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What Is the Sound of Modern Music?

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What Is the Sound of Modern Music? SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2017 Mozart’s “Classical” European tour? A TuWELCOMEn TO THE YOUNGe PEOPLE’SU CONCERTS!TM p! It’s the last stop on our journey through The Ages of Music — the Modern Age of Music! Beginning around 1900, composers started looking for radically new ways to express themselves in sound. Every ten years a whole new style of music was born. Some composers even created new sounds by looking back and reinterpreting music of the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic ages. The American composer John Adams has invented never- before-heard sounds and explores past styles. Today we’ll find out how to recognize Modern music, in particular what makes Adams’s music sound the way it does. Get ready to discover the huge sonic world of the modern orchestra, and for some dizzying time travel. Today, all the Ages of Music come together in sounds that transcend time. THE PROGRAM JOHN ADAMS Selections from The Chairman Dances, Foxtrot for Orchestra ALAN GILBERT Conductor J.S. BACH Bourrée, from Orchestral Suite No. 3 NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC STRING QUARTET STRAVINSKY Sinfonia, from Pulcinella Suite Frank Huang, Sheryl Staples Violin BEETHOVEN Scherzo, from String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135 Cynthia Phelps Viola; Carter Brey Cello JOHN ADAMS Selections from Absolute Jest, for String Quartet and Orchestra JOHN ADAMS Speaker JOHN ADAMS Selections from Harmonielehre THEODORE WIPRUD Host What Is the Sound of Modern Music? Here are some tip-offs to help you recognize music from the Modern Age! RHYTHM Inspired by everything from modern-day electronics to retro dance styles, Modern composers use rhythm in fresh, new ways. You might hear motor rhythms (quick, repeating rhythms), syncopation (emphasis on the off-beat), or polyrhythms (two or more conflicting rhythms played at once). PERCUSSION The Modern composer has an enormous range of instruments to choose from, including a huge battery of percussion! They mix instruments and use new musical effects — including the striking, scraping, shaking, plucking, and bowing of percussion instruments — to create new, modern sounds. EXTREMES With an enormous orchestra at their disposal, plus electronics and amplification, Modern composers can make music louder than ever before. But some have made the quietest music ever. Also, the longest music, the shortest music, the least-changing, the most-changing… any extreme you can think of! BACH, STRAVINSKY, and NEOCLASSICISM Neoclassicism was a trend in 20th century music in which composers reacted against the JOHN ADAMS (b. 1947) intense emotionalism of the Romantic Age by looking far back to the past for ideas. After many tragic world events, some Modern composers sought the clarity, The most widely performed of all living American composers, John Adams celebrates his balance, order, and relative simplicity of music from the 17th century and 70th birthday this 2016–17 season with concerts all over the globe. Adams was born and raised Classical Age. They incorporated these ideals into their new works. While BEETHOVEN in New England. His parents were jazz musicians and performed in swing bands at his grandfather’s nearly 200 years separate Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, and LATE QUARTETS dance hall on Lake Winnipesaukee. His first lessons on the clarinet were with his father, and together Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, there are certain characteristics that Ludwig van Beethoven was they played in marching bands and community orchestras. The young Adams grew up listening to both they share. They are both suites, or collections, of different one of the great composers of classical and popular music and attending big band concerts: “…a lot of that use of brass and winds that you dances. The clear rhythms and highly organized musical Pu lci the Classical Age of Music. His nine ne hear in Ellington and Basie and Benny Goodman’s bands have had a huge influence on how I use an orchestra,” lla lines that we hear in Bach’s suite and other co st symphonies were hugely popular in his Adams says. um e compositions of that time served as a s by day, and still are. But late in his life, when After earning two degrees in composition at Harvard University, he packed all his belongings into P ab model for Stravinsky’s modern, lo P he had gone completely deaf, Beethoven his old Volkswagen and drove to California. There he worked as a forklift operator before becoming a teacher at ica neoclassical music. ss the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. On the West Coast, Adams was exposed to new styles of composition, o composed a series of string quartets — like minimalism, that were very different from those he studied at Harvard. music for two violins, viola, and cello — MODERN He liked minimalism for its energy and approachability, especially compared to a lot of modern styles that baffled many musicians and The Modern Age of that he considered too complicated to understand and appreciate. At the same time, minimalism — with its audiences of his time. Some thought he hypnotic, airy quality — was too limited for what he wanted to accomplish: to create music with a sense of had lost his mind along with his hearing. Music began around 1900 POST STYLE when composers began to break direction and an end goal. So, inspired by an enormous range of musical material — from the entire history of Only with the passage of many years did A playful reference by with traditions from the past and the “Classical” tradition to current-day experimental sounds, plus jazz and rock — Adams created his own, listeners come to understand that this composer John Adams to embrace innovation, change, and the unique voice. music created new kinds of expression. music that doesn’t strict- future. They believed in advancements in In The Chairman Dances, Adams combines minimalism with other styles, like the foxtrot, a Today, the late quartets, like String ly fit into a movement, or science and technology, became caught up in jazz-based dance. Although we hear several dance-like tunes, the word Quartet No. 16, are frequently style, of composition. Some struggles for social and political change, and had “dances” in the title is actually a verb, not a plural noun. It refers to a scene from Adams’s opera, performed, and they inspire categorize Adams’s music opportunities to discover different musical traditions from Nixon in China, featuring Madame Mao — the wife of Chairman Mao, founder of the People’s Republic many composers, including as post-minimalist because across the globe. All of this idealism, energy, and cross-cultural of China. She sneaks into a presidential banquet, hangs paper lanterns, and performs a surprising dance. John Adams. while he uses some mini- communication inspired — and continues to inspire — countless Chairman Mao descends from his portrait and joins the Madame in a foxtrot and the two dance back in time malist techniques, his music styles and sounds. The Modern composer has an enormous together. The piece ends with the sound of a gramophone (an old record player) winding down. range of instruments to choose from: a huge range of After hearing a performance of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Adams was struck at how Stravinsky, a modern percussion instruments, more brass and woodwinds, composer, was able to take musical material that was 200 years old, from the Baroque Age, and make it completely his even electronics! Composers mix instruments, use own. This inspired Adams to select fragments from several Beethoven string quartets — that he had loved since his a variety of complex rhythms, and blend both teens — and expand, shape, and reinvent them, creating an original work titled Absolute Jest. In this work — in effect a old and new styles to create so many MINIMALISM concerto for string quartet and orchestra — Adams channeled “the ecstatic energy of Beethoven.” different tone colors, textures, and ideas. Translated as “book of harmony,” Harmonielehre was a huge textbook written by A style of music that became popular in the With so much spirit, so many cross- Modern composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1911. Soon after, Schoenberg would completely 1960s and 70s where melody and harmony are influences, and now dozens of reject tonality, the entire basis of “Classical” music. It was a shift that left the pared back to utter simplicity. Rhythm takes the different instruments to classical music world in chaos. Adams’s teacher at Harvard was himself foreground, and small changes become very POST-STYLE experiment with, the a student of Schoenberg and while Adams greatly respected the powerful. Minimalism has been celebrated for its A playful reference by composer sound of the Modern revolutionary Schoenberg, he just didn’t like the sound of his music. hypnotic feel, approachability, and simplicity. John Adams to music that doesn’t Age of Music strictly fit into a movement, or style, In his own composition titled Harmonielehre, Adams celebrates is unlimited! of composition. Some categorize Adams’s the very type of music that Schoenberg rejected. Using a music as post-minimalist because while he uses musical language based on Romantic Age tonality, Art credits: some minimalist techniques, his music doesn’t Adams shows us there are different paths to the future Right: Frank Stella, follow that style completely. Instead Adams is of music. “Hyena Stomp” (1962) influenced by a variety of styles, past and present, © 2017 Frank Stella / Artists Today, orchestras across the world, Rights Society (ARS), New York and the music that he creates exists beyond any including the New York Philharmonic, Above: Andy Warhol, one style. regularly commission Adams to “Mao” (1972) © 2017 The Andy Warhol compose new orchestral works Foundation for the Visual and operas. Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York THE COMPOSER’S WORLD: THROUGH THE AGES Throughout the Ages of Music we’ve seen how composers are inspired by their surroundings.
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