April 27: Saariaho, Golijov, Adams, and Higdon

Kaija Saariaho: L’amour de loin: Act IV, Scene 3, Tempete (Storm) [NAWM 216]

• French opera
• begins with male, then chorus, then female, then male to close
• avoids tonality
• spectralist: shimmering sonorities and billowing masses of sound
• “all about color and light”
• emphasis on timbre over pitch as a large-scale structure feature

*

Osvaldo Golijov: La Pasion segun San Marcos: Nos. 24-26 [NAWM 217]

• passion

a) No. 24: Escarnio y Negacion [Scorn and Denial]

• upbeat fast paced samba with lots of percussion
• double chorus, then men and women alternate
• animal noises (rooster)

b) No. 25: Desgarro de la Tunica [Tearing of the Garment]

• arpeggiated piano/guitar ostinato
• begins with brass and “oohs” from chorus until end, very little text and very chordal
• very short

c) No. 26: Lua descolorida (Aria de las lagrimas de Pedro) [Colorless Moon (Aria of Peter’s Tears)}

• very slow
• woman’s voice begins with “oohs” but eventually sings text
• muted strings underneath
• sometimes simple, haunting character of a folk song; other times the vocal flourishes and improvisatory freedom of flamenco singing

*

John Adams: Doctor Atomic: Act I, conclusion, Batter my heart [NAWM 219]

• English opera
• orchestra characterized by rapid, continuous motion, ostinatos, gradual accretion of dissonance, and subtle changes of texture
• agitated effect with irregular syncopations embedded in layers of hemiola (2 over 3)
• lots of brass and percussion in instrumental “interludes;” soft accompaniment under voice such as dissonant strings

*

Jennifer Higdon: blue cathedral: Opening excerpt [NAWM 220]

• orchestral work
• begins with percussion bell sounds: vibes, crotales, celesta
• begins softly, evoking “floating through the sky” kind of images, builds gradually
• flute and clarinet solos, also violin and English horn

April 24: Gubaidulina, Schnittke, and Part

Sofia Gubaidulina: Rejoice! Sonata for Violin and Violoncello: First movement, Listen to the still small voice within [NAWM 213]

• sonata
• study in chromaticism, glissandos, tremolos, and harmonics
• introduces a series of gestures, then offers three variations on the same series of ideas, with four principal motives in violin: a leaping and pulsing figure, a neighbor-note figure, a tremolo glissando, and a pizzicato jumping figure
• cello, playing with intense vibrato throughout, traces a slowly moving, mostly chromatic line that gradually winds down two octaves

*

Alfred Schnittke: Concerto Grosso No. 1: Second movement, Toccata

• concerto
• for two violins, harpsichord (doubling on piano), and string orchestra
• first section uses Baroque ideas and material, in a fluttering quiet canon of strings which eventually adds more and more violins until a crescendo
• then violas and cellos begin their own canon
• piece is mostly dissonant strings

*

Arvo Part: Seven Magnificat Antiphons: Excerpts [NAWM 215]

• choral antiphons
• German

A) No. 1: O Weisheit

• SATB a capella choir (with each part divided into two parts)
• voices move together in pretty sustained chords

B) No. 6: O Konig aller Volker

• voices do not move together: altos do a chant-like countermelody all on the same note in constant quarter notes as the sopranos sing chords above and basses and tenors sing chords at different times

April 22: Sheng, Reich, and Adams

Bright Sheng: Seven Tunes Heard in China: No. 1, Seasons

• for solo cello
• uses Bach-like features: dancelike rhythms, double stops, motivic repetition, sequences, simulated polyphony
• mixed with the character and style of Chinese music: quick ornamental turns, slides between pitches, long held notes that crescendo with an intense vibrato

*

Steve Reich: Tehillim: Part IV

• for four solo voices and ensemble or chamber orchestra
• main melody has more skips and leaps than steps
• melody and counterpoints are diatonic
• singers doubled by wind instruments and organs, and strings play sustained diatonic but dissonant chords of five to seven notes
• meter is constantly changing in response to natural speech rhythms
• percussion rhythms articulate vocal notes but reflects the groups of two and three (sound like African drums to me)–also includes tambourine, maracas, crotales, vibraphone

*

John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine [NAWM 211]

• orchestral fanfare
• almost constant percussion (woodblock) serving as metronome; other instruments play off this such as high brass in the beginning
• syncopations and irregular accents
• rapid ostinatos in clarinets, trumpets play repeated chords, flutes and oboes add quick filigree figures in the upper register, other percussion joins as well
• then brass, winds, and strings move in rhythmic unison at the entrance of strings and bassoons playing against the background of woodblock, clarinets, synthesizers, and percussion
• changes to lower woodblock, pulsing chords and ostinatos change every two measures
• woodblock drops out at end and three-part counterpoint begins with a quickly moving melody in trumpets, a slower line in horns and cellos, and a still slower bass line in trombones, tuba, contrabassoon, and contrabass

April 20: Cage, Varese, and Babbitt

John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes: Sonata V [NAWM 203]

• suite for prepared piano
• sounds like a mix of African drums and tin cans because of the mutes between the strings
• right hand melody sort of goes up and down a few notes

*

Music of Changes: Book I [NAWM 204]

• chance composition for piano
• honestly just sounds like really random piano playing (notes, chords, etc.)

*

Edgard Varese: Poeme electronique [NAWM 206]

• electro-acoustic tape piece
• no score: piece composed out of sounds recorded on audiotape
• uses pure electronic sounds, nontraditional sounds such as sirens, and traditional sounds such as voice in new sonic environments
• sounds like scary electronic horror movie music

*

Milton Babbitt: Philomel: Section I [NAWM 207]

• monodrama for soprano, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound
• begins with an uncomfortable ringing and a woman’s voice singing “ee” along with some futuristic sort of electronic sounds
• then becomes more voice dominated as a woman, along with an eerie recording, sings in a high register (though there is also lots of odd high-low-high-low in the “melody”) about tears and trees and walking through the forest and other poetic stuff

April 17: Britten, Messiaen, Crumb, and Penderecki

Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes: Act III, Scene 2, To hell with all your mercy!

• opera
• English male voice accompanied by an echoing choir and instruments in the beginning, intense and angry; female voice comes in, and male sings again but softer
• generally spare instrumental accompaniment until interlude after dialogue about boat
• becomes a big chorus

*

Oliver Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time: First movement, Liturgie de cristal [NAWM 201]

• quartet for violin, clarinet, violoncello, and piano; translation Crystal Liturgy
• clarinet and violin each play stylized birdcalls–has a pulse but no clear meter
• cello and piano lay out complex patterns of duration and pitch that repeat in cycles: cello constantly repeats a five-note sequence in high harmonics using a pattern of fifteen durations; cycles in piano are a series of twenty-nine chords overlapping a rhythmic pattern of seventeen durations

*

George Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land: Images 4 and 5

• electric string quartet
• explores various unique sounds produced by amplified strings
• includes percussion such as maracas, tam-tams, water-tuned crystal glasses, as well as vocal sounds such as clicking, whistling, whispering, and chanting
• in both images, the first three phrases of Dies irae alternate with contrasting material

A) Image 4: Devil-Music

• intense solo cadenza for first violinist: triple-stopped chords, pizzicato notes plucked by the left hand, and harmonics

B) Image 5: Danse macabre

• alternates material played by the second violin and viola with the phrases of the Dies irae in the first violin and cello
• second violin and viola lines rely heavily on pizzicato and other unusual effects, such as tapping on the viola with knuckles

*

Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima [NAWM 208]

• tone poem
• section one is made of high pitched dissonant clusters
• section two is varied texture of multiple sound effects in rapid succession
• section three is sustained tones and quarter-tone clusters linked with glissandos
• section four contains isolated pitches and various sound effects, in canon
• unison sound effects and clusters that lead to the final climactic chord make up section five
• written for 52 strings (24 violins, 10 violas, 10 cellos, and 8 double basses)
• sounds like scary horror movie music

April 15: Parker/Gillespie, Bernstein, and Persichetti

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie: Anthropology [NAWM 197]

• bebop tune and solo
• head in AABA
• Charlie Parker takes first solo, Dizzy Gillespie takes second, Bud Powell takes third, trade fours before head
• blistering pace characteristic of bebop, many syncopations and sudden stops, starts, and silences
• full of chromatic notes

*

Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Act I, No. 8, “Cool”

• musical
• jazzy; words in English; one of my most favorite musicals ever so there’s no way I’ll ever miss this one

*

Vincent Persichetti: Symphony for Band (Symphony No. 6), Op. 69: First movement, Adagio–Allegro

• symphony for band
• slow introduction and an Allegro in sonata form
• lots of percussion!
• themes are mostly diatonic, most chords based on thirds or fifths, changes of pitch collection and shades of greater or lesser dissonance create a sense of harmonic motion, tension, and resolution

April 13: Varese, Cowell, Crawford Seeger, Copland, and Still

Edgard Varese: Hyperism [NAWM 192]

• work for winds, brass, and percussion
• lots of percussion color including an instrument that sounds like a siren
• woodwinds and brass do not play themes and rarely melodies; instead they produce sounds that suggest static or moving sound masses… accents, glissandos, crescendos, sforzandos, flutter-tonguing, all constantly changing timbre
• avoids familiar chords/scales–tends to use notes that are next to each other in the chromatic scale but separated by on eor more octaves

*

Henry Cowell: The Banshee [NAWM 193]

• piano piece
• played directly on strings of piano

*

Ruth Crawford Seeger: String Quartet 1931: Fourth movement, Allegro possibile [NAWM 194]

• string quartet
• palindrome: second half is an exact retrograde of the first, transposed up a half-step
• texture: two contrapuntal lines
• begins with violin playing one note, then two, then three, all the way to twenty-one, gradually getting softer; pitches and rhythms chosen freely
• other three instruments begin at twenty notes, then nineteen, then eighteen, etc., gradually getting louder; lower instruments play only eighth notes and pitches generated by permutations of a ten-note series

*

Aaron Copland: Appalachain Spring, Excerpt with Variations on ‘Tis the Gift to Be Simple [NAWM 195]

• ballet suite
• uses dissonance, counterpoint, motivic unity, juxtaposed blocks of modernist sound, but also uses diatonic melodies and harmonies, transparent textures, direct quotations of folk or popular songs: evokes country fiddling, dancing, and singing and captures the spirit of rural America
• beginning section contain shifting meters, offbeat accents, and sudden changes of texture (Stravinsky-like); predominantly diatonic melodies and harmonies, syncopation, and guitarlike chords make the passage sound like American folk music
• well-known Shaker melody used in a later passage

*

William Grant Still: Afro-American Symphony (Symphony No. 1): First movement, Moderato assai [NAWM 196]

• symphony
• blues melody (AAB form) and harmonic progression
• syncopations appear in both melody and accompaniment, phrases often end just before rather than on a strong beat
• call-and-response structure is echoed in the frequent interjections by other instruments between the short phrases of melody
• lowered fifth, third, and seventh scale degrees
• instrumental groupings similar to jazz bands: trumpets and trombones (with Harmon mutes), steady taps on the bass drum and dampened strikes on the cymbal, winds and brass used in groups of similar sound, use of a vibraphone
• second theme has pentatonic contours of a spiritual
• becomes swung

April 10: Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Sergey Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78: Fourth movement, Arise, ye Russian People [NAWM 188]

• cantata (film score)
• brief clamorous orchestral introduction establishes a mood of fervency with conflicting rhythmic pulses, orchestration that suggests trumpet calls and pealing church bells, and a harmonic clash between the winds and brass and strings
• modernism such as implied polytonality, double chromatic neighbors in the trumpets, and glissandos in the xylophone
• homorythmic choral writing with two lines: sopranos and tenors present melody, altos and basses provide a supportive counterpoint; orchestra reinforces accents in chorus; choral melody and harmony are diatonic

*

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Op. 47: Second movement, Allegretto

• symphony
• scherzo
• Mahler’s influence can be heard in the orchestration, the jarring contrasts of mood, the occasionally satirical tone, and the use of counterpoint
• vigorous, rather awkward, and tonally ambiguous melody in the low strings at the beginning of the movement introduces a number of motives that will be incorporated in later thematic ideas, such as the rising scale and the repeated notes
• rowdy fanfare
• trio begins with elegant waltz played by a solo violin and accompanied by a harp and pizzicato cello

April 8: Milhaud, Weill, and Hindemith

Darius Milhaud: La creation du monde (The Creation of the World), Op. 81a: First tableau [NAWM 185]

• ballet
• jazz style with winds, strings, brass, and percussion, but also piano, lots of percussion, and saxophone
• brief fugue in three sections (inspired by blues scales and rhythms as well as polytonality and polyrhythm)
• piano/percussion share a 4-measure long rhythmic ostinato grouped as 3+3+3+3+4, similar to ragtime
• beginning begins somewhat sparse but gradually more timbres are added in to build intensity

*

Kurt Weill: Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera): Prelude, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer [NAWM 186]

• opera in German; translation: the “Ballad of Mack the Knife”
• strophic song in a mock-popular style, over a light accompaniment “in the manner of a barrel organ”
• entire melody derived from two-measure phrase with a lilting dotted rhythm leading to two even half notes; repeated and gradually varied, at first with rising skips and steps and then with falling steps and sevenths
• short phrases, frequent rests, lilting rhythm

*

Paul Hindemith: Symphony Mathis der Maler: Second movement, Grablegung (Entombment) [NAWM 187]

• symphony
• flows like a single thought
• aided by a pervasive rhythmic figure (quarter note, eighth rest, and eighth note [or, its equivalent, dotted quarter and eighth]) which shows up in almost every measure
• neotonal harmony: open fifths, triads, chords built on fourths, dissonances of a second or seventh

April 6: Gershwin, Smith, Oliver, and Ellington

George Gershwin: I Got Rhythm, from Girl Crazy [NAWM 181]

• Broadway show song
• opens with instrumental introduction, beginning with hi-hat and following with some very obviously Gershwin-esque music
• music becomes very sparse when the female Broadway singer begins singing–very obviously Broadway because of the harshness (for lack of a better word) of the voice
• in English–sings the title as well a list of other things she has besides rhythm, repeating “Who Could Ask For Anything More?” pretty often
• basis for Rhythm Changes

*

Bessie Smith: Black Water Blues [NAWM 182]

• blues
• female voice (English) accompanied by ragtime sort of piano
• strophic; 12-bar blues

*

King Oliver [Joe Oliver]: West End Blues [NAWM 183]

• begins with Armstrong’s trumpet solo, then trombone solo, skatting voice and clarinet play off one another, piano solo
• slow tune with emphasis on each quarter note

*

Duke Ellington: Cotton Tail [NAWM 184]

• jazz composition (contrafact)
• fast swing; Rhythm Changes chords