“Modern Music” course

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MENDELSSOHN:

• He wrote delicate, staccato melodies as well as lyrical, Classical styled tunes.

• Many of his finest works are from his early career (in addition, he died
young).
• Mendelssohn’s rhythms were not as complicated as many other Romantic
composers, such as Brahms, Schumann or Chopin.
• He preferred absolute forms and is considered to be a ‘traditional’ Romantic,
looking back to the Classical period for inspiration.
• In spite of his preference for Classical forms, he was often influenced by a
literary, artistic, historical, geographical or emotional connections in his
writing (such as the “Italian” symphony) and this is a Romantic trait.
• Mendelssohn wrote a great deal of music for many genres, including
overtures, oratorios, solo piano works and piano concertos, chamber music
and symphonies.
• Mendelssohn was an important musical figure in many ways; he was a
superb pianist, a good violist, an exceptional organist, and an inspiring
conductor, reviving interest in the works of J.S. Bach, for example.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHUMANN:

• Schumann had two artistic personalities which inspired him – he called the
bold extrovert ‘Florestan’ and the shy, introverted ‘Eusebius’.
• He was not an influential teacher or conductor and once he injured his hand
his performing career ended, so he focused on his musical journal to promote
composers he admired, and of course he also focused on composition.
• Schumann often used complex rhythms which were a driving force in his
compositions, such as repeated patterns (often with dotted rhythms), cross
rhythms in the inner voices, and changing meters or shifting accents.
• His lieder are considered some of the finest from the Romantic period, and his
single piano concerto is still popular today.
• He used highly chromatic harmony and harshness due to frequent dissonant
harmonies; modulations to distant keys; wide-spaced left hand
accompaniments.
• Schumann favoured miniature forms, feeling that traditional Classical forms
and structures were too restrictive.
• Perhaps no composer ever rivaled Schumann in concentrating his energies on
one form of music at a time - at first his creative impulses were translated into
piano music, then followed the miraculous year of the songs (1841), and the
following year was filled with chamber music compositions.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LISZT:

• Liszt invented the modern piano recital and created the only new orchestral
genre of the Romantic era, the tone poem (or symphonic poem).
• He was also an important teacher and proponent of the “New German
school”’ he focused on innovation rather than looking back to the Classical
period.
• His virtuosity was unprecedented on the piano and his compositions are both
dazzling and melodious. Many of his works are standard repertoire today.
• Liszt was important in many ways – he was involved in teaching, conducting,
composing, promoting (other composers) and traveling, all of which spread
his influence.
• He continually re-worked his own compositions and wrote transcriptions of
other composers’ works.
• Liszt pioneered the technique of thematic transformation, a method of
development which was related to variation techniques.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BRAHMS:

• He was a traditionalist, following Beethoven’s symphonic achievements and

admiring Classical forms, though he did use miniature piano forms such as
the Ballade and Intermezzo.
• He favored the Classical forms of the sonata, symphony, and concerto, and
frequently composed movements in sonata form.
• Brahms’s compositions are also characterized by rhythmic vitality and
complexity, including syncopation, hemiolas and cross-rhythms.
• His piano left hand accompaniments often based on widely spaced chords
that required the use of the damper pedal in order to play effectively.
• The texture of his music, for example in his piano works, is dense due to
doublings of the chord structure.
• Brahms was influenced by folk music, such as in his settings for piano and
voice of 144 German folk songs.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VERDI:

• Verdi is one of the finest opera composers of the Romantic period, with his
impassioned and memorable melodies, rich orchestration, and grand operas
in the French style.
• Verdi frequently chose texts which had had success as plays and which could
also produce libretti of great complexity of plot. He also favoured exotic plots.
• Verdi’s female operatic characters display the Bel canto style of singing, often
singing in the upper reaches of their range (such as coloratura sopranos).
• The music of Verdi is often seen as serving the audience of the mass public
rather than that of the musical elite or his own vision at all costs (as opposed
to Wagner). He re-wrote La Traviata, for example, after its first disastrous
premiere.
• Many of his operas are fast-paced works and deal with emotional extremes,
with the music emphasizing the dramatic situation.
• He used duets, trios and quartets along with significant and memorable
passages for chorus, incorporating them into the scene like another character,
such as in the case of La Traviata and the party scene at Flora’s home.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WAGNER:

• Wagner revolutionized German opera in many ways, including theatrical

innovations, such as darkening the theatre during a performance and placing
the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience.
• He also wrote his own librettos as well as the music, conducted the
performances, designed the sets and costumes, etc. to create a work of art
with a single vision – his own. He called it a “music drama”, in which all the
musical and dramatic elements were fused together.
• His vast imagination and emotional expression pushed music form to a near
complete break from traditional tonality.
• Wagner’s developed the leitmotif, wholistic approach to the creation of the
entire opera, writing his own librettos, and using myths and legends as the
basis for plots.
• He developed a compositional style in which the orchestra has at least as
great a dramatic role as the singers themselves. The expressiveness of the
orchestra is aided by the use of leitmotifs (musical sequences standing for a
particular character or plot element).
• Wagner wrote relatively few works other than his musical dramas.

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 MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TCHAIKOVSY:

• His most popular works are characterized by richly melodic passages in

which sections suggestive of profound melancholy frequently alternate with
dance-like movements derived from folk music.
• Tchaikovsky is perhaps best known today for his ballet scores, such at The
Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.
• His music has come to be known and loved for its distinctly Russian
character as well as its rich harmonies and stirring melodies, but his works,
were much more western than his Russian contemporaries as he effectively
used both nationalistic folk melodies and international elements.
• Tchaikovsky wrote ballet scores, operas, symphonies, concertos, solo piano
works, the famous 1812 Overture, and chamber music.
• Tchaikovsky’s symphonic works, popular for their melodic content, often
have abstract thematic development.
• Tchaikovsky was sensitive to what others thought – he re-wrote his Romeo
and Juliet overture after criticism, for example, and he may have committed
suicide due to his homosexuality.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAHLER:

• Mahler was best known in his time as one of the leading conductors of his
day, but is now remembered as an important post-Romantic composer,
particularly for his symphonies and his symphonic song cycle.
• Mahler was the last in a line of Viennese symphonists extending from the
First Viennese School while also also incorporated the ideas of Romantic
composers, including Wagner. He also used folk music (in his case, Austrian
song and dance).
• The spirit of the lied constantly rests in his work. He followed Schubert and
Schumann in developing the song cycle, but rather than write piano
accompaniment, he orchestrated it instead.
• Mahler wrote some texts himself, often inspired by his own life (such as the
Songs of a Wayfarer).
• Mahler’s orchestral music is clear, complex, and full of musical imagery. He
relies on a very large orchestra, similar to Berlioz.
• Among his innovations are: expressive use of combinations of instruments in
both large and small scale, increased use of percussion, as well as combining
voice and chorus in the symphony form.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SMETANA:
• Smetana was a Czech composer, perhaps the most important, and he greatly
influenced Dvorak.
• He was also important overall to the musical life in his homeland - he taught,
conducted and gave chamber music recitals. In 1863 he opened a school of
music in Prague, dedicated to promoting Czech music.
• He continued writing despite personal tragedy (the death of several of his
children, deafness, tinnitus) before he finally ended up in an asylum.
• His opera The Bartered Bride was one of the first works to ever be based on
Czech life, and the opera is still popular today.
• He used many Czech dance rhythms and Smetana expanded the form of the
symphonic tone poem.
• Smetana gave freshness and color to his nation’s folk songs due to his highly
original and dramatic musical style. His works reflect the lilting character of
his homeland.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RAVEL:

• Melodies that featured sharply defined ideas and angles. Even his
Impressionistic works still had clear-cut forms and rhythms.
• Ravel was a brilliant and innovative orchestrator, studying all the
instruments to learn how to best use them in his music.
• Ravel considered himself in many ways a Classicist. He used traditional
forms and structures to present his new and innovative harmonies.
• He was influenced by Debussy, but also the music of Russia, Spain and jazz
music from the United States.
• Most of Ravel’s compositions up to the war years were inspired by poetry or
described a scene, but after the war, most of his works were not
programmatic in nature.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MESSIAEN

• Messiaen’s music is rhythmically complex; he was interested in rhythms

from ancient Greek and from Hindu sources, and is harmonically and
melodically based on modes of limited transposition.
• Messiaen’s thematic material is drawn primarily from two sources: Catholic
religious themes and birdsong.
• He composed in every form of the time, though his concertos and symphonic
works are not entitled as such.
• Messiaen experimented with ‘total serialism’ and is considered a pioneer of
the technique.
• He travelled widely, and wrote works inspired by such diverse influences as
Japanese music, landscapes in the U.S., and the life of St. Francis of Assisi.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHöNBERG:

• There are three periods to his career as a composer: early (extended tonality),
middle (atonal works), and late (12-tone works).
• Schönberg developed the techniques of Sprechstimme and
Klangfarbenmelodie.
• The emotions expressed in his music are Expressionistic in nature such as
despair and anxiety.
• He felt that if music was to regain a genuine and valid simplicity of
expression, as in the music of Mozart and Schubert (whom he admired), the
language must be renewed.
• He published a number of books, ranging from his famous Harmonielehre
(Theory of Harmony) to Fundamentals of Musical Composition, many of
which are still in print and used by musicians and developing composers.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BERG:

• He was a member of the Second Viennese School, producing works that

combined Mahlerian romanticism with a highly personal adaptation of
Schönberg’s 12-tone technique.
• Schönberg was a major influence on Berg throughout his life.
• Berg combined traditional ideas of form and tonality with ‘modern’ ideas of
harmony and melody to create unique works.
• The unity of a piece is dependent on all aspects of the composition being
derived from a single basic idea, in some ways, like variations.
• His music explores many of the darker emotions associated with
Expressionistic music: despair, angst, and fear.
• Berg favoured several compositional techniques: the retrograde row;
overlapping motives; emotions combined with abstract music.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WEBERN:

• Webern was not a prolific composer; just thirty-one of his compositions were
published in his lifetime, and most of the works are very short.
• His mature works, using Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve tone technique, have a
textural clarity and emotional coolness which greatly influenced composers.
• Webern’s typical works had very thin textures (in which every note can be
clearly heard); carefully chosen timbres, often resulting in very detailed
instructions to the performers and use of extended instrumental techniques.
• His music often featured frequent melodic leaps over the interval of a minor
second or major seventh.
• He used imitative counterpoint, often strictly canonic, as well as inversions,
palindromes, and mirror patterns.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BARTóK:

• Bartók was one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, the study of
folk music and the music of non-Western cultures. He collected Eastern
European folk music, along with Kodály.
• Bartók was also influenced by the order of numbers, known as the Fibonacci
Series.
• Bartók often treated the piano as a percussive instrument, with heavy accents
producing a sharp, sudden attack. Bartók also emphasized a strict tempo.
• Bartók’s music is highly dissonant and contrapuntal, but not atonal. A
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 feeling of tonality is based on repetition of certain tones often enough to
create a tonal center.
• He often had driving, insistent rhythms, often primitive and dynamic, and
he used ostinato figures, irregular meters, and rhythm as a more important
factor than the melody sometimes.
• Bartók’s music represents a combination of nationalism and 19th century
forms poured into highly individual, powerful 20th century music.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROKOFIEV:

• His music is an eclectic mix, categorized as Neo-Classical, post-Romantic,

nationalistic, anti-Romantic and cosmopolitan. Prokofiev’s music is difficult
to classify but is unmistakably his own.
• The emotions of his music range from cold, sarcastic, ironic and savage to
innocent, lyrical and epic.
• Prokofiev’s works usually take a Neo-Classical approach to form and
structure. He used both the forms and the stylistic mannerisms of the
Classical period.
• His harmonic writing is often biting and dissonant but usually remains tonal,
although Prokofiev often shifts suddenly to distant tonalities. He occasionally
uses both major and minor thirds simultaneously.
• Prokofiev’s melodies are occasionally modal, but usually lyrical, consisting of
four-bar phrases. They are often diatonic, with some chromaticism and large
leaps.
• Occasionally he uses irregular meters, but the majority of his music is written
in regular meters.
• Prokofiev was a true master of orchestration and he was capable of
producing effects and textures of great impact.
• His music is generally divided into three periods:

I. Russia (1908-1918)

II. Outside of Russia (1918-1932) – these were his least productive years

III. Back in Russia (1932-1953)

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LIGETI:

• By the 1960’s Ligeti’s music was considered to be an alternative to serialism.

• Ligeti used an impenetrable polyphonic texture, which he called
“micropolyphony” – clusters of rapidly moving parts that broke down the
distinctions between melody, harmony and rhythm. He used this technique
especially in his orchestrated music.
• In the 1970’s, Ligeti’s writing became more transparent and melodic in a
highly personal style.
• By the 1980’s, Ligeti’s static structures of his earlier works began to evolve
with dynamic polyrhythmic techniques.
• Ligeti applied the serial principles not only to pitch, rhythm, etc. but also to
expressions within his music (irony, mockery, humour, melancholy, etc.) The
spectrum of emotion is not complete in his music, however, because it does
not necessarily include verbal and musical expressions.
• His theatrical style utilizes the voice which gesticulates, not the body. The
style has been described as “speechless theatre”.
• Ligeti’s obsession with counting time is evident in Clocks and Clouds,
written in 1973, where metronome sounds are gradually transformed into
misty images. 1
• Ligeti was influenced by mathematical puzzles and the cyclic nature of
African drumming.

• Górecki found inspiration from the colours and rhythms of folk music - the
strong accents, harsh timbres, and relentless ostinatos.
• Górecki’s style features New Romanticism - a compositional style of the 20th
century embodying the techniques and characteristics of the 19th century
Romantic period, but combined with 20th innovations.

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CRUMB:

• Crumb demands an exceptional precision and subtlety of interpretation from the

performers.
• His music exploits the extreme instrumental registers and unusual combinations
of instruments. In Crumb’s works, musicians often leave and reenter the stage, or
play from offstage.
• Crumb’s vocal parts, include tongue clicks, explosive shrieks, hissing and
whispering, as well as singing fractional intervals (microtones).
• His musical notation often emulated the symbolic designs affected by some
composers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; particularly intriguing is his
use of circular or spiral staves for recurring motives.
• Crumb’s music uses a rich blend of new and innovative techniques, often
including theatrical aspects (such as performing offstage).
• Crumb’s techniques, such as singing into the piano (to produce extra resonance)
or singing though a cardboard tube (to create a sense of physical and spiritual
distance) add new tonal colors to the voice.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PAUL LANSKY:

• He first became interested in using computers to make noises at Princeton

University where he has been a professor since 1969.
• He is fascinated with the sounds of the human voice and uses the computer as
what he calls an “aural microscope” to explore and recreate sounds in his
music.
• Analog-digital converters keep Lansky interested in computers.
• Lansky has used the digital sampling technique in many of his works.
• As Lansky said; “There is not a clear lead tune, story line, or main voice. I hope
that I've composed a texture which, as I like to say, gives your ears room to
dance.”

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PÄRT:

• As he wrote; “the most complicated music in the world is written in response to

the most complicated times.”
• Pärt focuses on setting religious texts, usually for vocal pieces.
• “My music was always written after I had long been silent in the most literal sense
of the word. When I speak of silence, I mean the ‘nothingness’ out of which God
created the world. That is why, ideally, musical silence is sacred. Silence is not
simply given to us, but in order that we may draw sustenance from it.”
• His career ranges from early experiments with serialism, through musical collages
that took their inspiration from J.S. Bach.
• Pärt demonstrates that emptiness makes room for form.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WILLAN:

• Over half of his output of over 850 compositions was sacred works for choir
which include many anthems, hymn anthems and mass settings.
• Willan preferred a conservative musical style, rejecting the European’s atonality
and serialism experiments.
• His harmonies are post-Wagnerian, Romantic in style.
• He taught his students by example and encouragement, and some of his well-
known pupils include Patricia Blomfield Holt, Walter MacNutt, and Godfrey
Ridout.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHAFER:

• Most of Schafer’s works are extramusical, such as references to philosophy,

symbolism, and texts from different languages, including medieval German. He
preferred to write works that included a text.
• Many of his compositions are based on inspiration from and reference to the
Canada’s vast wilderness, both as a place and as a cultural influence.
• He is a brilliant orchestrator with a thorough understanding of the different
instruments.
• Schafer experimented with mysticism and Eastern beliefs in his works in the
1970’s.
• Schafer used his knowledge and experience with soundscapes not only in his
writings, but also in his compositions, such as Waves which was based on ocean
wave intervals, and No Longer than Ten (10) Minutes which was influenced by
Vancouver traffic noise.2
• His later works occasionally experimented with unusual arrangements of the
performers, and with a large number of performers (Apocalypsis was written for
500 performers!)

2 Source: Canadian Encyclopedia © 2005 Historica Foundation of Canada’s article on Schafer. 11

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MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COULTHARD:

• Coulthard’s music often has programmatic content, some of her music being
almost narrative in nature.
• Her music often has an accessible, emotional appeal.
• There is some dissonance and atonality in her music, when she felt it was
necessary.
• Coulthard’s later works often displayed very controlled and elaborate structural
characteristics.
• Her piano concerto is late Romantic in style and features virtuosic writing.

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