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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April1971) was a Russian (and later, a naturalized French and American)composer, pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of themost important and influential composers of the 20th century.Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylisticdiversity. He first achieved international fame with three balletscommissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performedin Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910),Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last of thesetransformed the way in which subsequent composers thought aboutrhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky'senduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed theboundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase" which continuedwith works such as Renard, The Soldier's Tale and Les Noces, wasfollowed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned toneoclassical music. The works from this period tended to make useof traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue and symphony),drawing on earlier styles, especially from the 18th century. In the1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures. His compositions ofthis period shared traits with examples of his earlier output:rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out ofa few two- or threenote cells and clarity of form, and ofinstrumentation. The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestralconcert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It waswritten for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's BalletsRusses company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky,with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When firstperformed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, theavant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensationand a near-riot in the audience. Although designed as a work forthe stage, with specific passages accompanying characters andaction, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as aconcert piece, and is widely considered to be one of the mostinfluential musical works of the 20th century. Charles Edward Ives(October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernistcomposer. He is one of the first American composers ofinternational renown, though his music was largely ignored duringhis life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years.Over time, he came to be regarded as an "American original". Hecombined the American popular and church-music traditions of hisyouth with European art music, and was among the first composers toengage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musicaltechniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters,aleatoric elements, and quarter tones, foreshadowing many musicalinnovations of the 20th century. Sources of Ives' tonal imagery arehymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade,the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimentalparlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster. ArnoldSchoenbergor Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was anAustrian composer and painter. He was associated with theexpressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of theSecond Viennese School. With the rise of the Nazi Party, by 1938Schoenberg's works were labelled as degenerate music because he wasJewish; he moved to the United States in 1934. Schoenberg'sapproach, both in terms of harmony and development, has been one ofthe most influential of 20th-century musical thought. Many Europeanand American composers from at least three generations haveconsciously extended his thinking, whereas others have passionatelyreacted against it. Schoenberg was known early in his career forsimultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romanticstyles of Brahms and Wagner. Later, his name would come topersonify innovations in atonality (although Schoenberg himselfdetested that term) that would become the most polemical feature of20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed thetwelve-tone technique, an influential compositional method ofmanipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromaticscale. He also coined the term developing variation and was thefirst modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs withoutresorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea. AaronCopland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an Americancomposer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career aconductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental inforging a distinctly American style of composition, in his lateryears he was often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"and is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930sand 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as"populist" and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style.Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billythe Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man and ThirdSymphony. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his worksare archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound ofAmerican music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneerspirit. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, heproduced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocalworks, opera and film scores. The year 1939 in motion pictures iswidely considered the most outstanding one ever, when it comes tothe high quality and high attendance at the large set of the bestfilms that premiered in the year (considered as a percentage of thepopulation in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom atthat time).Motion picture and film historians often rate 1939 as"the greatest year in the history of Hollywood." Hollywood moviesproduced in Southern California are at the height of their GoldenAge (in spite of many cheaply made or indistinguished films alsobeing produced, something to be expected with any year incommercial cinema), and during 1939 there are the premieres of anoutstandingly large number of exceptional motion pictures, many ofwhich become honored as all-time classic films. The year 1939 wasone in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesnominated ten films for Best Picture: • Dark Victory • Gone withthe Wind (Best Picture winner) • Goodbye, Mr. Chips • Love Affair •Mr. Smith Goes to Washington • Ninotchka • Of Mice and Men •Stagecoach • The Wizard of Oz - Wuthering Heights Stravinsky, Ives,Schoenberg, Copland, Hollywood in 1939 listening: Jazz, West Coast Jazz, Third Stream, Modal Cool jazz is astyle of modern jazz music that arose in the United States afterWorld War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lightertone, in contrast to the tense and complex bebop style. Cool jazzoften employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements ofclassical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-warjazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that found inother contemporaneous jazz idioms. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow,and David Megill suggest "the tonal sonorities of theseconservative players could be compared to pastel colors, while thesolos of [Dizzy] Gillespie and his followers could be compared tofiery red colors. Birth of the Cool is a compilation album byAmerican jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1957 on CapitolRecords. It compiles twelve tracks recorded by Davis's nonet forthe label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950.It is considered the first cool jazz recording. Featuring unusualinstrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consistedof innovative arrangements influenced by classical music techniquessuch as polyphony, and marked a major development inpost-bebopjazz. As the title implies, these recordings areconsidered seminal in the history of cool jazz. Most of them wereoriginally released in the 10-inch 78-rpm format and are allapproximately three minutes long. West Coast jazz refers to variousstyles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and SanFrancisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as asubgenre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer stylethan bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavilyarranged, and more often composition-based. While this style wasprominent for a while, it was by no means the only style of jazzplayed on the West Coast, which exhibited more variety than couldbe conveyed by a simple name. In 1951, pianist Dave Brubeck hiredalto saxophonist Paul Desmond, forming a quartet. Desmond's playingstyle ran counter to bebop, as he seldom used blues elements, andwas influenced by Pete Brown and Benny Carter rather than CharlieParker. The Pacific Jazz and Contemporary record labels were two ofthe best known that carried West Coast jazz, just as Blue Note wasthe biggest hard-bop label. Some of the major pioneers of WestCoast jazz were Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, StanGetz, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Jimmy Giuffre, Shelly Manne, RussFreeman, Bill Holman, André Previn, and Dave Brubeck with PaulDesmond. Time Outis an album by the American jazz group the DaveBrubeck Quartet, released in 1959 on Columbia Records. Recorded atColumbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, it is based uponthe use of time signatures that were unusual for jazz such as 9/8and 5/4. The album is a subtle blend of cool and West Coast jazz.It peaked at #2 on the Billboard pop albums chart, and has beencertified platinum by the RIAA. Third Streamis a term coined in1957 by composer Gunther Schuller, in a lecture at BrandeisUniversity, to describe a musical genre that is a synthesis ofclassical music and jazz. Improvisation is generally seen as avital component of Third Stream. Miles Aheadis an album by MilesDavis that was released in 1957 by Columbia Records. It was Davis'first collaboration with arranger Gil Evans following the Birth ofthe Cool sessions. Along with their subsequent collaborations Porgyand Bess (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960), Miles Aheadis one ofthe most famous recordings of Third Stream, a fusion of jazz,European classical, and world musics. Davis played flugelhornthroughout. Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather thanchord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is epitomized by Miles Davis's 1958composition "Milestones", 1959 album Kind of Blue, and JohnColtrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performersinclude Woody Shaw, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter,McCoy Tyner, Larry Young, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, ChickCorea and Bobby Hutcherson. Though the term comes from the use ofthe pitches of particular modes (or scales) in the creation ofsolos, modal jazz compositions or accompaniments may only oradditionally make use of the following techniques: • slow-movingharmonic rhythm, where single chords may last four to sixteen ormore measures • pedal points and drones • absent or suppressedstandard functional chord progressions • quartal harmonies ormelodies polytonality Kind of Blue is a studio album by Americanjazz musician Miles Davis, released on August 17, 1959, by ColumbiaRecords. It was recorded earlier that year on March 2 and April 22at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. The recordingsessions featured Davis's ensemble sextet, consisting of pianistBill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, andsaxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley,together with pianist Wynton Kelly on one track. After the entry ofEvans into his sextet, Davis followed up on the modalexperimentations of Milestones (1958) by basing Kind of Blueentirely on modality, in contrast to his earlier work with the hardbop style of jazz. Kind of Blue is the greatest selling jazz recordof all time.
How did Cool/West Coast Jazz and Third Stream differfrom Bebop? Be sure to mention group configuration, mood,improvisation, etc.. one page minimum