The emancipation of dissonance
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Andrew Imbrie, 86, Composer Known for Use of Dissonance
Andrew Imbrie, a prolific composer and influential teacher best known for his harmonically rugged but appealingly lyrical 1976 opera, ''Angle of Repose,'' and for a rich catalog of chamber, vocal and symphonic scores, died on Wednesday at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 86.
His death was announced by Robert Commanday, the retired chief music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle and a longtime friend.
Mr. Imbrie was part of the generation of composers who came of age when tonality had fallen from favor, and his music was strongly influenced by the search for a new, post-tonal language. Throughout his career his works used dissonance dramatically rather than harshly, and if his themes were often shaped with the angularity that was the common accent of mid-20th-century composition, they typically had an intensity that listeners heard as passionate and direct rather than merely spiky.
In his Requiem, for example, composed in 1984 after the sudden death of his younger son, John, the writing for
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Arnold Schoenberg
Austrian-American composer (1874–1951)
"Schoenberg" redirects here. For others with the surname, see Schoenberg (surname).
Arnold Schoenberg | |
|---|---|
Schoenberg in Los Angeles, c. 1948 | |
| Born | (1874-09-13)13 September 1874 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 13 July 1951(1951-07-13) (aged 76) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Occupations |
|
| Known for | Second Viennese School |
| Works | List of compositions |
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg[a] (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, and a central element of his music was its use of motives as a means of coherence. He propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space".
Schoenberg's early works, like Verklärte Nacht (1899), represented a Brahmsian–Wagnerian synthesis on which he built.
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Mozart is widely considered one of the greatest composers of all time. He was a master of melody, harmony, and counterpoint, and his music is characterized by clarity, elegance, and balance. So why did he write dissonance? Dissonance, or the use of harsh-sounding notes, was not commonly used in music of the 18th century. But Mozart was not afraid to experiment with new sounds and techniques, and he often used dissonance to add drama or tension to his music. For example, in his opera The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart uses dissonance to heighten the drama of the climactic scene in which the Count confronts Figaro and Susanna. So while Mozart may be best known for his beautiful melodies, his use of dissonance shows that he was also a daring and innovative composer.
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