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Home , 1900s (decade), Concerto, Expressionist music, Piano concerto, Songs from Liquid Days

Chapter 29 – The Orchestral Tradition in the Twentieth Century

Illustration 1: Two Stradivari instruments in museum cases at the Smithsonian, , DC.

Is the becoming a similar museum piece?

A brief opening disclaimer—much of this text has dealt with what is collectively known as “”.

It's a label that tends to be misleading, especially when compared to what passes as the “classical” tradition today: serious music (i.e. non-popular music often treated like fragile museum pieces and subject to endless discussions and debates about a “correct” way to perform it). It’s usually either that or avant-garde “artistic” music targeting a very small demographic of listeners.

One point we need to keep in mind is that Machaut, Dufay, Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, et al were not composing for posterity. They were writing music for the market of their times. In other words, they were essentially writing popular music—they just happened to have different instruments available, were immersed in a different musical language. They had a different political, religious, and economic paradigm to work with. Bach and Beethoven in particular were known as extraordinarily talented improvisers. There has been much speculation that if they lived in the they might have become jazz musicians.

Along with its music, each era redefines reality. The music then—the subconscious voice of an era—naturally came out differently.

One additional case to make is the meaning behind the label classical. In this case, the root of the word—classic—means timeless. All music and art captures the essence of the moment in which it was created—it would actually be very difficult for it not to do that.

The best of it goes beyond and captures something universal, the whisper of the human consciousness that goes beyond any era, and this is frequently what remains when everything else is forgotten. This is what it means to be a classic, and it's not something often easy to sense at the time of its creationi.

That is also one of the factors that makes us decide to call something art.

Music of every era has winners and losers. History is full of examples of who were very popular during their time but who barely get a footnote in music history texts. The average person would probably have trouble naming Classical Era composers other than Mozart and Haydn. Surely there were more than two people writing music during that era!

And just as predictably, every era has considered itself modern and dismissed the prior era as “old art”. Like each of those times, our era—as new and imaginative and inspiring (or frustrating and confusing) as we find it—will suddenly find itself last year's news. Unless there is a major break in the pattern of human behavior, it will not be long before the newest and most challenging artworks we manage to produce become subject to the filtering process that decides some works deserve to last while others become deeply buried footnotes in some book of history—if they are remembered at all.

100 years from now there will be a lot of music from our era that richly deserves to be forgotten. And, there will also be a lot that will be remembered as capturing the essence of the era, but also going deeper. It’s not out of the question that some rap and heavy metal made the cut for posterity.

THE ORCHESTRAL TRADITION Sometimes when one listens to music--popular and otherwise--of the second half of the 20th century it almost seems as if there had been a sudden radical break, that civilization had started over and that "modern" composers have thrown all old rules out the window and started from scratch.

There is little question that some of the art produced in the last century is deliberately rebellious and anarchical. As dadaists (and others) said, “this era we are living in doesn’t make sense. Why should I produce art that does?”

Even taking into account the outliers who throw the rules out the window, a complete break from the past never happened. As the dust settles and the perspective of history brings things into focus, to historians it wasn’t even close to happening.

As you have already read, before modern electronic ensembles came about, there was a great deal of music written for the orchestra that contains the experimentation and the searching quality found in all new music. Today there is less use of the orchestra as a medium of musical communication for the general public, but there is still much fine music written for this most complex of ensembles.

It may seem a contradiction—or at least an anachronism—if you go to an orchestral , you'll hear that much of the current repertoire consists of music written before 1900. Music of modern composers (let’s for the moment consider a “modern” to be someone still alive) makes up a small percentage of large orchestra . On the occasions when modern music is presented, the music director will often close the program with a nice conservative piece of music by Haydn or Mozart almost as an apology. Along with continued universal financial difficulties, does this signal the ultimate decline of the orchestra outside of a few isolated ensembles and the medium of recordingii?

Not necessarily. In Europe, where the orchestra evolved (and the orchestral music is deeply rooted in the folk tradition and culture of countries whose history goes back centuries farther than America), the orchestra is more of an integral part of entertainment and culture.

A second important reason is that virtually any amount of orchestral music today would pale in comparison to the incredible wealth of music written from the late up through the end of the Romantic era. This is a repertoire that will probably never be surpassed in its passionate emotions, its exploitation of the rich orchestral sonorities, and its ability to speak to the common man (or the searching Zeitgeist of the Romantic soul, a lot of which is still in us). The face of music certainly has changed in the last century (to say nothing of the people who produce it—and the effect of economics, recordings, and copyright laws is a topic for a whole other discussion). Perhaps the orchestra, its sound, its group dynamic might no longer reflect the mainstream culture.

This should not suggest that the orchestra will gasp its last breath in the near future--a healthy civilization is one that tries not to reinvent the wheel every generation. A population that looks forward to the future is also one that reveres its past and makes room for respected classics in any genre, be it theater, literature, cinema, visual arts, or music.

While we in the West are obsessed with change and constantly looking for new answers and trends, we also have a curious tendency to institutionalize and ritualize certain things we want to hang on to: things important enough to keep intact and pass along to future generations. The orchestra, class , etc. may likely be one of those.

If one were to look at the situation through the eyes of science fiction (as this book began), we have discovered how to store sounds, images, thoughts--perhaps even the very essence of our past selves that travel forward through time--we have created time machines (although only one-way as of yet!). We have created devices that allow us to step into them, almost as if we were stepping into a suit of clothes--and when we put them on, for a few brief seconds we experience the living thoughts, the fears, the passions, the faith of those who have lived before us , even centuries earlier.

We experience the emotions—the struggles, the sorrows, the fears, and the triumphs—of someone long dead.

Whether we realize it or not, that’s a part of the musical experience. That’s the composer’s story being told.

In the whole spectrum of things, this could be one of the most important and remarkable inventions ever created by homo sapiens.

Something that was right there in front of us all the time. Illustration 2: George Bellows, "Both Members of This Club", 1909

The following is an admittedly incomplete survey of composers and works from the “classical/art” music tradition in the 20th century. Very good cases can be made for many other composers.

Many of the composers listed below had the experience of having their music trashed by the musical establishment of the time; and then finding themselves acclaimed as visionaries decades later. The motivation behind their music represents many of the same motivations, frustrations, and fears found in any music of this century, regardless of medium.

While there are many important composers of the twentieth century, the following twelve individuals represent some of the major trends in the "classical" music of our era.

Most, if not all, of the recommended works can be found on YouTube, the majority available as videos of live performances.

CHARLES IVES (1874 – 1954)

Charles Ives is perhaps most ruggedly individualistic composer of the 20th century, embodying the pioneering American spirit. Born in Danbury, Connecticut to a musical family, he began experimenting (some would describe it as "tampering") with new musical sounds at an early age, often presaging important European innovations by a or more. Because he was so radical and uncompromising during his lifetime, he was largely ignored by other musicians. Unlike Mozart and many other composers, his immediate lack of success as a composer didn't cause him to starve. The co-founder of one of the largest insurance companies in the United States, Ives died a millionaire. His usual work pattern was to work at insurance during the week and then to frantically compose during the weekend. A breakdown in his health caused his composition to cease around the 1920. After that time he composed very little new material, devoting some of his time to the revision of his earlier music.

Less than a decade before his death, Ives almost literally woke up one morning to find himself famous. Bitter and skeptical from his years of rejection and neglect, he scorned the Pulitzer prize he had been awarded and gave the money away. In 1951 his second symphony was performed by the New York Philharmonic at a concert he refused to attend. In secret, Ives did listen to the radio broadcast.

Ives' compositional style is one that often presents problems to the listener due to his unique approach. As can be said about many modern composers (as judged by their contemporaries), his music often makes for more fascinating discussion than listening. His compositions often include songs from his childhood, hymn tunes, noise, out of tune players and singers, two or more melodies being played at once (which clashed BADLY), all topped off by an extremely barbed sense of humor.

If there was a flaw in his approach, Ives may have tried to express more ideas than music can normally hold and still be approachable by the average listener—many feel his music is an acquired taste. Nevertheless, he is ranked as one of the American musical "greats".

Ives composed five , two string quartets, three sonatas, and many songs and other chamber works. One of his most commonly heard compositions is "The Unanswered Question" for orchestra. Another of his popular compositions, "Variations On America" is not really as typical of his musical language as much as it represents his musical approach and his irreverent sense of humor.

RECOMMENDED MUSIC: Variations on "America"; The Unanswered Question; Symphonies No. 2 and 4; No. 2 "Concord"; Three Places in New England.

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874 – 1951)

Schoenberg is one of the important individuals who contributed much to the radicalism and sound of twentieth century music. Born in Vienna, he eventually fled to the U.S. during World War II to flee the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He died in surrounded by a great deal of controversy because of his musical experiments.

As a child, Schoenberg displayed unusual skill on the and and quickly began to write music for these instruments. In 1924 he became a professor at the Academy of Music in Berlin where a lot of his seemingly radical ideas in composition became known. His two most talented pupils, and Anton von Webern adopted and modified his techniques, but both died long before their famous teacher (and before they could reach their musical potential). Webern in particular was a very gifted and influential musician. One night during the American occupation of Berlin, Webern stepped out on his fire escape to light a cigarette. An American soldier concluded that he must be signaling someone and Webern's distinct musical voice was silenced forever.

Schoenberg's was in the Romantic tradition of composers such as and . Their music displayed a trend of a weakening tonic [root] and shifting key tonal centers. It has a very restless feeling, never giving a sensation of relaxation. This music is in a long line that embodies more and more tension as a simple part of its basic structure. Schoenberg's music is in some ways a logical continuation of this and in other ways, a complete break with it. Like , it was a reaction against the Romantic philosophy.

Music theoreticians and historians consider Schoenberg to be the final chapter in the transition from tonal harmony to music that completely lacks the tonal center so important from the Baroque Era through the next three centuries.

Schoenberg's music is an example of the German Expressionist movement. This movement expressed chaos and confusion, conveying some of the negative emotions, including those that drove people to insanity. Its advocates expressed thoughts and feelings that would have been hidden during the earlier Romantic period. Instead of being concerned with heroes, this movement concentrated on very human emotions, which are often quite base and violent. Surrealist art (which dealt heavily with subconscious elements) was also an important movement during this period.

This was the era in which began tapping into the subconscious, finding that some of the things that drive us are deeply hidden and dark secrets. That may be why some of this art feels a bit like a bad dream where all of the elements of the familiar are present, but very confused, disjointed, frightening.

Romantic music, as you may remember, was filled with grand and huge sounds and emotions, great and glorious climaxes. Expressionist music expressed a darker side of human emotions. Serial music often tends to take a bleak, barren minimalist approach (especially in the way it was handled by Webern), again taking the road opposite of . In its own way it contains as much emotion, as much implied violence as anything that the new wave or punk style has ever produced. Romanticism's drives ended in lifting the human spirit to new heights. explored the depths of the human soul and experiences the grim workings of the subconscious.

There were a lot of factors that helped push things in a gloomier direction, such as a growing anxiety in Vienna, the increasing wave of anti-Semitism, and the humiliating defeat in WWI. From the music with its often sarcastic and ironic approach, we can look back and conclude that this was not a particularly happy time and place to be alive. (The musical "Cabaret" is a searing portrait of this era.)

Schoenberg is known primarily for his technique called "", deriving from the word "series". This involved a very ordered process of creating a matrix of all twelve notes, playing them and keeping them in a certain order. Along with many other rules to this system, he produced music that sounds very tragic, very emotionally charged, tortured even to the point of detachment. Although his influence is waning, his serial technique (also called 'twelve-tone music) dominated much of the music world for half of the 1900s.

RECOMMENDED MUSIC: ; Piano ; Piano Music; String Quartets 2 and 4.

A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF SERIAL MUSIC PRINCIPLES

In serial (12-tone) music, a composer will start off with a tone row, a sequence of pitches that incorporates all 12 notes without repeating any. Traditional harmony starts with a set of 7 notes as the harmonic base to the composition—this approach points to one of them (the tonic) as a home base.. The purpose here, is to treat all 12 equally.

Think of this tone row as not as a melody, but a shape. This shape can be turned backwards, upside down, and upside down and backwards. Any of these can also be transposed to start on another note, giving a total of 48 different possibilities. They can also be played simultaneously to create a harmony based on this original row.

Regardless of the direction of the row, the shape of the melody and the harmony created by the consecutive notes in combination controls the sound like a musical DNA.

According to usual practice, when the pattern calls for an A#, ANY A# will do. Illustration 3: Left to right = original and transpositions Right to left = retrograde and transpositions Top to bottom = inversion and transpositions Bottom to top = retrograde inversion and transpositions

The mathematics behind the calculation of all 48 forms of the rows is actually fairly simple; a computer programmer taking the original row and calculating the other 47 forms of the row needs only a few lines of code.

One thing to be aware of: if a listener tries to hear standard melodies and harmonies, he will come away quite disappointed. On the other hand, serial music is quite expressive and often conveys very deep emotions (although there are those who disagree). At the very least, it becomes a kaleidoscope of constantly changing harmonies, tone colors and . Listen to Webern’s or Schoenberg’s and you will hear some of the most mathematically ordered music ever composed.

Music historians sometimes find parallels between the forms and subliminal structures of a piece of music and the thinking of the time. It may not be a coincidence that basically the same group of people in the same era developed polyphony in music and perspective in visual art. It may also not be a coincidence that roughly the same group of people who invented serial music—where a germinal musical idea dictates the nature of the whole composition—discovered DNA, a tiny piece of code that dictates the nature of its host creature. BELA BARTOK (1881 – 1945)

Bartok was born in a small town in Hungary and studied at the Royal Academy in Budapest. At this time in his life he came in contact with the nationalist movement that was trying to get away from the German dominated Romantic influence. Bartok became interested in the folklore and of his country and discovered that what was passing for Hungarian music in much of the musical world was really gypsy music, quite different from true Hungarian music. He felt that the true music of his heritage could only be found in the undeveloped rural villages of the peasants, so he set out with fellow Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly and the new device called a "gramophone" to record many of these songs before the farmers and peasants who passed them by oral tradition died out.

In 1907, he was appointed professor of piano at the Royal Academy and became involved in the presentation of contemporary music. His tremendous skill as a pianist was probably the reason why so much of his musical output was for the piano. During WWII his strong anti-Fascist stand caused him to flee to the United States where he died from leukemia in a New York hospital.

Bartok's music sounds very dissonant and angular at times, but also has a lot of the lyricism that other contemporary music lacks. With a very important feeling for structure, his music is frequently a very carefully controlled "program" that reaches very intense peaks, while still being quite approachable. Bartok recognized the importance of mathematical proportion in music and his compositions show a structural emphasis on the Golden Proportion (discussed in the Introduction and Unit One). Again, this is an important ratio which is found in many different types of creative art as well as in nature.

His important compositions include six string quartets, concerti for piano, violin, and ; a composition, ""; Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta", and much piano music.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: Piano Concerto No. 3; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Suite from ""; Concerto for Orchestra; Roumanian Folk Dances; Allegro Barbaro.

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882 – 1971)

Although it may still be too early to come to a definite conclusion, Stravinsky is likely to be ranked as the most influential composer of the twentieth century. Born in Russia, Stravinsky studied with some prominent Russian composers, including Nikolai Rimski- Korsakov. He eventually gravitated to the freedom of the United States, dying in New York City.

Stravinsky's music is full of very vivid and conflicting rhythms, and often has two key centers being sounded at once, a practice known as .

Stravinsky is the best known and one of the earliest practitioners of a musical trend called primitivism. This type of music is very much a parallel to Picasso's cubist art and other art of the era. Primitivism is the use of very simple and folk types of music and . It often resembles aboriginal folk art-but done with sophisticated musical instruments or other artistic media.

Stravinsky composed for ensembles of many different sizes, but his most famous (and notorious) compositions are his ballet scores, written for large . His ballet "The Rite Of " (Le Sacre du Printemps) caused fights to break out in the theater when it was first performed in Paris. The audience members created so much noise that the dancers on stage were unable to to hear the orchestra playing just below their feet. Stravinsky's orchestral music is often a kaleidoscope of colors, a trait acquired in part from his teacher Rimski-Korsakov. Often his music takes instruments out of their usual playing ranges.

In the early part of the century, Stravinsky's music represents the opposite direction from the sophisticated serialism of Schoenberg. In some ways, it resembles a "back to nature" or "back to our roots" approach. Within our own era, we can see two opposing artistic movements that sprang from basically the same set of influences.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: ; Firebird; Petrouchka; Song of the Nightingale; L'Histoire Du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale); The Rake's Progress (); Symphony of Psalms.

As some of Stravinsky's most important musical contributions were in the medium of the ballet, a very short discussion of ballet is appropriate here. The medium sprang from the Medieval/Renaissance use of dancing and singing in larger works, perhaps heavily influenced by Masquesiii. Gradually during the Renaissance, ballet became specialized enough for dancers to concentrate on their movement and in consequence, little and eventually no singing was done by the dancers (being a concert quality vocalist requires a great deal of specialization on its own). Ballet received a kick start under the patronage of the French monarch Louis XIV, a.k.a. the "Sun King" (according to tradition, he he received this nickname after appearing in a ballet as the sun). An early noted ballet composer was Jean Baptiste Lullyiv. Some of the musical milestones of the twentieth century have been ballet scores performed in concert versions without the benefit of the vehicle of .

The ballet tradition is one of equal partners--the story is told through the expressiveness of the music and the dancing/movement/acting of the performers. Along with some of its secondary partners, and the inclusion of the video medium in this presentation, ballet is a complex art form.

Modern ballet dancers must go through extremely demanding and concentrated training to achieve their seemingly effortless motion (which actually requires great strength coupled with the refined ability for subtle precision). Among professional athletes, ballet dancers have some of the most highly developed (if not THE most highly) developed physiques.

SERGE PROKOFIEV (1891 – 1953)

Prokofiev (sometimes spelled Prokofieff) was given music lessons at an early age and he began to compose at age five. He began to study with Rimski-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory at age 13 and demonstrated outstanding talent as a composer and pianist.

In 1918, Prokofiev left Russia and visited London, Paris, and the United States, composing an important opera here, called "The Love of Three Oranges". He returned to the U.S.S.R. in 1933.

His music contains a lot of pointed wit, mockery and satire. Numerous times his unconventional approach landed him in trouble with members of the Communist party. Like many of the composers in the Soviet Union, Prokofiev lived through very difficult and shattering times, many artists around him disappear as a result of Stalin's brutal rule. He lived through an era where there was grave danger in expressing one's true feelings, even when hidden in the ambiguity of . Like that of Shostakovich (see below), his music often is a testament to the human spirit and its strength in the worst of situations.

He composed seven symphonies, five piano concerti, two violin concerti, much piano music and other , , ballet scores, the orchestral/narrative "Peter and the Wolf", and music for a new medium that was springing up at the time, the motion picture. One of the most notable of any film scores is his music to "Alexander Nevsky", a movie made by Sergei Eisenstein in 1938. He later arranged this music for chorus, soprano soloist and orchestra.

RECOMMENDED MUSIC: Symphonies Nos. 1, 5 and 7; Romeo and Juliet; Piano Concerto No. 3; Alexander Nevsky; Lieutenant Kije; Peter and the Wolf; Piano music.

GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898 – 1937)

George Gershwin did not have the intense musical training most other composers have had, but he did study with some talented local teachers, showing much natural musical promise at a young age. The son of Russian immigrants, he eventually became a very popular song writer, along with his brother Ira who wrote the lyrics to many of his songs. Among his popular compositions are numerous Broadway and Hollywood musical scores. You will notice that like Mozart, he did not live to see his fortieth birthday; but unlike Mozart, he was very celebrated at the time of his death.

Not the least of his accomplishments include the synthesis of jazz and classical styles. In an era when many musical experiments were being done that left audiences cold, his orchestral music received acclaim from critics and listeners, remaining popular to this day. Like Debussy and Ravel (who became friends with him), Gershwin almost single- handedly created a new symphonic musical genre.

Outside of creating orchestral music, Gershwin composed most of his music for Broadway and films, becoming wealthy and famous in the processv. Had he lived a couple more decades, there's no telling what new musical trails Gershwin would have blazed. His musical masterpiece "Porgy and Bess" broke the boundaries between musical theatre and opera.

Gershwin's popular tunes as well as his symphonic compositions are rhythmically complex and catchy, giving a fast, dynamic, urban feeling.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: ; An American in Paris; Piano ; Porgy and Bess (an opera disguised as a musical); popular songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Someone to Watch Over Me"; "They All Laughed", etc.

AARON COPLAND (1900 – 1991)

Of all the great American composers thus far, no one had Copland's privilege of being so highly honored in his lifetime. The son of Russian immigrants, as was Gershwin, Copland was celebrated in numerous festivals all over the United States when he turned 85. Few contemporary "classical" composers have had the distinction of having their music used in as diverse places as television themes, commercials, as well as several rock albums. As a composer for films, his music to the movie "The Heiress" won an Academy Award.

Ironically, much of the music that made him so well known was written in the earliest phase of his life.

Copland was born in Brooklyn in 1900. He stopped composing in the , but his influence is still influencing composers in the .

His early musical style was very dissonant, dense, and complex--as is much of the music that reflects the chaotic pace of change in of the twentieth century. When he found that this was losing the interest of the general listening audience, Copland changed to a new musical style that was much more pleasing to listen to. He often using folk music, square dance music, cowboy songs, and sometimes borrowed from jazz. Much of his music is almost instantly recognizable, and has a very distinct American flavor.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: Rodeo; Billy the Kid; Appalachian Spring; A Lincoln Portrait; Fanfare for the Common Man; El Salon Mexico.

DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975)

Numerous Russian composers such as Tschaikovsky are familiar to Western audiences, but very few modern Soviet composers have become relatively well known in the West. Shostakovich is an exception--a very unusual one.

Born in what is now Leningrad, Shostakovich is the first of a generation of composers to have grown up under the Soviet regime and influence. Showing musical talent at an early age, his influential growing years centered around the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. The violent and oppressive politics of the Stalin era served to temper a long and productive career.

The music of Shostakovich serves to bring us to one of the harsh realities that influence modern music--artistic policy created by political oppression.

Shostakovich enjoyed a quickly rising musical career, including an opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk which borrowed from many modern influences, including jazz. This opera was successful until it was slammed by a writer in Pravda and said to have been a "mess instead of music". Stalin himself attended a performance, seconding the opinion. Shostakovich found himself in grave trouble with the officials of his government who wished to dictate all musical policy and style.

After a period of self-examination, his next major product was his fifth symphony which he called a creative reply to just criticism. Like the fifth symphony of Beethoven, it begins in a very somber and oppressive mood and works its way to what sounds like a blazingly triumphant ending, although with a less self-assured "victory". Many of his next ten symphonies are programmatic and deal with heroism in modern Soviet history. Although he soon after received the Stalin prize and became the officially sanctioned Soviet composer, this was only the first of several episodes in Shostakovich's life where he got into trouble with the powers that ruled.

The first composer to be cited as a "Hero of Socialist Labor", Shostakovich's death was mourned as a great loss to the musical world and the Soviet sphere, especially as an artist who had created masterpieces in the Soviet ideal.

The story does not end here and unfortunately, it doesn't have what even remotely resembles a happy ending. His story—and his music—tells of all of the convictions of truth and conscience that an artist with strong personal beliefs must carry. It is a story of pain, struggle--and heroism.

A few years after his death, a book by the name of “Testimony” was published in the West. It told the story of a human spirit that would not be broken by the bonds of political oppression. It chronicled the horrors of Stalinist oppression of the Russian people and of a voice who urged courage through it all. "Testimony" was the posthumous memoir of Dimitri Shostakovich telling a different side to the story.

The fifth symphony of Shostakovich is a powerful and dynamic work. It contains many ironies, much of a feeling of struggle and oppression. Like Beethoven's corresponding opus, it is the story of a soul dealing with a struggle, and the resolution of that conflict. While on the surface it represented Shostakovich's stepping back into line, it is said that at its first performance, there were many members of the audience who were weeping because they understood the message behind the music—a message of defiance.

In 1981, Maxim Shostakovich, gifted conductor and son of Dimitri—along with Dimitri Shostakovich, pianist and grandson of the composer—emigrated to the United States. Repression of thought, and of artistic voice is just one of the many stories that has become a part of the twentieth century and of its arts. While the personal suffering in his music is something we in the freedom of the West cannot comprehend—like the Beethoven fifth, his music is a glimpse of the unbreakable human spirit and its strength in the face of suffering. This part of it we CAN understand. This is where the universal gospel of the arts can tell our own story better than anything else. Maybe when opposing countries and political systems begin opening up to each other, this is why some of the first exchanges are the arts.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: Symphonies 1, 5, 8, 10, 14, 15; The Age of Gold (ballet); Piano concerto No. 1; #1; Piano music

JOHN CAGE (1912 – 1992)

In an era known for its bizarre musical experiments, stands head and shoulders above the rest. His music is often singled out for criticism by those who wish to bash avant-garde music. Born in Los Angeles, his teachers include . Cage cites Zen Buddhism as one of his driving influences. He is often known as a musical "futurist", having anticipated the trends of synthesized music in his early lectures.

Cage's concept of music has gone far beyond the normal parameters of musical sound. Not interested in traditional harmony and melody, Cage chooses to use different "instruments" for his timbral organization. These have included bowls, pots, buzzers, brake drums and many other unconventional sound sources. In addition, his music often chooses to break down the barriers between the organization of musical sound and the random organization of non-musical sound. A number of his important compositions include aleatoric elements i.e, elements determined by chance. One consists of the performer taking the loose musical pages of the composition out on to the stage, dropping them and letting them scatter—and then playing them in the order in which they are picked up.

Cage often makes use of silence, sometimes in very unconventional ways. Perhaps his most famous (maybe better to say notorious) composition 4'33" consists of one or more instrumentalists sitting at their instruments and playing nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The REAL sound of the composition consists of the sounds of the environment around the performers--audience members shuffling or sneezing, street sounds that filter into the performing area, etc.

Another innovation that Cage is noted for is the concept of the "prepared piano", that is, a piano that has some strings loosened, some tightened, some with paper between them, some with screws or other objects wedged between them, etc., turning an already versatile instrument into a kaleidoscope of percussive sound.

These are just a few of the examples of his remarkably creative approach to musical sound. While his music is often cited in heated discussions of the validity of modern music, there can be no argument that John Cage has expanded our definition and understanding of music and the organization that we call musical sound. In his own words, "My purpose is to eliminate purpose."

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: Water Walk; Music of Changes; Sonatas for Prepared Piano.

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI (born 1933)

Penderecki was born in Debica, . He is a very prolific composer, once explaining that he will sometimes draw a picture representing a piece of music before he will begin the composition. A dominant characteristic of his music is its extremely dense coloration. His approach focuses on massed effects of strings (often played in an very unconventional manner) with clusters of notes creating jarring dissonance and having a searing emotional impact. His approach often uses graphic notation, i.e. non-traditional symbols to represent sounds to be generated by musical instruments, and he is credited with the development of some common symbols.

In 1959 he entered a number of his compositions in an annual contest in Poland (several of them anonymously) and won three of the top four prizes. Penderecki's first major break as a composer came in 1960 with his orchestral piece "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" which was awarded the UNESCO prize in 1961. Performed entirely by a string orchestra (in a way that makes it sound like synthesizers), its tone colors are calculated to shock the ears of the listener.

As a young child, he saw the Nazi massacre of the Jewish population of his town, something which had a profound effect on his music. Many of his compositions are very large-scale choral and orchestral compositions based on religious themes; a Te Deum, a Requiem, Utrenja (the entombment and resurrection of Christ), St. Luke Passion, etc. in which his powerful effects match very well the pain and drama being portrayed. One of his compositions, Polymorphia, is based on brain waves of mentally disturbed patients and was used in the soundtrack of "The Exorcist". Another, "Dies Irae" is a collection of poetry written by authors who died in concentration camps during World War II.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: The St. Luke Passion; Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima; Polymorphia; Te Deum (born 1937)

Philip Glass was born in Chicago and studied with Nadia Boulanger, a master teacher whose pupils have included and many other current teachers and composers.

Glass had published about 20 compositions at the completion of his studies. These were in a conservative style, but were withdrawn after his work with Ravi Shankar, Indian sitarist and composer (and sitar teacher to George Harrison of The Beatles). This and further studies in Indian music caused his compositional style to change drastically into one that has surfaced in the midst of many diverse compositional styles. It has hit a popularity in not only the classical market, but also in the popular markets, showing some rock influence.

Glass' music is often described as "minimalist". can be thought of as a work that uses certain elements sparingly to force the concentration of the viewer or listener onto one specific element or just a few elements, exaggerating their importance. Many of his compositions use hypnotically repeating rhythmic and melodic phrases which evolve very slowly over the course of the composition. It also breaks with current trends by its use of very traditional harmonies and tonal centers.

Some of his noted compositions include an opera "" (4 1/2 hours long); the score to the movie ""; and a best selling album on the Columbia label, "". One of his more unusual projects was "Songs From Liquid Days" in compositional collaboration with , , , and others.

RECOMMENDED COMPOSITIONS: Glassworks; Koyaanisqatsi; Einstein on the Beach.

A SURVEY OF OTHER IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTORS TO THE ORCHESTRAL LITERATURE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

•Argentina: •Denmark: •England: Arnold Bax, , , Herbert Howells, , •Finland: •France: , Oliver Messian, , Oliver Messian, •Germany: •Greece: •Japan: Toru Takemitsu •Russia: Sergei Rachmaninov •United States: George Crumb, , Edgar Varese

Illustration 4: "Moon", Arthur Dove (1935) i A tiny bit of clarification of the difference between classical music and Classical music. Classical music (with a capital “C”) refers to music of the Classical Era from the mid 1700s to early 1800s. When the c is lower case (as in classical), it refers to the timeless qualities that don’t go out of style. ii Recordings are certainly part of the problem. There is a wealth of definitive recordings from some of the greatest performers who ever lived that is very easily accessible through downloading, streaming, CDs, etc. Why bother then to take the trouble and expense of seeing a live performance? iii Amateur entertainment found in 16th and 17th century England involving singing and dancing, performed by actors wearing masks. iv Who also achieved notoriety by being the first fatality when he accidentally speared his foot with the staff he was pounding on the stage to keep rhythm. v There is a story that as his fame was beginning to mushroom, Gershwin, whose musical background was a bit sketchy, secretly contacted and asked for composition lessons. Stravinsky asked Gershwin how much money he made the previous year. When told, Stravinsky burst out, "You made that much??? I should be asking YOU for composition lessons!!!" and refused to teach Gershwin.

Historians, however, have cast doubt on whether this actually happened, and some have even traced it to a rumor spun by Gershwin himself.

Material copyright 2016 by Gary Daum, all rights reserved. All photos and illustrations by Gary Daum unless otherwise noted. Unlimited use granted to current members of the Georgetown Prep community.