MHL 204 – BACK TO THE FUTURE

(F-11)

 

1.  Reaction against pre-war music

WW-I was a material and also a cultural catastrophe - disabused Europeans of 19th-century confidence in “tradition,” “progress,” “culture,” “morality,” “art” etc.

Young composers and their audiences wanted music free of the cultural baggage of the 19th century

 

2.  Erick Satie (1868-1925)

Composing from mid-1880's - i.e. nearly contemporary with Debussy -but isolated and extremely eccentric (involved with Rosicrucians, Communist Party, etc) - Then suddenly influential with Parade (1917) - Forgotten again by '40s, but big revival in '70s

Conservatory drop-out - played piano in music halls in 1890's - composed many songs for music halls (e.g. "Je te veux")

Unlike Debussy Satie was anti-Wagner from the beginning - took credit for steering D. away from Wagner

  S. was opposed to all that was monumental and pretentious - opposed to music putting itself on a pedestal - Many of his titles and performance instructions are jokes: E.g. 3 morceaux en forme de poire (3 pieces shaped like pears) - Embryons dessechés (dried embryos) - Introductory note to Sports et Divertissements (1914): "Into this piece I have put all I know about boredom. " (Watkins, p.159)

All this was designed to undermine pretension - Yet it's also serious and sincere - Satie cultivated repetition and goallessness for their own sake (like meditation) - "Boredom for him was mysterious and profound" (Orledge, p.207) - Note readings in W & T in which Satie pokes fun at himself and at the pretensions of Art

He also wrote many pieces that reject romanticism but don't poke fun – e.g. Gymnopédies (orchestrated by Debussy), Socrate (setting of passage from Phaedo that narrates death of Socrates), Messe des pauvres (organ mass)

Embryons desséchés (Dried embryos) – composed 1913 – 3 piano pieces – NAWM has #3 with an elaborate note – Considers as send-up of romantic piano pieces – injects familiar pop tunes and silly instructions

PLAY #2 ("Edriophthalma" – Supplementary CD #4) – What is send-up here? [Chopin Bb-minor sonata, 2nd mvt] – Labeled in score "a celebrated mazurka by Schubert" – What has Satie done to Chopin's music? [made it boring, trivialized it]

 

3.  Stravinsky and  "Neoclassicism"

1914-1918 – Stranded by war in France and Switzerland

1918-1924 – Russian Revolution – loses sources of income and inspiration  -

Between 1918 and 1924 Stravinsky finished a few works on Russian themes (Mavra, 1922, Les Noces, 1923) but was moving away from Russian nationalism and folklore toward an aesthetic that can be characterized (cautiously) as “neoclassical” –Octet (1923) and Symphony of Psalms (1930) are examples of new aesthetic

Several possible meanings of “neoclassicism”

Anti-romantic – emphasizing musical form rather than personal expression

Referring to or reviving music of the past (styles, forms, specific pieces)

Referring to classical antiquity (i.e. Greece and Rome)

Neo-tonal – Tonal but not necessarily major/minor diatonic - vs. atonal music of Schoenberg et al.

All 4 meanings apply to Stravinsky works, beginning around 1920

Octet (1923) – 18th-century forms, tonal, anti-romantic

Pulcinella  (ballet, 1920) - arrangement of 18th-century music

 Apollo (ballet, 1927) – theme of antiquity, tonal

Dumbarton Oaks Concerto (concerto grosso, 1938) – modeled on JS Bach

Rake’s Progress (opera, 1951) – modeled on Mozart

Other composers were important in origins of a “neo-classical” style – e.g. Busoni, Satie, Debussy, Hindemith – Stravinsky was almost surely the most influential

 

4.  Symphony of Psalms (1930) (NAWM 146)

Commissioned by Boston symphony (Koussevitsky) – for Chorus and orchestra

Text in Latin – Excerpts from 3 Psalms – Stravinsky had lately undergone a religious re-conversion – He liked to set Latin texts because they didn’t have strong associations for modern listeners

PLAY beginning – in what senses is this "neoclassical"?

Anti-romantic? – scale figurations, motor rhythms, dry timbres, ostinato

Referring to past style? – chant, pseudo-continuo, augmentation

Classical antiquity? – Latin

Neo-tonal? - yes

Octatonic scales – HANDOUT

Alternate half and whole steps

Limited transposition (only 3 possible scales)

Extra half steps increase cadence possibilities

Stravinsky learned them from Rimsky who used octatonic as alternative to diatonic harmonies

Analysts find octatonic scales in both Petrushka and Rite

Fashionable analysis du jour, but doesn’t explain all or even most of Stravinsky’s harmonies

Symphony of Psalms is perhaps his most consistently octatonic piece

PLAY again

 

5.  Paul Hindemith – Mathis der Maler (1924)

Hindemith (1895-1963) made his initial reputation as a modernist with radical operas (Murder, Hope for Women and Das Nusch-Nuschi, 1921) but moved increasingly toward neo-classical aesthetic – His slogan was “neue Sachlichkeit” (new objectivity, new concreteness)

Examples of "neo-classicism"

7 Kammermusiken 1922-1927 (plus kleine Kammermusik),  – These tried to modernize Baroque idea of music for intimate performance – Also picked up on many features of Baroque idiom – e.g. steady bass rhythm, plateau dynamics, counterpoint (though dissonant), fugue, texture contrast

Sonatas for all instruments

Ludus tonalis (after Well-tempered Klavier)

Mathis de Maler –

First a symphony (1934), then an opera (Zürich, 1938)

Opera is about painter Mathias Grünewald (1470-1528), best known for the Isenheim Altarpiece at Monastery of St. Anthony in Colmar, Germany

 Movements of symphony depict three of the panels of the altarpiece: 1) angelic choir, 2) entombment of Christ, 3) temptation of St. Anthony

PLAY beginning – in what senses "neoclassical"?

Tradition of musical depiction (but not usually of pictures)

Reference to past styles: Textures – melody/accompaniment

Classical antiquity – no, but middle ages (however no musical reference to middle ages)

Neo-tonal – Yes – Discussed at length in NAWM note – Hindemith's theory of "harmonic fluctuation" from more consonant to more dissonant, but not necessarily via traditional harmonies

"quartal" harmonies – chords built of 4ths rather than 3rds – HANDOUT – Most of the chords on the first line are made up of stacks of 4ths (e.g. m. 3, beat 1), sometimes with a note displaced to make a major 2nd (m.1) – Quartal harmonies give an open, "medieval" sound

To increase tension, Hindemith uses 4ths separated by 3rds, which increases dissonance – to relax he uses open 5ths (m.4)

PLAY again – listen for quartal harmonies