History study guide
between world wars (WWI 1914-1918, WWII 1939-1945)
music was heavily regulated- some wanted to reconnect with audience while other had little concern and began experimenting.
France - Les Six- neoclassicism, drawing on French baroque "fully French, anti-Romantic in clarity, accessibility, emotional restraint" to establish French patriotism after the war. French music as intrinsically classical while German was romantic.
Messiaen: lack of traditional harmony resolutions; chords are repeated to create sense of stasis or meditation.
Germany - Neuensächlichkeit (new objectivity) opposed to complexity and promoted use of familiar elements (popular music, jazz, classical, baroque). Music should be objective in its expression (Baroque affections), not subjective or extreme. Not autonomous. Focus on purely musical procedures like motivic development and polyphony of independent lines.
Gebrauchtsmusik - music for use (Hindemith: young/amateur music)
Reich Chamber of Culture under Göbbels. Nazi requirements: must not be dissonant, atonal, twelve-tone, chaotic, intellectual, Jewish, jazz influenced, or left wing.
Carl Orff: Carmina burana for chorus and orchestra set medieval poems to goliard songs, neo-modal idiom. Pseudo antique style based on drones, ostinatos, harmonic stasis, strophic repetition.
Soviet Union - arts as ways to indoctrinate people, enhance patriotism (Marxist-Leninst ideology). Union of Soviet Composers
socialist realism: called for using realistic style portraying socialism in a positive light. Relatively simple, accessible language, melody, folk styles. Intrinsic value in music condemned as formalism.
Prokofiev: mostly diatonic melodies and harmonies make music accessible, occasional dissonance and unexpected turns make it engaging and distinctive; modal melodies and orchestration convey a Russian sound. This widely appealing style brought him more popularity than his modernist period.
Shostakovich: messages of
music was heavily regulated- some wanted to reconnect with audience while other had little concern and began experimenting.
France - Les Six- neoclassicism, drawing on French baroque "fully French, anti-Romantic in clarity, accessibility, emotional restraint" to establish French patriotism after the war. French music as intrinsically classical while German was romantic.
Messiaen: lack of traditional harmony resolutions; chords are repeated to create sense of stasis or meditation.
Germany - Neuensächlichkeit (new objectivity) opposed to complexity and promoted use of familiar elements (popular music, jazz, classical, baroque). Music should be objective in its expression (Baroque affections), not subjective or extreme. Not autonomous. Focus on purely musical procedures like motivic development and polyphony of independent lines.
Gebrauchtsmusik - music for use (Hindemith: young/amateur music)
Reich Chamber of Culture under Göbbels. Nazi requirements: must not be dissonant, atonal, twelve-tone, chaotic, intellectual, Jewish, jazz influenced, or left wing.
Carl Orff: Carmina burana for chorus and orchestra set medieval poems to goliard songs, neo-modal idiom. Pseudo antique style based on drones, ostinatos, harmonic stasis, strophic repetition.
Soviet Union - arts as ways to indoctrinate people, enhance patriotism (Marxist-Leninst ideology). Union of Soviet Composers
socialist realism: called for using realistic style portraying socialism in a positive light. Relatively simple, accessible language, melody, folk styles. Intrinsic value in music condemned as formalism.
Prokofiev: mostly diatonic melodies and harmonies make music accessible, occasional dissonance and unexpected turns make it engaging and distinctive; modal melodies and orchestration convey a Russian sound. This widely appealing style brought him more popularity than his modernist period.
Shostakovich: messages of