Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.
Summary: This set of readings (from both Chapters 21 and 22) addresses musical experimentation in regions, as with Soviet Russia, that were somehow “outside of” or peripheral to the Austro-German-Parisian early-20th-century modernist orbit. In Spain and Italy, and especially in England and the USA, new-music composers grappled with issues reminiscent of those faced by the French Impressionists, Eastern European, and Russian composers. You are encouraged to identify and be prepared to articulate both parallels and contrasts between the experiences of these two sets of composers.
General question(s) for consideration:
What types of resources did English and American (grad students: also Spanish and Italian) composers draw upon as they sought to create alternatives to the Austro-German 19th-century symphonic/operatic tradition? What sorts of musical languages did they develop as a result of these resources? Are there parallels between the resources employed, or the musical languages resulting, by Vaughan Williams, Walton, Britten, and Ives, and those similarly employed by Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich?
If so, please consider the following question about these Anglo-American composers, as we earlier asked the same question about the Soviets: what is the interplay in these composers’ works between (a) symphonic form, (b) programmaticism, and (c) modernism? How do these Anglo-American composers attempt to reconcile these three elements’ potentially conflicting imperatives?
We saw, in the case of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, that under Socialist Realist principles this resolution was essentially impossible in the context of the concert hall, but that it became less impossible in other performing venues. Was it similarly impossible for Vaughan Williams, Walton, Britten, or Ives? Be prepared to both summarize and contrast the reconciliation each of these four attempted, or failed, to effect—this means you need to compare and distinguish-between each of the four’s solutions.
Finally, a hint: How is the “symphonic form vs. programmaticism vs. modernism” issue resolved by Bartók? Is he somehow more successful at resolving this three-way conundrum than Shostakovich or Prokofiev? If so, why? And, can understanding how Bartók accomplished this help us understand the Anglo-Americans’ strategies?
(1) On p424, Watkins introduces the combination of diverse influences that shaped Ralph Vaughan Williams’s music. We will expand upon this substantially in class—because RVW’s experience illustrates the complex task faced by 20th-century composers in England specifically—but note here the interplay between “old music” and “folk music” and “new music composition” described by Watkins. Do we see any parallels between this interplay and those strategies adopted by any other “non-German” composers in the period? Recall the various nations in geographic proximity to England, and the very strong and direct interaction between London and Paris that reaches all the way back to Purcell and the high Baroque.
(2) On p424-425, first para, Watkins cites RVW’s activities with both the English Folk Song Society (EFSS) and the Purcell society. I will have more to say in class about this, and the “rediscovery” by both composers and collectors of English folk traditions which most educated classes assumed to have died out, but for your consideration: what RVW activities provided him very practical assistance in using “old music” as a basis for “new music”? And, does this strategy link him with any other “Isms”, and with any other composers, in both France and Eastern Europe?
(3) RVW is commonly described as an “English nationalist” composer. But, as we have seen, 20th-century “Nationalism” (like “Impressionism” or “Socialist Realism”) is not so much a set of definable musical characteristics. It is rather a set of compositional goals, a set of compositional strategies (chiefly involving borrowing, imitation, and allusion), and only subsequently a set of definable musical characteristics. In the case of RVW, what were the goals, strategies, and characteristics? And, are there parallels in this area between the case of RVW and those of any other composers we have discussed? Be prepared to articulate same.
(4) pp425-26 provide specific and detailed examples of how RVW used traditional or “old” musical resources to develop a “modernist” melodic, rhythmic and (especially) harmonic idiom. What were the technical details of that idiom? Does the way in which he developed this idiom resemble that of other composers? Be prepared to articulate.
(5) The discussion on p427-28 of William Walton influences, and especially the ways those influences coalesced in Façade, is strongly reminiscent of a group of composers in another nation, and of one particular composer in that group, and even of a particular composition. What group, composer, and composition? What are the “Isms” that connect Façade and this other group?
(6) Watkins’s discussion of Britten is effective, but incomplete. Certainly those Britten works which are most “popular,” or at least most widely-played, are not necessarily those works upon which his reputation as a modernist is most strongly based. That is, while the Ceremony of Carols, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Young Person’s Guide are probably the best-known works, the Serenade, Billy Budd, the War Requiem, and Peter Grimes were vastly more influential upon other composers, particularly in Britain. I will have more to say in class about the areas (chiefly the impact of international and sexual politics) which Watkins omits from his Britain portrait, but you should certainly be able to relate Britten’s influences, the traditions of English music (especially choral song), and the modernist innovations of the influential works—using specific examples.
(7) The discussion of Ives on pp433-43 is necessarily and unavoidably incomplete. I will expand upon this with a more comprehensive picture of Ives’s background, sources, goals, and impact, but here are a few key points you should anticipate, and relate to the readings:
- What is the compositional milieu in American academic composition around the year 1890? Who are the shapers of compositional opinion?
- What is Ives’s relationship with this milieu?
- What Ives compositional resources does Watkins cite? Does Ives’s manipulation and exploitation of these resources, in seeking a modernist musical idiom, remind you of any other composers we have studied? Who and why? Be specific.
- In places (notably p435, first full para), Watkins drastically oversimplifies the degree to which Ives’s modernism “developed largely without reference to current European developments.” The actual picture is much more complicated and much more confusing (partly because, as I will relate in class, Ives abetted this confusion). Be prepared, even if Watkins does not, to link Ives with modernist experiments by his European contemporaries. [Grad students: please skim and be prepared to summarize Burkholder’s 1985 article on Ives and his European models, found on WebCT under “Materials – Week 14 – Links – Readings.”]
- All students: please visit classicalmusic.com via the TTU library’s “Databases” website and listen to “In Flanders Fields,” the Symphony #4 (excerpts of each movement), and the Piano Sonata #2 “Concord” (excerpts of each movement).
