early 20th century music

Felix Kellaway

Assignment Code - HBAMPF052

Assignment due - 1st June 2010

Musicology - Early 20th Century Music

Course / Year BA - Music Year 2

Module Tutor/First Marker - Prof. Graham Hearn

“This work was produced as part of Musicology in the Classical Music/Jazz Department, Leeds College of Music.”

Musicology: Early 20th Century Music BA Music Year 2 Felix Kellaway

Summarise the achievements of Stravinsky during the

period 1913-45

Much of the music composed in the 20th Century is indebted to that of the previous

century. There were many significant movements in the 19th Century that laid the path

for the future of Western Music. One was the breakdown of tonality, led mainly by

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). The music written by

Wagner and Mahler became increasingly chromatic, almost to the point of obscurity.

Extreme tonal ambiguity appeared throughout their works, where the listener does not really know what key the music is in, but occasional tonal pillars and recurring motifs keep the music essentially tonal. ‘Technically speaking, their assumption of highly

elaborate harmony which was only loosely connected with the idea of diatonic harmony had significant implications on 20th Century musicʼ (Roseberry 1976, 278). This

developed into what is now known as the ‘Second Viennese School’, comprising

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and his illustrious pupils Alban Berg (1885-1935) and

Anton Webern (1883-1945). They were to break into atonality and a little later into

serialism.

The breakdown of tonality applied predominantly to composers based in and around

Vienna at the end of the 19th Century. Elsewhere in Europe traditions were unaffected

by the wave of German Romanticism that spanned the majority of the 19th Century. In

France, modernism took on a different form. Composers such as Maurice Ravel

(1875-1937) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918) focused on developing orchestration

and enhancing texture and colour within music. Debussy can be found to call on earlier

styles, such as 18th Century harpsichord and baroque styles in Pour le Piano. Music of

this kind came to be known as neo-classic and as well as national and exotic styles

(Pagodas & Golliwog’s Cake Walk), both took on great significance for 20th Century

music. Debussy undermined tonality and blurred the sense of tonic by using

unconventional chord progressions, moving chords stepwise diatonically or

chromatically and using chromatic, whole tone and pentatonic scales.

In Eastern Europe, a rise of nationalism created a new movement of music. Composers

such as Bedrich Smetana (1841-1901) and Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) in Bohemia


and Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) in Scandinavia were writing music that reflected the

influence of the traditional music of their nations. This movement made composers

conscious of the folk music of their country, which generally consisted of different

principles and parameters from the traditional art music of the West. Russia arguably

provided the most powerful national school of 19th Century composers; the ‘Big 5’,

which was made up by Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), César Cui (1835-1918), Alexander

Borodin (1833-1887) , Nikolai Rimsky - Korsakov (1844-1908) and Modest Mussorgsky

(1839-1881).

Igor Stravinsky was a student of Rimsky - Korsakov in his home city of St Petersburg

and so it is unsurprising perhaps, that his earlier works were influenced by the

nationalistic works of his teacher. The opening tritonal theme of King Katchei in The

Firebird, is an interval that lies at the heart of Rimskyan exotic harmony and is a

reference point that can be seen as the start of Stravinsky’s Russian Period. The

Firebird is often noted as being Stravinsky’s breakthrough piece and it marked the

beginning of a fruitful partnership with the impresario, Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929).

After the success’ of The Firebird, Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to write another

work for Ballet Russes; Petrushka.

‘The emergence of Stravinsky as a modernist, with an individual manner unlike any

other, can be dated with some precision to his early work on Petrushka (Walsh 1993,

24). Petrushka broke a lot of traditional boundaries and it has been described as

‘Stravinsky’s process of self - discovery’ (Taruskin 1996, 662). This transformation

takes the form of a technical confidence and new - found modernism, created largely

through the adaptation of previous materials. He makes use of popular Russian folk

melodies, hurdy - gurdy tunes and Russian dances. The first reference to recognised

folk based music is in the opening tableau with a theme in the lower strings based from

the Song of Volochnobiki (Fig 1).

For the first time ever, Stravinsky uses polytonality with structural significance. By using

the octatonic scale that had played such an important part in the music of his

predecessors such as Rimsky - Korsakov and Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915),

Stravinsky creates a device that defines the ‘limits within which superimposed

polytonalities are employed in Petrushka’ (Vlad 1967, 7). The clashing of major and

minor seconds immediately hooks the listener’s ear and creates the chilling musical


soul of Petrushka. The redefinition and development of polytonality is notable in this

work and it created an individual sound for Stravinsky. The most popular is the oft

quoted ‘Petrushka chord’; two superimposed arpeggios separated by a tritone, a C

major in root position and the first inversion of an F# chord. This features at the

beginning of the second tableau in a passage for two clarinets (Fig 2). The two chords

are not tonally homogenous, but the fact that they are both in common with the

octatonic scale makes them modally homogenous, hence serving a structural and

harmonic function. The clarinet passage becomes a germ cell for the whole work, with

subsequent musical material gravitating towards the tonal poles of C and F#. Shifts of

harmonic focus feature throughout, such as in the first tableau; a rising flute motif from

A - D pin points D as being the focus. An introduction into a second theme, this time in

the cellos (based on the Song of Volochnobiki, see Fig 1), suggests a shift from D to G.

The harmonic, textural and thematic juxtapositions are perhaps a sign of Stravinsky’s

divide between the influences of his native Russia and the current surroundings that he

found himself working amongst in Paris. ‘What is most notably radical about this music

is the extent to which the modernity of the material is formed on an appropriation and

re-interpretation of the past’ (Cross 2003, 81).

It should be noted that as well as the internal music innovations , the aesthetic outlook

that Petrushka implies is an equally significant and if not more striking aspect of the

music. ‘In 1911, the vogue ran from impressionistic haziness to the boisterousness of

the post - Wagnerian symphony a la Strauss. Against this background, the unleashing

of the crude, spiky and incisive sonorities we find in Petrushka was bound to appear

startlingly revolutionary’ (Vlad 1967, 16).

A lot of the formal characteristics from Petrushka were developed and intensified by

Stravinsky to inform his next commission from the Diaghilev ballet season. The result

became the stand - out most important work for the entire 20th Century, which

transformed the face of modern music; The Rite of Spring. The ballet’s subject is the

primitive nature of Russian pagan rite in the honour of spring. In order to emulate this,

Stravinsky abandoned centuries of artistic refinement and as a result created the out and out breakthrough piece of his career. The Rite is the foundation stone upon which

his whole career rests. The music has a frenzied and diabolical energy to it, a raw and


visceral edge is present in the music that had never been heard before and which the

western world of music has never really recovered from.

ʻThe ballet might be better regarded as a celebration of death in the midst of lifeʼ (Etter 2001,133). The dance of spring is undermined by a primitive glorification of brutality. It is ʻvery similar to the canvases of wild beasts being produced in Paris by The Fauve - the reason why Stravinskyʼs neo-primitivism is often described as “music of the Fauves”ʼ (Ewen 1968, 789). Simple diatonic phrases set against discordant texture creates a nerve wracking impact. After the introduction in the Auguries of Spring a polychord is pounded out over and over again with an ostinato accompaniment creating tension between two tonal centres. Similarly to the ʻPetrushka chordʼ, two triads a semitone apart are superimposed on top of one another, an E major (written as an F♭)

and and E♭major chord (Fig 3). By reinforcing this polychord incessantly, traditional

harmonic function is made obsolete. However the repeated notes pull towards modality. More importantly than this is the rhythmic service that the chord provides, adding percussive colour to the music and serving as a primitive function of the young girl dancing herself to death.

The lyrical folk song melodies juxtaposed to the violent rhythms represents nature clashing with the human world. Percussive rhythms are used to primitive effect starting with a steady beat pounded out for a dance ritual, then morphing into displaced accents and syncopated rhythms. ʻIt was the first time for six centuries that rhythm had been so used on a really large scaleʼ (Vlad 1963, 33).

The opening solo bassoon passage is derived from a Lithuanian folk tune. Long and high in register, it immediately counteracts what the listener had come to expect from a ballet. Following this is a number of short fragmentary phrases played in the woodwind. These Debussyesque meandering musical cells are suggestive of the germination of Spring and of sap roots rising to the surface. ‘What nobody seems to have done before

The Rite of Spring was to take dissonant, irregularly formed musical ‘objects’ of very

brief extent and release their latent energy by firing them off at one another like so

many like so many particles in an atomic accelerator’ (Walsh, Stephen p.44). The

cohesive element of the work is again, the octatonic scale and the chords derived from

them. ‘The appropriation of folk materials into a distinctively modernist context is


innovative. The Rite of Spring tends to question rather than to synthesise the

relationship between the past and present. This is a process it shares with Petrushka

but develops it in its own way’ (Cross 2003, 93).

The identification of Russian sources as providing a framework for The Rite of Spring,

suggests that the music grew out of a tradition and was not a reaction against it. This

gave Stravinsky a template which he could work on, radicalise and modernise. ‘The

Rite is hardly retrospective. All of the echoes are a reminder that the ballet was written

out of and not against a tradition, and that its stylistic innovations relate to and extend

that tradition’ (Taruskin 1996,937). This opened up a lot of possibilities for Stravinsky.

He could take inspiration from virtually anything, any piece of scrap material and then

add or subtract notes, play around with them, obscure and distort it, much like a cubist

version of the original. In 1919, a commission came from Diaghilev for a respectful

arrangement of some 18th Century music. This led Stravinsky to playing around with

classical European music, and as Pergolesi was out of copyright, Stravinsky thought he

could put it to good use. The inspired result was the ballet Pulcinella. This became a

turning point in Stravinsky’s career as well as for the history of 20th Century music. The

development for modernism was stripped of any Germanic atonality and serialism, but

thrown back to established musical materials. ‘Back to Bach’ became a slogan for the

neo-classic movement. Despite Stravinsky denying the appropriation of the term ‘neo-

classical’ applied to his work, in 1925 he was quoted as saying “Back to J.S Bach,

whose universal mind and enormous grasp upon musical arts has never been

transcended”.

Pulcinella was the first composition Stravinsky had written that was inspired entirely bv

pre - existing material. He left much of the original material untouched such as the

soprano and the bass parts and the original tonal idiom was never really threatened.

‘Onto this classically tonal structure, Stravinsky superimposes modern ornaments and

orchestral effects, adding devices such as diatonic dissonance's, extended ostinatos,

brilliant orchestration and altered phrase lengths’ (Cross 2003, 111). A good example of

this is in the minuet that was adapted from Pergolesi’s Opera Buffe, Lo Fratre

innamorato (Fig 4). A theme is introduced in the horns and a bassoon which is then

restated by strings in a chromatic passage. In bar twenty five the whole theme is then

stated again in the trombones accompanied by the strings. The first theme and

harmonies are strictly Pergolesi’s but with Stravinsky’s orchestration. But it is the


second entrance in bar 25 that we can see how Stravinsky has adapted the original by

adding inflections of dissonance such as the major 2nds played in the viola’s

subdominant chords and unresolved harmonic appoggiaturas. The squareness of the

rhythm is broken up at the re - entrance of the theme in bar 25 and symmetry of metre

is disturbed by the accentuated semi - quavers in the strings. The instrumentation is

typically Stravinsky whilst keeping a small orchestra and ripieno, true to the baroque

style.

Stravinsky created a landmark for the neo-classical period. He established a style of

music based on existing material but then adapted it for his own particular purpose.

“Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my

late work became possible”. Interestingly, almost a decade on in his career,

Stravinsky’s stylistic approach is still fundamentally the same as in both Pulcinella and

The Rite of Spring; taking pre - existing diatonic elements and approaching them in an

unforeseen and individual manner.

A work lying at the heart of the neo-classical movement is the Symphony of Psalms.

There is an emotional plane that pervades the work that is reflected in each of the three

movements set to a Psalm of David. The three movements are continuous without a

break in between and as in the case of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, the term

‘symphony’ refers to the context of the instrumental ensemble as a opposed to the

classical means of identifying it as representing a particular form. Characteristically,

19th Century traditions are rejected, instead his plans were to ‘create an organic whole

without conforming to the various models adopted by custom, but still retaining the

periodic order by which the symphony is distinguished from the suite’ (Stravinsky 1975,

161). Three periodic episodes are intertwined to create one overall dramatic

movement, However, the basic structure of the individual movements can be broken up

into; Prelude, Double Fugue and Allegro symphonique. Stravinsky said, `It is not a

symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing

of the Psalms that I am symphonising’. Consequently he does not treat the text in any

special way and musically, the vocals are treated like the Orchestra. In Fig 5 we can

see that the woodwind accompanies the vocal line and the rising minor 3rd ostinato

motif is restated in later movements; the first subject in the 2nd movements Fugue and

also in the thematic design of the final movement.


Much of his musical language that was established in his earlier Russian period can be

found in the Symphony of Psalms, such as the developed rhythms after the opening of

the first movement; shadowing the incessant rhythmic patterns that are so reminiscent

of The Rite of Spring. The work represents a neo-classical preference for the key of C;

after being developed and expanded, C major is firmly established as being the central

tonality of the piece. However bitonality and polytonality prevent there from being a

single tonality, and they feature frequently throughout the work; such as bb 71 - 83 of

the 2nd movement and the combination of separate instrumental parts in bb 11 - 13 of

the 1st movement, respectively. By adding principles of modern technique, he makes a

transition from one - dimensional traditional forms into a multi - dimensional structure.

Stravinsky was somewhat of a magpie, a composer who put on one stylistic mask after

another. He abandoned his neo-classical style in 1951 after he had written the Rake’s

Progress. Perhaps feeling that he couldn’t surpass the accomplishment that he had

made in Rake’s Progress, his compositions primarily used serial procedures up until his

death in 1971. Many critics have seen Stravinsky as being the ‘harbinger of musical

postmodernism’ (Cross 2003, 134). The origins of the post modern both in music and

across the arts, is often traced back to the use of pastiche in Stravinsky’s neo-classical

works. His eleven ballets, of which Petrushka and the Rite of Spring are often the most

noted, create a body of work that stand up with Beethoven symphonies, Mozart’s

operas and Monteverdi’s madrigals as being a unique set of masterpieces that stand

out in the history of western music. Salient in each one of those ballets, is something

that had been missing in art music for centuries; the bringing of rhythm to the forefront

instead of it being a background function. His musical language was raw, upsetting and

cutting which brought the pieces alive. After 1945, it was impossible to ignore what

Stravinsky had achieved. He had made an indelible mark upon western music.


Fig 1 Petrushka, first tableau

Fig 2 Petrushka, second tableau


Fig 3 Rite of Spring, Auguries of Spring

Fig 4 Pulcinella, Menuetto


Fig 4 (continued)


Fig 5 - Symphony of Psalms, 1st Movement


Bibliography

Craft, Robert (1972): Stravinsky: Chonicle of a Friendship. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Cross, J (2003): The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge.

Etter, Brian K (2001): From Classicism to Modernism. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot.

Ewen, David (1968): The World of Twentieth Century Music. Mackays, Chatham PLC.

Kirkby, F.E (1970): An Introduction to Western Music. Collier - Macmillan Ltd, London.

Mellers, W (1988): Romanticism & the 20th Century. Barrie & Jenkins Ltd, London.

Roseberry, Eric (1976): Of German Music. Oswald Wolff Ltd, London.

Stravinsky, Igor (1975): Autobiography. Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd.

(1962): Expositions and Developments. Faber Faber, London

(1942): Poetics in Music. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Taruskin, Richard (1996): Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: a Biography of the Works Through Mavra. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Vlad, R (1967): Stravinsky. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Walsh, Stephen (1993): The Music Of Stravinsky. Oxford University Press, Oxford.


early 20th century music

Documents

century music ba music

traditional music

century music roseberry

folk music

century composers

traditional art music

new movement of music

leeds college of music