Tonal Expansion Of Music Essay

1. Tonal Expansion is resulted from several developments: Increasing emphasis on chromatic elements, extending the range of classical tonal functions, and decreasing structural dependence on tonal region that would support the central tonality. It is unsystematic, varies from composer to composer, and disrupts tonality. Arnold Schoenberg was the principal exponent of this trend. Schoenberg’s last two quartet, No.3 and No.4 are good examples showing the developments.

In Tonal Modification, Tonal region established by consistent use of particular mode or extended pedal points. This avoids the hierarchies of diatonic harmony and the ‘pull’ of a tonal center. This is in symmetrical construction. Maurice Ravel depicted wave of water by using symmetrical

Debussy’s most important innovations in musical style were “Impressionistic” period from his masterpiece, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” (1894). In the work, most of important musical styles can be found in Prelude part. The orchestration used impressionistic tone color, and was combined with new orchestration. He prefer for string sections put mute. Also, brass section has non-heroic sound, which would be unusual in late Romantic period. Harp was used extensively. As far as melody and harmony, he used free chromaticism, more importance on melody rather than harmonic progression and rhythm. He also used some different types of modes such as whole-tone scale and pentatonic. For his other work, he composed “La Mer”(1905) which was filled with advanced and colorful orchestration techniques. In summary, Debussy’s innovations were based on the special and subtle inflections of the French culture, language and poetry. Also, characters and length of sound as opposed to strong metrical and rhythmic accent in late Romantic period were innovational as

From the letter of C.F. Ramuz, souvenirs sur Igor Stravinsky, Paris, 1929), we can find a possible reason why Sergei Prokofiev decides to compose neo-classical music. At that time, after war, The Ballet Russe had provisionally suspended by government and there were only a few theaters and concert hall for classical musicians to perform. Stravinsky said, “Why then not do something simple? Why not write together a piece, which would dispense with a large hall or a vast public a piece scored for a few instruments and employing but two or three actors? Since there are no more theaters, we would have a theater all of our own, that is, our own scenery which could be mounted without difficulty no matter where, even in the open; we would have resumed the tradition of the itinerant theaters”. The war drained the country of its background, as a result, composers had to consider new way to make music in different