The Second Viennese School

Around 1900 came the rise of the second Viennese School. It is interesting that they considered themselves to be continuing the tradition of the first Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), yet their music sounds so different. Their music began to explore expressionism, which is the condensation of meaning, uses atonality as a freedom of expectation, and attempts to release subconsciousness.

Schoenberg’s Op. 33a piano piece is largely based off of 12 tone writing. It uses melodic material that sounds like it is interrupted by clusters of chords. It can sound very disjunct, although is easier to understand than Webern's Piano Variations Op. 27, who was a student of Schoenberg. His music can be hard to grasp, although if you study the score you realize it is much more methodical than it sounds. The first movement is composed of palindromes. It in in ABA form, which is again, coming back to traditional forms like the first Viennese School. The second movement was written in repeated binary form, and the third movement is variation form. Alban Berg, another student of Schoenberg’s, could be considered the easiest to follow. It is based on tonality, and uses chromaticism that is similar to Scriabin’s writing. He uses the same developmental and motivic practices that the first Viennese School used. So although the music of these composers may seem very different from the German composers preceding them, they were just developing the styles further.

Composers of Spain

From the late 1800’s to early 1900’s there were three central composers in Spain: Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla. All three of these composers have certain similar elements that make their music very “Spanish” sounding, although all three wrote very different works. Some of the most prominent influences that are in their music are Moorish influence, which was from Northern Africa. This is what attributes to the gypsy like sound in the music. The Flamenco, which were songs and dances of Andalusia, also have a strong influence on their music. All three of these composers also studied under the same teacher, Felipe Pedrell, which could also account for many of their similarities.

Albeniz’s music tends to have a lot of heavy clusters and clashy chords. His music is full of accidentals. His music has four main elements: dance rhythms, cante hondo (songs with themes about love, sorrow, and death), exotic scales, and guitar idoms. These qualities can be heard in Triana. It begins with a staccato pattern that is repeated through out the rest of the piece, giving it a dance like quality. The melody is like the cante hondo, full of emotion, and composed of exotic scales. There are guitar like passages mixed in to give it the sound of strumming.

In Granados piece, La Maja Y el Ruisenor, there is much less drive to the music and a more lyrical presence. It is similar to a nocturne. He uses a lot of ornamentation in the music, although it is much more straight forward than Albenez’s music. The ornamentation and melody sounds very “spanish” with the moorish, gypsy-like, sound. The end of the piece, is much different from the rest, and is almost like an afterthought. It is supposed to sound like the nightengale, and is full of trills and flourishes of notes.

Falla’s work, Fantasia Baetica, begins much different from the other two pieces. It starts out with a very driving rhythm, and a pattern that sounds like hard strumming on a guitar. The middle of the work dies down, with more melodic material that is composed of the Moorish styles. There is a single line with a continued strumming in the accompaniment. This does not last long however, and the music picks pack up, with the glissando along with key board and many exotic scales.

Ravel

Ravel also had many stylistic qualities similar to Debussy. One thing that differentiated his writing from Debussy was his constant stream of fast notes. One can hear this in Jeux d’eau, and Tombeau de Couperin. His writing uses very interesting harmony and has a very blended sound. This is one characteristic that makes his music very impressionistic. It feels like there is a lot of freedom in the music, yet he wrote very precisely. He did not like rubato in his music. and built it in through the writing for the performer. He relied on a stream of notes to create a sense of freedom for the listener.

Debussy

One of the most notable composers to venture away from the Germanic style of writing is Claude Debussy. He would not go for “normal” ideas of the time. A lot of his music is influenced by eastern styles as well. At this time globalization was becoming a bigger idea and people could travel much easier. In 1889 he experienced the Javanese Gamelan at the International Exposition. He then transferred the sounds he heard from the gamelan ensemble into his own piano works. The music for this ensemble is largely based on the pentatonic scale. Debussy also used the pentatonic scale, and the whole tone scale, in much of his compositions. These different components can be heard in many of his pieces, such as Images, L’isle joyeuse, and his collection of Preludes.

Another interesting thing that Debussy did, which could be considered to have been abnormal, was the style that he wrote his etudes. For example, les cinq doigts begins with a simple Hanon like exercise, with other notes added in to interupt it. He turns a tedious execise into a humerous etude.