20TH CENTURY MUSIC

20TH CENTURY MUSIC

• Abandoned traditional styles, forms, and sounds of all previous music
• Great variety of styles and new sounds
• Distortion and disfigurement (Expressionistic music) was popular in Europe
• Jazz and variations were developed in America
• Rock combined traditional and modern elements, becoming an independent genre

MUSICAL DEVELOPMENTS

• A combination of classical European music , "call and response" of Western Africa, along with "ragtime" and improvisation became jazz
• Jazz is influenced by the "blues"
• Swing and bebop were variations on jazz
• New technology and a new instrument group
• Instrumental music and vocal music

3 COMPOSERS FROM THE 20TH CENTURY

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

• Unusual scales, composed music that required change in the way piano was played
• Influenced by foreign music styles and literature, as well as art
• Did not distract the audience from operas' stories with effects in his music
• Pioneer of Impressionism

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

• Ahead of his time
• Composed loud and dissonant pieces
• Experimented with jazz and Baroque style compositions
• He was rejected from Hollywood movie soundtracks and wrote Symphony in 3 movements instead

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

• Austrian-American Composer
• Wrote pieces for string instruments, piano pieces, instrumental and orchestral works, as well as oratorios and cantatas
• Wrote many 12-tone pieces

Elements of Music

Rhythm and Metre

• Became more developed
• Was complex and irregular
• Polyrhythm became popular

Dynamics

• Classical: strong, sudden dynamic changes
• Jazz: full sounding dynamics

Melody

• Secondary importance
• Disjunct
• Irregular patterns
• Unpredictable

Harmony

• Atonality and 12-tone music became popular
• Fourth chord and polychord were widely used, to create tension
• Dissonant

Tone Colour/Timbre

• New playing techniques were developed
• New instruments were invented
• Percussion became more popular

Texture

• Mainly homophonic
• Both instrumental and vocal; however, vocal was more popular in the mid-20th century

Form

• Theme variations
• No solid form, almost all music was abrupt and unpredictable
• AABA Song Form for jazz
• Verse-chorus for rock-and-roll

Listening Examples

Clair de Lune

Rite of Spring

String Quartet No. 4

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