Q1.-LESSON-3.-10-MUSIC (1).pptx jhgfghkijuyhgyui

mapeh

1. 20 th Century Music

2. Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) 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 .

3. 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.

4. He added a new ingredient to his nationalistic musical style. The Rite of Spring (1913) was another outstanding work. 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. 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.

5. Stravinsky’s musical output approximates 127 works, including concerti, orchestral music, instrumental music, operas, ballets, solo vocal, and choral music. He died in New York City on April 6, 1971.

6. Bela Bartok (1881–1945) Bela Bartok was born in Nagyszentmiklos , Hungary (now Romania) on March 25, 1881, to musical parents. He started piano lessons with his mother and later entered Budapest Royal Academy of Music in 1899.

7. He was inspired by the performance of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra to write his first nationalistic poem, Kossuth in 1903. He was a concert pianist as he travelled exploring the music of Hungarian peasants. As a neo-classicist, primitivist, and nationalist composer, Bartok used Hungarian folk themes and rhythms. He also utilized changing meters and strong syncopations. His compositions were successful because of their rich melodies and lively rhythms.

8. He admired the musical styles of Liszt, Strauss, Debussy, and Stravinsky. He eventually shed their influences in favor of Hungarian folk and peasant themes. These later became a major source of the themes of his works. Bartok is most famous for his Six String Quartets (1908–1938). It represents 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.

9. His musical compositions total more or less 695 which include concerti, orchestral music, piano music, instrumental music, dramatic music, choral music, and songs. In 1940, the political developments in Hungary led Bartok to migrate to the United States, where he died on September 26, 1945 in New York City, USA.

10. Sergei Prokofieff (1891–1953) Sergei Prokofieff is regarded today as a combination of neo-classicist, nationalist, and avant garde composer. His style is uniquely recognizable for its progressive technique, pulsating rhythms, melodic directness, and a resolving dissonance.

11. Born in the Ukraine in 1891, Prokofieff set out for the St. Petersburg Conservatory equipped with his great talent as a composer and pianist. His early compositions were branded as avant garde and were not approved of by his elders, he continued to follow his stylistic path as he fled to other places for hopefully better acceptance of his creativity.

12. Prokofieff’s musical compositions include concerti, chamber music, film scores, operas, ballets, and official pieces for state occasions. He died in Moscow on March 15, 1953.

13. Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) One of the relatively few composers born into wealth and a privileged social position, the neo-classicist Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a member of the group of young French composers known as “Les Six.”

14. He rejected the heavy romanticism of Wagner and the so-called imprecision of Debussy and Ravel. His compositions had a coolly elegant modernity, tempered by a classical sense of proportion. Poulenc was also fond of the witty approach of Satie, as well as the early neo-classical works of Stravinsky.

15. Poulenc was a successful composer for piano, voice, and choral music. His output included the harpsichord concerto, known as Concert Champetre (1928); the Concerto for Two Pianos (1932), which combined the classical touches of Mozart with a refreshing mixture of wit and exoticism in the style of Ravel; and a Concerto for Solo Piano (1949) written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

16. Poulenc’s vocal output, meanwhile, revealed his strength as a lyrical melodist. His opera works included Les Mamelles de Tiresias(1944), which revealed his light-hearted character; Dialogues des Carmelites (1956), which highlighted his conservative writing style; and La Voix Humane (1958), which reflected his own turbulent emotional life.

17. Poulenc’s choral works tended to be more somber and solemn, as portrayed by Litanies a la vierge noire (Litanies of the Black Madonna, 1936), with its monophony, simple harmony, and startling dissonance; and Stabat Mater (1950), which carried a Baroque solemnity with a prevailing style of unison singing and repetition.

18. Poulenc’s musical compositions total around 185 which include solo piano works, as well as vocal solos, known as melodies, which highlighted many aspects of his temperament in his avant garde style. He died in Paris on January 30, 1963.

19. Other members of “Les Six” Georges Auric (1899–1983) wrote music for the movies and rhythmic music with lots of energy. Louis Durey (1888–1979) used traditional ways of composing and wrote in his own, personal way, not wanting to follow form. Arthur Honegger (1882–1955) liked chamber music and the symphony. His popular piece Pacific 231 describes a train journey on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

20. Darius Milhaud (1892– 1974) was a very talented composer who wrote in several different styles. Some of his music uses bitonality and polytonality (writing in two or more keys at the same time). His love of jazz can be heard in popular pieces like Le Boeuf sur le Toit which he called a cinema-symphony.

21. Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983) was the only female in the group. She liked to use dance rhythms. She loved children and animals and wrote many works about them. She also wrote operas, concerti, and many works for the piano.

22. The unconventional methods of sound and form, as well as the absence of traditional rules governing harmony, melody, and rhythm, make the whole concept of avant garde music still so strange to ears accustomed to traditional compositions. Composers who used this style include Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Phillip Glass, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, and Pierre Boulez.

23. George Gershwin (1898–1937) George Gershwin was born in New York to Russian Jewish immigrants. His older brother Ira was his artistic collaborator who wrote the lyrics of his songs. His first song was written in 1916 and his first Broadway musical La La Lucille in 1919.

24. From that time on, Gershwin’s name became a fixture on Broadway. He also composed Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), which incorporated jazz rhythms with classical forms. His opera Porgy and Bess (1934) remains to this day the only American opera to be included in the established repertory of this genre. In spite of his commercial success, Gershwin was more fascinated with classical music. He was influenced by Ravel, Stravinsky, Berg, and Schoenberg, as well as the group of contemporary French composers known as “Les Six” that would shape the character of his major works— half jazz and half classical.

25. Gershwin’s melodic gift was considered phenomenal, as evidenced by his numerous songs of wide appeal. He is a true “crossover artist,” in the sense that his serious compositions remain highly popular in the classical repertoire, as his stage and film songs continue to be jazz and vocal standards. Considered the “Father of American Jazz,” his “mixture of the primitive and the sophisticated” gave his music an appeal that has lasted long after his death.

26. His musical compositions total around 369 which include orchestral music, chamber music, musical theatre, film musicals, operas, and songs. He died in Hollywood, California, U.S.A. on July 11, 1937.

27. Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990 Born in Massachusetts, USA, Leonard Bernstein endeared himself to his many followers as a charismatic conductor, pianist, composer, and lecturer.

28. His big break came when he was asked to substitute for the ailing Bruno Walter in conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert on November 14, 1943. The overnight success of this event started his reputation as a great interpreter of the classics as well as of the more complex works of Gustav Mahler.

29. He composed the music for the film On the Waterfront (1954). As a lecturer, Bernstein is fondly remembered for his television series “Young People’s Concerts” (1958–1973) that demonstrated the sounds of the various orchestral instruments and explained basic music principles to young audiences, as well as his “Harvardian Lectures,” a six-volume set of his papers on syntax, musical theories, and philosophical insights delivered to his students at Harvard University. His musical compositions total around 90. He died in New York City, USA on October 14, 1990.

30. Philip Glass (1937 – Present) One of the most commercially successful minimalist composers is Philip Glass who is also an avant garde composer. He explored the territories of ballet, opera, theater, film, and even television jingles.

31. His distinctive style involves cell-like phrases emanating from bright electronic sounds from the keyboard that progressed very slowly from one pattern to the next in a very repetitious fashion. Aided by soothing vocal effects and horn sounds, his music is often criticized as uneventful and shallow, yet startlingly effective for its hypnotic charm.

32. Born in New York, USA of Jewish parentage, Glass became an accomplished violinist and flutist at the age of 15. In Paris, he became inspired by the music of the renowned Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar. He assisted Shankar in the soundtrack recording for Conrad Rooks’ film Chappaqua. He formed the Philip Glass Ensemble and produced works such as Music in Similar Motion (1969) and Music in Changing Parts (1970), which combined rock type grooves with perpetual patterns played at extreme volumes.

33. Glass collaborated with theater conceptualist Robert Wilson to produce the fourhour opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), an instant sell-out at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It put minimalism in the mainstream of 20th century music.

34. He completed the trilogy with the operas Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1984), based on the lives of Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, and an Egyptian pharaoh. Here, he combined his signature repetitive and overlapping style with theatrical grandeur on stage. His musical compositions total around 170. Today, Glass lives alternately in Nova Scotia, Canada and New York, USA.