- Here are 2 videos of Bartok's Romainian Folk Dance!! Enjoy!! ... By the way Boris Nedialkov is a little prodigy!! But before you watch, here is a brief outline of Bartok's music and his career. Feel free to comment!

* Bela Viktor Janos Bartok (1881 - 1945)? was a Hungarian composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music.

* He is considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century and was also one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology

*Bartok is an influential modernist and his music contains various modernist techniques such as atonality, bitonality, attenuated harmonic function, polymodal chromaticism, projected sets, privilged patterns, and large set types used as source sets such as equal tempered 12 tone aggregate!!!

And Now… little prodigy!!

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- Go to this website and listen to the radio programs listed as you scroll down the page.

Search for your composer and listen to the radio program. It will give you a lot of information and a way to talk about your composers' music in an analytical manner.

BBC Radio Discovering Music

Make sure you start listening and take notes!

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Gershwin was born on the 26th September 1898 and died on the 11th July 1937. He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. George Gershwin was the second of four children. He first displayed interest in music at the age of ten, when he was intrigued by what he heard at a friend’s violin recital

His first job as a performer was as a “song plugger” for Remick’s, a publishing company on New York City’s Tin Pan Alley. His 1917 novelty rag “Rialto Ripples” was a commercial success, and in 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song “Swanee.”

Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he was smelling burned rubber. He had developed a brain tumor. In June, he performed in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra with French maestro Pierre Monteux. It was in Hollywood, while working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies, that he collapsed and, on July 11, 1937, died following surgery for the tumor at the age of 38. Coincidentally, just a few months later in 1937, Gershwin’s idol Ravel also died following brain surgery.

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Here is Andrew York playing Sunburst, please help me analyse the music.

Compare this piece with its expressive techniques (muting / fake pizzicato) with sunburst.

And here is a really cool version of Pachebel’s Cannon by Andrew York’s LAGQ

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- Here is some research aids for the following composers. Just click on the link to download and view the Pdf.

You can then summarise the needed information and even scan or type in the notational examples using Sibelius as part of your research.

The composers included in these pdf's (with musical excerpts) are from a book by Ron Bennett.

• Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire & Variations for Orchestra

• Bartok - Music for Strings Percussion & Celest - Allegro Babaro

• Varese - Ionisation

• Shostakovich - Symphony No.5

• Copland - Appalachian Spring

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- Watch this video

Helpful Links?

• Wikipedia link
• Father of Electronic Music

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- Click on the speaker to hear the song.
Pierrot Lunaire - Schoenberg

Ionisation - Varese

Fanfare for the common man - Copland

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- Watch and comment on the music in these clips.

Use intelligent musical comments.

At least 3 from each of you for each video.

First is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue

Second is Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.2 in F

Take Note:

• Find out what a Piano Concerto or Rhapsody is?

• Explore the use of 20th Century Techniques in instruments, composing, notes used?

• Analyse the pieces using Pitch, Duration etc and explain all your ideas

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Year 10 have been studying 20th Century Art Music. This blog will be a cooking pot of their research and final presentations.

Year 10 Elective Music
Research Task

You are to find, document and put into your own words any musical information you glean about the 20th Century composer given to you in class.

Focus on the composers’ music and the exploration of musical timbres/expressive techniques in the 20th Century. This is what you will be marked on.

You are to regularly frequent this web blog, add comments, videos and musically intelligent discussions relevant to our topic. Musical recordings will be available online at this blog, as well as some scores so that you can complete various homework tasks.

Presentation – Due Week 10-11

You are to present the research of your composer’s musical innovations/ideas/works in the format of a Powerpoint presentation to the class.

However, please try to purchase a CD or mp3 from iTunes of the composer/work and analyse the music using the 6 concepts.

This assignment is a collection of ideas and analyses of 20th Century Art Music. So be creative and remember to use the 6 concepts of music: Pitch, Rhythm, Structure, Tone Colour, Dynamics & Expressive Techniques and finally Texture.

For your reference…

Here is the School Certificate Assessment Schedule for Yr 10 Elective Music.

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