Post-War Pieces To Analyze

There is a lot of stuff, you can find an overview here

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_contemporanea

In particular, I would focus on Maderna, Berio... but also Donatoni

Documents like this provide many ideas

http://www.conservatoriosantacecilia.it/IMG/pdf/Gabrieli_Biennio_Composizione.pdf

Do you need the list to choose a piece to analyze for an exam ... or for personal culture?

I would reason in terms of styles and schools, remembering that even today we do not have an "adequate" distance to provide a definitive list of what is important, what is less important, and what is most important.

But it is truly too much stuff...

If one wants to analyze something regarding the avant-garde, one could perhaps start with Schoenberg, and look at the first applications of twelve-tone technique to arrive at total serialism....

but if one wants to analyze contemporary music, then why not start with something simpler like Donatoni, for example?

Feria, Lumen, Omar, etc. are all suitable pieces....or perhaps something by Bartok and proceed with Ligeti....

Thanks to everyone

@Feldman

I don't know Feria and Omar, who else are you including in etc. that hasn't been mentioned?

thallo wrote:

I would reason in terms of styles-schools

... styles might always hold true, schools?

Zazza wrote:

Documents like this provide many insights

http://www.conservat...omposizione.pdf

Do you need the list to choose a piece to analyze for an exam ... or for personal culture?

Thanks, basically it is for an exam, the piece will be a surprise and will have the characteristics I described....I wanted to get an idea

Styles and schools might be the same concept; consider that in the 1900s there are no true schools, everyone has an autonomous and different creative path, but there are "affiliations," one might say.

The greatest school-non-school is Darmstadt. Many composers, especially in the '50s-'60s, qualify themselves as pro-Darmstadt or anti-Darmstadt, and Darmstadt means above all serialism.

The quintessential anti-Darmstadt is America, the United States, especially the so-called New York School, which is nothing more than the circle of friends of John Cage (Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff...). And then minimalism, and Britten, and all the great ones still alive (Stravinsky dies in 1971, Shostakovich in 1975...), Messiaen (who is seen as one of the creators of serialism, but distances himself from it almost immediately).

If I had to analyze a composition from the second half of the 1900s and did not have specific indications, I would try to be very pragmatic. One must understand if it is tonal, non-tonal, modal, what the regulating principles are. It sounds like a triviality, but it is FUNDAMENTAL to understand and state it. Also because not all atonal-serial compositions are "truly" non-tonal... if in the mayhem you find a beautiful harmonic function, say so.

Then, macroform, microform, and instrumentation. Writing atonally is difficult; many composers have taken simple concepts and applied them to the entire composition. Most non-tonal compositions, especially those that are "generically atonal," are studies on an instrument, on a technical characteristic, or on a harmonic or melodic figuration. You won't find sonata forms, obviously; instead, you will find juxtaposed sound blocks, panel forms, very few repetitions. Try to understand the formal logic, even in a very simple way.

AbateFaria wrote:

Thanks to everyone

@Feldman

I don't know Feria and Omar, who else are you including in etc. that hasn't been mentioned?

right, sorry for the inaccuracy, I meant other works by Donatoni, like NIDI for Ottavino for example... or "musica ricercata" by Ligeti, or something from Bartok's Mikrokosmos....

Ok guys

Feldman wrote:

i meant other works by Donatoni, such as NIDI for ottavino for example...

...then did you come out of Lumen?

Frank wrote:

...then you came out of Lumen?

yes, the general analysis is ok, but there are some things to see at a structural level, of logic...