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Chapter 22

Alternatives to Modernism

20th-Century Traditionalism

  • Some composers continued in Romantic idiom
  • Rachmaninov, Puccini
  • Some used modernist ideas selectively
  • Ravel, Barber
  • Some embraced modernism at first, then created their own mix
  • Strauss, Bartók, Copland, Prokofiev

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Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

  • The modernist of the 1890s
  • Radical tone poems: Don Juan
  • Expressionist operas
  • Romantic and Neoclassical works after 1909
  • Der Rosenkavalier: mixture of Mozart, Wagner, and J. Strauss
  • Excerpt: waltz (3/4), many note changes in timpani (with pedal mechanism)
  • Neoclassical: music influenced by 1700s (Bach, Handel, Mozart) but with innovations in rhythm, harmony

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20th Cent. Timpani Designs

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

  • Born in France near Spanish border
  • Studied 16 years at Paris Conservatory
  • Lived a solitary life in Paris
  • Looked to as leading French composer after Debussy’s death in 1918.
  • Traveled to United States in 1928, met Gershwin
  • Wrote orchestral works, one-act operas, piano concertos, songs
  • Arranged Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition for orchestra

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Ravel’s Style

  • Never warmed to modernist spirit
  • Fused Impressionism and Neoclassicism in many works
  • Valued clarity and tunefulness
  • Refined music with magical tone colors
  • Often Classical forms
  • Influence of jazz and blues

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Ravel, Piano Concerto in G

  • Three-movement work for piano and small orchestra
  • Classical features: fast-slow-fast format and concerto first-movement form
  • His most outspoken tribute to jazz
  • Uses skewed jazz rhythms with French delicacy and elegance
  • Influences from Gershwin, Copland, and Stravinsky

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Ravel, Piano Concerto in G, I

  • A long, lively, folk-like tune

  • A bluesy theme with jazz breaks

  • A romantic torch song
  • Ends with series of parallel chords

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Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

  • Son of immigrants in Brooklyn
  • Studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris
  • The leading U.S. composer 1925–1950
  • Promoted American music
  • Incorporated jazz into concert pieces
  • Turned to folk materials in the 1930s

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Copland, Appalachian Spring

  • Completed in 1945
  • One of Copland’s most famous works
  • Ballet score choreographed and danced by Martha Graham
  • “A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills”
  • Copland arranged a concert suite version

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Theme and Variations

  • A form consisting of a tune (the theme) plus a number of variations on it.

Appalachian Spring, Section 5

  • Four variations on a Shaker hymn
  • Using different instruments, keys, tempos, and accompaniments
  • Imitation and busy background in #2
  • Lively contrapuntal texture in #3

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Key Terms

  • Traditionalism
  • Neoclassicism
  • Nationalism
  • Breaks
  • Hymn

  • Theme and variations