Oratorio

Gaganpal Singh

Music 300

Hughes

During the twentieth century there were many different changes occurring with music. All of these musicians from different parts of the world were making music at the same time. Although they were all making music they were making different kinds of music with different styles. Living in different parts of the world with different cultures, and different situations formed a variety of musical styles. As well as the century progressed new technology and instruments were created. So music from the early century would sound different from music from the end of the century.

“General William Booth Enters Into Heaven” was written by Charles Ives an American composer. Ives used tone clusters in his music which was a technique of using several notes separated by major or minor intervals. For this piece Ives drew inspiration from the church services he attended growing up. The topic of the song is a song that you would only see an American composer perform and you would not see in a different part of the world hence why it would be different from other composers from around the country.

Alan Berg was a student of Arnold Schoenberg. Arnold Schoneber was a Viennese composer who wrote atonal works. Being from a different part of the world and being influenced by his teacher is one reason why Bergs music was different from other composers. “Wozzeck” by Alan Berg is primarily atonal. His piece took traits from romantic opera and various singing styles. The piece contains extreme dynamics and the changing of large orchestras to tutti ensembles.

Another influence on twentieth century composers was religion. Different religions are more dominant in different parts of the world, which would create different styles of music. “Ritual Melodies” has a religious theme to it. It contains mulitphonic sounds a sound that has many different pitches at once. The song has a eastern tone to it.