Transcription
Hello, and welcome to Keep it Classical. My name is Dr. Matthew Nielsen, and today we're going to talk about moving into the 20th century and the profound changes that brings to music. As in other videos previewing each period, we're going to be discussing an overview of the period, some historical context, general characteristics, and what kind of listener would enjoy this period. Let's get started.
Many historians and musicologists will group all of the music of the 20th century into a giant catch-all of "20th-century music." Well, I think that works for some of the musical styles which continue the whole way through the 20th century. I believe that there is a significant enough shift in artistic expression and ideas after the end of World War II that I'm going to use this to divide the 20th century into two separate periods. I'm going to call the first period the "Progressive Period," and the second period the "Atomic Period." No one else is going to call these by that name, and I have no delusion that this is going to magically catch on, but that's what I'm going to use to describe the first half and the second half of the 20th century. We can only talk about the past from the perspective of the present, and as of right now, this feels like a natural and reasonable way to talk about the 20th century.
So why call it the "Progressive Period"? A few reasons. Historically, a lot is happening at the beginning of the 20th century and into the mid-1940s. This is a period in history when people in Europe and the United States start to make conscious efforts to move forward into what's idealized as modern society. This is the birth of Modernism, whether in art, architecture, fashion, or entertainment. The Industrial Revolution reaches its apex, and a lot more people start moving from the country to the city, causing these population centers to explode. Technology begins to make great leaps forward with new advances like skyscrapers, radio, and powered flight. The advent of sound recording technology catapults the recording industry into the beginning of the largest and widest distribution of music the world had known up to this point. There's also a new interest in life and cultures outside of Europe. Performances of gamelan ensembles from Java are heard in Paris. There's a new interest in art and poetry from East Asia. These will have a strong influence on classical music.
Progress wasn't all good, though. The Industrial Revolution came with some terrible scars: leveling millions of acres of trees, highly polluting industries, as well as mining and burning untold tons of coal, all in the name of progress. European colonization of Africa, known as the Scramble for Africa, begins—one of the worst blights of human suffering ever known, with consequences still being experienced today. Record companies would go on to exploit untold numbers of poor and working artists. Unfettered and unregulated greed led to the stock market crash of 1929. Prohibition led to a rise in organized crime. New technologies paved the way for new and horrifying weapons of war, so atrocious that they were banned by international treaty. But all of this was done in the name of progress, so it feels fitting that this word would be used to represent the good and bad of this time period.
Moving on, music starts to go through lots of changes as well. Talking about this period is going to feel a little bit like following a moving target; it's constantly in flux. Also challenging: we've been able to follow, for the most part, a single style of classical music, but during the Progressive Period, that style begins to fracture into three main styles. These styles are Expressionism, Impressionism, and Folk Idioms. We also see the beginning of the Dada movement, which embraces a sort of anti-art idea, rejecting logic and reason in favor of the absurd, satirical, and nonsensical. Surprisingly, church music begins to make a return in an unexpected way. Starting with the Sicilian movement in the late 1800s, composers began to look again to liturgical music as a creative outlook for religious expression. These composers will look to the distant past, including chant and High Renaissance polyphony, that some have described as Neo-Renaissance. Europe also starts to look outside of itself for music from other countries. Remember, the beginning of each of these epochs is very often a response to what came before it, and these styles are no different; they each respond to Romanticism, reaching a point of overripeness. It all had become a little bit too much; it's not rotten, but it was getting there.
As far as general characteristics are concerned, we have to consider each of these styles individually. I'll go into more detail in future videos, but here's a quick overview of each. Expressionism is a style that is generally heavily distorted for a strong emotional effect. The goal is to express emotional affect rather than replicate a physical reality. While it may feel worlds apart musically from Romantic music, Expressionism evolved directly from Romantic music and retained many of its characteristics musically. This was pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, as well as Igor Stravinsky and others. [Music] [Music]
Impressionism is a style that originated in France and appeared to mimic the artistic style of the same name. The music was actually named after the art movement. This music was inspired by completely new compositional techniques, new orchestral timbres, ancient chant, musical ideas from outside of Europe, as well as a somewhat softer view of the natural world. This style was pioneered by Claude Debussy and Melchizedel among others. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
Folk Idioms are pretty self-explanatory. This is the collecting, cataloging, quoting, and synthesizing of folk tunes from different countries and various regions within those countries. This was led by few musicologists, some of whom were also composers. They began to synthesize these folk tunes and their idioms into their own works. These composers will also borrow tonal ideas or techniques from Romanticism, Expressionism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. This style includes composers like Béla Bartók, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Aaron Copland. Hey [Music] me [Music]
While each of these camps had adamant fans and disciples, these styles aren't mutually exclusive, and we see a fair amount of cross-pollination between them. Stravinsky admired and paid homage to Debussy. Debussy admired the work of Stravinsky. Ralph Vaughan Williams studied with Maurice Ravel, and Schoenberg wrote a handful of folk song arrangements. All three of these styles begin to reject common practice harmonic function; the idea of tonic and dominant functions, as well as resolution, start to lose their value in the concert hall. But at this point, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: atonal does not equal ugly. I'm going to say that again: atonal does not equal ugly. I promise you there will be lots of music during this time period that you will find exceptionally beautiful that can strictly be defined as atonal. I will definitely be highlighting this in future videos.
What sort of listener will this period appeal to? Because this period features diverging styles, the music in this epoch generally finds wide appeal. It's hard to think of art that every single person admires or adores, but I found that a lot of music during this time period really does find an almost universal appeal. That's not to say that you will like everything in this time period or that it will have an immediate appeal, but there are examples during this time period that many people will resonate with. Ironically enough, there's music in this time period when first performed offended audiences so severely that it started riots.
That's all for now. Thank you so much for watching. If you like this video, consider watching my playlist about the Progressive Period, or watching a playlist from another time period, or my playlist for complete beginners. In the meantime, keep it Classical.