Between World War I and II, French composers sought to escape old political dichotomies and were influenced by neoclassicism and Erik Satie. Les Six, including Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre, had highly individual styles that drew from diverse influences. Poulenc wrote art songs, operas like Dialogues of the Carmelites, and was openly gay. In the U.S., Edgard Varèse aimed to liberate music from conventions through spatial sound masses. Henry Cowell experimented with new piano techniques while Ruth Crawford Seeger composed serial works and collected folk songs. George Gershwin and Aaron Copland fused classical and

1. CHAPTER 35
Lecture Slides
A History of
Western Music
TENTH EDITION
by
J. PETER BURKHOLDER
DONALD JAY GROUT
CLAUDE V. PALISCA

2. France had a strong anti-German sentiment, with an increased
focus on French music, BUT there was a disagreement about
what qualities French music should have.
Les Six - six younger composers, strong influence of
neoclassicism
• (Neoclassicism - the movement that drew inspiration from
classicism, which included order, balance, clarity, economy,
and emotional restraint)
• Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
• Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)
• Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
• Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983)
• Georges Auric (1899–1983)
• Louis Durey (1888–1979)
• sought to escape old political dichotomies
• inspiration from Erik Satie, hailed by Jean Cocteau
• highly individual works, wide range of influences
BETWEEN THE WARS: FRANCE

3. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
• prolific, diverse style and approach
• Le bouef sur le toit (The Ox on the Roof, 1919), ballet, comic
frivolity
• Christophe Colomb (1928), opera-oratorio, earnestness
• Millhaud’s La création du monde (The Creation of the World,
1923), ballet
• inspired by jazz he heard in Harlem
• saxophone, piano, soloistic treatment evoke sound of jazz
bands
BETWEEN THE WARS: FRANCE

4. Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
• drew on Parisian popular song traditions from cabarets, revues
• musical style: graceful, witty, satirical
• Wrote many French art songs (mélodies)
• “Violon” from the set Fiançailles pour rire (1939)
• Ariettes Oubliées
• Dialogues of the Carmelites (1956), opera
• Opera in three acts.
• Libretto by Poulenc based on a true story of Carmelite nuns in Northern
who were guillotined in 1794 just before Napolean’s Reign of Terror during
the French Revolution
• raises issues of religion, politics, allegiance
• “Salve Regina“ (“Hail, Holy Queen”) the final scene of the opera
• The nuns refuse to give up their way of life for the revolutionary cause
therefore are imprisoned for most of the opera. They are given one last
chance to give up their ways, but decide to martyr themselves.
• As the nuns sing “Salve Regin,” they walk up to the guillotine one at a
to die.
• Poulenc wrote each guillotine fall/sound into the score.
• Openly Gay in 1928, long relationship with Baritone Pierre Bernac (some say just
friends)
BETWEEN THE WARS: FRANCE

5. BETWEEN THE WARS: FRANCE
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)
• Only woman composer who was a member for the
group of French composers known as Les Six.
• prolific composer of symphonic, chamber, film, and
radio music who had a 60-year career
• Studied at the Paris Conservatoire, then with Ravel
• Adagio for violin and piano (1924)

6. CHAPTER 35
Lecture Slides
A History of
Western Music
TENTH EDITION
by
J. PETER BURKHOLDER
DONALD JAY GROUT
CLAUDE V. PALISCA

7. BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.
United States emerged as world’s most powerful
economy, most influential
• new peak of interest in classical music
• new technologies, classical music widely available
• conductors nationally known figures
• Leopold Stowkowski, Arturo Toscanini; recordings, live radio
concerts
• Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, 1931
• patrons commissioned new music
• music education expanded in schools

8. Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)
• French-born, influenced by Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky
• brief career in Paris and Berlin as composer and conductor
• moved to New York, 1915
• spatial music and sound masses
• aimed to liberate composition from conventional elements
• sounds as essential structural components
• all sounds as raw material
• spatial, sound masses moved through musical space
• sound mass characterized by timbre, register, rhythm, melodic
gesture
• sound masses interact, may gradually transform
• great variety of percussion instruments, equals to winds and
strings
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

9. Edgar Varese‘s Music
• Hyperprism (1922–23)
• pitch, instrumental color, gesture, rhythm interact;
suggest sound masses colliding and changing
• every combination of sounds is unusual
• heard as sound mass rather than melody, harmony, or
accompaniment
• Varese’s ideas and music had enormous influence on
younger composers
• after World War II turned to electronic sound
generation and tape recorder
• Poème èlectronique (1957–58)
• Electronic tape piece
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

10. BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.
Henry Cowell (1897–1965)
• native of California; little training in
European music
• experimentation in early piano music
• tone clusters, chords made with the fist or
forearm
• new playing techniques inside the piano
• The Banshee (1925)
• ideas summarized in New Musical Resources
(1930)

11. Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953)
• first woman to win Guggenheim Fellowship in
music
• 1924 to 1933, active as a composer in Chicago
and New York
• experimented with serial techniques, applying
parameters other than pitch
• convinced preserving folk songs would be
greater contribution
• edited American folk songs from field recordings
• published transcriptions, arrangements
• String Quartet 1931, best-known work
• 4th movement, finale
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

12. George Gershwin (1897–1938)
• late 1920s and 1930s: most famous, frequently performed
American composer in classical genres
• saw no firm line between popular and classical music
• used jazz and blues to add dimensions to art music
• Rhapsody in Blue (1924) - billed as “jazz concerto”
• scored for solo piano and jazz ensemble
• incorporates popular song forms, blue notes, other elements of
jazz and blues
• continued to fuse seemingly disparate traditions
• Porgy and Bess (1935), folk opera
• draws on opera and musical genres
• features recurring motives
• characters are all African American
• musical style heavily influenced by African American idioms:
spirituals, blues, jazz
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

13. • Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
• most important and central American composer of his
generation
• combined modernism with national American idioms
• organized concerts series, composer groups
• promoted works of his predecessors and contemporaries
• An American Nationalist during WW II
• early years
• grew up in Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn; exposed to
ragtime, popular music
• studied piano, theory, composition in European tradition
• first American composer to study with Nadia Boulanger
• jazz elements, strong dissonances in early works
• sought to appeal to larger audience
• recognized radio, record listeners
• reduced modernist techniques combined with simple
textures, diatonic melodies and harmonies
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

14. Appalachian Spring (1943–44)
• exemplifies Americanist idiom
• ballet written for ensemble of thirteen instruments
• better known as arrangement for orchestral suite
• incorporates variations on Shaker hymn ‘Tis the Gift
to Be Simple
• transparent, widely spaced sonorities, empty
and fifths, diatonic dissonances
• frequently imitated, quintessential musical emblem of
America
• used especially for film and television
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

15. William Grant Still (1895–1978)
• drew on diverse musical background
• composition studies with George Whitefield Chadwick,
Edgard Varèse
• arranger for W.C. Handy’s dance band
• nicknamed “Dean of Afro-American Composers”
• broke numerous racial barriers, numerous “firsts”
• first African American to conduct a major symphony
orchestra in the United States
• Los Angeles Philharmonic, 1936
• first to have opera produced by major company in the
United States
• first to have an opera televised over a national network
• composed over 150 compositions in classical
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.

16. Still’s Afro-American Symphony, opening movement (1930)
• first symphonic work by African American composer performed by major
American orchestra
• encompasses African American musical elements
• traditional four-movement framework
• Premiered with Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (Eastman School of Music)
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS: THE U.S.