TOP TEN MUSIC SELECTIONS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Claude Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - (1892-94)
This wonderful tone poem is considered by many to be the turning point away from Romanticism, ushering in the world of Impressionism. Modulation, that albatross of late Romanticism, is replaced by a subdued modality. Understatement is essential to the unfolding the work’s delicate ambience. Subtle colors, notably flute (the falling, then rising opening phrase) followed by repeated horn answering signals, are carefully guided through this landscape of tone-fragrance. The flute’s melody is elaborated and passes to oboe and clarinet, revealing a kaleidoscopic effect. Harmony in the classical sense is suspended, used for coloration. The rhythms are fluid. At the climax (roughly at midpoint), a real sense of drama is captured through Debussy’s suddenly hushed dynamics! Certainly, with this work, music would never be the same. Statement is replaced by suggestion. This is the first work of the “new music.”
Arnold Schönberg - Pierrot Lunaire - (1912)
This work had a greater impact on the development of the twentieth century than even Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, though in more subtle ways. Stravinsky’s piece assaulted his audience’s ears with heavy rhythms. This Schönberg masterpiece mysteriously conquers one’s very soul. The chamber ensemble used was a harbinger of things to come. But, most ominously, the sheer chill of the sound, in its icy frenzy, is unlike anything anyone had heard until then. Schönberg’s musical setting amply enhanced the lunacy enshrouded within the poetic setting (1884) of Albert Giraud. Such potent expressionism left a powerful impact upon Schönberg’s great disciple Luigi Nono. The great, eccentric Dutch composer and critic Mathisj Vermeulen so revered this work’s originality that he considered its sounds to have emanated from “virgin territory, from a region of the mind above even dreams.” Pierrot Lunaire (Pierre the Lunatic), for Vermeulen, had no precedence. “There had been no preparation…Debussy had not cleared the way… nor had Stravinsky…” (Composers’ Voice (Donemus Amsterdam) record 8384/2 – sources La De Telegraaf/De Groene). Vermeulen was equally effusive in his praise for Schönberg’s opera Moses und Aron. These works will forever mark Schönberg’s place as the most radical composer until 1940.
This most famous of all twentieth century musical works assaults the senses of sophisticated concert goers even today. Many people are surprised to find that Pierre Boulez, that apostle of arcane serial methodology, cites this work, and its creator, as having an even greater impact than he does Schönberg (the ‘father’ of serialism) and his works! The reason for this apparent anomaly becomes clear when one examines the Rite’s rhythms. Stravinsky’s rhythmic methodology, more than his tonal ingenuity, are what so influenced the later serialists, Boulez, and his teacher, Messiaen. The tonality is really an extension of the concepts Stravinsky developed for Petrouchka, which became a template for certain neo-classical trends. These did not interest the serialists, except in the brutality of expression. The rhythms, though, were handled in an exceptionally rigorous, systematic way; and in a fashion that resembled serial-like gestures. These methods were codified and extended in the work of the later serialists. It is in this area that the work exerts its most telling and potent impact.
This work exerted the most profound influence upon late twentieth century serial composers. Its most oft-cited quality is its tonal structure. The 12-tone row is split into four units, which, by transposition, are: ‘original’; ‘retrograde’; ‘inversion’; and ‘retrograde inversion’. The eminent musicologist and conductor, Robert Craft referred to Webern’s handling of this scheme as the “Webern of the hocket” (the ‘hocket’ is a medieval-renaissance form, and Webern’s schooling was devoted to the study of medieval and renaissance music). This comment best sums up how to appreciate Webern: the points of sound enshrined in complex forms of bygone days. So, we return to medieval and renaissance musicology to unveil the then most radical of modern masterpieces! Many other qualities shine through this fascinating 6-plus minute mini-drama. The punctuated phrases are accentuated in muted brass with melody passing from one instrument to the next, in a variant of klangfarbenmelodie (a kind of tone-color melody invented by Schönberg). The angularity and austerity of this work’s sound reminds one of the most severe renaissance contrapuntal phrasing.
This is the first piece of noise in music history. It sounds fairly musical, if not a bit quaint, to modern ears, though. However, the work was so revolutionary in the 1920s when it was composed, , that it seemed sheer noise then. The only instruments of ‘pitch’ in any understandable sense of the word are the two sirens, chimes, celesta, and piano. An array of serrated gourds, slapsticks, cymbals, gongs, etc emphasize the basic non-periodic frequencies usually called noise. Still, the rhythms seem almost flowing as they unfold in delectable internal complexities! Recognizable patterns emerge in surprising, unexpected ways. This intricate work exerted a great influence on the music of the future, but it owes its guile to its inherent musicality. This really is an arresting piece for concert consumption! For all this work’s “noise,” this is wonderful music making.
Luigi Nono - Prometeo - Tragedia dell’ascolto - (1982-85)
On its surface, this strange opera, a “tragedy about listening,” concerns the tragedy that befell the mythical Prometheus. It is more than a story with music backdrop, though. Its text and musical declamation are highly symbolic. The shades within the exposition are very advanced. Its characterization by Nono in his title, as a tragedy in hearing, contains dual meaning, a common trend in modernism (This reminds me of two other great masterpiece operas, Schönberg’s Moses und Aron, and Malipiero’s trilogy, L’Orfeide, both of which are highly symbolic and reflect on the state of modern man and the mind. These two works could qualify for my list as numbers eleven and twelve!) Nono’s philosophy of: “free the mind, the body, and the ear”, could find no more powerful statement than in this fresco in hushed sound. The music shares many qualities found in Schönberg’s expressionistic music. Unusual treatments of the voices include intricate directions for mouth positions to elicit special sounds to elicit certain qualities. Nono the pilgrim walking the hidden pathways bidden in the inscription in a monastery in Toledo, Spain (“Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar.” -- (Wayfarer, there is no path, you must walk on.), marshals all the special electronics made available to him at the Heinrich Strobel studio in Freiburg, Germany. With these Nono ushers forth his “mobile sound,” embracing all shades of emergent microtonality, and gradations between real and electronic sounds. The purely instrumental second scene, Isola Prima/Isola Seconda is gloriously beautiful. This is a shattering masterpiece!
Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta - (1955-56)
This landmark, perhaps the most radically original in music history, I believe, is an unfortunate victim of unfair characterization by some jealous personalities. Xenakis’ musical educational was unconventional. He was a trained mathematician and architect. But a careful listening to this work will reveal its incredible basic musicality. I consider this to be the first work in which sounds are, cumulatively, so dense, that the work needs to be perceived as a slowly evolving single tone-mass! The work’s rivals, Atmospheres (Ligeti), Collisions (Górecki), and Threnody: To the Victims of Hiroshima (Penderecki), are more sensational, due primarily to their heavy use of special sound effects. Although Pithoprakta uses few special effects (major exceptions are the slapping of the backs of the violins, and the crossing, variable glissandi), the stochastic distributions give the music a feeling of inexactitude that is missing from its more prominent rivals. The resultant gurgling, bubbling and rippling are beyond the reach of traditional notation, and have a sound quality truly other-worldly. Rippling becomes plasma (string glissandi) in a nearly undetectable transition that becomes apparent only after its revelation. Xenakis aims for both continuity and discontinuity. This renders Xenakis’ work an effective antidote to the serialists’ total discontinuity (and to the chance composers’ disconnexity). Xenakis’ work had no precedent. This work is a real wonder, and it is a grievous travesty that this work is still not available on CD!
John Cage - Atlas Eclipticalis - (1961-62)
This work and its composer are so radical that they seem to defy any attempt at classification. John Cage seems at first blush to have been a charlatan throwing notes around at random. But, there is discipline in Cage’s work. His attempts to remove his “habit, taste, will and memory” from the act of composition have resulted in some musical landscapes that seem beyond the capacity of imagination to render! I used to introduce this sound world to my class in adult continuing education – “Appreciating modern music” – by asking my class to close their eyes and imagine they are traveling through space and that the (seeming) random sounds are stars they are passing. This was very effective! Some class members considered the music, thusly experienced, to be most beautiful. If Cage saved music, it was because he showed by example that we cannot simply “do anything we want, now,” (as some claim we can). Sloppy chance had no place for him. He found a way to establish a, nearly, rule-less plasma that nonetheless demanded a rigor of process. Much as he had hoped to eliminate the presence of personality from music, his work is replete with markers of his personality! This ought to be a lesson for all in responsible music making.
Giacinto Scelsi - Quattro Pezzi - (1959)
What can one do with a single tone? Scelsi’s landmark masterpiece is a profound response to Webern’s offerings of single isolated tones in counterpoint (so-called pointillism). For Webern’s world, the unfolding single tones were treated in isolation. Each successive tone had its unique, individual timbre, attack, duration, etc. But each tone was self-contained and variations within the tone did not occur. It was Scelsi’s unique task to bring about a new emphasis in music. He brought the kaleidoscopic world of timbral evolution to bear upon the single tone. Some interesting musicological scrutiny has focused on the work of this retiring, ghostly figure. In addition, some rare performances were recorded in the late 1980s. Accord records released a major portion of his orchestral work, including the groundbreaking Quattro Pezzi. The composer brings many new devices to create a static world of slowly evolving timbral variations onto a single tone. Each of the four pieces exposits a single tone with extremely subtle variations. Scelsi stated that “sound was spherical, but that in listening, it seems to us that it possesses only two dimensions, pitch and duration, -- the third, the depth, we know that it exists, but in a certain sense, it escapes us.” (Pape, Gerard. “Composition and the Structure of Sound”. Publication pending, p. 1). This third dimension, timbre, was Scelsi’s major focus in this mysterious sound world.
Julio Estrada – Ishini’ioni- (1984-90)
This composer is the most profoundly trained among the recent generation. His philosophy and outlook bear deep family resemblances to those of Iannis Xenakis, his one-time teacher. Estrada resembles Xenakis in other ways, too. His schooling leaned heavily on the mathematical disciplines. Estrada also became a member of the Institute of Aesthetics. Not long into his compositional career, Estrada marshaled a new focus: that of capturing and incorporating into his music the sounds of ancient Aztec traditions. Many of the desired sounds required new notational techniques to capture their special ambience. After studying and living in native Hopi (Arizona) tribal environments, Estrada invented the Continuum concept. This discipline allows the composer first to dream a sound, then graph its components individually, allowing for incredibly precise control of the sonic landscape. Ishini’ioni is the most integrated of his works in this scheme. It conjures an alien sound-world in delectable flux. As the sounds unfold, evolve, and churn, only beauty remains. This work had been available on CD (Montaigne records) but is presently out of print. One hopes for its return.
70 WORKS INDISPENSABLE TO THE EXISTENCE OF MODERN AVANT-GARDE AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
These data are copyright protected They are based on information in Mr. James L. McHard’s book, The Future of Modern Music.
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