Quarter 1 – Module 1

MUSIC 10
Week 3

Quarter I: MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CONTENT STANDARDS
The learner demonstrates understanding of...

1. The 20th century music styles and characteristic features.

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
The learner...

1. Creates musical pieces using a particular style of the 20th century.

LEARNING COMPETENCIES
The learner...

1. Listens perceptively to selected 20th century music.

2. Describes distinctive musical elements of given pieces in 20th century styles.
3. Relates 20th century music to its historical and cultural background.
4. Explains the performance practice (setting, composition, role of composers/performers,
and audience) of 20th century music.
5. Sings melodic fragments of given Impressionism period pieces.
6. Explores other arts and media that portray 20th century elements through video films or
live performances.
7. Creates short electronic and chance music pieces using knowledge of 20th century
styles.

Word Search

Directions. Below are terms related to 20th century music. Encircle the words you
will find and write in your activity notebook.

Impressionism
Expressionism
Electronic
Chance
Debussy
Schoenberg
 Quarter I: MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY

T he start of the 20th century saw the rise of distinct musical styles that reflected a move
away from the conventions of earlier classical music. These new styles were:
impressionism, expressionism, neo-classicism, avant garde music, and modern
nationalism.

The distinct musical styles of the 20th century would not have developed if not for the musical genius of
individual composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Bela Bartok, Igor
Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofieff, and George Gershwin stand out as the moving forces behind the innovative
and experimental styles mentioned above. Coming from different nations—France, Austria, Hungary,
Russia, and the United States— these composers clearly reflected the growing globalization of musical
styles in the 20th century.

IMPRESSIONISM

O ne of the earlier but concrete forms declaring the entry of 20th century music was known as
impressionism. It is a French movement in the late 19th and early 20 th century. The sentimental
melodies and dramatic emotionalism of the preceding Romantic Period (their themes and melody are
easy to recognize and enjoy) were being replaced in favor of moods and impressions. There is an
extensive use of colors and effects, vague melodies, and innovative chords and progressions leading to
mild dissonances.

Sublime moods and melodic suggestions replaced highly expressive and program music, or music that
contained visual imagery. With this trend came new combinations of extended chords, harmonies,
whole tone, chromatic scales, and pentatonic scales. Impressionism was an attempt not to depict
reality, but merely to suggest it. It was meant to create an emotional mood rather than a specific
picture. In terms of imagery, impressionistic forms were translucent and hazy, as if trying to see through
a rain-drenched window.

In impressionism, the sounds of different chords overlapped lightly with each other to
produce new subtle musical colors. Chords did not have a definite order and a sense of
clear resolution. Other features include the lack of a tonic-dominant relationship which
normally gives the feeling of finality to a piece, moods and textures, harmonic vagueness
about the structure of certain chords, and use of the whole-tone scale. Most of the
impressionist works centered on nature and its beauty, lightness, and brilliance. A number
of outstanding impressionists created works on this subject.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)

One of the most important and influential of the 20th century

composers was Claude Debussy. He was the primary exponent
of the impressionist movement and the focal point for other
impressionist composers. He changed the course of musical
development by dissolving traditional rules and conventions into
a new language of possibilities in harmony, rhythm, form,
texture, and color.

Debussy was born in St. Germain-en-Laye in France on August

22, 1862. His early musical talents were channeled into piano
lessons. He entered the Paris Conservatoryin 1873. He gained a reputation as an erratic pianist and a
rebel in theory and
harmony. He added other systems of musical composition because of his musical training.
In 1884, he won the top prize at the Prix de Rome competition with his composition L’
Enfant Prodigue (The Prodigal Son). This enabled him to study for two years in Rome,
where he got exposed to the music of Richard Wagner, specifically his opera Tristan und
Isolde, although he did not share the latter’s grandiose style. Debussy’s mature creative
period was represented by the following works:

 Ariettes Oubliees
 Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
 String Quartet
 Pelleas et Melisande (1895)—his famous operatic work that drew mixed
extreme reactions for its innovative harmonies and textural treatments.

 La Mer (1905)—a highly imaginative and atmospheric symphonic work

for orchestra about the sea
 Images, Suite Bergamasque, and Estampes—his most popular piano compositions; a
set of lightly textured pieces containing his signature work Claire de Lune (Moonlight)

MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)

Joseph Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure,

France to a Basque mother and a Swiss father.
He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of
14 where he studied with the eminent French
composer Gabriel Faure. During his stint with the
school where he stayed until his early 20’s, he
had composed a number of masterpieces.

The compositional style of Ravel is mainly

characterized by its uniquely innovative but not
atonal style of harmonic treatment. It is defined
with intricate and sometimes modal melodies
and extended chordal components. It demands
considerable technical virtuosity from the performer which is the character, ability,
or skill of a virtuoso—a person who excels in musical technique or execution. The
harmonic progressions and modulations are not only musically satisfying but also
pleasantly dissonant and elegantly sophisticated. His refined delicacy and color,
contrasts and effects add to the difficulty in the proper execution of the musical
passages. These are extensively used in his works of a programmatic nature,
wherein visual imagery is either suggested or portrayed. Many of his works deal
with water in its flowing or stormy moods as well as with human characterizations.

Ravel’s works include the following:

 Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899), a slow but lyrical requiem
 Jeux d’Eau or Water Fountains (1901)
 String Quartet (1903)
 Sonatine for Piano (c.1904)
 Miroirs (Mirrors), 1905, a work for piano known for its harmonic evolution and
imagination,
 Gaspard de la Nuit (1908), a set of demonic-inspired pieces based on the poems of
Aloysius Bertrand which is arguably the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire.
  These were followed by a number of his other significant works, including Valses
Nobles et Sentimentales (1911)
 Le Tombeau de Couperin (c.1917), a commemoration of the musical advocacies of the
early 18th century French composer Francois Couperin,
 Rhapsodie Espagnole
 Bolero
 Daphnis et Chloe (1912), a ballet commissioned by master choreographer Sergei
Diaghilev that contained rhythmic diversity, evocation of nature, and choral ensemble
 La Valse (1920), a waltz with a frightening undertone that had been composed for
ballet and arranged as well as for solo and duo piano.
 The two piano concerti composed in 1929 as well as the violin virtuosic piece Tzigane
(1922) total the relatively meager compositional output of Ravel, approximating 60
pieces for piano, chamber music, song cycles, ballet, and opera.

Expressionism presents atonality and the twelve-tone scale revealing composer’s

mind, expressing strong emotions, anxiety, rage, and alienation. It expresses the
meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. One of the proponents
of expressionism is Arnold Schoenberg.

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874–1951)

Arnold Schoenberg was born in a working-class suburb of Vienna, Austria on September 13, 1874. He
taught himself music theory, but took lessons in counterpoint. German composer Richard Wagner
influenced his work as evidenced by his symphonic poem Pelleas et Melisande, Op 5 (1903), a
counterpoint of Debussy’s opera of the same title. development. From the early influences of Wagner,

Schoenberg’s style was constantly undergoing his tonal

preference gradually turned to the dissonant and atonal, as he
explored the use of chromatic harmonies.

Although full of melodic and lyrical interest, his music is also

extremely complex, creating heavy demands on the listener. His
works were met with extreme reactions, either strong hostility
from the general public or enthusiastic acclaim from his
supporters.

Schoenberg is credited with the establishment of the twelve-tone system. His works include the
following:

 Verklarte Nacht, Three Pieces for Piano, op. 11

 Pierrot Lunaire,
 Gurreleider
 Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night, 1899), one of his earliest successful pieces, blends
the lyricism, instrumentation, and melodic beautyof Brahms with the chromaticism
and construction of Wagner.

His musical compositions total more or less 213 which include concerti, orchestral music,
piano music, operas, choral music, songs, and other instrumental music. Schoenberg died
on July 13, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA where he had settled since 1934.

Igor Stravinsky stands alongside fellow-composer Schoenberg, painter Pablo Picasso, and literary figure
James Joyce as one of the great trendsetters of the 20th century.
 He was born in Oranienbaum(now Lomonosov), Russia on June 17, 1882.
Stravinsky’s early music reflected the influence of his teacher, the Russian
composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. But in his first successful masterpiece, The
Firebird Suite (1910), composed for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet, his skillful
handling of material and rhythmic inventiveness went beyond anything
composed by his Russian predecessors. He added a new ingredient to his
nationalistic musical style. The Rite of Spring (1913) was another outstanding
work. Anew level of dissonance was reached and the sense of tonality was
practically abandoned.

Asymmetrical rhythms successfully portrayed the character of a

solemn pagan rite. When he left the country for the United States in 1939, Stravinsky slowly turned
his back on Russian nationalism and cultivated his neo-classical style. Stravinsky adapted the forms of
the 18th century with his contemporary style of writing.

Despite its “shocking” modernity, his music is also very structured, precise, controlled, full of artifice, and
theatricality. Other outstanding works include the ballet Petrouchka (1911), featuring shifting rhythms
and polytonality, a signature device of the composer. The Rake’s Progress (1951), a full-length opera,
alludes heavily to the Baroque and Classical styles of Bach and Mozart through the use of the
harpsichord, small orchestra, solo and ensemble numbers with recitatives stringing together the
different songs.

Stravinsky’s musicaloutputapproximates127 works, including concerti, orchestral music, instrumental

music, operas, ballets, solo vocal, and choral music. He died in New York City on April 6, 1971
 Republic of the Philippines
Department of Education
Region I
Schools Division Office I Pangasinan
Lingayen

ACTIVITY SHEET IN MAPEH 10

MUSIC
1ST QUARTER

NAME: __________________________________________YR. &SEC: _____________ _DATE:________

ACTIVITY 2:GUESS WHO

---------------------------------- ---------------------------------- -----------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
ACTIVITY 2: COMPOSER’S WORK
LIST DOWN

-______________________

-_______________________

-_______________________

-________________________

-________________________

-________________________

-_________________________

-_________________________

-_________________________

-_________________________

-_________________________

-_________________________