XX: Post-Romanticism and Impressionism
Bridging Romanticism and music of the twentieth century, Post-Romanticism arose in Germany and Austria while Impressionism surfaced in France. Heavily influenced by Wagner, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) and Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) were two of the most prominent Post-Romantic composers.
Richard Strauss is not to be confused with the Viennese Strausses, particularly Johann Strauss or Johann Strauss II. As the son of a horn player, Richard Strauss began composing at age six and took lessons in theory and orchestration. He became assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow of the Meiningen Orchestra in Berlin and took over in 1885 when Bülow resigned. Strauss married a tempestuous soprano named Pauline de Ahna, who was demanding and obsessive compulsive. She was probably really cool. In 1902, Pauline read a love letter errantly addressed to Strauss, assumed that he was having an affair, and immediately filed for divorce. Eventually, she was convinced of his innocence and the two remained married. He found the incident amusing enough to depict in his own comedy, Intermezzo. Despite her tantrums, Pauline loved him very much. Strauss initially attempted to avoid politics, but was appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau in Germany. He ignored bans against the works of Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn, and continued to work with Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig. Unfortunately, when the Gestapo intercepted a letter to Zwieg revealing frustrations with the Nazi party, Strauss was forced to resign. He is best known today for his programmatic symphonic poems and operas Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier.
Born in what was Austria-Hungary, Mahler became a well known conductor and composer early in his career. He wrote nine symphonies and many song cycles for voice and orchestra, including The Song of the Earth. The symphonies are enormous in every way. Laden with expansive melodies and rich harmonies, each lasts between one and two hours. They also require a massive number of musicians. The eighth symphony is nicknamed Symphony of a Thousand and can (indeed) be performed by ensembles this large. Mahler married Alma Schindler, a woman known for her beauty and talent. Alma was extraordinary! She also married architect Walter Gropius and novelist Franz Werfel; other affairs included composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, painter Gustav Klimt, painter Oskar Kokoschka, and theater director Max Burckhard. My list of exes pales both in number and prestige. Seventeen of her songs have been preserved and are regularly performed today.
Richard Strauss is not to be confused with the Viennese Strausses, particularly Johann Strauss or Johann Strauss II. As the son of a horn player, Richard Strauss began composing at age six and took lessons in theory and orchestration. He became assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow of the Meiningen Orchestra in Berlin and took over in 1885 when Bülow resigned. Strauss married a tempestuous soprano named Pauline de Ahna, who was demanding and obsessive compulsive. She was probably really cool. In 1902, Pauline read a love letter errantly addressed to Strauss, assumed that he was having an affair, and immediately filed for divorce. Eventually, she was convinced of his innocence and the two remained married. He found the incident amusing enough to depict in his own comedy, Intermezzo. Despite her tantrums, Pauline loved him very much. Strauss initially attempted to avoid politics, but was appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau in Germany. He ignored bans against the works of Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn, and continued to work with Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig. Unfortunately, when the Gestapo intercepted a letter to Zwieg revealing frustrations with the Nazi party, Strauss was forced to resign. He is best known today for his programmatic symphonic poems and operas Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier.
Born in what was Austria-Hungary, Mahler became a well known conductor and composer early in his career. He wrote nine symphonies and many song cycles for voice and orchestra, including The Song of the Earth. The symphonies are enormous in every way. Laden with expansive melodies and rich harmonies, each lasts between one and two hours. They also require a massive number of musicians. The eighth symphony is nicknamed Symphony of a Thousand and can (indeed) be performed by ensembles this large. Mahler married Alma Schindler, a woman known for her beauty and talent. Alma was extraordinary! She also married architect Walter Gropius and novelist Franz Werfel; other affairs included composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, painter Gustav Klimt, painter Oskar Kokoschka, and theater director Max Burckhard. My list of exes pales both in number and prestige. Seventeen of her songs have been preserved and are regularly performed today.
In France, something different altogether was stirring. Impressionism, exemplified by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1837), was a reaction against Romanticism. Impressionist painters turned to every day scenes such as the beauty of nature rather than the dramatic subjects of the Romantic era. Color, mood, and atmosphere were emphasized over lush sweeping textures. Medieval modes and whole tone scales, scales based on whole steps alone, altered the sense of consonance and dissonance that had been developed through the major and minor scales of the last two hundred years. Triads were extended to become five-note ninth chords for the first time. Planing, a new technique in which chords moved in a parallel motion, was used instead of traditional harmonic progressions, and rhythms were designed to obscure the downbeat. Many of these Non-Western sounds were inspired by Spanish, Javanese, and Chinese music played at the World Exposition in Paris in 1889. Impressionist composers preferred short forms with titles such as Preludes, Nocturnes, and Arabesques.
When Debussy entered the Paris Conservatory at age 11, his blatant disinterest in traditional compositional procedures made him a difficult student. In 1894, he composed Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune for orchestra, which was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The indecent gestures of a hip-jutting faun appalled audiences, and rumors spread. The ballet was a hit. Eight years later, Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande was performed. It was considered so radical that the Paris Conservatory threatened to expel anyone who dared to bring the score to class. The promise was proven true, and the opera became an international success. Besides being successful, Debussy must have been quite the catch. His girlfriend Gabrielle Dupont tried to shoot him or herself when she found about one of his affairs, and his wife Lilly Texier shot herself in the chest when he left her. Both events were published in the papers. Strangely enough, Texier survived, and the bullet remained in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. Regardless of all the hype, Debussy is always remembered for his beautiful music and credited as one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatory at age 14, also proving to be a troublesome student. On his fifth failed attempt to earn the Prix de Rome competition, the entire artistic community revolted, and the director of the conservatory was forced to resign. Although Ravel and Debussy admired one another's works, their compositional styles differ. Ravel's works are carefully structured, intricate, and precise. Quite the perfectionist, Ravel would recopy entire scores to correct one mistake, and destroyed many of his own sketches. His output of less than a hundred works includes ballet music, orchestral pieces, concertos, songs for voice with piano or orchestra, chamber music, and solo piano works. Aside from being a brilliant orchestrator and transcriber, Ravel is often remembered for Boléro, which still earns over two million dollars every year. It is theorized that Ravel died from frontotemporal dementia, which causes highly structured and repetitious creative outbursts. The first fifteen minutes of Boléro contain one melodic line over an insistent rhythm, repeated nine times.
When Debussy entered the Paris Conservatory at age 11, his blatant disinterest in traditional compositional procedures made him a difficult student. In 1894, he composed Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune for orchestra, which was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The indecent gestures of a hip-jutting faun appalled audiences, and rumors spread. The ballet was a hit. Eight years later, Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande was performed. It was considered so radical that the Paris Conservatory threatened to expel anyone who dared to bring the score to class. The promise was proven true, and the opera became an international success. Besides being successful, Debussy must have been quite the catch. His girlfriend Gabrielle Dupont tried to shoot him or herself when she found about one of his affairs, and his wife Lilly Texier shot herself in the chest when he left her. Both events were published in the papers. Strangely enough, Texier survived, and the bullet remained in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. Regardless of all the hype, Debussy is always remembered for his beautiful music and credited as one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatory at age 14, also proving to be a troublesome student. On his fifth failed attempt to earn the Prix de Rome competition, the entire artistic community revolted, and the director of the conservatory was forced to resign. Although Ravel and Debussy admired one another's works, their compositional styles differ. Ravel's works are carefully structured, intricate, and precise. Quite the perfectionist, Ravel would recopy entire scores to correct one mistake, and destroyed many of his own sketches. His output of less than a hundred works includes ballet music, orchestral pieces, concertos, songs for voice with piano or orchestra, chamber music, and solo piano works. Aside from being a brilliant orchestrator and transcriber, Ravel is often remembered for Boléro, which still earns over two million dollars every year. It is theorized that Ravel died from frontotemporal dementia, which causes highly structured and repetitious creative outbursts. The first fifteen minutes of Boléro contain one melodic line over an insistent rhythm, repeated nine times.
XXI: Early Twentieth Century
Of course, there were reactions both to Post-Romanticism and Impressionism. Neoclassicism rejected the notion of program music and emulated composers of the eighteenth century. Expressionism was a German movement focusing on the individual rather than depicting impressions from the outside world. This music is characterized with extreme harmonic dissonance, wide melodic leaps, and often used the extreme registers of an instrument. Expressionist composers Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) along with his students Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (1983-1945) made up what is known as the Second Viennese School. Schoenberg was a largely self-taught composer whose music is divided into three categories: Post-Romantic, atonal Expressionist, and twelve-tone or serial. He described harmonies and chords as "effeminate," "philistine," "hermaphroditic," and "kitch." One might argue that music without harmonies and chords could be described as "unpleasant," and fails to attract great deal of attention outside the concert hall.
In the early twentieth century, counterpoint became prominent once again, and the use of rhythm became extremely complicated. In a changing meter, the number of beats could shift each measure rather than follow a recurring pattern. The simultaneous use of two or more independent rhythmic patterns became known as polyrhythm. Even more dramatic was the introduction of polychords, polyharmony, and even polytonality. Those terms mean exactly what they sound like, and for most of us, the result is nothing short of shocking. Even more difficult to digest was Schoenberg's notion of atonality, in which there is no sense of key at all. Dissonance was no longer pulled towards consonance, but could permeate freely and unresolved. Madness!
This brings us to one of most interesting occurrences in the history of Western music: the riot in response to Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The crowd went mad.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1871) was a Russian composer who experimented with new instrumental combinations, polyrhythms, polytonality, atonality, and neoclassicism. He is best known for his nationalistic ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky and his family moved to Switzerland in 1914, France in 1920, and the United States in 1939. During the years in France, Stravinsky toured and performed as a pianist and conductor throughout Europe. He also fell in love with a married woman named Vera Sudeykin during this time. He insisted that both his wife and lover accepted one another, and they did. In a few short months from 1938 to 1939, Stravinksy's daughter, wife, and mother died. Vera (still married) and Stravinsky were wed in Massachusetts in 1940, the same year Disney's Fantasia came out. Although Stravinsky wasn't happy with his music being abridged for the film, the result has been well loved by many.
But let's get back to that riot. According to Radiolab's episode "Musical Language," sound is interpreted when compressed air travels into the eardrum, causing very small bones to transmit vibrations through fluid to hair cells. These cells bend, and charged molecules activate the cell. The electricity forms a pattern in the brain that allows us to hear. When the meter of the electricity is regular, the sound we interpret is consonant. Unpredictable electronic messages are interpreted as dissonant. I'll let the pros take it from there:
Walt Disney's Fantasia
In the early twentieth century, counterpoint became prominent once again, and the use of rhythm became extremely complicated. In a changing meter, the number of beats could shift each measure rather than follow a recurring pattern. The simultaneous use of two or more independent rhythmic patterns became known as polyrhythm. Even more dramatic was the introduction of polychords, polyharmony, and even polytonality. Those terms mean exactly what they sound like, and for most of us, the result is nothing short of shocking. Even more difficult to digest was Schoenberg's notion of atonality, in which there is no sense of key at all. Dissonance was no longer pulled towards consonance, but could permeate freely and unresolved. Madness!
This brings us to one of most interesting occurrences in the history of Western music: the riot in response to Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The crowd went mad.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1871) was a Russian composer who experimented with new instrumental combinations, polyrhythms, polytonality, atonality, and neoclassicism. He is best known for his nationalistic ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky and his family moved to Switzerland in 1914, France in 1920, and the United States in 1939. During the years in France, Stravinsky toured and performed as a pianist and conductor throughout Europe. He also fell in love with a married woman named Vera Sudeykin during this time. He insisted that both his wife and lover accepted one another, and they did. In a few short months from 1938 to 1939, Stravinksy's daughter, wife, and mother died. Vera (still married) and Stravinsky were wed in Massachusetts in 1940, the same year Disney's Fantasia came out. Although Stravinsky wasn't happy with his music being abridged for the film, the result has been well loved by many.
But let's get back to that riot. According to Radiolab's episode "Musical Language," sound is interpreted when compressed air travels into the eardrum, causing very small bones to transmit vibrations through fluid to hair cells. These cells bend, and charged molecules activate the cell. The electricity forms a pattern in the brain that allows us to hear. When the meter of the electricity is regular, the sound we interpret is consonant. Unpredictable electronic messages are interpreted as dissonant. I'll let the pros take it from there:
WNCY's Radiolab
Walt Disney's Fantasia
The Rite of Spring
by Igor Stravinsky
