Baroque Music

The Classical Era

The Romantic Era

The Turn of the Century

Atonality

FountainMarcel Duchamp, 1917

The Starry NightVincent van Gogh, 1889

The ScreamEdvard Munch, 1893

Composition VIIWassily Kandinsky, 1913

The 20th Century•Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect.

- Reaction against “beautiful art”

- Influenced by WWI

•Expressionistic music was composed by the Second Viennese School

Arnold Schoenberg 1874-1951

• Self taught in composition

• 1904-Began teaching– Students: Alban Berg, Anton Webern

• 1908-Wife left him for lover– Increased dissonance in compositions

• 1933-Forced into exile by Hitler, moved to US

Arnold Schoenberg

• Compositional Periods:- Late Romantic, Expressionism (Atonality), Serialism

• 1908-Abandoned tonality (Atonality)• Second Quartet• “Free” Atonality

- Notes are used without regard for their traditional relationships

- No Key = emancipation of dissonance

• Pierrot Lunnaire– Setting of 21 poems for voice and chamber ensemble– Sprechstimme- “Spoken voice”

Arnold Schoenberg

• 12-Tone Technique (Serialism): – All 12 tones are equal– Basis of composition: “tone row”

• An ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale

– Rules for composition:• The set is a specific ordering of all

twelve notes of the scale. • No note is repeated within the set • The set may be stated in any of its "linear aspects"

Anton Webern1883-1945

• Denounced by Nazi Party– Referred to him as “degenerate art”

• Very Patriotic, never left Germany• Accidentally shot by an American

Soldier during Allied occupation. • Compositions:

– Drastic influence on post-war avant-garde (more influential than Berg)

– Style• Free Atonality/12-tone technique• Very short in duration• Sparse textures• Carefully chosen timbres (detailed instructions) & effects

Anton Webern1883-1945

• Klangfarbenmelodie-”Tone color melody” breaking up a musical line or melody out from one instrument to between several instruments.

• Style is called “Pointillism” (when the music is sparse, with many rests)

Alban Berg1885-1935

•Compositions combine all music from his lifetime

•Violin Concerto – most popular - 12-tone technique

- Quotations (Bach)

•Wozzeck – The first avant-garde opera - Atonal, 12-tone, and Tonal

- No Aria or Recit: “through composed”

- Atonality allows subject matter to be truly represented

• Characters:– Wozzeck – a soldier (“poor folk”)– Marie – Wozzeck’s mistress

• Synopsis– Act 1 – Wozzeck is tortured by his commanding officer &

a doctor– Act 2 – Marie admires earrings her lover has given her.

Wozzeck is unsuccessful in confronting them– Act 3 – Wozzeck murders Marie. When back at the local

tavern, people notice blood on his hands. Wozzeck tries to hide the knife in a pond, and wash the “blood” off of his clothes and drowns. The opera closes on a scene with Wozeck & Marie’s child.

Wozzeck