In the last blog for 20th century music class, I’m going to discuss my selections of chamber music composed in 20th century. I chose the repertoires from the 20th century classical music genres as various as possible. Let’s look at them.
Olivier Messiaen — Quartet for the End of Time (1941)
For many composers who live in early 20th century, their musical development can be divided before and after the wars. During the time of WWI and WWII, some of the composers who encountered the disaster did not give up composing music. In 1940, Olivier Messiaen was imprisoned by German army. In the prison, he met a violinist, clarinetist, and cellist. It was very unusual instrumentation during the period, but he composed a chamber music for themselves. It was one of his masterpieces, Quartet for the End of Time.
It consists of eight movements. As it was described in the program note written by Eric Salzman, the quartet was written under the influence from the religious book of Revelations, and the eight movements subtitled from the story of the book: “Liturgie de cristal” (Crystal liturgy), “Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps” (Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of time), “Abîme des oiseaux” (Abyss of birds), “Intermède” (Interlude), “Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus” (Praise to the eternity of Jesus), “Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes” (Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets), “Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps” (Tangle of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of time), “Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus” (Praise to the immortality of Jesus).
The entire pieces’ atmosphere is mostly grand, deep, and sacred. The work shows that even though he was in the prison during the war, his religious belief strongly support himself or the situation forced him to compose the music. The second movement, however, sounds very stern and firm like the announcement of end of time. (2:47~3:40)
Arnold Schoenberg — Phantasy, Op. 47 (1949)
The most representative word when you hear “20th century” music would be 12 tone system or atonality. Arnold Schoenberg is the one of the earlier composers who composed atonal music. In his early career, he tried to break away from the traditional composing styles such as the instinct of going back to a certain tonal center. He believed everything can be tonic. So in his philosophy, there’s no traditional tonality and chromaticism. Eventually, he developed and defined the twelve-tone system, and composed twelve tone music since 1920s until his death.
In 1949, Schoenberg completed a piece for violin and piano, Phantasy, Op. 47. It was his last piece of instrumental chamber work and written in twelve-tone system. He was very satisfying with this piece. In his letter to violinist Rudolf Kolisch, he wrote about the piece and said “it’s very difficult, but very playable”. Truly, despite of the difficulty, the piece is very fascinating and enjoyable for both the performers and listeners. Schoenberg composed the violin part first without having the piano accompaniment. However, it sounds like both part were composed at the same time. It’s hard to imagine playing the violin solo without the accompaniment.
Béla Bartók — Contrast, Sz. 111, BB 116 (1938)
The next piece is Béla Bartók’s Contrast, Sz. 111, BB 116 (1938). Bartók spent his life to collect and categorize Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, and Bulgarian folk music as an ethnomusicologist, and compose a number of piano solo and chamber works as a composer and pianist. Among his chamber pieces, he composed a trio for violin, clarinet, and piano, which is not an usual instrumentation. According to the program note from New York Philharmonic written by Leonard Burkat, the piece was commissioned by a Hungarian violinist, Joseph Szigeti for him and his friend, Benny Goodman who was the clarinetist and composer. They wanted a violin and clarinet duo piece with piano accompaniment, and Bartok sent them two out of three movements as they requested. So, the two pieces were premiered with the title: Rhapsody: Two Dances at Carnegie Hall in New York.
As you can see in the excerpt above, Bartók didn’t like using the term “Rhapsody” for the trio. However, because of the distinct folk element in the piece, you would agree why they named it as “Rhapsody.”
The first movement is “Verbunkos,” the Hungarian popular dance genre. The violin beginning of pizzicato with the clarinet melody in the first movement is the example of Hungarian dance. The violin was treated like guitar accompaniment. After the second movement “Pihenő (Relaxation),” the contrasting third movement, Sebes (Fast Dance) is in duple meter, extremely passionate and furious dance rhythm. You can hear the moment at 11:45 and 15: 23 in the YouTube video.
William Grant Still — Miniatures, Trio for flute, oboe, and piano (1948) / Quintet for flute, oboe, horn, clarinet, and basson (1963)
In addition to borrow the folk tune or element, some 20th century composers tried to combine their nationalism while composing western music. The Arfican American composer, William Grant Still dedicated to develop the nationalism of American music. You might simply think that the representative American music is Jazz, Blues, Pop music or Hip-hop. However Still’s approach to the American music as a classical music composer was slightly different. He found out the American element from the American folk tune and the beauty of huge nature as well as jazz/blues.
Among his famous American nationalism music, Miniatures is a set of five short pieces based on the folk songs from USA, Mexico, and Peru. The work was originally composed for a trio (flute, oboe, and piano), and later arranged for a quintet (flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet and horn). In the newspaper article, Trevor Weston, who is an assistant professor of African-American music, music theory and composition at the College of Charleston, said that Still’s music led the classic music audience to enjoy the popular folk songs as Mozart and Beethoven did in 18th century Europe. The five songs are delightful, enjoyable, and well-arranged for classical music. Here are the time pinpoints for each movement: 00:08 I Ride An Old Paint (USA), 03:42 Adolorido (Mexico), 05:41 Jesus Is A Rock In The Weary Land (USA), 08:13 Yaravi (Peru), and 10:34 A Frog Went A-Courtin’.
Isang Yun — Garak for Flute and Piano (1963)
Another example of nationalism music, I would love to introduce is Garak composed by Isang Yun. Yun is a Korean-born composer who built his career later in West German. He taught and studied violin, cello, music theory, and composition in various countries including South Korea, Japan, France, and German. He was passionate in combining the Korean traditional music with the 20th century avant garde music, which I think was successful in Garak.
Garak was composed when he was actively composing by the influence of Chinese and Korean court music and the exotic tone-production techniques in West Germany. According to the news article by Allan Kozinn from New York Times, the fusion works composed during this period was the foundation to develop his “main-tone technique.”
Garak is a Korean word which refers to a traditional melody and rhythm. You can also think it means “folk tune.” As you can notice from the flute sound at the first few measures, the flute is making different sonority from traditional one. It is played with much breath and most sound is gradually stretching out from soft (or slow breath) to loud, with big vibration. This is imitation of the Korean/Chinese traditional woodwind instruments and its technique. Yun intelligently mixed the oriental sound with the atonality and contemporary music technique.
Karlheinz Stockhausen — Mantra (1970)
Karlheniz Stockhausen was a German composer in twentieth century who was known as the leading composer of post-1945 avant garde. He was famous with composing serialism and a pioneer of electronic music. In his later sets of Klavierstücke (XV-XIX), he composed music for piano, synthesizer, and tape music, and I think it can be considered a chamber music of piano and electronic music. Mantra is another ensemble piece for two pianos with extra object and electronic device including a set of crotales and a woodblock, and a ring modulator.
The “theme” is consisted of 12-tone row. The first note of the 12-tone row is repeated at the end and creates a 13-tone formula. According to Stockhausen’s explanation, the formula only repeated over and over without development, so evokes the interest for the entire work. The time signature is not in the traditional form but he gave the number of quarter note in each measure, which is changed frequently. In addition, Stockhausen gave the exact range of metronome for each tempo marking such as over 120 for “Sehr schnell” or between 80 and 120 for “Schnell.” Also, each pitch has specific dynamics, and he listed the tremolos to be much accurate. This is very interesting piece because the two pianists have to play the antique cymbals and change the sound wave with the ring modulator. The description in the article from Fanfare — The Magizine for Serious Record Collectors written by Jeremy Marchant has the clear explanation of how the modulator works.
The glissandi made by the modulator is surprisingly well-balanced with the other piano part. In the video, you can hear the glissandi at 9:55. It sounds bizarre, but attractive the audience attention despite the irregular instrumentation.
John Cage — Three Dances for Two Prepared Piano (1944)
The contemporary classic music composers developed various extended technique of the instruments. Henry Cowell, John Cage, and George Crumb developed the extended technique on piano such as muting the string with fingers, plucking or stroking the strings, and using foreign object to create different sound. Especially, John Cage liked to treat the piano as a percussion instrument. He was interested in developing the prepare piano sound for dance music. He changed the sound of strings by inserting bolts and screws. He included the specific direction on where the bolts and screws should be placed or what kind of object should be used. Once the piano is prepared as Cage required, the piano sounds like a percussion. Three Dances for Two Prepared Piano is a good example of his work for prepared piano.
According to David Patterson, Cage considered the prepared piano as “a feather in the cap of indeterminacy,” and later he focus on the “chance music.” Let’s listen to the percussion sound made by John Cage. At 1:30, inside of the piano is closed up, and you can see the bolts and screws placed between strings.
George Crumb — Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale, 1971)
George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae is my favorite example of chamber ensemble consisted of extended techniques. It is written for a prepared piano, flute, and cello, and all three instruments have unconventional technique. In addition, Crumb included highly specific direction for staging including the face masks and the aquamarine blue color of light. As you can see in the newspaper article from New York Times, the new experimental chamber music was highly acclaimed by contemporary critics.
Crumb liked to use voice by the instrumentalist while they are playing the instrument. In the video at 0:42, the flutist was actually singing into the flute. If you imagine the untrasonic wave of whale has sound, the flute sound with singing would be similar with that. The sound of prepared piano with cello’s irregular sound effect at 4:42 also helped to set up the mood and character of deep and wide ocean. As it was written on the newspaper above, the piece would sound too bizarra and peculiar. However, you would find the attractive moment as you listen to it more and more. For example, I loved the whispering and sonority of ensemble from 16:00 to 18:00.
John Cage — Imaginary Landscape, №4 (1951)
Another important accomplishment of John Cage was “chance music.” In 1950s, He was frustrated by the difficulty of interpreting other composers work and being misunderstood by audience. So, he stopped writing “determined” score, and relied on the indeterminacy. The reason he stopped writing notes was written in the journal article, Newsday in his own words.
His 4'33, which the performer(s) does not play any thing, but keeps timing with a stopwatch, is now so popular. There’s a highly avant garde and extremely irregular music by Cage: Imaginary Landscape, №4. The piece was written for 24 performers at 12 radios. The radio is their instrument and two performers play one radio. One of the performer adjusts the volume and another one changes the radio frequency, following the conductor’s conducting. So, this would be called a radio chamber ensemble. The whole music is depending on the random sound which is on air at the performance time.
Apparently, every performance of the piece will be completely different. This is my favorite video from YouTube because of the music selected by the radio stations and some speaking part. To me, the voice of radio actor/actress sounds pretty good with the other music or sound. It must be so controversial to discuss about chance music, but I truly respect Cage’s philosophy on the beauty of chance music.
Steve Reich — Piano Phase (1967)
Minimalism is a highly avant garde music genre of late 20th century. Generally the minimalism refers to a music that consists of highly repeated minimal pitch material and rhythm pattern. The minimalists include Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Adams, etc. The minimalism was innovated by an accident by Reich in New York City. Below the excerpt of newspaper article is Reich’s experience.
Steve Reich’s Piano Phase is representative example of the genre. It’s written for two pianos. The pianists are playing the same pattern, but one plays a bit faster than the other. So they are separate and gradually back to together. Some people might think the music sounds like an electronic music sound, while others might think the music would be good for meditation because of the simplicity. If you actively listen to the music not play it as a background music, it’s very interesting to find out the change of pattern.
