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Debussy's Voiles
-Claude Debussy
-From Preludes Book 1 -
Schonberg's Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21
-Arnold Schonberg
-Moonstruck Pierrot (sad clown)
-Song Cycle taken from an Expressionistic poetic cycle by Albert Giraud (1884)
-Scored for Female voice, piano, flute (piccolo), clarinet (bass clarinet), violin (viola), & cello.
-Uses Sprechstimme Technique- (German: speech-voice), “a cross between speaking and singing in which the tone quality of speech is heightened and lowered in pitch along melodic contours indicated in the musical notation.” Britannica -
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
-Igor Stravinsky
-Le Sacre du printemps
-Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, Director of the Ballet Russe (Russian Ballet Company in Paris)
-Choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky
-Subtitled: Scenes from Pagan Russia
-Premiered on May 9, 1913 (Resulted in a riot) -
De Falla's Homenaje
-Manuel de Falla
-(Homemade) for Guitar solo
-Published in Tombeau de Claude Debussy, a collection of 10 works composed in memory of Debussy, who had died of cancer in 1918.
-Quotes Debussy’s piano work Soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada)
-De Falla had moved to Granada in 19 -
Gershwins' I Got Rhythm
-George and Ira Gershwin
-From musical Girl Crazy
-Tim Pan Alley Song
-Origin of “Tin Pan” is believed to refer to the sound of the many upright pianos used by the song pluggers to pitch their new songs to artists. The resulting cacophony was comparable to banging on tin pans. -
Bonds' The Negro Speaks of Rivers
-Margaret Bonds
-Negro Spiritual
-Poem by Langston Hughes (written at age 18 in 1920) -
Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5
-Dmitri Shostakovich
-“a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism.”
-Inspired by the symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler.
–1st mvt, in sonata form
–2nd mvt, scherzo-like Allegretto
–3rd mvt, evokes traditional Russian funeral music.
–4th mvt, boisterous and triumphant
-Members of the audience wept openly during the slow movement.
-One by one members of the audience began to stand in the last movement
-Premiered on November 21, 1937, in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra -
Ellington's Cotton Tail
-Duke Ellington
-Cotton Tail is a contrafact, a new tune composed over a harmonic progression borrowed from a particular song—in this case, the chorus (also called ”rhythm changes”) of Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm. -
Period: to
Copland's Appalachian Spring
-Aaron Copland
-First written ballet with an ensemble of thirteen instruments
-Better known with its arranged orchestra suite
-Variations from Shaker hymn 'Tis the Gift to be Simple -
Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
-John Cage
-The Score gives precise instructions for altering 45 of the pianos strings to produce percussive sounds.
–mainly with inserting pennies, screws bolts, wood, etc. in between the strings (indicating the precise size of each). -
Davis' Kind of Blue
-Miles Davis
-Modal jazz
-Unfolding melodies over stable, relatively modal harmonies -
Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children
-George Crumb
-cycle of 5 songs with 2 instrumental interludes
-based on texts by the Spanish Poet Federico García Lorca
-unconventional sound sources, special effects from conventional instruments
-new and unusual effects always have musical purpose, evoke extramusical associations
-scored for: Soprano, Boy Soprano, Harmonica, Harp, Toy Piano, and Percussion -
Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine
-John Adams
-Adams' most frequently played pieces
-Harmonic progressions
-Activation of ostinatos
-Repeated chords
-Forward music
-Wide-ranging melodies emerging to dominated texture