CHAPTER 34
1. Describe the views put forth by Boulez in his essay “Schoenberg Is Dead.” Whose music
did Boulez view as a model, and why? In what respects was this view of art rooted in
nineteenth-century historicism (see Chapter 22), and in what ways was it a rejection of
Romanticism?
Boulez claimed that twelve-tone music was the only viable path forward in the aftermath of the
war. To him it was “purely musical” and objective, untainted by Romantic pretensions of
expression. In its severity, it was also incapable of being co-opted for propagandistic or
commercial purposes. Anyone who did not compose music in this style, in fact, was considered
“USELESS.” Webern unseated Schoenberg, particularly in his extreme intellectual rigor and
exacting serial structures (the germinal seed of “total serialism”). This position was justified by
nineteenth-century historicism: Serial music was a response to the “needs of his time” (i.e.,
history), and was thus the most authentic form of composition since it advanced the historical
progress of music.
2. What is total serialism? What were the first pieces to experiment with it? What social
and political factors contributed to its emergence in the 1950s?
Total serialism consists of the strict ordering of pitch, duration, dynamics, and attack into twelve
serial degrees that can then be manipulated in a manner similar to Schoenberg’s original method.
The technique originated with Messiaen’s Mode de valeurs et d’intensitiés (1949), though it was
not strictly serial. Boulez produced the first total serialist work, Structures, in 1951. This style of
composition exemplifies the “Zero Hour” position of post-war Europe: With German ideals and
Romanticism thoroughly discredited, and with the prestige of science on the ascendency,
composers strove to produce music that was as objective, abstract, unemotional, and “scientific”
as possible.
3. What was the importance of the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New
Music? Who were some composers associated with it, and what kinds of composition were
emphasized?
Darmstadt was an American-sponsored music institution that served as a crucible of
experimentation for the young European avant-garde. Composers associated with the institution
include Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna, György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Luigi
Nono, and Iannis Xenakis. The composers embraced the most rigidly pure form of musical
Modernism to emerge after the war: total serialism.
4. Describe the musical philosophy of John Cage and the “chance” or aleatoric procedures
he used to create music. How do pieces such as 4’33’’ challenge and expand traditional
definitions of music? Compare and contrast Cage’s music and philosophy to that of the
total serialists.
Cage wanted to liberate sound from communicative function, preferring to view music as
“organized sound.” Drawing from Zen philosophy and the I Ching, he experimented with ways
to randomize composition. Using a range of tools, including I Ching sticks, coin tosses, and later,
computers, Cage allowed chance to determine the sonic content of the “empty containers” he
considered his works to be. In 4’33” content is done away with entirely, leaving only four
minutes thirty-three seconds of silence. This piece, his most (in)famous, forces a redefinition of
music in its framing of environmental sound and sounds of listeners’ bodies as music. It also
forces a reexamination of the nature of musical works and concert culture. Cage and the total
serialists shared a commitment to automatism in composition: both serialism and chance
procedures erase the composing subject, allowing other processes to take authorial control. The
sounding results can be similar. However, where Cage allowed his musical decisions to be
dictated by sheer chance, the total serialists devised complicated algorithms to order their music.
5. What kinds of theatrical works, visual experimentation, and conceptual art grew out of
Cage’s philosophy? What kinds of innovations in music notation followed?
Cage proved highly influential in a variety of avant-garde media, giving “permission” for artists
to do anything. “Happenings,” his major contribution to theater, consisted of minimally planned
events that blended music with absurdist theater. Visual artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and
Mark Rothko followed his example with quietistic, meditative paintings; and conceptual,
performance art works by Fluxus (including notoriously cruel events such as Audiences Pieces)
took a cue from Cage’s liberating message. He also exerted a major influence on music notation:
Earl Brown and Morton Feldman’s method of “graphic notation” represented musical sounds
through abstract geometric patterns rather than notes on a staff, and La Monte Young and
Cornelius Cardew wrote verbal instructions for performance.
6. Describe Copland’s and Stravinsky’s forays into serialism beginning in the 1950s. Why
do you think they composed serial works, and how did they retain their individual styles
and sounds?
Copland adopted serial methods when his former populism came to be seen as politically suspect
in the McCarthy Era. For the rest of his career, Copland maintained two distinct styles: “popular”
and “difficult” (i.e., serial). Even in his serial works, however, Copland maintained his individual
style, particularly in his use of identifiably Americanist wide chord spacing. Stravinsky eased
into serialism after Schoenberg’s death as well, beginning with serial orderings (though using
rows of less than twelve pitches), and moving to full twelve-tone rows by the late 1950s. His
neoclassicism clashed with the dark mood prevalent in the aftermath of the war, and his loss of
influence over the younger generation drove him to embrace the fashionable style, though in a
highly personal way, with frozen harmonic space characteristic of his earlier work.
7. Describe the aesthetic trends that gave rise to electronic music. What were some of the
new musical instruments created through technology? What is the difference between
musique concrète and elektronische Musik? Who were the main contributors to each genre?
Electronic music helped enable composers to realize two parallel aesthetic goals: the desire for
greater control, precision, and objectivity (e.g., serialism) and the liberation of sound (e.g.,
futurism, Cage). Early electronic instruments include the theremin and the ondes martenot, the
latter of which was embraced by many French composers, including Messiaen; and the late
1950s saw the birth of computer music. The two major styles of electronic composition were
Musique concrète, a tape-based montage technique of prerecorded sounds, and elektronische
Musik based on original synthesized sounds. Major contributors to the former include Pierre
Schaeffer and Pierre Henry; elektronische composers include Herbert Eimert and Stockhausen.
In America, electronic music was taken up by Varèse, Cage, Babbitt, and others.
8. How did composers like Davidovsky, Penderecki, and Ligeti incorporate techniques or
sounds associated with electronics into music for conventional instruments?
Davidovsky composed a series of Synchronisms that put electronic sounds into counterpoint with
virtuoso performances on a range of instruments or voices. Using extended playing techniques,
live performers were challenged to enter into a sonic dialog with the performer-less onstage
electronics. Babbitt accomplished a similar feat with Philomel, a piece for synthesized sounds,
recorded soprano, and live soprano. Penderecki incorporated electronic-inspired sounds in his
“sonority pieces,” which require timbral manipulation, tone clusters, and registral extremity of
conventional instruments (e.g., Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima). Ligeti directly
transferred his electronic techniques to orchestra in microtonal pieces for orchestra and chorus
that emphasize gradual timbral and textural transformation (e.g., Atmosphères).
9. What are some salient traits of Elliott Carter’s music? Why do you think it was so well
received by critics, despite its lack of a large audience?
Carter’s music is atonal though not strictly serial; however, his chief innovation comes in the
realm of rhythm. He was interested in combining parallel streams of musical time, and he did so
through the superimposition of different temporal patterns, both static and contrasting. He also
developed the rhythmic technique of “metrical modulation,” wherein the value of the tactus
shifts to different levels of temporal organization (e.g., dotted-quarter note becomes the eighth
note value in a new tempo). Despite a relatively small audience, Carter was very well regarded
by critics and even received awards and subsidies from organizations with political connections
(in particular the Congress for Cultural Freedom, with its covert CIA backing). Many critics
viewed the immense difficulty of Carter’s music as a sign of its inherent value.
10. Discuss the philosophy expressed by Babbitt in “Who Cares If You Listen?” How was it
rooted in nineteenth-century historicism?
Babbitt claimed that composers should write only for those with extensive musical training, not
for “lay listeners.” Just as scientists need not pander to the non-specialist public in order to
advance their work, the composer should be exempt from public taste in order to create
autonomous, technically innovative work. He believed the ideal environment for such creative
activity was the university, where sophisticated music research would be protected from the
whims of the market. This notion is rooted in the Romantic archetype of the alienated, lonely
Artist; it also draws on the historicist claim that music history is driven by evolutionary progress.
The composer is obligated to write for history, not for mere listeners.