The Integretion Of Modern And Tradition

Howard Hanson (October 28, 1896– February 26, 1981) was a vitally important American composer,conductor , pianist, educator. He was the first recipient of the American Academy's Rome Prize and he was representative of the new romantic music school. Hanson has proved permanently his great and importance in all the areas of American music life.Famous American music critic Joseph Machlis once appraised Hanson's achievements far beyond a composer. In the second twenty-five years of 20th century, Hanson's contribution for American music was exceptional. As the director of the Eastman School of Music, he has conducted thousands of premiere performance of music compositions created by American musicians. He always encourages young American musicians to do composing.In the aspect of creation, Hanson has been focusing on the orientation of new romanticism, and has made tireless efforts on discovering the harmonic language which matches with this kind of aesthetics. His works were full of traditional romantic as well as the characteristics of local music. Hanson used the skills of modern music to compose, whose concept about modern music has exerted great influence on the composition of all the American musicians later. In 1960, Hanson published a work of theory Harmonic Materials of Modern Music—Resources of the Tempered Scale, which fully reflected his version of modern music. On the basis of Mode concep, he has came up with various theories, such as, Chorus Decomposition,Invert,Inflexion and so on. And through the analysis of the Chorus projection and pitch interval, he has built the new and complete system of Polyphonic Categories for the American Modern Music.In 1963, he created the piano score For the First Time which was based on his theory, and his practice did prove the scientific significance of his theory. For the First Time created in his late year was a symbolic work , which featured the essence of his theory.This thesis takes the characteristics of piano score For the First Time, which was Hanson's representative work, and the concept of modern music as the entry point to discovery the significance of Hanson's creation of new romanticism, which make us clear to Hanson's unique features of the new romanticism and the concept of modern music.The thesis is divided into four parts: The first chapter introduces mainly about American music in 20th century and Hanson's achievement after gethering﹑comparing and trading off the different historical materials. To grasp the overall style of For the First Time, the first chapter introduces the situation of development of American music and takes position of Hanson's concept of modern music from his experience and achievements of music. The second chapter is about the characteristics of composition of piano score For the First Time, which was created in Hanson's late year. This is his symbolic work with a title ,tonality and distinguishing musical image. Therefore, this work becomes his most important one which could annotate Hanson's idea about Modern Music and Theory of harmony. Meanwhile,we could aslo fully appreciate Hanson's version about musical composition,theory of harmony and technics by listening to For the First Time .This chapter aims to summarize the characteristics of For the First Time by describing and analyzing deeply the creation of this work. The third chapter is the discussion of the concept of modern music of For the First Time. This part analyzes in detail the concept of modern music of For the First Time. At the end of this thesis, I summarize the skills of composition and the concept of modern music of Howard Hanson's piano score For the First Time and analyze the core part of his composition and musical concept in order to have a more comprehensive and final understanding of his theory.