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Music History IV Final-Terms
All of the trems for the final
50
Music
Undergraduate 4
05/06/2008

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Term
RAGTIME
Definition
musical style that features syncopated rhythm against a regular, march-like bass
Term
TWELVE-BAR BLUES FORM
Definition
standard formula for the blues, with a harmonic progression
in which the first four-measure phrase is on the tonic, the second phrase begins on the
subdominant and ends on the tonic, and the third phrase starts on the dominant and returns to the
tonic
Term
JELLY ROLL MORTON
Definition
famous pianist who helped develop the style of New Orleans jazz
in Storyville (red-light district)
Term
NEW ORLEANS JAZZ
Definition
 leading style of jazz just after World War I, which centers on group
variation of a given tune, either improvised or in the style of the improvistation
Term
SWING
Definition
style of jazz originating in the 1930s that was characterized by large ensembles and
hard-driving jazz rhtyhms
Term
PORGY AND BESS
Definition
 “folk opera” of Gershwin’s – draws elements from both the operatic and
Broadway traditions. It features recurring motives like those in Verdi or Wagner operas. Yet, the
style is heavily influenced by African American idioms such as spirituals, blues, and jazz – PART
OF GERSHWIN’S APPEAL
Term
RHYTHM CHANGES
Definition
harmonic progression of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” that was adopted
for many new jazz tunes
Term
CONTRAFACT
Definition
in jazz, a new melody composed over a harmonic progression borrowed from
another song – Ellington’s Coborrowed from I Got Rhythm
Term
BEBOP
Definition
style of jazz developed in NY in the 1940s that had a diversified rhythmic texture,
enriched harmonic vocabulary, and an emphasis on improvisation with rapid melodies and
asymmetrical phrases
Term
TALEA
Definition
in an isorhythmic composition, an extended rhythmic pattern repeated one or more
times, usually in the tenor
Term
RHYTHMIC STASIS
Definition
piano & cello of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” play a
repeating series of durations resembling the talea. Because such repeating pitch & rhythmic series
create cyclic repetition, they seem to float in time
Term
WAR REQUIEM
Definition
choral piece that exemplifies Britten’s pacifism – weaves together the Latin
text of Requiem Mass with verses by an English soldier and poet killed in France. It gives his
much a quality of social engagement
Term
TONAL TRADITIONALISM
Definition
 characterizes the music of many 20th century composers who
delevloped individual styles without departing radically from the past
Term
THIRD STREAM
Definition
combination of jazz and classical music -- Gunther Schuller in
Transformation (1957)  -- pointillistic 12-tone context with elements of Schoenberg’s
Klangfarbenmelodie are transofmred into a full-blown modern jazz piece
Term
MICAEL TIPPETT
Definition
combined rhythmic and metrical independence derived from English
Renaissance with Javanese gamelan music (asian influence)
Term
DARMSTADT
Definition
courses for new music held in Darmstadt, Germany each summer beginning in
1946 -- Webern was hailed as the father of a new movement
Term
TOTAL SERIALISM
Definition
the application of the principles of the twelve-tone method to musical
parameters other than pitch, including duration, intensities, and timbres
Term
NEW VIRTUOSITY
Definition
In postwar years, a new generation of technically proficient performers
emerged who were capable of playing extraordinarily difficult pieces and made careers as
champions of the newest music. Their presence encouraged composers to write pieces to
challenge the skills of these new virtuosos
Term
SEQUENZA (SERIES)
Definition
series of works by Italian composer Luciano Berio – each for an
unaccompanied solo instrument from flute to accordion and each composed for a specific
performer – Sequenza IV has rapid gestures on the piano
Term
ELLIOT CARTER
Definition
wrote for virtuoso performers using a complex, non-serial style
characterized by innovations in rhythm and form. He developed “metric modulation” – a
transition is made from one tempo and meter to another through an intermediary stage that shares
aspects of both
Term
HARRY PARTCH
Definition
combined the exploration of new instrumental sounds with a new approach
to pitch – undertook an individualistic, single-minded search for new sonic media.  Devised a
new scale with 43 notes and built new instruments that could play in this scale (large glass containers used in physics, marimbas, modified guitars, etc
Term
MUSIQUE CONCRETE
Definition
term coined by composers working in Paris in the 1940s for music
composed by assembling an manipulatingitself rather than with music notation
Term
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN
Definition
 pioneer of electronic music composition.  Used recorded
sounds alongside electronic ones, as in Gesang der Junglinge
Term
GESANG DER JUNGLINGE –(Song of the Youths)
Definition
first major electronic piece to use
multiple tracks, played in concert through several loudspeakers placed in various positions
relative to the audience, thereby creating a sense of the music coming from numerous directions
and moving through space. Used the sound of a boy’s voice
Term
RCA MARK II SYNTHESIZER
Definition
developed at the Colombia-Princeton electronic music
center in the 1950s and used by many composers from the US & abroad
Term
TEXTURE MUSIC
Definition
composers writing pieces whose material consists primarily of striking
sound combinations that create interesting and novel textures, organized by gradual or sudden
processes of change
Term
METASTASEIS
Definition
each string player in the orchestra has a unique part to play with varying
glissandos – resembles changes achievable in electronic music through the use of pitch filters
Term
IANNIS XENAKIS
Definition
Greek who spent most of his career in France – an engineer and architect
as well as composer – saw mathematics as fundamental to both music and architecture
Term
SONATAS & INTERLUDES
Definition
work by John Cage – best-known work for prepared piano –
consists of 26 “sonatas” and 4 interludes
Term
PREPARED PIANO
Definition
an invention of John Cage in which various objects – such as pennies,
bolts, screws, or pieces of wood, rubber plastic, or slit bamboo – are inserted between the strings
of a piano, resulting in complex percussive sounds when the piano is played from the keyboard
Term
I CHING
Definition
ancient Chinese book of prophecy (Book of Changes) in which Cage derived his
Music of Changes for piano – used the I Ching method to choose which sounds he would use in
his piece (ie tossing a coin six times)
Term
4’33”
Definition
. . .
Term
INDETERMINANCY
Definition
an approach to compsition, pioneered by John Cage, in which the
composer leaves certain aspects of the music unspecified
Term
EARLE BROWN
Definition
influenced by Cage – wrote Available Forms 1 for eight players and
Available Forms II for large orchestra – musicians play scored fragments with leeway in choice
of pitches
Term
WITOLD LUTOSTAWSKI
Definition
Polish composer who made selective use of indeterminancy,
while insisting on his authorship of the entire composition – more modernist than avant-garde
Term
SAMPLING
Definition
a process of creating new compositions by patching together snippets of
previously recorded music
Term
PAUL LANSKY
Definition
developed his own software to compose computer works.  He manipulates
recorded sounds, such as speech or highway traffic noises, transforming them beyond immediate
recognition and using them as a kind of pitched percussion
Term
MINIMALISM
Definition
one of the leading musical styles of the late 20 century, in which materials
are reduced to a minimum and procedures simplified so that what is going on in the music is
immediately apparent. Often characterized by a constant pulse and many repetitions of simple
rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic patterns
Term
MESCALIN MIX
Definition
by tape-loop experimenter Terry Riley – piled up many such loops, each
repeating a short phrase, over a regular pulse. In C uses a similar approach but with live
instruments
Term
PHASING
Definition
super-imposing tape loops of the same spoken phrase in such a way that one loop
was slightly shorter and thus gradually moved ahead of the other
Term
TEHILLIM
Definition
by Reich – a setting of psalm texts in the original Hebrew for four singers and
orchestra, using rhythmic and melodic canons at the unison. Can hardly be called minimalist, but
shows the application of minimalist techniques to a broad range of art music
Term
EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH
Definition
one act, 4 and ½ hour opera by Philip Glass – collab. With
avant-garde director Robert Wilson – avoids narrative, has no sung text other than solfege
syllables, and involves mostly nonsensical stage action
Term
NIXON IN CHINA
Definition
opera by John Adams – formality of a Baroque historical opera while
applying minimalist techniques
Term
BRIGHT SHENG
Definition
born & trained in China – integrates elements of Asian and Western music
while respecting the integrity of each, inspired by the attempts of Bartok to do the same Eastern
European folk and Western Classical music
Term
COLLAGE (AS A COMP. TECHNIQUE)
Definition
work or passage that uses multiple quotations
without following a standard procedure for doing so, such as quodlibet or medley
Term
POLYSTYLISM
Definition
term coined by Alfred Schnittke for a combination of newer and older
musical styles created through quotation or stylistic allusion
Term
NEO-ROMANTICISM
Definition
a trend of the late 20th century in which composers adopted the
familiar tonal idiom of 19th century romantic music and incorporated its sounds & gestures
Term
GEORGE ROCHBERG
Definition
used Romantic and early modernist styles to express the turn from
serialism to quotation
Term
DAVID DEL TREDICI
Definition
embraced Neo-Romanticism to obtain a direct, comprehensible
presentation for his excerpts set to Lewis Carroll’s stories for children
Term
FINAL ALICE
Definition
work by David Del Tredici – to a text form the final chapters of Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – scored for amplified soprano and orchestra, with a “folk
group” of banjo, mandolin, accordion, and two soprano saxes
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