MHL 603 – PREPARATION 3
(F-11)
Due 26
Sept via Email
Please listen
to:
Aaron Copland: Quartet for piano and
strings (1st mvt);
Alban
Berg, Violin Concerto (1st mvt);
Igor
Stravinsky, Agon (first part).
The scores are posted and also in the binder on
reserve. The recordings are on CD-2.
Please read:
Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett,
“Aaron Copland and the politics of twelve-tone composition in the early Cold War
Dmitri Shostakovitch,
“Music and the times,” in Contemporary
Composers on Contemporary Music (ed. E. Schwartz & B. Childs, 1978),
107-110 (1st published, 1965)
Write a
paragraph or two on one of the
following topics.
1. How does Jennifer DeLapp
explain the sudden prestige and success of 12-tone music after World War
II? Summarize her argument. Do you find it surprising? convincing? Does it shed any light on the decline of
12-tone music from about 1975 on?
2. What does Shostakovich mean by "vanguardism" and why is he opposed to it? Shostakovich
specifically exempts Copland from the charge of "vanguardism,"
yet Copland’s piano quartet is a 12-tone work.
Do Shostakovich’s criticisms of “vanguardism”
seem to apply to the first movement?
Discuss this question with reference to specific passages. You may want to refer to the note about the
Piano Quartet that I’ve posted online.
3. In 1941 Copland criticized the music of Berg
as "tradition-bound," and 12-tone music as monotonous and lacking in
"variety of expression" (De Lapp, pp. 48-49; see also p.55). Does
this criticism apply to the Berg Violin Concerto? to Stravinsky's Agon? to Copland's Piano Quartet? Discuss with reference to
specific passages or features of the music.
.