On Mar 14, 5:01 am, "BestStudentViolins.com"
<SunMusicStri
...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I had an adult piano student email me with questions about analyzing
> 20th century works; he was trying to use major/minor tonality with
> composers who used avant guard techniques. He has not studied 20th
> century techniques yet, though his questions are good ones, if
> premature.
> I tried to respond, and have put this response in a Q & A section on
> the Theory page at:
> http://beststudentviolins.com/TheoryNotes.html#QA
> Problem is, I can't recall what the seven categories are which Virgil
> Thomson used to categorize 20th century music. I keep losing this
> information and now I can't find it. Does anybody know what Thomson's
> seven categories were?
> Please comment on the other notes, as well, if you would.
I don't remember Thomson's categories, either, but I do have a few
observations about your other points:
: Major/minor tonality began to break down with the invention of
: chromaticism, started by Richard Wagner in the late Romantic
: era
I suppose that, when simplifying things for a beginner, you can
attribute the breakdown of tonality to the *increase* in chromaticism
in the middle of the 19th century, but it was not "invented" at that
time (Your student's next question is liable to be "What about Bach's
Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, then?"), and Wagner didn't start the
trend, either. To be more accurate, the use of chromaticism didn't
just "happen" and thereby cause the dissolution of the functional
harmonic system. Rather, the increase in chromaticism was itself a
product of composers' increasing exploitation of linear harmonies, a
process which can be seen prominently already in the music of J. S.
Bach.
I would be very surprised if Thomson pointed to Aaron Copland as an
exemplar of major/minor tonality without making a caveat. Your student
will have nearly as much difficulty trying to use this framework to
analyze Vitebsk, the Piano Variations, the Piano Quartet, or Inscape
as he would in attempting to apply it to Cage's 4'33". You had better
qualify this statement by specifying pieces like the Danzón Cubano, El
Salón México, or Billy the Kid.
Similarly with category no. 3. The Rite of Spring is scarcely a
neoclassical work, nor is Petrushka, Les Noces, the Movements for
Piano and Orchestra, or Threni.
The description of category 4, "electronic music", is confused.
"Musique concrčte" is a particular technique, and is sometimes found
in in pop music as well (e.g., Beatles' songs like "A Day in the
Life"). You should also be aware that the Wikipedia articles around
this subject are particularly contentious at the moment, and you are
linking only to the "Musique concrčte" article, where even the "see
also" links do not include "Electronic art music" or "Electronic
music", which are probably where your student should start (though
these two articles are particularly subject to editorial debate at the
present time).
Your student will get a much better idea of category 5, "serialism",
from the Wikipedia, but he is bound to come back with questions about
this "based on the 12 1/2 steps of the octave (versus the eight tones
in a major or minor scale)" business (and I'll bet he's already
questioned the number of notes in a major or minor scale being set at
eight instead of seven). Stockhausen's Stimmung, for example, is a
serial composition, but its pitches do not comprise the chromatic
scale--in fact, there are only six, and they are from the overtone
series. Henri Pousseur's electronic composition Scambi is also a
serial composition, but has no pitches at all, being composed from
filtered white noise. Your definition better fits twelve-tone
technique:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique>
than the broader category of serialism and, though the serialism
article has a link to it, I think it would be better for your student
to begin there. Also, as with the other categories, when naming
Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, it is necessary to stipulate that even
twelve-tone serialism will not be found in any of their works from
before 1920 (e.g., Verklärte Nacht, Wozzeck, the Passacaglia for
orchestr op. 1, respectively), and there are later exceptions in
Schoenberg's output, as well.
As for Penderecki, much of his music from after about 1975 (e.g., the
Polish Requiem, Cello Concerto No. 2) can in fact be "evaluated and
analyzed in terms of major/minor tonality", though naturally of the
extended sort found in late-nineteenth-century composers. Once again,
it is necessary to specify which pieces you are speaking of.
I hope you find these comments helpful.
--
Jerry Kohl
"Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal."
