Starting from Scratch

Starting from Scratch

Music in the Aftermath of World War II

Zero Hour:The Impact on the Arts

• Cold War• Crisis in the arts• Divide between “high” and “low” art became

greater• Stunde Null (Zero Hour): time without a past• Serialism• Pierre Boulez (b. 1925), “Schoenberg est

mort” (Schoenberg Is Dead, 1952)

Total Serialism:Messiaen’s Mode de Valeurs et

d’Intensites• Mode de Valeurs et d’Intensites (1949)

[Anthology 3-49]– “hypostatization”

• Influence on “total serialism”• Boulez, Structures for two pianos (1951)

[Anthology 3-50]

Darmstadt

• Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (International Summer Courses for New Music)– influence of Anton Webern

• Pierre Boulez (b. 1925)• Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)• Bruno Maderna (1920–1973)

Indeterminacy: John Cageand the “New York School”

• American counterpart to the European avant-garde

• John Cage (1912–1992)– “The Future of Music: Credo” (1940)

Music for Prepared Piano

• Bacchanale (1940) [Anthology 3-51]• Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48)– Influence of Zen Buddhism• Daisetz Suzuki (1869–1966)

• Influence of I Ching “Book of Changes”• Music of Changes (1951)

• Boulez, Aléa (from the Latin for dice)• aleatoric, chance operations or spontaneous decisions

Silence

• 4’33” (1952)– “Tacet for any instrument or combination of

instruments”

“Permission”: Cage’s Influence

• Robert Rauschenberg: Cage “gave me license to do anything.”

• Morton Feldman: Cage gave everybody “permission.”

• Earle Brown (1926–2002)– “graphic notation”

• “Happenings”• Fluxus

Preserving the Sacrosanct:Morton Feldman

• Morton Feldman (1926–1987)• “Free rhythm notation”• Rothko Chapel (1971) [Anthology 3-52]

Conversions

• Aaron Copland – “popular” and “difficult” styles– Piano Quartet (1950)– Piano Fantasy (1957)– Connotations (1962)

• Igor Stravinsky– assistance of Robert Craft (b. 1923)– Requiem Canticles (1966) [Anthology 3-53]

Academicism, American Style

• Milton Babbitt (1916–2011)– Princeton University– trained in mathematic, logic, and music– “set theory”– “pitch class,” “aggregate,” “combinatorial”– Composition for Four Instruments (1948)

[Anthology 3-54]

Electronics: An Old Dream Comes True

• Edgard Varèse• Cage, “The Future of Music: Credo”• Italian Futurists

• Theremin– 1920, Lev Sergeyvich Termen (1896–1993)

• Ondes martenot– Maurice Martenot (1898–1980)

Musique Concrète versus Elektronische Music

• Musique Concrète – using real-world sounds– Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995)

• Concert de bruits (Concert of Noises, 1948)• Étude aux chemis de fer (Railroad Study)• Étude aux casseroles (Saucepan Study)

– Pierre Henry (b. 1927)• Orphée 53

– Luciano Berio• Thema “Omaggio a Joyce” (1958)

Musique Concrète versus Elektronische Music

• Elektronische Music– music based exclusively on synthesized sounds– Herbert Eimert (1897–1972)– Stockhausen• Studien (1953,54)

Musique Concrète versus Elektronische Music

• Use of both– Stockhausen• Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)• Hymnen (1967)

The New Technology Spreads

• “Computer music”– Columbia and Princeton Universities– “transducer”• converts audio signals to digital

• RCA Mark II music synthesizer• Varèse– Déserts (1949–54)– Poème électronique (1958)

Electronics and Live Music

• Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934)– Synchronisms

• for electronic sounds with a live, virtuosic performer on a variety of instruments or voices

• György Ligeti– Atmosphères

• originally for electronics, rewritten for “large orchestra without percussion”

• Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)– Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)

• “sonority piece”

Music in History:Elliot Carter

• (b. 1908)• “Philosophic conceptions” in “Music and the

Time Screen” (1971)• “Metrical modulation”• First String Quartet (1950–51) [Anthology 3-

55]– fixed vs. fluid tempi

Carter’s Later Career

• Variations for Orchestra (1953–55)• Second String Quartet (1959)– Pulitzer Prize winner

• Third Quartet (1971)– Pulitzer Prize winner

• Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras (1961)

• What’s Next? (1999)– one-act comic opera

“Who Cares If You Listen?”

• Milton Babbit, 1957 article in High Fidelity– “The Composer as Specialist”– “Should the layman be other than bored and

puzzled by what he is unable to understand, music or anything else?”