The 20th century's 3 Greatest Composers
The 20th century has watched many musicians break through their generation's bounds of normalcy to creat a completely new music. Musicians who initiated revolutions so grandiose that the impact—like an earthquake’s aftershocks—would reverberate for decades and influence scores of musicians to come. Such influences can be traced back to three specific composers. Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Nadia Boulanger: the triumvirate of 20th century music.
Igor Stravinsky, remains the century’s most shocking and versatile composer. Born in Russia in 1882, Stravinsky enjoyed a musically wealthy childhood. He was the son of a famous opera singer and well-educated in piano performance and
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The opening of Dance of the Adolescent Girls is a prime example of Stravinsky’s dizzying rhythmic trickery. Lower strings play an ostinato E major triad, while upper strings play a first inversion 7th chord on Eb. All instruments play 4 quarter notes per measure. However, Stravinsky’s placement of accents causes listeners to hear the notes in groups of 9, 2, 6, 3, 4, 5, and 3 (Hanning 483-4). Such rhythmic manipulations were a very radical theory in Stravinsky's day. Add to that the fact that this music was intended as dance accompaniment, and one can clearly see how Stravinsky broke the mold as a composer. Unfortunately, audiences were not always receptive to his efforts.
During Rite’s May 28, 1913 evening premiere at Theatre des Champs-Elysees, the prelude’s opening measures “evoked derisive laughter” from the audience (Harrington). Composer, Camille Saint-Saens stormed out immediately, appalled by Stravinsky’s audacious writing for bassoon.
Fights erupted between audience members. Stravinsky fled to the wings where choreographer, Nijinsky, frantically shouted counts to the dancers. The choreographer was so enraged, Stravinsky literally had to hold his shirt to prevent Nijinsky's attacking of the irreverent crowd (Glass). Members of that evening's audience could hardly fathom the ballet would later be hailed as one of the century's greatest works. Above image shows Stravinsky (left) posing with Nijinsky (right).
always been known for the risky and powerful movements which are often why dancers retire from the company. The dancer’s movements were often very intense and emotive, such as the “throws” across the stage in which the dancers would, almost violently, launch themselves across the stage in different forms (leaps, falls and flips to name a few). Another section where the movements were emotive is where the dancers were thrusting their hips in different positions to perhaps show sexuality in “self”.
In “Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance”, Gottschild begins by introducing unique aspects of the Africanist aesthetic including how it embraces differences and instead of the tradition European idea of resolving conflict, Africanist aesthetic presents a question and demonstrates the beauty in accepting conflict. One way in which the Africanist aesthetic differs from European ballet is how they utilize polycentrism, having multiple centers of movement, and polyrhythm, when different body parts keep multiple rhythms. Other ways include the high-affect juxtaposition, changes in mood, movement, or tempo, to the drastically contrasting sharpness and intensity in the movements. Gottschild’s main point in
Therefore, she has dedicated much of her work into researching Le Sacre du Printemps. In “Searching for Nijinsky’s Sacre”, Hodson lists the many sources for studies on the subject. She interviewed Marie Rambert, a dancer who assisted Nijinsky’s with his choreography, and she received details of Nijinsky’s specific technique and how strenuous it was for the dancers to learn and rehearse. Hodson also studied Valentine Gross’s sketches of choreography, original costumes, and spoke with Louis Speyer, an oboist of the original orchestra. In addition, she also spoke with members of Nijinsky’s family including his daughter, Kyra Nijinsky. This article went into great depth in explaining Le Sacre du Printemps, and showed the great amount of passion the author has for preserving the ballet.
By swaying in the delicate phrases and jerking with the harsh ones, the performers became the dancers in the ballet. They expressed different levels of emotion when required which reflected their playing.
In “Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance”, Gottschild begins by introducing unique aspects of the Africanist aesthetic including how it embraces differences and instead of the traditional European idea of resolving conflict, Africanist aesthetic presents a question and demonstrates the beauty in accepting conflict. One way in which the Africanist aesthetic differs from European ballet is how they utilize polycentrism, having multiple centers of movement, and polyrhythm, when different body parts keep multiple rhythms. Other ways include the high-affect juxtaposition, changes in mood, movement, or tempo, to the drastically contrasting sharpness and intensity in the movements. Gottschild’s main point in her article is to describe how the Africanist aesthetic is much less strict
The composer that I chose is Charles Ives, an American modernist and musical composer from the 20th century born on October 20, 1874 in a small town of Danbury, CT and died on May 19, 1954 in New York City, NY. Charles Ives was one of the first American composers international renown and had a unique voice in American music. Which today he’s known for his amazing original orchestral music and as an American composer and Musician.
The melody sounds somber and serious and the energy of the dancers suddenly changes. A spoken word takes place and all of the dancer begin to tell their stories of pain and struggle through movements. The spoken word talks about the journey of men and women who overcame social injustice. In the dancer's movements you could clearly see how they correlated together. Movements were powerful and restraint at the same time giving the audience the idea of the women were pushing through something that was bearing them down. There was a lot of expansion in the chest, back, and arms followed by contractions in the body. As soon as the spoken word was finished the mood of the piece change again and the pianist began to play a upbeat tune that brought the dancers back in to a more positive and high spirit. A lot of polyrhythms take place as the dancers jump high and move their arms back and forth moving throughout the space. This happens in unison at first and then solos, trios, and duets happen in this section of the dance. The expression on their faces add charismatic charm to this piece. Their expressions continue to move them into different emotions and feelings that are relatable to everyday
	For the next few years, Stravinsky and Diaghilev worked very closely together. Diaghilev wanted all of Stravinsky’s new works to be produced by his company. Stravinsky's next two works for the ballet, Petrouchka (1910-11) and The Rite of Spring (1912-13) are perfectly crafted, powerful pieces, drawing on Stravinsky's rhythmic and harmonic imagination. The most amazing part is that Stravinsky had not even reached middle age at the time he composed these pieces. The Rite of Spring created a violent reaction because no one had ever heard music that carried this much premature power. It was almost as though there was a sense of jealousy from his colleagues. The entire musical establishment criticized stravinsky, but he didn’t really seem to care.
The space, time and usage of dynamics were powerful yet elegant-elements that added to the overall quality and tone of the work. The solo dancer used her body to perform various movements with specific ranges of motion, showing her ability to control, express and properly connect to the audience through her performance. In this performance, there seems to be a spiritual side when the dancer, Marilyn Banks, sits on the bench and starts to swing her arms in wide semi-circles to show looks of anguish and despair. Ms. Banks also varied movement by quivering her hands-movements such as a shaking or slight trembling with her hands when reaching outwards. She also used a lot of ornamentation or embellishment through her movements. Her body and her path of movement embellished her gestures since she was performing spins across the stage.
Furthermore, “Gemini”, the second piece from Innovative works, choreographed by Sarah Harkins and music by Frédéric Chopin, was a male duet based on improving and sharing weight. Within the duet, the two males initiated an interaction with the audience in another language saying, “Konnichiwa”, which automatically provides the idea of the company being diverse. However, during the interaction to keep the audience engaged, one of the dancer’s remained in the stage space.
Many people compare the musical works of Ludwig Van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart because of the styles of music that they produced. They were also similar because of their age and the music period in which they created in. Throughout their lives these two composers had vastly different customs and behaviors. Each composer contributed to their own unique styles of music, however they continue to be a musical inspiration in today’s world. Many people of the early classical music period reacted differently to both of the musician’s works because of the unique way they chose to create and present their music. These musician’s created a lasting effect on the musical world that we see today.
This is typical of Stravinsky, as he liked quick transposition between episodes so one never knows quite what one is expecting. Next, a fanfare-like figure is introduced on the trumpets and is passed around the orchestra. Soon after, everything stops (typical Stravinsky) and the chords in the string section returns. The chords now persist for a little longer and there are no bassoon solos. Instead of having a break every now and then, this time the bassoon is on top of the whole string orchestra, playing a loud, simple, powerful rhythm. This eventually is done in some other wind instruments and the movement is finished with a loud bang from the Timpani really caught me off guard. The orchestra then builds up into tremolo ideas used in the strings that create a busy effect. Another fanfare-like figure is introduced on the horns, which appears throughout the rest of the movement. Stravinsky plays around with the accents in the music thus resulting in 9-8 bars
Composers rely heavily on ritornello form. More freedom in the form although a sinfonia proper is later developed.
Baroque music tends to be complex, but with a very organized system of forms and harmonies that is the basis for almost all music from what is called the “Common Era,” the period between 1700-1900. The Common Era developed throughout the nineteenth century, but after 1900 music entered an age of experimentation; music perhaps became a postmodern art genre very early on. Baroque music all sounds similar, although the educated listener can tell Bach from Handel without difficulty. In the realm of contemporary music, however, entirely atonal music from Schoenberg and Webern can easily exist alongside French Impressionism and Copland’s American neo-Romanticism. Today’s composers are similar only in that their styles, and entire musical languages, are radically different.
Peter Tchaikovsky was a famous Composer from the 19th Century. He is known as the most famous Russian composer in history (“Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Biography”). Some historians think that he was Russia’s first truly professional composer ("Tchaikovsky Music's – Famous”). His music was performed during the late 1800s. He created many musical works throughout this time as a composer and many of these works are still listened to today.