20th
Century and beyond!
The
Cubists retained the three-dimensional space . . . their way of seeing remains
deeply materialistic; my thinking on abstraction, on the other hand, rests on
the belief that such a space must be destroyed; to achieve the destruction of
the object I have reached the point of using surfaces. -- Mondrian
We look
ahead to a time of pure painting and the time when we shall construct the
intellectual form, the concrete realization of the creative mind. We want concrete not abstract painting, for
nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a color, a surface. Once they are liberated as a means of
expression they are on their way towards the real goal of art: to create a
universal language. (1930) -- Theo Van Doesburg, a painter similar to Mondrian
KEY IMAGES (know artist &
title)
Expressionism,
figure 14.15, p. 396, Nolde
Abstraction,
Mondrian, figure 14.12, p. 394
Picasso,
primitivism & cubism, figure 14.4, p. 389
Duchamp,
Surrealism, Da-Da, p. 395
“ism”
list in box p. 398
MUSIC:
Impressionism to
Modernism to Post-Modernism
[1] Claude Debussy (1862-1918) -- Prelude to
the Afternoon of a Faun (Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune) (1894) similar piece on textbook CD
-- inspired by a poem inspired by a painting of a Classical
mythical story
-- exoticism, mythical pastoral
-- ambiguous (vague?) harmony
-- very little, if any,
recognizable conventional or traditional form
-- very well received at its
premiere by the public; it baffled the musical establishment
-- Debussy influenced by gamelan
-- Impressionist, although Debussy hated the term
[2,3] Igor
Stravinsky (1882-1971) -- opening two sections of Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) (1913;
for very large orchestra) ON TEXTBOOK CD
-- a ballet with a story line
written in part by an anthropologist
-- interested in primitive or
exotic materials; what is behind the mask of civilization?
-- radically new: non-tonal, harsh
unresolved dissonance, percussive, brilliant orchestral effects, extreme
ranges, rhythmically and metrically very irregular and quite innovative
-- a riot (somewhat staged) at its
premiere; much publicity ensues
-- Modernist: Inner
order, outer chaos.
[4] Anton Webern (1883-1945) -- first movement of Symphony,
Opus 21 (1928)
-- serialism
(composing with an ordered series of pitches,
usually the full set of 12) at its most elegant and refined
-- very intellectual in orientation
(very influenced by Machaut and Medieval and
Renaissance music in general)
-- emotionally concentrated, like
feelings frozen into a crystal
-- very short (only two movements)
-- very small orchestra (can be
played by as few as 9 instruments)
-- Webern was a student of Schoenberg (a Modernist,
but also known as an Expressionist); Webern, Berg and Schoenberg came to be
known as “The Second Viennese School,” the “First Viennese School” being Haydn,
Mozart & Beethoven
-- premiere at a society for
private performances of music in
-- Modernist; very influential in the European avant-garde
and among American academic composers, particularly in the 1950s; virtually
unknown to the general public. Inner order to an extreme.
[5] John Cage (1912-1992),
Sonata II from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (19
pieces composed 1946-1948)
-- invented prepared piano
(1935). The classic American crazy tinkerer (Cage loved to say, "My father was an
inventor.") EXPERIMENTATION
a key value in 20th Century music.
-- the unpredictability of the
prepared piano and his study of Zen and Indian aesthetics lead him to develop chance
(random) procedures as a compositional method or process
-- viewed by some as a charlatan or as important only
because of his philosophy
-- many value his music and thought
today (although many misinterpret his disciplined openness as a philosophy of
"anything goes")
-- influenced by gamelan and other non-Western music
-- eventually came to be viewed as
Post-Modernist because of his relinquishing of compositional control;
[6] Luciano Berio (b. 1925), 3rd
(of 5) movement of Sinfonia, 1968-69 NOT COVERING THIS
-- for large orchestra with 8
amplified vocalists (who sing and speak)
-- a stew of works by Stravinsky (including the Rite of Spring), Ravel, Stockhausen, Berio himself, and other contemporary composers, all served
on a pilaf of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, 3rd movement. Fragments of text, from
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss's The
Raw and the Cooked and Samuel Beckett's absurdist play The Unnameable, provide seasoning.
-- Berio is generally a modernist
in approach, yet this work certainly qualifies as post-modern in its use of
collage and appropriation
-- Berio taught at Mills in the
early 1960s.
[7] Steve Reich, (b. 1936) – brief excerpt from Music
for 18 Musicians (1976)
-- steady pulse a welcome break
from the rhythmic complexity of Post-World War II concert music
-- diatonic but not tonal; sort of
a return to modal music (Reich claims to be influenced by the music of Perotin)
-- process-oriented; the process
should be audible
-- influenced by gamelan and polyrhythmic West African music
(he studied in
-- had to form his own ensemble to play his music because it
requires an entirely different set of skills than those of conventionally
trained "Classical" musicians
-- many early performances took
place in art galleries, not concert halls
-- briefly lived in the San
Francisco Bay Area in the late '60s/early '70s; part of the
"Downtown" scene in
-- Minimalist (although Reich hates the term) and therefore considered Post-Modern, but some modernist characteristics in his music (it is about its “materials”)
[8] John Adams (b. 1947), The
Chairman Dances (“Foxtrot for Orchestra,” 1987)
-- musically related to his opera Nixon
in China
-- lush orchestration
-- lots of meter changes
-- stylistic references to film
music, Swing, minimalism, etc.
John Adams -- currently the living American composer most performed by
orchestras
-- raised in
-- initially a Minimalist composer but now very eclectic,
incorporating elements of Neo-Romanticism, American popular music from Swing to
the present, polyrhythmic complexities of music from a variety of world
cultures, and some thorny moments (harsh unresolved dissonances and complex
rhythms) of the 'traditional' avant-garde;
perfectly Post-Modern
--
-- San Francisco Opera commissioned a new
-- San Francisco Symphony has a 10-year commissioning
agreement with
Also know Schoenberg example ON TEXTBOOK CD.
May 2007
David Meckler