In 1970 Morton Feldman wrote a piece of work entitled Rothko Chapel; this work was written in dedication to a chapel in southeastern Texas that shares the same name. Morton Feldman was born, and raised, in New York City, and he was associated with the New York School, where he met John Cage and was introduced to the indeterminacy form of art; indeterminacy refers to the “ability of a piece to be performed in substantially different ways” (Pritchett, 1993). Feldman grew up with music, he attended music schools throughout his life, so it is evident that he became such a dominate figure in twentieth century music, and a pioneer of indeterminate music.
The timbre of the first part of Rothko Chapel is quite dark and dreary. The use of longer, lower registering notes that are spaced out more so than what would be considered normal, make the piece have an ominous timbre. The fact that Feldman studied the art of indeterminacy is probably the main reason why Feldman’s Rothko Chapel displays such a dark and dreary timbre. This, in turn, leads to a discombobulated sounding texture. At some points the music flows well, when the stringed instruments are dominate, but at other times the texture of the music varies and does not match with the rest of the music; however, this was probably Feldman’s desired sound.
Approximately four minutes into Rothko Chapel, a repeating note can be heard for several minutes that are the piece’s major form of a melody. The note appears to change instrument
Klein´s art emerged from serious circumstances. France in the late 1940s was still nation traumatized by World War II. The cultural center of gravity had moved across the Atlantic to New York. The artists who remained in Paris, or at least the good ones, were producing post-apocalyptic work, and out of the same rubble came the much younger Klein.
The Concert opened with “String Quartet in F Major” by Maurice Ravel. The piece was divided into four movements. The first Movement, Allegro moderato - Très doux, sets the tone for the entire piece. It opens in a warm, inviting tone played by all members of the quartet. Then, it immediately leads into somewhat of an exciting climax, with the first violin taking control and the other three instruments playing similar harmonies, but quickly the music quiets. This same, quick intensity transforming to a slower, quiet melody is continuously repeated throughout the entire first movement. The second theme presented in the opening
The piece has a time signature of 4/4 (C=common time) and is primarily in Db Major, modulating to C# Minor (the enharmonic equivalent). The accompaniment (left hand) through section A is based around the tonic and dominant chords- Dᵇ and Aᵇ- with the repeated quavers being Aᵇ - the dominant. In the B section, the repeated quavers played both as singular notes and octaves are on the dominant G#, which is the enharmonic equivalent to Aᵇ and therefore is the repeated quaver as in section A.
The most distinct sound throughout the play is a musical piece called the "Blue Piano".
In addition to asymmetrical rhythms the use of polytonality is vibrant throughout the piece especially in the introduction which begins with different clarinets playing polytonal. Stravinsky structured The Rite very differently, melody was not the only dominant feature of the piece, other features such as the fore mentioned polytonality and asymmetrical rhythms were also at the dominant features of the piece. By breaking from many common practices of his own and of the time, Stravinsky created a piece slated in modernism's history.
When the concert first began, the three instrumentalists walked with energy despite their age. The first song, “Sonata I in G-Major Op. 2, Nr. 1” by Michel Blavet, was a Baroque Sonata. There were five movements and was played by the harpsichord, flute, and cello. All movements of the song were polyphonic because of the three instruments that had different parts and equal importance. In the first movement, I noticed that the flute tended to rise in pitch. In the second movement, I noticed that the melodies often repeated. Throughout the rest of the song the tempo changed from fast to slow and the flute would usually take the lead. On the last movement, the cello and the harpsichord
The second movement began with a solo from a wind instrument which I am not familiar. It seemed to be somewhat of a cross between a harmonica and maybe an African flute. This solo was guided by a guitar which provided an enticing rhythm. Also the tempo seemed to be much slower but it provided an eerie mysterious theme to the music which
Milton Babbitt and John Cage were both composers who played pivotal roles in the post-World War II Avant Garde music scene and in the pioneering of electronic music. Both composers found their roots and were greatly influenced by German-Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg, however they both adopted different viewpoints on the relationship between a composer and their audience . Babbitt believed that a composer or creator did not have an obligation to please his or her audience, and that his pieces were intended mostly for professionals capable of understanding the context and intention of his music. Cage on the other hand granted his audience more power and influence, believing that music was a platform on which audiences could utilize their creativity to adopt new ways of perceiving and being aware of the world around them. These stances, as well as the different techniques and methodologies of the composers pitted them on somewhat of a spectrum, with Babbitt and his systematic, modernist ideas that were largely based in the music schools of academic institutions on one side and Cage, with his uncontrollable, radical combinations of Avant Garde sounds on the other side. These ideas on audience construction and relations were also visible in rock music of the 1960’s, particularly in compositions of artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.
The concert started off at a quick and stimulating pace with Brahms’s Sonata for Two Pianos in F Minor. The piece starts with descending arpeggios echoing a sensation of distress or confusion. There are frequent slight pauses, creating a sense of suspense for what is to follow and building on the emotions
Rather than a musical composition or visual installation, the work 4’33’’ is a concept in art history. Therefore, I think there is no need to separate music and visual art. To be honest, 4’33’’ is the silence within 4’33’’ that presents ideas to the audience. Cage
Aaron Copland is arguably one of the most important 20th century American composers. His uses of texture and tonal settings have contributed greatly to the way people think about film scoring and orchestral composition. During his life, he was at the forefront of his style, and his legacy is quite immense, including the founding of not only the AMC but also, with his passing, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. He was at times a critic, mentor, and above all, a chief organizer of what was and still is “America’s music”. Copland was born November 14, 1900, in New York. The son of Jewish immigrants, his cultural background, as well as his early childhood, contributed greatly to his musical and business dealings.
The first part of this response is to try and identify why John Cage received so much criticism from lovers of traditional music and post war modernists. Cage adopts chance techniques in his compositions and this makes things go awry for him in regard to being referred to as a composer, most critics consider him more of a music philosopher than a composer. Especially after the 19-hour performance of vexations which sadly did not amuse many. The randomness of his compositions makes it hard for him to establish his authority as a composer.
For this essay, I decided to analyze the art collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, more specifically in the Jerome LioMel Joss Gallery. The Jermone LioMel Gallery contains the arts works of Africa, and the Pacific Islands so I will be analyzing arts from the two areas from Papua New Guinea and Nigeria. These arts pieces are the Veranda posts (opo), and the ornament for a sacred flute.
The first two pieces in the program were by Austrian composer Franz Schubert 1797-1828. In 1808, through a competitive examination, the eleven-year-old Schubert was accepted into the choir of the Imperial Court Chapel as well as the Royal Seminary. He was a shy youth, and spent most of his spare time practicing and composing alone. When Shubert was fifteen his voice changed and he left the choir but continued to study at the seminary. As discussed in lecture, each period of music has a chain reaction between artists who are affected by the events of their environment. Post war 1950’s America had the progression of Jazz with artists such as Charlie “Bird” Parker pushing the limits of the saxophone to create the bebop sound, echoed in the rhythm of prose of writer Jack Kerouac and Jackson Pollock’s abstract of the brush. Franz Schubert’s fellow artists were no different at the turn of the eighteenth century as the
beginning of the piece almost sounded like music that would be played in a classic horror/haunted house movie - the part where the piano plays itself! My emotions were mixed up throughout the entire piece and I tried very hard to paint a picture in my mind to what the composer was actually expressing and what kind of story was he trying to tell. “Could it be a tragic love story?”, “Could it be a story about a miserable life, a horrible death and/or the transfiguration to the afterlife?”. These were the questions I was asking myself when I listened to this classical piece. Although I could not understand the complexity of it, I still enjoyed listening to it very much. The only thing I knew was that the nickname of this classical piece was called “The Moonlight Sonata” and that the piece written by the great Ludwig van