- •Music in the Modern World western music of the twentieth century (general survey)
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Additional Assignments
- •Some twentieth-century composers arnold schoenberg (1874-1951)
- •The composer speaks: arnold schoenberg
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Bela bartok (1881-1945)
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Bartok
- •Discussion Points
- •Paul hindemith: his life and work (1895-1963)
- •The composer speaks: paul hindemith
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Electronic music
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Stravinsky
- •Additional Assignments
- •Britten's operas
- •The composer speaks: benjamin broten
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions about Britten
- •Additional Assignments
- •Menotti. The opera composer
- •The composer speaks: gian carlo menotti
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Michael tippett: a child of our time
- •30 Questions on the Text
- •Experimental (avant-garde) music
- •Olivier messiaen
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Discussion Points
- •Additional Assignments
- •George ligeti (b. 1923)
- •Karlheinz stockhausen
- •35 Discussion Activities Questions on the Text about Ligeti
- •About Stockhausen and Experimental Composers
- •Questions about Western Music of the 20th Century
- •Points for Discussion and Written Compositions
- •Popular music rock
- •Points about rock
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Elvis presley - story of a superstar
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The beatles
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •English and American Musical History english music (general survey)
- •1. Opera.
- •2. Performing groups.
- •3. Festivals.
- •4. Education.
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •The golden age in england
- •The english virginal school
- •Virginal music composers. William Byrd (1542-1623)
- •Byrd in his time and ours
- •English madrigalists
- •"The british orpheus"
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •56 American music (general survey)
- •61 Charles ives, the first truly american composer (1874-1954)
- •Charles ives and american folk music
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The relation of jazz to american music
- •Louis armstrong
- •The swing era (duke ellington)
- •Spirituals
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The Art of Musical Interpretation the problem of interpretation
- •Discussion Activities Questions on the Text
- •Questions for Discussion
- •Additional Assignments
- •Conducting
- •The art of conducting
- •Questions on the Text
- •Some musical encounters
- •Questions on the Text
- •86 Leonard bernstein
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Herbert von karajan
- •Interview with herbert von karajan
- •The art of piano playing: glenn gould
- •Interview with glenn gould
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The art of violin playing: eugene ysaye
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •The world of opera handel in performance
- •Franco zeffirelli: the romantic realist
- •La divina: maria callas
- •Callas remembered
- •Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Peter pears: ronald crichton speaks
- •Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
- •Notes Page 5
- •Page 21
- •Page 31
- •Page 32
- •Page 34
- •Page 35
- •Page 37
- •Page 39
- •Page 46
- •Page 47
- •Page 48
- •Page 49
- •Page 52
- •Page 53
- •Page 54
- •Page 57
- •Page 58
- •Page 59
- •Page 60
- •Page 61
- •Page 62
- •Page 63
- •Page 65
- •Page 66
- •Page 111
- •Page 112
- •Sources
- •Contents
Discussion Activities Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion
1. Briefly describe Menotti's career. Under what influence was Menotti's operatic style formed?
2. What ideas are discussed in Menotti's essay about opera?
3. Why does Menotti think that opera is superior to drama? What evidence does he give to support his view?
4. Find in the essay the passage in which Menotti speaks about theatricality. What qualities does he value in a dramatist?
5. In Menotti's view, what decides an operatic composer to choose a certain libretto?
6. Find in Menotti's essay the passage describing the choice of subjects for operas. What are Menotti's views on the freedom of the composer?
28
7. How does Menotti account for the failure of some contemporary operas?
8. Have you heard any of his operas? In your opinion, what place in Western music does he occupy?
Additional Assignments
1. Write a summary of the essay on Menotti.
2. Have you ever heard any of Menotti's operas? In your opinion, what place in Western music does Menotti occupy?
3. Do you share Menotti's views on opera? If not, give your reasons.
Michael tippett: a child of our time
Michael Tippett (b. 1905) has become a dominant figure in contemporary English music as a result of his concern, projected through composing, writing, and teaching, with present-day social and artistic problems. His reputation, like that of most of his contemporaries, is based on comparatively few works. The concerto for double string orchestra and the string quartets are examples of polyphonic method combined with symphonic structure that has proved a germinating principle for many modern English composers. The oratorio A Child of Our Time was an impassioned protest against oppression and persecution, and further aspects of Tippett's uncompromising integrity and continual struggle to express his "inner life" through words and music can be found in the operas The Midsummer Marriage, King Priam (for which he wrote his own libretti) and the cantata The Vision of St. Augustine for baritone solo, chorus and orchestra.
From The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music
* * *
Most composers today are eclectics who, since they no longer inherit a tradition automatically from their immediate predecessors, must forge their own links with the past as best they can. With the enormous increase in our knowledge of the past, "tradition" is now the whole history of music. Composers will choose their ancestry from whatever means most to them; consequently there is not just one contemporary language but a plurality. Those who find tradition a burden may decide to ignore it altogether, just as others are tempted to seek refuge in the simpler, safer world of the past. But knowledge of the past need not be inhibiting; it can and should be a rich stimulus to the creative imagination. Michael Tippett has always found this to be so; his music is a continuous and fertile dialogue
29
with the past. When Tippett alludes to the music of his predecessors - and his allusions are almost always conscious - it is both a gesture of the kinship he feels with them and at the same time a desire and a need to give his music great resonance, to
enlarge its range of meaning.
Michael Tippett's long apprenticeship as a composer came to an end finally in 1939 with the creation of his first masterpiece, the Concerto for Double String Orchestra. However, it was not until the appearance of A Child of Our Time that he at last achieved national recognition. Though conceived in 1938 and completed in 1941, it was not performed until March 1944 when Tippett was 39.
The composer himself has provided a full account of the genesis of the work. It grew out of Tippett's desire to give some kind of artistic expression to his social and political preoccupations during the 1930s, embracing his reactions to the First World War, social deprivation, unemployment and the aggressive postures of the Nazi government in Germany from 1933.
An incident which seemed symptomatic of the self-defeating, violent forces at work in Europe at the time eventually formed the basis of his work. In November 1938, a seventeen-year-old Polish Jew from a family long settled in Germany, entered the German Embassy in Paris and shot a diplomat - an act of desperation arising directly from the harsh anti-semitic policies of the Nazis. (...)
Though in his libretto Tippett deliberately adopts a style derived from the "folk-language" of the Negro spirituals incorporated into it, he also draws on poetic images from T.S. Eliot,* Wilfred Owen* and W.B. Yeats.* Above all, the text is concerned to embody Tippett's Jungian philosophy.* Its overall organisation was inspired by Charles Jennens' libretto for Handel's Messiah (1742). Thus Part 1 established the general state of oppression in society, progressing from the cosmic to the human dimension; Part 2 focuses on the effects of this situation on an individual and the disastrous consequences of seeking justice through violence; Part 3 reflects on the preceding drama and considers its implications.
The musical structures of Tippett's oratorio are adopted from J.S. Bach's Passions. Recitative is used for narrative purposes, dramatic choruses participate in the action and the emotional responses of the protagonists are given expressions in contemplative arias. In place of Bach's Lutheran chorales, Tippett decided to use Negro spirituals to symbolize the agony of the Jews in Hitler's Europe, just as they earlier had reflected the suffering of the American Negroes in slavery. Moreover, their jazz-related musical language would, Tippett felt, evoke a universal response. Musical elements derived from the spirituals are also utilised throughout the work as a means of unification.
From: Music and Musicians, 1985; Music Teacher, 1986