From: Margaret Harrison
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: Re: 20th century music
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

WaDiJeDo-at-aol.com wrote:
> I need help! i am looking to do a paper on 20 century music, and since i am a
> singer i think i would like to do it on vocal music, maybe an opera.

Also if
> anyone can direct me to any sites that explain the difference between 20th &
> 19th century music. My books of theory only touch on 20th century.


If you are STARTING without any knowledge about differences between 19th and 20th century
music, you have a LONG way to go (I took a two-semester course on this topic when I was a
college senior, and we barely scratched the surface!). I second Professor Hanson's
suggestion to do some library resesarch as soon as possible, and you should do this BEFORE
you decide what to write about. I also suggest that once you come up with a topic, that
you discuss it with your professor, and make good use of any feedback or comments he gives
you.

An important task for you is to narrow the topic to something manageable - and even a
single opera is a pretty big topic for what probably is a short paper. You might want to
consider using art song, instead. Once you learn a little about the characteristics that
make "romantic" and "20th century" music different from each other, it might be
interesting to take a song or two by a composer like Samuel Barber, who's considered by
many a "romantic" 20th century composer, and point out aspects of his music "romantic" and
other aspects that are "20th Century". If you can do that well, you'll have taught
yourself a great deal, and learned a lot about some wonderful songs that you will probably
be singing yourself. (You can even be working on the same songs in your voice lessons,
which can help you learn even more about the music, and the differences between 20th
century and earlier ways of setting texts to music.)

If your professor considers Debussy to be a 20th century composer, you could compare
Debussy's two settings of the same poem, e.g., Clair de Lune - one early (and presumably
more Romantic), and one later (the better-known one), and show what makes one more
"romantic" or effective setting of the text, than the other. Or compare settings of a
particular poem by romantic and 20th century composers (Debussy, Faure - more romantic -
and Reynaldo Hahn - very romantic in style). The lieder database can help you find poems
which have been set by more than one composer: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/

Another interesting topic might be looking at Stravinsky's "neoclassical" opera "The
Rake's Progress", and pointing out the "classical" and "20th century" characteristics of
Stravinsky's music, the way he writes for voice, orchestra, etc. You'd need a score of
the opera to do this, as I doubt your professor would like you to rely only on recordings,
so get some help from your friendly music librarian if the library doesn't have a full
orchestral score for you to study.

Peggy

--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh-at-ix.netcom.com