MUSIC 10

Music of the 20th Century

IMPRESSIONISM
• Made use of the whole-tone scale. It also applied suggested, rather than depicted
reality. It created mood rather than a definite picture. It had a translucent and
hazy texture, lacking a dominant-tonic relationship. It made use of overlapping
chords, with 4th, 5th, octaves, and 9th intervals, resulting in a nontraditional
harmonic order and resolution.

IMPRESSIONISM COMPOSERS

CLAUDE DEBUSSY ( 1862-1918)

Father of the Modern School of Composition

▪ One of the most important and influential of the 20th century composers.
▪ The primary exponent of the impressionist movement and the focal point for
other impressionist composers.
▪ He changed the course of musical development by evolving traditional rules and
conventions into a new language of possibilities in harmony, rhythm, form,
texture, and color.

Debussy’s Mature Creative Period was represented by the following works:

▪ Ariettes Oubliees
▪ Prelude to the Afternoon Faun
▪ String Quartet
▪ Pelleas et Mellisande (1895) – his famous operatic work that drew mixed extreme
reactions for its innovative harmonies and textural treatment.
▪ 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 (1987-1937)

▪ His compositional style 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.
▪ His works is in 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 in human characterizations.
 ▪ He strongly adhered to the Classical form, specifically its ternary structure. A
strong advocate of Russian music, he also admired the music of Chopin, Liszt,
Schubert, and Mendelssohn.

Ravel’s work includes 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
▪ Bolero (1875-1937)

COMPARATIVE STYLE OF DEBUSSY AND RAVEL

As the two major exponents of French Impressionism in music, Debussy and Ravel had
crossed paths during their lifetime, although Debussy was 13 years older than Ravel.
While their musical works sound quite similar in terms of harmonic and textural
characteristics, the two differed greatly in their personalities and approach to music.
Whereas Debussy was more spontaneous and liberal in form, Ravel was very attentive
to the classical norms of musical structure and compositional craftmanship. Debussy
was more casual in his portrayal of visual imagery while Ravel was more formal and
exacting in the development of his motive ideas.

EXPRESSIONISM
• Revealed the composer’s mind, instead of presenting an impression of the
environment. It used atonality and the twelve-tone scale, lacking stable and
conventional harmonies. It served as a medium for expressing strong emotions,
such as anxiety, rage, and alienation.

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)

• Primary exponent of expressionism

• Credited with the development of the twelve-tone system.
• His music is full of melodic and lyrical interest which has an extremely complex,
creating heavy demands on the listener.

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, which blends the lyricism, instrumentation, and melodic beauty of
Brahms with the chromaticism and construction of Wagner.

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882- 1971)

▪ An expressionist and a neo-classical composer. He incorporated nationalistic

elements in his music, known for his skillful handling of materials and his
rhythmic inventiveness.
▪ Adapted the forms of 18th century with his contemporary style of writing. Despite
of its shocking modernity, his music is also very structured, precise, controlled,
full of artifice, and theatrically.
▪ Other outstanding works include the ballet Petrouchka (1911), featuring shifting
rhythms and polytonality, a signature device of the composer. The rite of Spring
(1913), in which a new level of dissonance was reached, and the sense of tonality
was practically abandoned. Asymmetrical rhythms successfully portrayed the
character of a solemn pagan rite.

OTHER MUSICAL STYLES

Aside from impressionism, other innovative musical styles arose within the 20th century.
Among these were the following:

1. PRIMITIVISM- Music is tonal through the stressing of one note as more

important than the others. New sounds are synthesized from old ones by
juxtaposing two simple events to create a more complex new event. In its purest
form, primitivism combines two familiar simple ideas together creating new
sounds.

BELA BARTOK (1881-1945)

▪ Used Hungarian folk themes and rhythms. He utilized changing meters

and strong syncopations. His compositions were successful because of
their rich melodies and lively rhythms.
▪ Bartok is most famous for his Six Strong Quartets (1908-1938). These
represent the greatest achievement of his creative life, spanning a full 30
years for their completion. The six works combine difficult and dissonant
music with mysterious sounds.

2. NEO-CLASSICISM- A moderating factor between the emotional excesses of the

Romantic period and the violent impulse of the soul in expressionism. It was an
essence, a partial return to an earlier style of writing, particularly the tightly-knit
 3. form of Classical period, while combining tonal harmonies with slight
dissonances. It also adopted a modern, freer use of the seven-note diatonic scale.

SERGEI PROKOFIEFF (1891-1953)

• His musical style is uniquely recognizable for its progressive technique,
pulsating rhythms, melodic directness, and resolving resonance.
• Prokofieff was highly succcesful in his piano music, as evidenced by the wide
acceptance of his piano concerti and sonatas, featuring toccata-like rhythms
and biting harmonic dissonance within a Classical form and structure.

AVANT-GARDE MUSIC
• A style associated with electronic music and dealt with the parameters or
dimensions of sounds in space. It made use of variations of self-contained
notes group to change musical continuity and improvisation, with the
absence of traditional rules on harmony, melody, and rhythm.

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

▪ Considered as the “Father of American Jazz”. His works range from classical
compositions to songs for stage and film.
Leonard Berstein (1918-1990)
▪ Is best known for his compositions for the stage and his music lectures for young
people.
Philip Glass ( born 1937)
▪ A commercially successful minimalist and avant-garde composer.

New Musical Styles

The new musical styles created by the 20th century classical composers were truly unique and
innovative. They experimented with the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, and
timbre in daring ways never attempted before. Some even made use of electronic devices such
as sythesizers, tape recorders, amplifiers, and the like to introduce and enhances sounds beyond
those available with traditional instruments.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC- music that uses of electronic machines like synthesizer, tape recorders,
amplifiers, and loudspeakers to create different sounds.

Musique Concrete ( Music Concrete) -the composers records different sounds that are heard in the
environment such as the bustle of traffic, the sound of the wind, the barking of dogs, the
strumming of guitar, or the cry of an infant.
▪ In musique concrete, the composer is able to experiment with different sounds that
cannot be produced by regular musical instruments such as the piano or the violin.
Edgar Varese- French composer, use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his
being known as the “Father of Electronic Music” and description of him as “The Stratospheric
Colossus of Sound”.

Karlheinz Stockhausen- German composer, who further experimented with electronic music
and musique concrete. Stockhausen’s electronic sounds revealed the rich musical potential of
modern technology.

CHANCE MUSIC
▪ This refers to a style in which the piece sounds different at every performance because
of the random techniques of production, including the use of ring modulators or natural
elements that become part of the music.

Example: John Cage’s Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds (4’33”) where the pianist merely
opens the piano lid and keeps silent for the duration of the piece. Amidst the seeming silence,
the audience hears a variety of noises inside and outside the concert hall.

John Cage- American composer, used unconventional composition techniques, Cage’s work
features the widest array of sounds from the most inventive sources.