Final Exam Flashcards
Impressionism
A late-nineteenth-century movement that arose in France; the Impressionists were the first to reject photographic realism in painting, instead trying to re-create the impression that an object produces upon the senses in a single, fleeting moment.
Claude Debussy
(1862-1918) -Born into a modest family outside of Paris. -Neither parent was musical. -Gifted at the keyboard. -Age 10 entered the Paris Conservatory. -Won the Prix de Rome. -Wrote: "Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun" "Préludes for Piano" "Voiles"
What does the author mean by “Stealth Modernism”?
It sneaks up on the listener. Undulating lines and consonant harmonies are so pleasing that we scarcely notice the novelty: a radically new approach to line and color.
Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937) -Spent almost all of his life in Paris. -Music teacher and composer. -Conjured far off lands with his exotic music. -Wrote: "Bolero"
Bolero
A sultry Spanish dance in a slow tempo and triple meter
Glissando
An effect of sliding up or down the scale very rapidly.
Whole Tone Scale
A scale in which each note is a whole step away from the next step. An example of this might be A, B, C#, D#, F, G, A. The author gives the example of a whole tone scale that starts on C. It can start on any pitch, but just needs to have a whole step between each note.
What piece was the Whole Tone Scale used?
“Voiles” (Sails) by Claude Debussy
Exoticism - What artists were associated with this movement?
The use of sounds drawn from outside the traditional Western European musical experience, popular among composers in late-nineteenth-century Europe.
-Maurice Ravel.
Modernism
A bracing, progressive style that dominated classical music and the arts generally from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century.
Expressionism - What artists were associated with this movement? What regions of Europe were associated with this movement?
A powerful movement in the early-twentieth-century arts, initially a German-Austrian development that arose in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna; its aim was not to depict objects as they are seen but to express the strong emotions that the object generates in the artist.
- Arnold Schoenberg
- Igor Stravinsky
Cubism
Early-twentieth-century artistic style in which the artist fractures and dislocates formal reality into geometrical blocks and planes.
What is the “Emancipation of Dissonance”?
Schoenberg meant that dissonance was now liberated from the requirement that it resolve into a consonant triad.
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
-Born in Russia, later lived in Paris, Venice, Lausanne, New York, and Hollywood.
-Famous for composing ballet music.
-Developed Neo-classicism.
Wrote:
“Le Sacre du Printemps” (The Rite of Spring)
Sergei Diaghilev
- Legendary impresario (producer) of Russian opera and ballet.
- Formed a dance company called the Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets).
Ballets Russes
(Russian Ballets) Formed by Sergei Diaghilev.
Neo-classicism
A movement in twentieth0century music that sought to return to the musical forms and aesthetics of the Baroque and Classical periods.
Polytonality
The simultaneous sounding of two keys or tonalities.
Polymeter - Which song exemplifies this technique?
Two or more meters sounding simultaneously.
-Used in “The Rite of Spring”.
Polychord
The stacking of one triad or seventh chord on another so they sound simultaneously.
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951) -Early Modernism in Vienna. -Leader of the Second Viennese School -Came from a Jewish family. -Created atonal music. Wrote: "Pierrot Lunaire" "Trio" from Suite for Piano
Second Viennese School
A group of progressive modernist composers that revolved around Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna in the early twentieth century.
Atonal Music
Music without tonality; music without a key center; most often associated with the twentieth-century avant-garde style of Arnold Schoenberg.
Sprechstimme
(German for “speech-voice”) A vocal technique in which a singer declaims, rather than sings, a text at only approximate pitch levels.
