Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) was twenty-six years old when he completed his striking composition for fifty-two string players. He had originally titled the piece 8’37”—the length of time it was supposed to take to perform. After hearing a recording, Penderecki felt the piece was too evocative to have a title that only described its length and renamed it Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, referring to the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan by the U.S. at the end of World War II. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “threnody” is a song of lamentation for the dead, and it has a connotation of wailing.
Threnody was an experimental composition in many ways. First, it did not use traditional pitch notation most of the time. Instead Penderecki gave suggestions, such as “Highest note of the instrument (no definite pitch),” or asked the musicians to bend the pitch up or down from the normal pitches to notes that are in between the notes on the piano (quarter tones). At other times he asked for an oscillating pitch that slid up and down a distance halfway between two pitches on the piano. He sometimes specified that the speed and intensity of this oscillation (known as vibrato) should increase and other times decrease. When you consider the fact that the musicians were doing this at slightly different rates of speed (only a general idea of the speed of oscillation is given), you can imagine how discordant and dissonant the sound was.
Threnody was also experimental with respect to how the instruments were played. Penderecki specified techniques that include playing with the bow in places that a string player normally does not play (which makes some strange sounds that you will hear when listening to this track), or even hitting the instrument with the bow or with the fingertips, making percussive sounds. At other times he asked for a “very rapid non-rhythmisized tremolo” The Italian word tremolo comes from the same root as the English word “tremble.” String players achieve this sound by moving the bow back and forth on the string as fast as possible. This is actually a rather common orchestral string effect, but when used in conjunction with the strange clusters of notes being played, it had quite an unusual result. To specify the different techniques he required, Penderecki devised a series of graphic symbols that represented the sounds.
Penderecki also chose to notate the passage of time in a non-traditional manner. Instead of using meters and whole, half, quarter, and sixteenth notes, Penderecki used a timeline and placed the graphic symbols linearly to indicate when they were to be executed. The score was divided into seventy sections, most ranging in length from four seconds to thirty seconds. Each section was different from the others, so there is not any repetitive form. There was no return of familiar ideas, though some techniques used in one part of the piece do come back in later parts and are thus recognizable, but they are never repeated verbatim.
Penderecki described the process of creating the score as follows:
I had to write in shorthand – something for me to remember, because my style of composing at that time was just to draw a piece first and then look for pitch . . . I just wanted to write music that would have an impact, a density, powerful expression, a different expression . . . I think this notation was for me, in the beginning, like shorthand, really, coming from drawing the piece. I used to see the whole piece in front of me—Threnody is very easy to draw. First you have just the high note, then you have this repeating section, then you have this cluster going, coming – different shapes. Then there is a louder section; then there’s another section, then there is the section which is strictly written in 12-tone technique. Then it goes back to the same cluster technique again, and the end of the piece is a big cluster, which you can draw like a square and write behind it fortissimo . . . I didn’t want to write bars, because this music doesn’t work if you put it in bars. |
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The USAD CD includes the first several minutes of a performance of Threnody with the composer conducting. To give you an idea of how much different performances of the piece can vary, even though the piece was originally entitled 8’37”, the complete recording, even with the composer conducting, lasts more than ten minutes.
The piece ends with the 52 players each assigned to a different note. This final block of sound lasts for thirty seconds. The players are instructed to start as loud as possible, gradually diminishing in intensity, while also changing from the most aggressive, nasal-sounding bowing placement, through to the normal-sounding placement, and gradually moving to the most hollow-, mellow-sounding bow placement. Slowly the sound fades to nothing. It is as if the last living thing has stopped moving, just as must have happened at Hiroshima after the explosion. You can imagine why this piece served as a frightening, moving, and appropriate memorial to the victims of Hiroshima. Is the music beautiful? No. Effective? Yes. Penderecki’s career was launched, and composers had a new repertoire of sounds, symbols, and ideas to explore.
Jazz: Many Different Streams
As jazz matured in the 1950s, some musicians represented the traditionalist side of jazz, maintaining the styles that had developed in the earlier part of the century. A good example of these musicians is Ella Fitzgerald. Ella was tempted to revisit the old standard “Mack the Knife” (from Kurt Weill’s 1928 Threepenny Opera) after Bobby Darin’s version held the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 for ten weeks in 1959. Ella’s 1960 recording is not groundbreaking, but is a continuation of the style that had made her famous since her discovery at the Apollo Theatre in 1934.
During 1959, in particular, many jazz musicians began to explore new styles of jazz that went on to become better known and more significant in the 1960s. John Coltrane, for example, was primarily known as a sideman (a musician who plays “alongside” a better-known leader) before the release of his 1959 album Giant Steps. On this album, Coltrane explored the technical limits of bebop, expanding the harmonic language to incorporate more complex chord changes (the series of chords repeated for each “verse” of a jazz improvisation) and demonstrating the level of technical expertise that could be achieved in creating perpetual strings of notes to fit the changes. The title tune of the album, “Giant Steps,” is still a challenge for jazz musicians today.
During 1959, in particular, many jazz musicians began to explore new styles of jazz that went on to become better known and more significant in the 1960s. John Coltrane, for example, was primarily known as a sideman (a musician who plays “alongside” a better-known leader) before the release of his 1959 album Giant Steps. On this album, Coltrane explored the technical limits of bebop, expanding the harmonic language to incorporate more complex chord changes (the series of chords repeated for each “verse” of a jazz improvisation) and demonstrating the level of technical expertise that could be achieved in creating perpetual strings of notes to fit the changes. The title tune of the album, “Giant Steps,” is still a challenge for jazz musicians today.
Few experts would contest the claim that Miles Davis’ 1959 recording Kind of Blue is the single most important album in the history of jazz. It almost always appears at the top of any “best of” list. The album is considered so significant that music critics have written entire books about its impact. One of the main innovations of the album, which included John Coltrane performing on tenor saxophone as a sideman, was its emphasis on “modal jazz.” The simplest description of “modal jazz” is that instead of selecting a series of chords, each with its own corresponding scale, to define the shape of the melody and improvisations in a jazz composition, a single scale-like rising series of notes provides the note choices for the entire composition.
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LISTENING EXAMPLE 2: FREE JAZZ (1960)—ORNETTE COLEMAN
In 1959, Ornette Coleman began performing in New York City with an unorthodox quartet: alto saxophone, trumpet, bass, and drums. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the instruments that were included; it was the instrument that was left out that made his groups so unusual. There was no chordal, harmonic instrument—no piano or guitar.18 This made it easier for Coleman’s groups to avoid harmonic encumbrances. The goal was to make the music function in a linear, horizontal fashion, where the line was the most important aspect, rather than vertical alignment creating specific chords. When jazz was music for dancing, having all the instruments play rhythms that fit the beat was important. Coleman had no interest in providing an easily recognized steady beat since he did not intend for the music to accompany dancing. In Coleman’s first recording, The Shape of Jazz to Come, the song “Lonely Woman” is a great example of this. At the beginning of “Lonely Woman,” the bass moves at one speed, the cymbals of the drumset at another speed, and the saxophone and trumpet at a separate (but coordinated) tempo. Coleman and his trumpet-playing colleague, Don Cherry, are less interested in playing the exact pitches as they would be played on a piano, but use pitches just above and below the expected pitches to add more tension and expressiveness to the theme. Cherry and Coleman are also not concerned with moving at exactly the same time.
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The music that Coleman and Cherry were creating was free of harmonic and rhythmic constraints. The musicians were free to move at their own speeds, and, much like the indeterminacy of classical composers like John Cage, Coleman relied almost entirely on the sensitivity and creativity of the players in his ensemble. John Cage said, “I try to arrange my composing means so that I won’t have any knowledge of what might happen.” Coleman wrote, “I don’t tell the members of my group what to do. I want them to play what they hear in the piece for themselves. I let everyone express himself just as he wants to. The musicians have complete freedom and so, of course, our final results depend entirely on the musicianship, emotional makeup, and taste of the individual member.” This type of music came to be known as “free jazz.”
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In 1960, Coleman put together two quartets (quartet is an ensemble of four performers) to record what he called “a collective improvisation by the Ornette Coleman double quartet.” Consisting of two piano-less quartets, this ensemble featured some of the best young jazz musicians of the day, including bassists Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro, trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Don Cherry, drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins, and woodwind player, Eric Dolphy. The players were not given complete sheets of specific musical instructions, only some information about thematic material and form. Thus, a great deal of the musical material was created spontaneously in the recording studio. The result was the thirty-eight-minute improvisation known as “Free Jazz.”
When one listens to players who do not hit the exact notes on the piano, who don’t line up rhythmically with one another, who don’t seem to be following a specific pattern of chords, who sometimes purposefully make screeching and squawking sounds, it might be easy to dismiss the performers as being poor musicians. It was difficult to tell if the musicians were making a sincere effort to be expressive, or if they were simply using this freedom to mask a lack of musical ability. Many jazz musicians understood the possibilities that Coleman and his ensemble players were exploring. Even Classical musicians like Leonard Bernstein and Gunther Schuller spoke out in support of this new music. Bernstein reputedly jumped to his feet in the middle of one of Coleman’s first New York City performances and shouted, “This is the greatest thing ever to happen to jazz!” Schuller even served as an advisor for the project. Jazz pianist John Lewis called free jazz “the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations in the mid-forties of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and those of Thelonius Monk.” But some listeners felt that the musicians were charlatans (fakes or frauds). Dizzy Gillespie found the music perplexing: “I don’t know what he’s playing, but it isn’t jazz.”
When one listens to players who do not hit the exact notes on the piano, who don’t line up rhythmically with one another, who don’t seem to be following a specific pattern of chords, who sometimes purposefully make screeching and squawking sounds, it might be easy to dismiss the performers as being poor musicians. It was difficult to tell if the musicians were making a sincere effort to be expressive, or if they were simply using this freedom to mask a lack of musical ability. Many jazz musicians understood the possibilities that Coleman and his ensemble players were exploring. Even Classical musicians like Leonard Bernstein and Gunther Schuller spoke out in support of this new music. Bernstein reputedly jumped to his feet in the middle of one of Coleman’s first New York City performances and shouted, “This is the greatest thing ever to happen to jazz!” Schuller even served as an advisor for the project. Jazz pianist John Lewis called free jazz “the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations in the mid-forties of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and those of Thelonius Monk.” But some listeners felt that the musicians were charlatans (fakes or frauds). Dizzy Gillespie found the music perplexing: “I don’t know what he’s playing, but it isn’t jazz.”
How does one listen to this music? How does one judge its quality? You must first trust that the musicians are sincere and mean what they are “saying.” This might be difficult if you have no frame of reference, but if you learn more about the abilities of these musicians, you will find that they had the skill to play more traditional jazz and that they were sincere about this music they were creating with Ornette Coleman. Ornette Coleman eventually won a Guggenheim fellowship, a MacArthur “genius” award, a Grammy lifetime achievement award, and the Pulitzer Prize for music. We realize now that the music sounded this way because this was how Coleman and his musicians intended it to sound. When you trust the musicians, then you can listen for imitation, layers, ideas put forth by one musician and picked up by another. Because of the complexity of the music, you will hear different aspects each time you listen, just as you might see different things each time you look at a Jackson Pollock painting.
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Rock and Roll: At Home on AM Radio
While jazz and classical music were undergoing transitions and changes in 1959 and 1960 and musical theatre was poised for something new, the most significant musical transformation in the 1960s occurred in the world of popular music—rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and folk music. During the 1950s, AM radio had become the primary medium for the dissemination of new music. As it grew more popular, investors bought groups of radio stations and started standardizing the playlists, moving to a “top 40” format, where lists were developed of the most popular songs, and they were played over and over. Since most songs were less than five minutes in length, even with news and advertisements these stations could get through all forty songs in four hours. As a result, some of these songs were played six times each day. Thus, popularity bred popularity. Unfortunately, this led to corruption. It was known as payola—if you could pay a particularly popular and influential “disc jockey” to play your recording, it would be heard more often, and would be more likely to have increased record sales. This system squelched new and creative acts and favored the status quo. Billboard’s pop music sales charts reflected this stagnation.
Film Music: Psycho
Film music in 1960 was also largely conservative. However, there were some new developments in Europe, where film composers were creating a new style that more closely resembled the dissonant music of modern classical composers, rather than the more traditional romantic or Copland-like scores that had dominated film music for the preceding several decades. Before long, Hollywood composers followed suit, composing music concerned with setting a psychological mood, while avoiding Hollywood clichés.
Bernard Herrmann’s score for the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho is considered one of the first masterpieces in the newer style. To match Hitchcock’s black-and-white filming, Herrmann created the score using only string instruments, without adding the colors of woodwinds, brass, and percussion. To reflect the disturbed states of the main characters, Herrmann’s score is intensely dissonant throughout. Clashing tone clusters, full of minor seconds and major sevenths, are repeated rhythmically, building the tension. Polytonality keeps otherwise tonal thematic material on edge, echoing the disharmony in the plot. Herrmann and his technical crew went one step further in the famous shower scene by placing the microphones unusually close to the instruments to pick up every screech and scrape of the percussive violin tone clusters in this frightening passage. Psycho helped open a new breadth of expressive options for film music composers. The stage was set. In film music, rock and roll, jazz, and classical music, the iconoclasts and traditionalists were poised to move forward, and a transformational decade was underway.
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