 12

* Style term * Intentional use of genres & styles from previous style periods (especially the Baroque and Classical Eras) in works of the 20th century * Reaction against late romanticism and impressionism * Neoclassic composers looked back to and consciously imitated some aspects (forms, genres, ensemble types, etc.) of 18th-century music (music of the High Baroque Era -> J. S. Bach) * After WWI, neoclassicism was a reaction against all aspects of the previous romantic aesthetic, which had involved nationalism and a focus on subjective personal expression * Neoclassic works by Stravinsky and others show a preference for non-programmatic genres -> preferred absolute music * Much neoclassic music was intended to be an objective musical expression free from all non-musical associations * Ligeti's Lux Aeterna is an example of neoclassicism that looks back to Medieval music

Answer 13

- Any innovative, unconventional manner of producing a sound on an otherwise conventional instrument - Ex: screaming into a trombone, making kissy-face sounds into an amplified flute, opening a piano and playing on the strings, or smashing an electric guitar on stage (a dramatic act that also creates a distinct sound) - The use of extended techniques often has both sonic and dramatic effects - Ex: string harmonics, col legno, Cage's prepared piano, Berio's Sequenza III, Berio's Sinfonia

Answer 14

* Style of art, music, and theater, especially associated with Germany and Scandinavia between 1880-1925 * Often stresses intense, subjective emotion, isolation, madness, or some extreme and/or deranged psychological state * Stylistic reaction against the pleasant subjects and soft pastel colors of impressionism and the realism of southern European Romantic art * Expressionist painters used bright, clashing colors, infused with darkness, colors that are wrong, disturbing, and suggestive of psychic violence * Often painted the canvas black to start * Expressionist artworks often involve distortions of both color and form, creating a sense of unease, and an altered perception of reality - Ex: Edvard Munch’s "The Scream" * Can be a form of social protest & commentary, depicting the horrors of war, the despair of poverty & disease, man’s inhumanity to man * Expressionism has been disparaged as “the aesthetic of ugliness” * Expressionist artists described their work as a search for brutal honesty and alternative forms of beauty * Arnold Schoenberg was an expressionist musical composer (atonal music)

Answer 15

- 1874-1951 * Austrian Jewish composer, most associated with Vienna before he emigrated to the US to escape the Nazi rise to power * Arguably one of the 2 most important composers of the 20th century * Influential teacher, author of primary texts, and innovator whose music (atonal music) became one of several trends of modernism * Influenced by the highly chromatic, innovative music of German late-Romantic composers (Brahms, Bruckner, Wagner), and like them, saw J.S. Bach and Beethoven as musical forefathers - He “abandoned tonality” altogether ~1908, composing the first works of atonal music, in the forms and genres of art songs, string quartets, and orchestral works * His music was highly rejected by many of his contemporaries * His music, and that of his students, were banned by the Nazis * Forced to emigrate to the US in the late 1930s and taught music composition and basic theory at University of California LA late in his life -> one of his students was John Cage * In 1922, he announced his invention of 12-tone composition -> introduced this new concept as a refinement to address a ‘flaw’ with his previous atonal idiom

Answer 16

1. Establishes mood of scene or characters: informing and manipulating the listener through choices of musical style, harmonic language, timbre (ensemble and scoring), and use of common musical tropes (water music, battle music, love music, etc.) 2. Sets time and place of action (also through the use or musical tropes) 3. ‘Running counter to the action’: use of music that is inappropriate for or emotionally distant from the dramatic action, which often has the effect of intensifying the affect, or perhaps of creating a sense of dislocation, alienation, or a dissociative psychological state. Popular technique in modern theater and film (ex: Tarantino) and examples can also be found in late Romantic opera 4. Character establishment/development: often accomplished through the use of leitmotifs

Answer 17

- AKA atonality/pantonal music/“free atonality” - Harmony term - Schoenberg referred to the advent of atonal music as “the emancipation of dissonance” -> in his atonal music, dissonance is used freely and intuitively, with no governing rules of harmony - Atonality is a term for harmonic language (not style, genre or form), and involves the intentional avoidance of any pitch center (atonal = no tonic) through the careful avoidance of chord patterns common in tonal music - In atonal music all 12 pitches of the equal-tempered octave may be used at any time and in any combination: it's the epitome of a completely intuitive, chromatic music - Problem: how does a composer create coherent musical forms without using “key areas” (the major and minor keys used in tonal music) as a basis? How does one know when a piece of music is finished, if there's no return to tonic? - Bartok used atonality in his pieces

Answer 18

- Area of academic study/academic discipline - The scientific study, collection, and classification of music from non-Western cultures (outside the ‘art music’ tradition) - Vibrant, valuable, and diverse area of scholarly endeavor well represented today in many international universities - Historical origins of ethnomusicology must be viewed in the context of late-Romantic and modernist ideologies of nationalism and primitivism, aesthetic ideals that emphasized the recovery and preservation of ‘folk’ traditions as a source of ‘original inspiration’ rooted in the common heritage of a specific national or ethnic group - Bartok was an important scholar who did groundbreaking fieldwork in remote peasant villages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, recording and studying ethnic (and usually orally transmitted or ‘unwritten’) musical traditions -> compiled more than 10,000 Romanian, Slovak, and Hungarian folksongs

Answer 19

* 1881-1945 * Hungarian composer, pianist, professor at the Budapest Academy of Music, and pioneering scholar of ethnic music * Toured throughout Europe as a concert pianist during the early 1900s, although few of his works were published before 1918 * Important scholar who did groundbreaking fieldwork in remote peasant villages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, recording and studying ethnic (and usually orally transmitted or ‘unwritten’) musical traditions -> compiled more than 10,000 Romanian, Slovak, and Hungarian folksongs * In 1940 he immigrated to the US, where he performed and conducted ethnomusicological research for Columbia University * There he expanded his studies of ethnic music to include countries in the Middle East and elsewhere * Although Bartók rarely quoted folk music in his works, he frequently used the rhythms, harmonic language, and other elements of the folk styles he studied, integrating these elements into his own, distinctive style * Bartók cultivated a markedly individual approach to neoclassicism, and his works frequently feature ensembles, forms and textures reminiscent of the early 18th century (Baroque Era)

Answer 20

- In Cowell’s music, a tone cluster is a chord that uses every pitch (on the piano, depresses every key) between 2 notated pitches - Playing tone clusters can require the fist, open hand, or forearm - Cowell’s music frequently employs tone clusters, heard in many of his character pieces

Answer 21

- Invented by Henry Cowell - Henry Cowell’s most influential innovation was the creation of the string piano - With the string piano, the performer isn't restricted to playing the keys but also reaches inside the opened piano to manipulate the strings by plucking, scraping, scratching, etc. - Many of Cowell’s character pieces (ex: The Banshee) are for string piano

Answer 22

- 1912 - 1992 - Guru of the Avant-Garde - Influential American avant-garde composer, philosopher, author, lecturer, and visual artist - Cult hero of the international avant-garde whose conceptual music has been influential in both “classical-art” and popular music - He was a student of Arnold Schoenberg while at University of California in LA - Although impressed with Cage as an original thinker, Schoenberg doubted Cage’s future as a composer - Deeply influenced by the sounds and spiritual teachings of diverse non-Western cultures: percussion music, the sounds of the Indonesian gamelan, and especially the teachings of Zen Buddhism - Important early composer for percussion ensemble in the late 1930s and early 1940s - He referred to percussion music as the “all-sound music of the future . . . because all sounds are acceptable to the composer of percussion music” - Under the influence of Henry Cowell’s string piano, he created the prepared piano - He composed works for prepared piano in various classical-romantic genres (including sonatas, interludes, character pieces, concertos, etc.) and some of his works defy a clear genre description - Important advocate of aleatory or aleatoric music (aka indeterminacy or chance music) - He created and advocated for a type of performance known as the multi-media happening -> he often called for multiple of his pieces to be performed simultaneously in concert - He is inviting us to live the life we are living, to pay attention to each moment, each sound -> he challenges us to see ourselves in our everyday life as artists - He loved sounds

Answer 23

- By John Cage - 1952 - Important and controversial work - Pronounced 4 minutes and 33 seconds - Inspired by painter Robert Rauschenberg’s all-white canvases - The first version of the work was for solo pianist - At the first performance of this work, David Tudor, a pianist who was a friend of Cage, walked out on stage, sat at the piano, started a stopwatch, and then proceeded to sit there and make no intentional sounds for 4 mins 33 secs - He often structured his pieces using precise timings -> stopwatch is often necessary for an accurate performance - He titled many of his pieces with the amount of time required, avoiding any reference to musical genre - This piece has become a cult classic, and celebrations of avant-garde music have contained numerous performances of it for every type of ensemble imaginable

Answer 24

- Cage was an important early composer for percussion ensemble in the late 1930s and early 1940s - He referred to percussion music as the “all-sound music of the future . . . because all sounds are acceptable to the composer of percussion music” - General rule: if you see “western classical art music” played by an ensemble of nothing but percussion (or that prominently features percussion) then the piece is definitely from post-1920

Answer 25

- Under the influence of Henry Cowell’s string piano, Cage created the prepared piano - Type of extended technique for piano accomplished by inserting objects between the piano’s strings according to the composer’s specific instructions - Cage composed works for prepared piano in various classical-romantic genres (including sonatas, interludes, character pieces, concertos, etc.) and some of his works defy a clear genre description

Answer 26

- AKA aleatory/indeterminacy/chance music - The intentional introduction of random elements during the composition and/or performance of a piece of music - An aleatoric piece of music will contain something that's not predictable by the composer while she is creating the piece or by the performer(s) while realizing it in sound - Cage was an advocate of aleatory music - Musical scores ~1900 contain many precise instructions for nearly every aspect of producing a sound -> aleatoric music demonstrates a disdain for such fussy details - Constitutes one of the most important “anti-Romantic reactions” to occur in art in the post-1945 avant-garde - Aleatoric music represents letting go of the control found in Romantic music - Such works often allow the inclusion of any sounds (and silences) into the musical work, even those usually identified as noise or which might be accidental during the performance

Answer 27

1. During composition: when the piece is first being created by the composer 2. During performance: when the performer(s) attempts to realize the work in sound (and silence)

Answer 28

- Compositional process - Making random choices while composing music - Ex: Cage mentions how he wrote a piece on large sheets of graph paper, and that he had flipped coins to make random choices - His description of his process involves both elements of randomness (flipping coins to generate random numbers that he then transforms into musical events) and structure (precise number of coin flips, etc.) - This paradox is one of the primary conceptual foundations of Cage’s methods and ideas

Answer 29

- Any unconventional written (printed) manner of conveying musical ideas, usually through pictorial images that seem more related to the visual arts than to music - Graphic scores can involve various levels of musical detail, sometimes including some elements of conventional musical notation that can be interpreted normally but often involving images that have no clear musical meaning and therefore require additional explanation from the composer and/or interpretation by the performer - Graphic notation can be used to create a score that is so wide open to interpretation that different performances might be unrecognizable as the same piece - Graphic scores and other forms of aleatoric music make great demands on performers’ abilities to improvise sensitively as they interpret the images and/or instructions in the score - Many trained musicians are reluctant to attempt something so far outside their normal experience, but others enjoy the freedom and creativity involved, the opportunity to improvise within more-or-less broadly defined guidelines

Answer 30

- Genre - Music in movie - It augments the movie experience by manipulating the viewer/listener in 4 specific ways, most of which are identical to the ways music had been manipulating opera-goers since 1600

Answer 31

The act of creating a film score

Answer 32

- Underscoring (non-diegetic) - Source music (diegetic)

Answer 33

- AKA non-diegetic music - Music that comes from an unseen source and ‘outside’ the action of the movie - Understood by the viewer to not be audible to the characters within the drama - Such music is for the audience only and is used to manipulate the listener by enhancing the action, drama, or other visual and emotional aspects of the movie - Inappropriate underscoring becomes unlikely source music

Answer 34

- AKA diegetic music - Movie music that comes from a source that is part of the action of the movie - Such music is understood by the audience to be taking place ‘within’ the dramatic action and to be audible to the characters in the scene - Can be very effective at setting a scene (ex: by using muffled chanting or an organ to set the scene within a church, or using a live band of exotic instruments to set the scene in a foreign land) - Source music can also be used to create a ‘sense of space’ by making the sound source louder and softer as the camera (our omniscient viewing ‘eye’) moves about within that space

Answer 35

- Musical motives or melodies that symbolize (characterize, ‘embody’, etc.) or are otherwise strongly associated with a particular character, scene, situation, idea, etc. - Basically the same musical/dramatic technique Wagner used in his music dramas

Answer 36

- Traditional Chinese string instrument - Idiomatic ‘fast-plucked’ manner -> characteristic of the instrument

Answer 37

- AKA polystylism - Style term - Broad style term not specific enough to be useful - Multiple styles - Tan Dun

Answer 38

- Genre term - Virtuosic genre for solo instrument - Always denotes a single-movement work for solo instrument, characterized by an imaginative, formally innovative, and virtuosic, and perhaps improvisatory character - An early genre that dates back at least to the Renaissance

Answer 39

- Use of literary and musical quotations in a piece - Collage of these quotations

Answer 40

- Style term - Can be in any genre - Renounces conventional melody, harmony, and rhythm in favor of sound masses with sliding and merging orchestral clusters, creating a succession of various timbres that might be static or dynamic or both simultaneously - The forms of such works are perceived as the successions and interactions of dissonant “sound masses” from which no melody or harmony emerges - These works often consist of seeming “static tableaux of sound color,” which are often comprised of detailed activity among the performers, the intricate details of which are lost in the textural effect (micropolyphony)

Answer 41

- AKA musical quotation - Style term - When a piece quotes from another piece and includes this quotation in it

Answer 42

- Style term - Many minimalist composers now identify themselves as part of the ‘postminimalist’ movement in the arts - Postminimalism keeps the accessibility and transparency of earlier classic minimalism but features generally more dynamic and active textures, faster development of musical processes, more complex and interesting neo-romantic harmony (diatonic but chromatic), and incorporates a wide variety of performing media - Ex: Pärt's Summa

Answer 43

- Style term - Focus on spirituality in combination with minimalist techniques - Ex: Pärt's Summa

Answer 44

- Born in 1935 - Born in Estonia (former republic of the Soviet Union) - Like many modern composers, Pärt was academically trained - Serious study of Medieval & Renaissance music, which profoundly affected his musical style * In his early works he experimented with both neoclassicism (imitated select aspects of Baroque style and genres), quotation music, and minimalist techniques, often in polystylistic combination * Pärt’s sacred works are founded primarily in the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, although works like Summa represent a tradition common to both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic liturgies - Many of Pärt’s sacred vocal works can function as sacred works for use during worship, although they are most often performed as secular concert pieces * Some use the term spiritual minimalism to describe Pärt’s works, because of his emphasis on spirituality, especially in his many sacred works, in combination with minimalist techniques

Answer 45

- Born in 1939 - American composer and violinist - First woman to earn a Pulitzer Prize in music composition, which she won in 1983 for her Symphony No. 1 - Although her early works are in an austere avant-garde idiom, her later works (after the mid-1980s) use simpler melodic material and an increasingly tonal harmonic language -> she intended for her post-1980 works to be more widely accessible to the public * “A constant stream of orchestral commissions, numerous repeat performances, and an increasingly accessible musical language have combined to make Zwilich one of America’s most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers”

Answer 46

- Type of texture (monophonic texture) - Music consists only of a single melody line - Whether sung by an individual, a small group, or a large group, there is only one part and everyone sings that same part

Answer 47

- Type of texture (polyphonic texture) - Music consists of 2 or more different melody lines - Imitative and non-imitative polyphony

Answer 48

- Type of texture (homophonic texture) - Music consists of solo melody over instrumental accompaniment (melody + accompaniment)

Answer 49

- Stylistic development of the Renaissance - AKA continuous imitation - Brief fragments of melody (motives) are passed from voice to voice (or instrument to instrument) within the performing group, so that these motives are heard again and again within close proximity of each other, making the music easier to comprehend and follow - In imitative polyphony the individual parts share brief snippets of melody so that you can occasionally hear the same musical figure occur in one voice after another (‘points of imitation’) - Much easier to understand than non-imitative polyphony -> aural relationship between the independent parts - After invention of imitative polyphony in the Renaissance, most polyphony composed thereafter is imitative

Answer 50

- Contrary to imitative polyphony - Medieval polyphony - Harder to understand -> little to no aural relationship between the independent parts

Answer 51

- Type of texture - Contains seemingly random (but carefully if abstractly organized) points of sound, each of which are isolated in a separate range (high or low) and timbre - These works have nothing that can be called a melody in a conventional sense, which is a retreat away from the lyricism of Romantic music - Found in some modern music - Boulez's Le Marteau sans maître has a pointillistic texture

Answer 52

- Texture term - Often found in sound-mass composition - Textural effect in which individual parts are lost within a complexity of sonic activity - This is often accomplished by having individual instruments within a large ensemble (orchestra or choir) play either imitative or non-imitative polyphony that is so closely spaced in time that the individual parts can't be discerned - All you can hear is a wash of changing sound that doesn't sound like conventional melody and harmony - Ex: Ligeti's Lux Aeterna

Answer 53

- Genre of secular vocal music - Much like an opera, a large-scale music drama for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra - Multi-movement works that contain introductory orchestral overtures, arias, recitatives, duets, trios, choral numbers, and interludes for orchestra alone * Usually based on a narrative libretto with plots and characters, and often a narrator - There is no acting, scenery, or costumes (unlike an opera) - Singers stand in place during their recitatives and arias, without moving about or pretending to be their characters * Despite their biblical subject matter, oratorios were originally conceived as a secular genre -> composed and performed for entertainment purposes and didn't have a place in the worship practice of their original audiences - Very successful with the English audience

Answer 54

* Song for solo voice, often with a larger ensemble (orchestra) playing the accompaniment * Subgenre of monody or song -> arias fall under the general vocal category of monody, which includes all works that can be correctly referred to as a “song” of one kind or another * Strongly metrical -> has a strong and recognizable beat (not necessarily fast) * Melodious or lyrical song that expresses an outpouring of emotion, thereby developing the character of the person singing the aria * Very lyrical, ‘musically oriented,’ often repeating fragments of the text, and containing melismas that ‘show off’ the technical and expressive abilities of the star singers * Arias became the most well-known parts of an opera, and the most famous ones were/are often performed as ‘stand-alone works’ without the rest of the opera * Arias appear in other Baroque-era, large-scale vocal genres (ex: oratorios and secular cantatas and sacred cantatas) * Arias were composed as ‘stand-alone’ works (works that were/are performed alone without being part of a larger work) -> they're determined by their musical style alone, not by their placement within larger genres to which they were first associated - Ex: Francesca Caccini, Lasciatemi qui solo (1618) -> lament aria

Answer 55

* Song that imitates the rhythms and pitch patterns of natural speech * Subgenre of monody or song -> recitatives fall under the general vocal category of monody, which includes all works that can be correctly referred to as a “song” of one kind or another * Usually carries the action and dialogue of an opera (used to forward the action of drama) * Not very lyrical and melodious -> sounds more like speech or recitation - Often largely syllabic and contains many repeated pitches * Good for expressing text in which meaning is important - Usually doesn't have long melismas or repetitions of text * Rhythmically ‘free’ or nonmetrical -> contains no strong beat * Usually accompanied by 1 or 2 instruments (basso continuo) who closely follow the singer (and/or conductor) * Recitatives appear in other Baroque-era, large-scale vocal genres (ex: oratorios and secular cantatas and sacred cantatas) * Recitatives were composed as ‘stand-alone’ works (works that were/are performed alone without being part of a larger work) -> they're determined by their musical style not by their placement within larger genres to which they were first associated

Answer 56

- Recitative - Aria

Answer 57

* Poem (or song) expressing grief, regret or mourning * Musical subcategory of recitative and aria - Very popular in the 17th century and after * Baroque lament arias often featured a basso ostinato (ground bass) - The basso ostinatos or ground basses of lament arias typically consist of a descending figure in a slow triple meter * Common form of lament uses a descending tetrachord (4 descending notes) over and over (basso ostinato) as the basis of the basso continuo part

Answer 58

- AKA art song - Plural: lieder - Genre of monody (song) composed for solo voice with piano accompaniment - Musical setting of a high-quality poem, often a poem that's already well known to the audience -> these poems were rarely written by the composer of the music - Popularity of the art song was largely due to the ubiquity of the piano in the homes of wealthier families - Prominent genre in fashionable salons - Domestic music making was common and commonly/generally expected that the daughters of affluent families could play the piano and/or sing - The piano in an art song is more than just accompaniment -> it's crucial to the expression and musical interpretation of the poem - Art song = composer’s reading of a poem

Answer 59

- Can be sacred or secular - 17th century - Large work for solo vocalist, basso continuo, and occasionally other instruments, featuring secular (or sacred) texts that are often sad but might be humorous - One-movement works divided into several sections featuring a variety of vocal styles (recitative, arioso, and aria) with changing meters and tempos - Cantatas of this sort were common forms of entertainment at court in 17th Century

Answer 60

- ‘Social/domestic music-making’ - One of the most popular types of chamber music in the late 18th century (and beyond) were string quartets - Many of Haydn’s string quartets were intended for amateur performance - String quartets were a genre common in ‘social music-making’ - Chamber ensemble: one person on each part (one person per instrument type) - Small ensemble music appropriate for smaller venues and other more intimate settings - ‘Chamber music’ is not a genre -> it's a general description that covers several genres, such as the various types of sonatas.

Answer 61

- AKA plainchant or plainsong - Sung sacred texts (usually in Latin) - A type of category/genre - The most important part of a plainchant is its text - The specific genre of a plainchant is determined by the function of that text - Most of those texts were intended for either the Mass or the Divine Office - Typically performed with a monophonic texture - Usually performed a cappella - Usually nonmetrical (rhythmically ‘free’ -> has no discernible beat or meter) - Usually based harmonically on the church modes of the Medieval musical-theoretical system

Answer 62

- A plainchant - Medieval tradition credited St. Gregory I with assembling and creating the plainchants required for Roman Catholic Church services of the middle- and late-medieval Christian Church - Not all plainchants are gregorian chants -> many plainchants are older or more recent than the 6th century and hence shouldn't be considered gregorian chants

Answer 63

- Genre for solo piano in the 19th century - One-movement miniatures for solo piano, usually brief (2-7 mins), with descriptive titles suggestive of mood, scene, type of song or dance, etc. - Model for many piano character pieces were the bel canto arias in the Italian operas of Rossini and others - Usually homophonic: conjunct lyrical melody and clear accompaniment - Have a wide variety of fanciful titles - Character pieces, like art songs, were a prominent genre in fashionable salons - Chopin composed a lot of these

Answer 64

- Subgenre of character piece - "Night piece” - Genre that suggests a mood or scene

Answer 65

- Concert genre - Genre of large-ensemble music in multiple movements for a featured instrumental soloist with an orchestra - The Classical models (late 18th-century form) of the concerto have 3 movements

Answer 66

Genre of large-ensemble music in multiple movements for 2 soloists plus orchestra

Answer 67

- Genre - Always a piano with a string quartet - Ensemble: solo piano, 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cello

Answer 68

- German genre of opera - Light and/or comic German opera, using spoken dialogue (no recitative) along with arias, duets, choral numbers, etc - Plots are often fantastic or exotic, and common characters are often included - More like a play with music (because of the spoken dialogue) - Was very popular among and strongly associated with the German middle-class audience, but was also strongly supported by the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II (one of Mozart’s patrons in Vienna) - Influenced by other lighter, comic genres, especially the British ballad opera, which also contained spoken dialogue and light, catchy tunes

Answer 69

Genre of large-ensemble music in multiple movements for 3 soloists plus orchestra

Answer 70

- Genre - Always for piano, cello and violin

Answer 71

- Concerto grossi (Italian plural) - Multi-movement (usually 3 -> could be more) genre for 2 or more instrumental soloists and orchestra (including basso continuo) - Many were written for 2 violinists and basso continuo (the solo group) accompanied by a larger group (the orchestra, which usually also consisted of strings only) - Part of the interest in such works -> contrast of the smaller solo group with the larger orchestra - During Baroque Era, concerto grosso were never titled Concerto Grosso -> usually titled ‘concerto’, making it difficult to differentiate from a solo concerto by title alone

Answer 72

- AKA Lied cycle or cycle of art songs - Genre - Collection of Lieder (art songs) that are published together as a set and share other unifying characteristics (ex: musical and extra-musical characteristics) - Not every collection of art songs is a cycle

Answer 73

- Genre of sacred vocal music - Polyphonic vocal genre, usually performed a cappella, that sets any Latin sacred text that doesn't belong to the Mass or Divine Office - Definition changes slightly during music history depending on time and place of composition

Answer 74

- Genre of opera - Created by Richard Wagner - Wagner’s music dramas call for a large orchestral ensemble (“late-Romantic orchestra”) which is used creatively and includes many brass instruments (including the ‘Wagnerian tuba’) - Wagner’s music dramas require singers who combine the vocal dexterity required by difficult parts with the sheer volume to compete with the large and busy orchestra -> ‘Wagnerian soprano’

Answer 75

- Genre of comic opera - Comic Italian opera - Generally in 2 acts, using recitatives and arias - Plots usually involve contemporary situations and characters, including character servants, and other common folk - This genre had wider appeal for middle-class audiences than did opera seria

Answer 76

- AKA grand opera - Genre of Italian opera - Serious Italian opera in 3 acts, using recitatives and arias - Plots were usually drawn from classical history or legend - Arias often contain long melismas and are virtuosic - Oldest and most serious genre of opera - Strongly associated with aristocratic tastes

Answer 77

- The solo sonata is a genre of chamber music in either one of 2 formats: 1. a multi-movement genre for one piano (harp, guitar, organ, etc.) alone 2. a multi-movement genre for an instrumental soloist with piano accompaniment - Similar to the solo sonata from the Baroque period, only post-1750 there is no basso continuo -> the piano takes over the role of accompaniment - Trio sonata (multi-movement genre for 2 instrumental soloists and basso continuo) dies out with the baroque period, so after 1750 "sonata" always refers to one of the 2 forms of solo sonata - Classical models (late 18th-century form) of the sonata have 3 movements

Answer 78

- The Classical model of the string quartet is a 4-movement musical genre for 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, & cello - One of the most popular types of chamber music in the late 18th century (and beyond) - Could range broadly in difficulty and many of Haydn’s string quartets were intended for amateur performance - String quartets were a genre common in social music-making - The 4-movement structure of the string quartet came to be very similar to that of the symphony

Answer 79

- Multi-movement instrumental genre for orchestra alone - This genre’s predecessors are the opera overture (often called sinfonia in Italian operas) and the dance suite, both of which were baroque instrumental works for a large, mixed ensemble of instruments centered around bowed strings (an orchestra), with no featured soloist(s) - The classical model (the late 18th-century form) of the symphony has 4 movements

Answer 80

- In the wealthy Italian courts of Florence - In ~1600 - Invented by a group of intellectuals, poets and musicians who were attempting to recreate the ancient Greek dramas, which they determined had been sung in a very declamatory (speech-like) style - Originally a genre designed for aristocratic entertainment - By 1637 the city of Venice opened the first public opera house that sold tickets and operated on basis of profit - Opera was to become one of the most important public venues for musical entertainment in all of history

Answer 81

- Funeral Mass - Mass of the Dead

Answer 82

* Multi-movement collection of dances (Baroque dance suite model) -> baroque instrumental work for a large, mixed ensemble of instruments centered around bowed strings (an orchestra), with no featured soloist(s) * Orchestral suite: multi-movement collection of programmatic movements for orchestra alone with individual descriptive titles, published together under a collective descriptive title * Multi-movement collection of excerpts from a larger multi-movement work (ex: a ballet)

Answer 83

- Not really a genre - Works that are not considered to fit the form requirements of a symphony - Ex: Debussy's La mer: Three Symphonic Sketches (1905) - In nearly all cases, the word “sketch” in a title suggests a fairly short and lyrical (homophonic, song-like) work, which might best be defined as a character piece, although such works might be composed for any instrumental ensemble: orchestra, chamber ensemble, violin, or piano

Answer 84

Virtuosic genre for solo voice

Answer 85

- Style term - In both the plastic (visual: painting, sculpture, interior design, etc.) and musical arts - Characterized by the repetitive use of a small amount of “material,” depending on the medium of the art, whether that material is physical substance (marble, paint, stainless steel) or sounds - The phenomenon of minimalism in the visual arts has been seen throughout the 20th century (Malevich’s Black Circle (1924) is an early example), but it became an important movement in music and the visual arts in the 1960s - The creation of minimalist music parallels the similar aesthetic of simplification, repetition, and abstract symmetry in the plastic arts - Minimalism in music is generally characterized by the incessant repetition of short melodic, rhythmic, and/or harmonic patterns (repetitious musical motives) that often repeat for long periods with little but interesting variations - Some minimalist art is more static than others, even from the same time period, depending on the composer, genre, and type of ensemble being employed - The earliest minimalist composers were influenced by the contemplative musical and visual arts of India, China, Indonesia, and the hypnotic rhythms of some African music, particularly drumming - Composers expanded the concept of minimalism to encompass as many musical parameters as possible -> as with any other avant-garde concept, part of the point became “How many different, clever ways can we create a minimalist musical experience?” - The most common method is to create and repeat minimalist melodic constructions (rhythm combined with pitch), but composers also sought to minimize the variety of timbres - When the choices of timbre are limited, the pieces become much about rhythm: another typical style trait of 20th-century art (and popular) music, the “foregrounding” of rhythm - Another rather typical feature of early (1960-1975 or so) minimalist works are their length -> minimalism can require patience - Classic minimalist music compositions (1960-1975 or so) nearly always employ some type of diatonic tonality (major, minor and some other modes), and therefore most early minimalist works sound very consonant and contain only limited dissonance - Phase shifting: classic minimalist works often undergo a slow, subtle rhythmic change or “shift” over short or long periods of time (process music) - Like minimalist painting, minimalist instrumental music tends to be abstract and emotionally neutral

Answer 86

- Born in 1957 - Composer of film and other types of music - Born in the village of Changsha (Hunan Province) in The People’s Republic of China - During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) he served as a rice planter on a communal farm (Huangjin), where he learned to play a variety of traditional Chinese string instruments - Later became a performer and music arranger for a Peking opera troupe - In 1977 he began studies at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music, where he came into contact with composers who exercised some influence on his own ‘polystylistic’ aesthetic - He became a leading figure in the so-called ‘New Wave’ of Chinese composers who began to explore aspects of modern, avant garde Western art music before and after 1980 - In 1983 the Chinese government briefly banned public performances of Tan Dun’s works, labeling his music “spiritual pollution,” due largely to the high degree of western (European & American), avant-garde influence on his musical style - He came to the US in 1986 and earned a doctoral degree in musical arts from Columbia University in NYC - Encounter with John Cage and indeterminacy was of clear influence -> many of his works involve at least some indeterminacy - His music has been widely celebrated in his homeland since the 1990s - The Chinese government commissioned him to write Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind for the official ceremony for the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong in July 1997 - Also composed ceremonial music for the 2008 Beijing Olympics - In 2013 he was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador - Now widely regarded as a composer and conductor of the highest rank, and his works and personal appearances are in high demand -> has become an international artist - Won an Academy Award for Best Original Film Score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and the recorded soundtrack won a Grammy Award * His music combines Western ensembles, genres and styles, including avant-garde techniques (atonality, aleatory, graphic scores, minimalism, etc.), with traditional Chinese instruments, harmonies, rhythms, and aesthetic concepts, creating a unique musical idiom that can only be described as polystylistic and internationalist (both broad style terms not specific enough to be useful) * The western influences on his style are diverse: the rhythmic excitement of Bartók and Stravinsky, the atonality of Schoenberg, the aleatory of Cage, some minimalist elements, as well as occasional references to romantic, classical and baroque styles, including specific quotations from the music of J. S. Bach and others

Answer 87

- 1925-1983 - Important performer of avant-garde music - American singer and composer noted mostly for her virtuosity in performing challenging avant-garde works by the major composers of the 20th century, many written specifically for her - She collaborated closely with Luciano Berio, to whom she was married from 1950-1966 - Many of his works were written specifically for her to perform, including Sequenza III - Versatile artist -> her repertory included 17th-century opera (particularly Monteverdi), and folk song for all countries in addition to her avant-garde performance - Her interest in “early music”, specifically Monteverdi and 17th-century music, is indicative of a typical 20th-century phenomenon - Many musicians who are proponents of avant-garde music have also been involved in the study, publication and performance of historic music -> movement known as “historically informed performance" - Performers who engage in historically informed performance attempt to recreate earlier music using the methods and instruments that were originally used for that music, whenever possible

Answer 88

Academic discipline

Answer 89

- 1923-2006 - Hungarian Jewish composer born in Transylvania, Romania - Later became a citizen of Austria - His education was interrupted in 1943, when he was sent to a forced labor brigade - Most of his family were sent to Auschwitz and other labor camps -> only he and his mother survived the Nazi Era * Taught at Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater 1973 to 1989 * Influenced by the serial methods of the Darmstadt School composers: his published analysis of Boulez’s Structures 1A is itself famous - He worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen and other important pioneers of electronic music, and was inspired by the sounds he encountered in the recording laboratory

Answer 90

- Medieval (450-1450) - Renaissance (1450-1600) - Baroque (1600-1750) - Classic (1750-1800 or so) - Romantic (1800-1900 or so) - 20th & 21st Centuries

Answer 91

- 450-1450 - Roman Catholic Church - The Medieval Period in music history extends from the final collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century - Tune (melody) and polyphony originated around the middle of this long period - The Medieval Period is the longest ‘style period’ in music history -> music changed radically from the beginning to the end of the Medieval Period, more than in any other historical period - 5th – 8th centuries: diverse musical/liturgical practices developed and from which many liturgical texts but no notated music survives - First extant manuscripts of notated music date from the late 9th century - 12th century: music of Hildegard of Bingen, earliest extant manuscripts of secular vocal music, earliest extant manuscripts of instrumental music (all dances of various types), beginning of the Notre Dame School of polyphonic music - 14th century:Ars Nova music of Guillaume da Machaut - All of the music found in music manuscripts from the 9th – 11th centuries fit into the broad category of plainchant (aka plainsong or chant) - In the Medieval Period, plainchant was (and still is) performed in the 2 primary worship services of the Roman Catholic Church: the mass and the divine office - Modal harmonic system and cadences - In nearly every case, the texts of Medieval sacred music are older than the music itself - Most manuscripts of medieval chant contain simply the text and the music, and provide no directions at all regarding ‘performance practice’ - No printed music before 1600 ever indicated the specific instrumentation to be used - Artists: Hildegard of Bingen, Guillaume da Machaut, Herrad of Landsberg, La Comtessa de Dia, Léonin & Pérotin, Trebor - Genres: plainchant, canso, instrumental dance songs (estampie), mass movement, organum, conductus, cantiga, rondeaux - Styles: ars antiqua, ars nova, ars subtilior

Answer 92

- 1450-1600 - Invention of Printing Press with moveable type (1450) -> method books - Lutheran Reformation (c. 1500 and after) - Fascination with and study of Greek and Roman Antiquity - Humanism - Renaissance figures: Leonardo di Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Shakespeare - Most associated with the arts and sciences patronized by various royal courts in what is now modern Italy - Most common type of instrumental music during the Renaissance: dances - Artists: Guillaume Dufay, Josquin des Prez, Vicente Lusitano, Michael Praetorius, Claudio Monteverdi, Maddalena Casulana, Francesca Caccini - New genres: motet, bourée, courante, madrigal - New textures: imitative polyphony - New instruments: recorder, viol, lute, harpsichord - Important Characteristics of High Renaissance (16th century) Vocal Music: clear text declamation, imitative polyphony, word painting, homorhythm, textural changes

Answer 93

- 1600-1750 - Invention of Opera ~1600 - Baroque notation contains more performance details (ex: dynamics, tempo, timbre and loudness - During the Baroque Era that our modern conception of the orchestra (a group centered around a group of bowed strings) first developed - Baroque orchestras were much smaller than the orchestras used in later art music, usually included only 10 - 25 people, and often consisted of nothing but bowed strings and perhaps a harpsichord or organ - Castratos were the most important category of vocal soloists in opera (and other vocal genres) during the baroque period - Artists: Claudio Monteverdi (transitional composer), Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Luigi Rossi, Atto Melani, G. F. Handel - New genres: madrigals, overtures, arias, recitatives, lament aria, secular cantata, multi-movement works, solo concerto, concerto grosso, Baroque/orchestral dance suite, sonatas, fugue, oratorio - Styles & textures: monody, homophonic, basso continuo, ornamentation, chamber music, basso ostinato

Answer 94

- 1750 - approx. 1800 - The Age of Enlightenment - Industrial Revolution - Rise of the Middle Class and Decline of the Patronage System - American and French Revolutionary Wars - Classical music often contain lyrical or folk-like or generally brief melodies that are memorable and appeal to the wider audiences that heard the music - Homophonic texture became predominant - Classical music is marked by structural clarity, regularity and balance - Major/Minor Tonality becomes the ubiquitous musical theoretical system - The piano became the dominant keyboard instrument of the Classical Era (and after) - Patronage - 18th-Century Viennese Classicism (Vienna, Austria) -> city most associated with 3 of the most influential musicians of the Classical Period - Orchestras ~ 1750 - 1800 were based around a core of bowed strings that usually played at least 4 separate parts - Genres: cantabile, minuet, string quartet (4-movement), symphony, sonatas (no basso continuo post 1750), concerto, symphonie concertante, opera seria & buffa, Singspiel - Concepts: key, tonic, dominant, scales, modulation, cadenza, trill, sonata form - Artists: Maddalena Laura Sirmen, Marianne von Martínez, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Chevalier de Saint Georges

Answer 95

- 1800 - approx. 1900 - Early Romantic composers were part of a cultural movement that emphasized emotion, imagination, individualism, introspection and encounters with the sublime in the arts and in nature - Nationalism, Exoticism, Program music, Chromatic Harmony - Public venues, salons - 19th-century opera composers were much more concerned with continuity of dramatic action and affect - Concepts: piano postlude, program music, absolute music, Wagner's music dramas - Genres: art songs (lied), song cycle, character piece, concert overture, symphonic poem, ballet, ballet score, program symphony - Artists: Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Louise Farrenc, Antonín Dvořák, Amy Marcy Beach

Answer 96

- 1900 - 2000 onward - Expressionism, impressionism, neoclassicism, primitivism, modernism, etc. - New, individual systems of harmony and methods of composition: atonality, microtonality, serial music (12-tone music, integral serialism, etc.), aleatoric music (indeterminacy, chance, etc.) - New emphasis on rhythm - Search for new sound sources (ex: extended techniques) - Avant-garde aesthetic -> in search of the new - The “Machine Age” of 1920s & 30s - Concepts: exotic scales, ethnomusicology, string piano, tone clusters, ‘Ultramodernist’, harmonics, col legno, pointillism, prepared piano, percussion ensemble, graphic notation - Genres: fantasia, - Artists: Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Nadia Boulanger, Lili Boulanger, Béla Bartók, Florence Beatrice Price, Harry Thacker Burleigh, Arnold Schoenberg, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Anton Webern, Pierre Boulez, John Cage

Final Flashcards

(129 cards)