An Outline of The History of Western Music Grout ... - The Reel Score

1: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) - gave up the major-minor system of
relationships (tonality)
2: equally important was the tendency to suppress the goal directed harmonic
progressions that had provided continuity and formal organization for more than
two centuries
b) non-western musics and the traditional folk music of Eastern Europe offered
composers resources free of such familiar constraints as fixed meters and
conventional tonal relationships
c) gap widened between the "new music" and the responsiveness of listeners
d) censorship in Russia & Germany - beginning in the 1930's - sought to "protect" the
public from the new music
3. Music developments after WW II
a) 1949-1956: the active practice of dictated ideological directions imposed on music
in the Stalinist period
b) 1950's & 60's: further widening of the gulf between the concert going public and
the output of the avant-garde composers
1: Aleatoric music - which left much of the pitch & rhythmic content to chance
2: Serial music - highly organized on an intellectual level but seemingly chaotic on
the audible surface
c) 1970's & 80's: musical languages to try and reach a wider audience
1: reintroduced styles of the past or adopted a neo-Romantic idiom
2: Minimalism - small amount of musical material is repeated many times and
undergoes slow processes of change
i- evolved from a branch of the avant-garde
ii- began to incorporate African drumming, Asian music, and other influences
3: seeking to communicate directly with audiences through the use of familiar
musical idioms and gestures drawn from the entire range of music history,
musics of the world, popular styles - mixed or blended in unprecedented ways
4. Technology - recordings, radio & television spawned an unparalleled growth in the
size of the audience for many kinds of music
B. Ethnic Contexts
1. Intro
a) the distinctive character of the ethnic musics of central & eastern Europe became
an important resource for composers in the first half of the century
b) recordings led to more complete documentation of ethnic music than had been
possible previously
c) composers - rather than trying to "smooth the irregularities" and make them fit into
art music came to respect their uniqueness and drew inspiration from these idioms
to create new styles
2. Béla Bartók (1881-1845)
a) developed a style that, more intimately that ever before, fused folk elements with
highly developed techniques of art music
b) combined contrapuntal textures, thematic development, and sensitivity to the
purely sonorous value of chords true to the western tradition - blending melodic
lines derived or inspired from Eastern European traditional music
c) in most of his music a primary tonal center recurs - though it may be obscured for
long stretches by modal or chromatic means or both