Exploring Serialism, and modern music

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Ok folks,

 Modern music is hard to grasp, but the more you read about the stories and motivations behind its proponents, the more sense it makes. There are a lot of resources at your fingertips that will help:

 Books in the Beaumont library:

The following books are either in, or on their way to, Beaumont's library. Have a read of the relevant chapters/sections in the following books:

 Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (big, but quite easy to read)
Paul Griffiths - Modern Music (the best book on early C20th classical music)
Paul Griffiths - Modern Music and after (the follow-up, covering the 2nd half of the 20th Century)
Norman Lebrecht - The Complete Companion to 20th Century Music (I haven't read this, but will check it out)
Arnold Whittal - Serialism (Cambridge Introductions to Music) (pretty obvious what this is about)


Grove Music Online
Use your Herts library card to log in to Grove, the BEST online Music encyclopaedia.


YouTube - Twelve Tones (The Bowl and the Lazer bat)
A hilarious, yet thorough exploration of the principles behind twelve tone music. So good it almost makes you enjoy serialist composition.


Mr G's Second Viennese School Playlist
A little light relief, curated by me. The two key serialist works in this playlist are Webern's Op. 21 and 22. However, I have also included some expressionist masterpieces, and some gorgeous works such as Webern's Slow Movement for String Quartet, Berg's Violin Concerto and Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht.
These resources will deepen your understanding, and help you in your AS studies. Also, they took me a while to put together, so use them.
Cheers,
Mr G

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