During the twentieth century, music began to evolve into different forms. The way music was being written was changing, it had complex ideals with dissonant chords, intricate melody lines and different styles of music were being created. In this era of music, two pieces essentially changed classical music. These were Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky and Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. The Rite of Spring premiered in 1913 at the Théâtre de Champs Elysées in Paris as a two-part ballet-suite.
Beethoven's First Symphony in C major marks the first of his collection of nine symphonies, and although it was only his first work in this genre, the compositional techniques used by Beethoven are anything but juvenile. Throughout the course of the first movement of his Symphony No. 1 in C major, Beethoven adventurously explores multiple tonal areas while managing to maintain a sense of motivic unity in the movement. In addition to tracking the different key areas of the piece, this paper will also track two decidedly important motives from both the first and second tonal areas of the piece. The first, which we will refer to as motive A, consists of a dotted half-note followed by a dotted eighth and sixteenth note.
Adagio molto begins with what appears to be the wrong tonality. This is evident if we look at how the dominant chord resolves to the subdominant key. At the time this was widely considered to be a musical joke, yet it could also be a testament to the fact that Beethoven would often experimented with out of the box ways of thinking. A music critic of the time, who had a good insight into beethoven's composition styles remarked "No one will censure an ingenious artist like Beethoven for such liberties and peculiarities, but such a beginning is not suitable for the opening of a grand concert in a spacious opera house." [3] After taking the time to listen to this movement several times and also studying the score as much as I possibly could with the limited musical analysis skills I possesses, I came to the conclusion that all though this movement follows a basic rhythmic structures
Ars Nova The Ars Nova in France was started by Philip de Vitry around 1310 and continued through the 1370’s. Ars Nova was known as the “new art” signifying the new French musical style. It made many improvements in music notation and style, however many people were against this and strongly supported the “ancient art”. The new notation required an open mind and reconstruction of musical time. The first change to be made was allowing the “imperfect” and “perfect” divisions of note values and the second divided the semibreve into minims allowing more rhythmic flexibility and new meters, creating for the first time syncopation.
These sections are the exposition, which starts from the first bar in K.333, the development, which between bars 63 and 93 and the recapitulation that occurs from bar 93 until the end of the piece. Poulenc’s Sonata is written in ternary form, which means that it follows an A-B-A structure. In this specific piece, the A section starts at bar 1, the B section starts at bar 26, then at bar 58 the A section returns again. In Mozart’s K.333 there are clear perfect cadences used in the piece that help reinforce the tonality, however in Poulenc’s Sonata although there are perfect cadences some of them are not completed and are instead suggested and then interrupted. In Mozart’s K.333 the cadences are used to reinforce the tonality, such as in bars 9-10 where the cadence is in the tonic key.
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD (1750-1825) THE CLASSICAL PERIOD OF MUSIC 1) TIME OF GREAT MUSICAL EXPERIMENTATION AND DISCOVERY 2) CENTERS AROUND ACHIEVEMENTS OF VIENNESE SCHOOL A) HAYDN B) MOZART C) BEETHOVEN 3) THREE CHALLENGING PROBLEMS A) EXPLORE MAJOR-MINOR SYSTEM TO ITS FULLEST B) TO PERFECT A LARGE FORM OF ABSOLUTE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC (THE SONATA CYCLE) C) TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ITS (SONATA CYCLE) VARIOUS TYPES 1) SONATA 2) CONCERTO SYMPHONY 3) ELEMENTS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 1) ELEGANT AND LYRICAL MELODIES A) ELEGANT AND LYRICAL MELODIES B) CLEAR-CUT CADENCES 2) THE HARMONIES THAT SUSTAINED THESE MELODIES A) FIRMLY ROOTED IN THE KEY RHYTHM 3) A) MUSIC WAS IN EITHER 2, 3, 4, OR 6/8 B) STAYED IN RHYTHMIC STYLE IT BEGAN WITH 4) FORM A) UNFOLDED
Rameau contributed to a variety of dramatic forms, continuing, in some, the tradition of Lully. These included tragedies lyriques, comedies lyrics and comedies-ballets. His first success in 1733 was Happily et Archie, but as time went on fashions changed and the stage works he wrote after Les Paladins in 1760 remained unperformed. Orchestral suites derived from some of Rameau’s stage works at least make a certain amount of this music readily available. Sixty of Rameau’s 65 harpsichord pieces were written by 1728, with a final group appearing in 1741.
Toccata Tune The musical piece known as Toccata and Fugue in D minor is an aggressive song without a doubt. The melody constantly changes, as does the tone and the mood. Johann Sebastian Bach composed this piece to express a feeling and emotion though various sound waves. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is a piece written by Johann Sebastian Bach for organ during his seven year tenure in Weimar sometime between 1703 and 1717. Different people may feel a mixture of sensations.
Despite different musical ideas being explored in previous eras, it was difficult to advance music further in terms of different timbres or varied musical techniques due to the lack of technology present at the time. It is said that the defining features of 20th century music was the discovery of new technology, increased musical freedom and wide experimentation with new styles which challenged the previously accepted rules of music from the earlier eras. One composer who demonstrated this was Edgar Varèse, who invented the term ‘organised sound’ and whose music emphasised timbre and rhythm. He was known as the ‘father of electronic music’ after extensively using electronic resources and new instruments. As a result of all of these factors, a new music genre was born; electronic music.
m7h, 5 31 94 CHAPTER 7 MOZART AND BEETHOVEN COMPARED Above all else, I wish people would have the courage to say what they really think about music, and not be so eternally worried over what somebody else may think and say." - - - Sigmund Spaeth 1933 The partisan comparisons of the relative merits of Mozart and Beethoven have continued for over a Century. There are the fervent Mozartians, who become enraged at the suggestion that Beethoven's music has more substance than Mozart's, and insist that Mozart's music has an altogether more lofty quality than Beethoven's crudities. But there are just as fervent Beethovians, who dismiss the Mozart piano sonatas as mere nger exercises, suitable only for warming up before playing Beethoven. Indeed, there is a very di erent quality to their music, which cannot be explained merely by supposing that Beethoven used greater dynamic and rhythmic excursions; both used the full range of dynamics, tempo, and pitch that was possible on the pianos available to them.