MUSIC

Music of the Twentieth Century

Lesson 1: IMPRESSIONISM Impressionism is a style of music and of
painting that avoids definite forms or obvious
statements, instead highlighting suggestion
and atmosphere
Musical Styles
A. Whole-tone Scale
• a pattern constructed entirely of whole-tone intervals
• not formed from the black or white keys of the piano keys alone but by a combination of both

B. Parallel or Gliding Chords

• the interval between the lowest and the highest notes forming a chord depending
on the preferred intervals of the composers.
- Fifths and octaves
Lesson 1: IMPRESSIONISM
B. Parallel or Gliding Chords
- Ninth chord

B. Parallel or Gliding Chords

- Octaves and open fifths

C. Dissonance
Lesson 1: IMPRESSIONISM
Impressionistic Composers and their Famous Works
One of Debussy’s famous compositions was Suite Bergamasque. It contained one of the most popular pieces used
nowadays, “Clair de Lune”.

Claude Debussy
• acknowledged as the outstanding
Impressionist composer

• introduced new chord combinations:

a. whole-tone chords
b. parallel and bitonal chords
c. chromaticism
d. dissonances
e. interesting rhythms and scales

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa5QzuJrDMU
 Lesson 1: IMPRESSIONISM
Impressionistic Composers and their Famous Works
Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece where the theme is played
Maurice Ravel persistently by various instruments. Only the timbre changes, not the
• a French post-Impressionist composer, melody of the theme. The piece had an opening rhythm on the snare drum,
conductor, and pianist with rhythm that continues persistently (in ostinato) throughout the work.
It proceeds as played either in solo, duet, or quartet.
• works described the following styles in
music composition:
a. Rhythms are more incisive.
b. Melodies are broader in span and
used “added” notes and unresolved
appoggiaturas.
c. Harmonies are more dissonant.
d. Orchestration are influenced from
the nineteenth-century composers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZDiaRZy0Ak
Lesson 2: EXPRESSIONISM
Melody was not absent during the twentieth century. It was a
usual misperception by the listeners because it is hardly
identifiable in this period. Melodic compositions has been
relatively less important than it was before. It gave an abstract
form called Expressionism.

Expressionism
• a highly expressive style in art that sought to express disturbed conditions of the mind
• musical language of Expressionism preferred a hyper-expressive harmony with leaps between the melody and the
instrumentation’s extreme registers
• better performed with instruments than sung
• composers introduced new methods of composition, new performance techniques, and new concepts of music theory
as compared to the earlier periods, making wide leaps and dissonant intervals
a. used nonsymmetrical patterns:
b. polyrhythm
c. polymeter
d. polyharmony
a. polytonality/Atonality
• timbre changed in terms of the number of instruments
• chamber music is already the interest of this period
Lesson 2: EXPRESSIONISM
Expressionistic Composers and their Famous Works

Arnold Schoenberg
• proposed music theories
and developed structural procedures to replace tonality

• leader of contemporary musical thought since introducing influenced a

method of composition called twelve-tone technique, replacing the
tonal relationships but with a more structured system of compositions

• Twelve-tone technique is the arrangement of twelve chromatic pitches in series that provides the melodic
and harmonic basis for a music composition.
• The twelve pitches are of equal importance.
• The notes are numbered by using the corresponding number of half-steps from the first note in the tone
row.
• These numbers are called the pitch classes.
Lesson 2: EXPRESSIONISM

Four Basic Forms of TWELVE-TONE TECHNIQUE:

1. Prime is the original composition of the twelve-tone series.

2. Inversion is the inverted transposition from the given prime. The first note of the prime
will be the basis of the transposition.
Lesson 2: EXPRESSIONISM

Four Basic Forms of TWELVE-TONE TECHNIQUE:

3. Retrograde is the backward transposition from the last note of the prime.

4. Retrograde inversion is the backward and upside down transposition from the last note of
the prime. Both inversion and retrograde inversion use mathematic process in the
transposition.
Lesson 2: EXPRESSIONISM
Expressionistic Composers and their Famous Works
A brief music structure analysis of Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring, Part 1:
Igor Stravinsky

• a Russian
composer,
pianist, and
conductor

“The Rite of Spring” is scored for a large

orchestra. The percussive use of dissonance,
polyrhythms, and polytonality made
Stravinsky known as the destructive
modernist par excellence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_F8adQqKLc
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC

Musicians expected that innovations and experiments on musical

styles in the early twentieth century will still affect the music of the
latter part of the century. However, new music techniques and
styles were developed through the evolution and demands of
computers and machines. Modern technology and gadgets played
significant impact on all types of music of the century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od9arUP9b98

ELECTRONIC MUSIC
• one of the most significant developments which is a broad category of modern music
• used digital instruments, electronic musical instruments, and circuitry-based music technology
• sounds from electronic instrument were attained using devices such as the synthesizer and computer
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC
Three Stages of the Development of Electronic Music
A. Magnetic Tape Recording
• introduced musique concrète by a group of music technicians in a Paris radio station, led by Pierre
Schaeffer in 1947
• a music made up of natural sounds and sound effects that were recorded and altered by changing the
speed of the records
• cutting and splicing of sounds into new combinations were enabled through this evolution
• can separate all of its components, alter the pitch and volume, play it backward, overdub, edit the
overtones, and add other components

B. Synthesizers
• a synthesizer was a device for combining sound generators and sound modifiers in one package
• had an integrated control system
• developed synthesizers during the first stage:
RCA electronic music instrument, Moog, and Theremin
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC
Three Stages of the Development of Electronic Music
a. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
• an analog programmable electronic music synthesizer, pioneered and created by the RCA
Corporation in 1955
• can generate any imaginable sound or combined sounds

b. The Moog Synthesizer

• another analog synthesizer, was pioneered and commercially released in the mid-1960s
• used by musicians in their performances
• also used not only in live performances but also in the field of film industry

c. Theremin
• can control without physical contact by the performer
• was named after its Russian inventor, Leon Theremin, who patented this device in 1928
• capable of editing movie soundtracks and popular music
• is unique as it played without being touched
• has two antennas controlling the pitch and the volume
• playing requires practiced skill and keen attention to pitch

https://youtu.be/6UWIR9R6TNs
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC
Three Stages of the Development of Electronic Music

C. Electronic Computer
• a sound generator featured a graph representation of the shape of any sound wave
• graph were described by a series of numbers, which were translated by a device, known as a digital-
analog converter, into a sound tape playable on a tape recorder

• Computer sound generation is the most flexible of all electronic instruments. It was envisioned by many users of
electronic music that it will dominate the field in the coming years.

• Combining electronic sounds with live performances are already the trend nowadays. Most of the young composers
are using media when writing music.

• Synthesizers are being combined with orchestral players.

• One of the prominent composers who used electronic computer is Mario Davidovsky. In his work, Synchronismus,
these series are dialogues for solo instruments and prerecorded tape.
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC

CHANCE MUSIC
• a music composition or way of performance, all determined by
elements of chance or unpredictability
• other term is Aleatoric music, from the Latin word alea which means
“dice”
• frequently found in some opera choruses
• concept of performance is sometimes left to the determination of its
performer(s)

Most of the sounds emanate from the surroundings, both natural and man-made, such as honking cars,
rustling leaves, blowing wind, dripping water, or a ringing phone. As such, the combination of
external sounds cannot be duplicated as each happens by chance.
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC
Chance Composers and their Famous Works

John Cage
• an American music theorist, composer, pianist, and philosopher
• one of the prominent avant-garde composers of the twentieth century

4’33”
• a three-movement composition with duration of 4 minutes and 33 seconds
of silence; a piece for any instrument or combination of instruments
• the performers were instructed not to play their instruments during the
entire duration of the composition
Tacet came from the • the audience has to listen to their environment while the piece is ongoing;
Latin word tacere a variety of noises inside and outside the concert hall amidst the seeming
meaning silence
“to be silent or • all sounds they have heard within the duration were the composition of the
quiet.” entire piece
Lesson 3: ELECTRONIC AND CHANCE MUSIC
Chance Composers and their Famous Works

Charles Ives Among his famous works

• an American modernist composer are:
and a church organist • Variations on America
• wrote musical experimentation on •  Concord Sonata
church music •  The Unanswered
• applied musical techniques including Question
• Holiday Symphony
polyrhythm, polytonality, tone
Three Places in New
clusters, and aleatory elements in his • England
experimental music