Music Week 11 Wednesday • Musicals o Oklahoma (1943) o The Phantom of the Opera (1986) o Musical is a combo of opera and vaudeville o One story like an opera o Accessible tunes and songs - like vaudeville • West Side Story o West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) o More about Bernstein: cos continuation of Copland (for the masses) §0 every day music os interested in sounds around him con "all around puerto rican kids were playing .... right then and there we had out theme for west side story - contemporary setting echoing a classic myth" o takes story Romeo and -uliet - back to Shakespeare o updates romeo and juliet to modern day new york o tony and maria and street gangs are the new updates o lots of musical contrast: 1) gang music is fast and syncopated and dissonant; 2) lovers are more consonant and slower o links the musical is an interval -> tritone, which splits the octave in two (C -> F#) o tritone = the link "Ma-ri-a" song - song 'Cool' is a gang song (peurto rican gang vs american gang called the jets) - twists Maria song notes .. also uses tritone o Bernstein was a bridge - art music can go over and write musicals because of what was happening within music after WWII in the U.S. - things were starting to shift o 20th century - after WWII there are shifts in attitudes and forms - the Second Stage of Modernism o first stage: early 20th century - Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg o second stage: i) increased control - total serialism (precise and ordered); ii) increased freedom - lots of possibilities for performers and every performance is different iii) page 225 score (Look at this v important) · Bernstein's America o focuses on alteration of meters - gets rhythmically complicated - measure 6/8 then 3/4 (eighth notes) o word painting 0:17 'tropical breezes' o instruments Latin percussion o dancing - exciting o songs with simple and catchy melodies • Vaudeville shows: o variety show o around from late 19th century and into the 20th century o 10-15 unrelated acts - primarily for male audience o burlesque/sexy dance o got to perform what ever kind of talent they had (like america's got talent) o dancing women - dancing dogs - fire eating o for the masses h C o musical linked to vaudeville because super accessible
o teacher of music and mycology (study of fungi) o interested in sounds around him like in a lecture (a little diff than Bernstein) o sound of subway cars, trains, anything o he wrote that silent piece called 4' 33" - aka piece of 'chance music' o chance music: sounds are not predetermined and are often made through non-musical decisions (eg. cough) o " .. noises and sound ... i decided to fight for noises, to be on the side of the underdog .. everything we do is music" o Imaginary Landscape 4 (1951)