Learning

Describes distinctive
Competency
1 musical elements of given
pieces in 20th century
styles. (MU10TC-la-h-2)
Objectives

In this lesson, you should be able to:

• discuss the social, cultural, and political conditions

present in Europe at the turn of the century; and

• relate the social, cultural, and political developments

in Europe at the turn of the century to their impact on
the arts, particularly music.
Warm Up MUSIC GENRES
Warm Up

1. What are the similarities between your favorite

songs/genre before and now?
2. What are the changes that you have notice
with the music before and now?
3. What are the differences between the music
before and now?
Lesson 1:
Europe at the
Turn of the
Century
Essential Question

Can you imagine what

it was like?
Learn about It!

A Change in Fortunes

Life on the continent has been plagued by unrest for

centuries, and war was a normal and expected feature of
European life. However, at the end of the Franco-Prussian
war in 1871, a relatively prolonged period of peace settled on the
continent.

Alongside this period of peace came a surprising boom in

technological advances, which included the invention of the
telephone, the light bulb, and the X-ray, among others.
 Transportation also
became more efficient
than ever before, with the
construction of the Suez
Canal, an engineering
marvel unimaginable in
centuries past. This, in turn,
revolutionized trade
between the east and the
west.
Learn about It!

Vast improvements in the field of medicine took place as

well, including:

• the development of sterilization procedures for surgical

implements
• the formation of Pasteur’s germ theory of disease.

With the significantly improved understanding of pathology

and histology, communicable diseases became easier to contain.

People were healthier than ever before, and life was much more
comfortable and livable than ever before. Prosperity and progress,
it seemed, was the natural course of things.
 Charles Darwin’s ▪ organisms improve
themselves in response to
Theory of Evolution organic and inorganic
conditions via the process
of natural selection,

▪ taken by his followers and

applied to objects and
phenomena not strictly
biological nature,

▪ the entire world was seen

as an organism, in
constant self-
improvement, moving
ever-closer to a state of
perfection.
Learn about It!

What Lay Beneath

A prerequisite to the period of prosperity and peace was

a sense of stability, which those in power did everything to
maintain. The propagation of the status quo meant the snuffing
out of all creative and possibly divergent ideas.

To the artists and creatives of the period, life was

unbearably mundane; present-day living was monotonous, and
the future, predictable.

Artists began searching for subjects internally, instead of

externally. Art inevitably grew in abstraction.
Learn about It!
Nineteenth Century Visual Art and Literature

Wassily Kandinsky
- the first prominent figure in the visual arts to
create completely non-representational works.

Maurice Maeterlinck
- a Belgian writer, whose writing was rich with
psychological symbolism.

Marcel Proust
- whose “stream of consciousness” writing ignored
the mandates of chronology and logical flow in favor of
a more accurate depiction of unfiltered memory and
thought.
 Sigmund Freud
■ work on the analysis of the
human psyche changed art,
literature, and music.
■ Psychoanalytic Theory
■ divided the human psyche
into the conscious and
unconscious mind
comprising the “psychic
apparatus”, id, ego and
superego.

Such drastic changes in

society and other forms of art were
sure to touch the music of the era as
well.
 Check Your Understanding

Fill in the blank. Read and understand the statement below.

Write your answer in the blank space provided.

1. The ____________________ War ended in 1871.

2. Transportation was revolutionized by the construction of
the _______________, linking the east and the west.
3. In the field of medicine, Pasteur’s ____________________
was formulated.
4. Darwin’s ____________________ was used to explain current
events and phenomena.
5. Darwin’s theory revolved around organisms improving
themselves via the process of ____________________.
Check Your Understanding

6. ____________________ was the first ever prominent painter

to produce completely non-representational works of art.
7. ____________________ was a French novelist.
8. ______________________________ is a writing technique that
disregards chronological order and logical flow in favor
of an accurate depiction of memory and thought.
9. ____________________ 's writing was rich with
psychological symbolism.
10.____________________ was a psychoanalyst famous for his
theory regarding the conscious and the subconscious.
 Keypoints

❖ Suez Canal revolutionized trade between the east and the

west.
❖ Charles Darwin formulated theory of evolution.
❖ Wassily Kandinsky, the first prominent figure in the visual arts
to create completely non-representational works.
❖ Maurice Maeterlinck, whose writing was rich with
psychological symbolism.
❖ French novelist Marcel Proust's “stream of consciousness”
ignored the mandates of chronology and logical flow in
writing.
 Challenge Yourself!

MODIFIED TRUE or FALSE. Write True if the statement is correct,

and if not, underline the word that is incorrect and write the
answer on the space provided.

__________ 1. After the Franco-Prussian war came a relatively

prolonged period of peace.
__________ 2. Wassily Kandinsky was a symbolist writer.
__________ 3. The Suez Canal linked the north and the south.
__________ 4. Marcel Proust is known for his stream-of-
consciousness
technique.
__________ 5. Sigmund Freud’s work emphasized man as a
creature of noble struggles.
♫ Let’s Jam!

Choose an artwork by an artist of the turn of the

century/nineteenth or twentieth century. Create
a short composition inspired by the artwork. The
composition must be no longer than one minute.