Chapter 22: The Late Twentieth Century

1. Chapter 22:The Late Twentieth Century Music at the End of the Century

2. Threnody Col legno Dies irae Minimalism Key Terms

3. Music at the End of the Century • Difficult to characterize recent music • Current music is often confused, multivalent, multicultural • Classical music lost its last great master when Stravinsky died in 1971 • Music has gone in many directions since • Modernism has mellowed since 1971 • The trauma of atonality has passed • Tonal melodies & harmonies have returned to modernism • There is a renewed desire for communication

4. George Crumb(b. 1929) • Professor at University of Pennsylvania • A later member of postwar avant-garde • But not a chance or electronic composer • Pioneered new ways to play instruments • String players might scrape, slide, chant, play using the wood of the bow, & so on • Creates eerie, evocative sound worlds • Known for remarkably delicate effects • Uses percussion with the subtlety known to East Asia

5. Crumb, Black Angels • “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land” • For electric (amplified) string quartet • Inspired by Vietnam War era • “There were terrifying things in the air” • 13 short piece in three groups • Departure – Absence – Return • Titles convey a sense of dread & terror • (And so does the music) • Threnody (funeral lament), Devil-Music, Danse macabre

6. No. 1 Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects • Threnody = song of lamentation for the dead • Reference to Vietnam War (& Penderecki) • Deafeningly loud, skittery tremolo • Alternates with quiet scratching • Exaggerated dynamic contrasts are frightening • High violin fast glissando effects • Appear twice, marked piangendo, “crying” • No discernible meter

7. No. 2 Sounds of Bones and Flutes • Evokes Asian music • Rattling of bones • Tongue clicks, soft “ka-to-ko to-ko” chant, bouncing bow col legno, pizzicato glissando • Very rhythmic feel • Flute sounds • A soft violin bowed col legno (with the wood) • Number symbolism – 7 and 13 • 13-beat phrases & meter signatures that create groups of 7 & 13 notes

8. No. 3 Lost Bells • For violin & cello duo • Starts with distinctive tam-tam sound • Bowed, not struck, to bring out harmonics • The they mimic mournful, bell-like sounds of electronic music • Using harmonics & multiple stops • Returns to bowed tam-tam • Ends with fragmentary melodies reminiscent of the “flute” in No. 2

9. No. 4 Devil-music • Vehement, retching first violin solo • To suggest the voice of the devil • Other instruments scrape out the Dies irae with maximum pressure • Cellist strikes a tam-tam • Ends with siren effects & electric insects • Frequent use of the tritone • Diabolus in musica = the devil in music • No discernible meter

10. No. 5 Danse Macabre • Title borrowed from Saint-Saëns • And the mistuned-violin-strings motive as well • Rhythmic energy picks up again • Players rap on instruments & shake maracas • Alternation between two duos • Violin 2 & viola play the Saint-Saëns quotation mixed with a dance rhythm using pizzicato, sul ponticello, & rapping with knuckles • Violin 1 & cello play the Dies irae with maracas, whistling, harmonics, & whispered Hungarian

11. Kaija Saariaho(b. 1952) • Finnish composer born after World War II • Trained in Helsinki, Freiburg, & Paris • She has carried on experiments of earlier modernism • Often works at IRCAM – Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique • She regularly combines live performers with electronic & computer music • Has written for various ensembles, but has a special interest in the human voice • L’Amour de loin (2000), Lonh (1996)

12. Saariaho, From the Grammar of Dreams (1) • Song cycle for 2 sopranos a cappella • Texts by American poet Sylvia Plath • From The Bell Jar, semi-autobiographical novel about a student’s slide into depression & her subsequent hospitalization • And from “Paralytic,” a poem about a polio patient lying in an iron lung • They share the theme of confinement & the resulting distortion of one’s world-view

13. Saariaho, From the Grammar of Dreams (2) • Some departures from a conventional musical setting of these words • Stanzas of the poem are scattered unevenly across the five songs • Stanzas 1-4 for Song 1, Stanza 8 for Song 3 • She juxtaposes two texts simultaneously • Not common since motets of the Middle Ages • Performers are used with great versatility • As if the singers were electronic instruments • Many unorthodox, expressive vocal techniques

14. Song 1 • Active soprano sings stanzas 1-2 of poem • A violent, leaping, grunting, swooping melody • Dissects & stretches out the vowels & consonants of each word • Other soprano sings a line from the novel • “A bad dream. I remembered everything.” • A gentler line in counterpoint filled with warbling trills • Active soprano gradually shifts • Adopts her partner’s more lyric style • Both end in deliberate, monotonal speech

15. Song 3 • Lyrical & emotional heart of the cycle • And the most conventional song of the five • Singers both sing throughout – slowly intertwining lines in imitative counterpoint • And they sing the same words from Stanza 10 • A mood of calm, quiet renunciation • Do the words & music suggest defiance, indifference, or transcendence? • Form is a gradually rising & falling arch

16. Song 4 • Two texts taken from The Bell Jar • She wants to swim so far that she will drown swimming back, but she tires of trying • Her beating heart mocks her effort (“I am I am”) • A free three-part (A B A’) form overall • We hear every painful gasp for breath in A • B builds to an ecstatic climax on “I am” • A’ returns to panting for air, & we hear fading repetitions of “I am” in a lower register • What does the repeated “I am” signify?

17. Minimalism • One of the most interesting styles of the past 30 years • A sharp reaction to modernism’s complexity • Uses very simple melodies, motives, & harmonies repeated many, many, many times • Terry Riley’s In C was a very early example • Minimalist opera has had great success • Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, & Akhnaten • Adams’s Nixon in China, Death of Klinghoffer

18. Steve Reich(b. 1936) • Minimalism’s acknowledged “old master” • Was a philosophy major at Cornell • Performs his work with his own group • Others have done likewise – Philip Glass • It’s easier to get good performances from musicians who know your music well • Has written quasi-operas with his wife • Video artist Beryl Korot • The Cave (1998), Three Tales (2002)

19. Reich, Tehillim • Hebrew Tehillim = “psalms” • A work in four continuous sections • Fast-fast-slow-fast format • Each section sets a different Psalm to music • A minimalist “symphony of psalms” • Written for 4 sopranos & small orchestra • Strings, woodwinds, organs, & percussion • Reverses conventional scoring – percussion used throughout, strings & winds add color • Vocal style influenced by scat singing

20. Tehillim, Part 4 (1) • A setting of Psalm 150 • Uses free theme & variations form • Constantly changing meter gives the sprightly a b c c’ theme its “spring”

21. Tehillim, Part 4 (2) • Variations gradually intensify psalm singing • Variations 1 & 2 use two- & four-part canon • Higher vocal registers in Variations 3 & 4 • Enthusiastic coda adds vibraphone, bells, & organs as voices repeatedly cry “Hallelujah” • A more vital sense of motion & direction than in earlier minimalism