PART 6: Video Intro

Not too long ago we witnessed the dawn of a new millennium.  Do you ever wonder what life will be like down the road in the new century?  Or what surprises technology has in store for us in the next 1000 years?

For people living at the end of the 19th century, the date January 1, 1900 was anticipated in much the same way that we now look ahead.  The Industrial Revolution had swept through continental Europe, changing whole countries from agrarian cultures to urban ones in the space of 50 years. A remarkable spate of inventions around the last quarter of the century gave people bright hopes for the future-- life would indeed be different with telephones, phonographs, moving pictures, automobiles and electricity.

The first few years of the new century seemed to bear out that optimism.  The airplane, first flown in 1903, seemed like the most inspired piece of lunacy that had ever turned into reality. Now that humans could take flight like birds we could inaugurate a new age of travel. With further industrialization, wealth continued to grow and spread, and some of it was actually even trickling down to the middle classes.

 

The optimism of the opening years of the century soon began to erode, however. Events like the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic took their toll on the faith that people had placed in technology to provide a better life. The industrial revolution had brought new opportunities to everyone but it had also brought more competition.  As more European nations began to export, competing markets began to collide. Tensions grew and Europe became a tinderbox waiting to explode.

The spark that set off that tinderbox was the assassination by a Serbian nationalist of Archduke Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary on July 28, 1914.  The incident soon escalated into full-fledged war.  By the time that war was over four years later, 47 million people had died. At that time it was called "The War to End All Wars."  We now know it as World War I.

What do world events have to do with music?  Many times, surprisingly little.  In times of war, many composers have been able to retreat into their own world of music and create beauty with hardly a note of discord creeping in.  But World War I was different.  It profoundly altered our culture, and with it musical styles changed.

Before the war, most of the world was ruled by either monarchs or despots.  Democratic systems were relatively rare and still relatively untested.  But the war broke through the old lines of power and government, establishing the strength of democratic countries.  The pluralistic culture we now know and appreciate was born in the purging calamity of World War I.

Before the war, music seemed to be ruled by the old tradition of German Romanticism. But shortly before the war, the erosion of old beliefs had caused artists to start questioning the tenets of Romanticism, trying to find other styles and other ways to express musical thought. Many different approaches began to spring up and they all competed side-by-side with each other.  For this reason the 20th century is often called the age of "isms," referring to the different styles (Expressionism, Impressionism, Modernism, Primitivism, Neo-classicism) which defined it early on.

During this lecture we'll look at some of the musical "isms" of the beginning of the century, tracing their origins and the reasons for their appeal.  Hopefully this will give you some insight into what an important era the turn of our century was, and how the first few decades very specifically shaped the kind of society we live in now.

IMPRESSIONISM

"The century of airplanes has a right to its own music.  As there are no precedents, I must create anew."-- Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

This bracing statement of Debussy's gives us real insight into the exciting, "modern" feeling of the new century.  Debussy rightly saw that composers were still writing "horse and buggy" type music, rather than music appropriate for an age of airplanes.  The forms of the late Romantic composers had grown so overblown and their orchestras so bloated in size that there was no room for any further expansion. Melodies had gotten as long as they could get without losing shape altogether.  The harmonic vocabulary of Romanticism, in spite of its chromaticism (which initially made it interesting), was beginning to feel used up.  It was time to move on.

Debussy's musical style is what we now call Impressionism, and there are parallels with the painting movement of the same name. Just as the Impressionist painters became interested in the techniques of painting, in the more scientific side of applying paint to a canvas, so did Debussy become fascinated with instrumental color as an end in itself.  Resisting the overbearing, over-emotional expression of German Romanticism, he tried to create a more specifically French style of writing-- a music of clarity, elegance and understatement, all expressed with a more detached emotional tone.

Debussy was determined to resist what amounted to a German cultural hegemony at the end of the 19th century.   "Wagner's ideas have had a bad influence on a lot of music and a lot of countries," Debussy wrote in 1910. "There's too much German influence in France and we're still suffocated by it." Debussy urged retaliation ("French art needs to take revenge quite as seriously as the French army does!"  he later said). He advocated building upon a specifically French tradition of clarity, order, balance-- and a dispassionate approach to emotional portrayal in music.

Apart from the general affect of the music, Debussy's innovations included the use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scales, "planing" of chords (meaning that chords are used in parallel succession, moving together across a plane of sound), and in general, taking a much greater interest in instrumental color.

Alot of people who do not particularly like classical music really respond to Impressionism. If you are one of those, try Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer . His Preludes for piano are all exquisite, conveying impressions of such things as turbulent winds and footsteps in the snow.

Other composers who wrote in impressionist style include a French compatriot of Debussy's, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), whose music will be looked at later under Neo-classicism; the English composer Frederic Delius (1862-1935); and an American named Charles Griffes (1884-1920).  Griffes studied for 4 years in Berlin and then returned to New York to teach music at a boys school.  He is known for his Piano Sonata, two tone poems (The White Peacock and The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan), and Poeme for flute and orchestra.

EXPRESSIONISM

The essence of Expressionist art was to portray or express things which hitherto had been regarded as inexpressible.  The investigations of Freud into the unconscious had uncovered a whole area of thought and emotion that could be mined for artistic expression.  As a movement, Expressionism began with painters such as Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), Roualt (1871-1958), Oscar Kokoschka (1886-1990), and Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).  They were interested in portraying psychological tension using distorted forms and shocking colors-- quite a switch from the realistic art of their predecessors.  The world, they felt, was disturbed, and art had to express this.

In literature, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and James Joyce (1882-1941) also revolted against realism and naturalism, seeking instead to depict spiritual and psychological truths.  The world, particularly after Freud's revelations, was not a soothing place to be.  Life seemed to be part real and part dream. 

Expressionism appealed to German musicians in particular as a way to rebel against Romanticism while not following the footsteps of French composers such as Debussy.  In the spirit of musical tribalism which unfortunately prevailed during that period, German composers were interested in defining themselves as Germans first and musicians second. It has been said that Expressionism is in many ways a (mostly) German reaction to a French reaction to the 19th century German dominance in music!

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was probably the most famous Expressionist composer. His music will be discussed in more depth in a later lecture. Schoenberg had started out writing Romantic music but began experimenting with harmony early on.  He was after what he termed "the emancipation of the dissonance," by which he basically meant that the negative connotations of dissonance (i.e., the need to resolve) would be done away with.

Some other examples of expressionistic music are Richard Strauss' operas Salome and Elektra.  He later turned away from expressionism, however, and went back to writing in the old Romantic style!

An example of Expressionist music is Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, a song cycle based on surrealist texts by the Belgian poet Albert Girard. Fasten your seatbelt before listening, though. You may be surprised to see that Schoenberg does not care about creating beauty in the older, romantic sense. Both his music and the style of singing he demands of the singer are strident and harsh.

 

PRIMITIVISM

 

"Primitivism" is a very interesting phenomenon in 20th century music because it is based largely on the strengths of one, single, extraordinary, history-making piece:  Le Sacre du Printemps, (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky. At the premiere of  the work the audience hooted and howled, a riot broke out, and it is said that some people came to fisticuffs over the work! What was so outrageous about Le Sacre? A number of things.

Corps de Ballet from Le Sacre du Printemps

First, it was very dissonant.  "But," you might be saying right now, "I thought that dissonance was getting to be more normal and accepted at this time."  And you would be right.  What was upsetting about Le Sacre was the way Stravinsky rubbed that dissonance in the faces of his audience.  In other composers dissonances were absorbed into the normal flow of the music.  Not so with Stravinsky, who took his most dissonant chords and turned them into ostinatos! (An ostinato is a figure that is repeated in a persistent manner).  These "ugly" chords were repeated over and over, 5, 10 or more times in a row, as if to deliberately challenge the audience.  Many were heartily offended by the harshness of those harmonies used in ostinato patterns-- and they were also surprised at the very uneven rhythms and the overall sense of violence in the music.  Indeed, the whole story behind Le Sacre is one of a primitive rite involving the sacrifice of a young virgin.

In case you enjoy buying CD-ROMs, there is a fantastic one about Le Sacre, authored by the musicologist Robert Winter.  It is a study of the music, the storyline, and the history behind the work. There are many very interesting features to this disc-- you can't go wrong here.

Where did Stravinsky get his idea for a "primitive" style?  Primitivism was a movement that really had its roots in the 18th century with the idea of the "noble savage" and the glorification of peasants and tribal people.  In the 19th century the idea came to include the notion that lower classes were more in touch with their natural instincts and sensuality than "civilized" people.  In the 20th century, new access to 'primitive' cultures came in the form of the phonograph, which allowed folk song collectors (such as Bartok and Kodaly) to study ethnic music.

In addition to Igor Stravinsky, Bartok and Kodaly are acknowledged masters of 'primitivist' style. The angularity and irregularity of rhythm in 'primitive' cultures was a revelation to them, as was the level of dissonance and the open acceptance of violence. Violence became a touchstone of 'primitivist' composers, who flaunted it as part of their musical spirit.

If you have never heard Le Sacre du Printemps, you're in for a treat! Don't delay in getting hold of a recording! Another primitivist piece is Bela Bartok's Allegro Barbaro for piano.

 

NEO-CLASSICISM

The philosophy of Neo-Classicism is sometimes summed up in the phrase, "Back to the Future." It represents a strong desire (particularly during and after World War I) to make sense of the world by returning to the neat, clean, wholesome values of past musical styles (leapfrogging past Romanticism, of course, to Classicism and Baroque style.)  The term "Neo-Classicism" is a bit of a misnomer in the sense that the models that composers most often chose to imitate (or took their inspiration from) were from the Baroque era rather than the Classical.  But no matter.  The point was to reinterpret older values in a modern, updated style.

One of the most successful of the Neo-Classicists was Maurice Ravel. His celebrated work, Le Tombeau de Couperin, is a six-movement suite for solo piano, conceived as an elegy to the French baroque composer Francois Couperin. The work was begun in 1914, when WWI broke out, then quickly set aside. Ravel tried to enlist in the service-- his brother and many of his friends were conscripted-- but he was rejected on grounds of health. He nevertheless managed to join the war effort by caring for wounded soldiers during 1914, and in 1915 volunteered to drive a truck at the Verdun front.

Health problems ended his service in 1916, and it was during his convalescence in 1917 that he finished the Tombeau. By then, unfortunately, it had become more than an elegy to Francois Couperin. Each of the movements- Prelude, Fugue, Forlane, Rigaudon, Menuet and Toccata-- became a memorial to a friend felled in the war. The last movement, the Toccata, was dedicated to Captain Joseph de Marliave, husband of the pianist Marguerite Long, who was to have premiered the work. Shattered by the loss of her husband, Long retired from playing. In 1919, with the encouragement of Ravel, she returned to the stage and gave the premiere at the Salle Gaveau.

Considering its painful genesis, the emotional reserve of Le Tombeau de Couperin is remarkable. Then again, it was infused with the new ideals of "Neo-Classicism," the whole point of which was to reject the decadence of Romantic expression in favor of a more dispassionate approach. Ironically, the spareness of 200 year old music felt more "modern" to them than the music of the previous decade. Le Tombeau was one of those pieces that built a bridge to the past, honoring it without being mawkish or sentimental.

Another composer who wrote in Neo-Classical style was Igor Stravinsky (yes, he also wrote in 'primitivist' style, and later in '12-tone' style. Stravinsky was a musical chameleon!) During the war, Igor Stravinsky took his family to live in Switzerland, probably looking for safety. They were indeed never in the line of fire, but when the Russian Revolution cut them off from his estate and publishing royalties they found themselves in financial crisis. In answer to his predicament Stravinsky devised the idea for a ‘pocket theatre' piece, and secured a patron to underwrite the project. L'Histoire du Soldat ("The Soldier's Tale") was planned on a deliberately small scale--just seven instrumentalists, plus narrator and actors-- and was designed to be easily portable so it could tour. The economy of the production was dictated by the lean times, though Stravinsky turned a fault into a virtue with his brilliantly inventive instrumental colors. L'Histoire glistened with the new stripped-down sound of Neo-classicism, a far cry from the bloated orchestrations of the late Romantics.

The story of the soldier who sells his soul to the devil was taken from Alexander Afanasiev's collection of Russian tales but adapted by Stravinsky and his librettist Ramuz to be more international in tone. There is a dizzying array of styles that co-exist peacefully in L'Histoire -- everything from ragtime, tango, and waltz, to Lutheran choral and march, and Stravinsky affectionately weaves them all into a universal story. In the Europe of 1917 this kind of musical pluralism was perhaps the most "modern" feature of L'Histoire. It was also the wave of the future, as you will see in subsequent lectures.

FUTURISM

We end this section much the same way we began it-- with a look at the future, from the perspective of 1900.  There were artists who were very disturbed about the rapid changes taking place in the arts-- they feared that their own works would be outdated if they did not anticipate the future and attempt to write in a more updated style. Of course, technology had quickened the pace of progress and society's obsession with technology was mirrored by these Futurist artists.  In the world of visual arts, painters like Giacomo Balla and Marcel Duchamp attempted to create a sense of motion and dynamism even on a static canvas.  Balla's painting, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, which almost looks like a skewed set of stills from animated cartoons is a wonderfully humorous look at movement.

One of the pioneers of Futurism in music was Luigi Russolo, who invented a great noise machine which he called his "intonorumori."  This machine was meant to create a vast variety of noises-- which, in the new, modern century were regarded as a new source of musical inspiration.

Although he eschewed the word Futurism, Edgar Varese (1883-1965) is the composer most often associated with it, particularly in his landmark work, Poeme Electronique, an entirely electronic piece. This piece was written for the Phillips Pavillion at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. That building was the creation of the famous modern architect Le Corbusier, and was designed to play Varese's Poeme Electronique from 425 speakers-- a kind of 'surround-sound' for visitors, who were also treated to a complementary colors-and-images display. Another pathbreaking work of Varese was Ionization, scored for 37 percussion instruments played by 13 players.  What Varese saw as futuristic in this piece was the idea of writing music purely for percussion --and giving it such a scientific-sounding name! Another classic of the style is Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, named for a great steam train which made its way through the mountains of Switzerland, and which intrigued Honegger.  It is a fun piece to listen to because it describes both the train and the train ride so vividly.  The piece sounds a bit dated to us today, but that's now part of its charm.  By the way, Honegger was a big fan of trains and one senses this in the way he almost anthropomorphized them in Pacific 231!

One of the finest books I have read in a while is Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins. It deals with World War I and the premiere of The Rite of Spring as related phenomena.

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