20th century classical music was extremely varied and thus there was no dominant style. However, a salient feature during this
classical music time period was the increased use of
dissonance. Because of this, the 20th century is sometimes called the "Dissonant Period" of classical music, because much of its music was a reaction to or against the
common practice period, which emphasized
consonance (Schwartz and Godfrey 1993, 9–43). The
International Paris Exposition celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution in 1889 is referred to by one writer as the watershed transitional moment from consonance to dissonance (Fauser 2005).
At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late
Romantic in style, while at the same time the
Impressionist movement, spearheaded by
Claude Debussy, was being developed in France. America also began developing its own vernacular style of classical music, notably in the works of
Charles Ives,
John Alden Carpenter, and (later)
George Gershwin, while in
Vienna,
Arnold Schoenberg conceived
atonality and later developed the
twelve-tone technique. Some of the important developments in 20th century classical music include:
As time has passed, however, it is increasingly accepted, though by no means universally so, that the boundaries are more porous than the many polemics would lead one to believe: many of the techniques pioneered by the above composers show up in popular music by
The Beatles,
Deep Purple,
Yes,
Genesis,
King Crimson,
Pink Floyd,
ELP,
Mike Oldfield,
Enigma,
Vangelis,
Jean Michel Jarre, in
film scores and
video game music that draw mass audiences.
It should be kept in mind that this article presents an overview of 20th-century classical music and many of the composers listed under the following trends and movements may not identify exclusively as such and may be considered as participating in different movements. For instance, at different times during his career, Igor Stravinsky may be considered a
romantic,
modernist,
neoclassicist, and a
serialist.
Romantic style
At the end of the 19th century (often called the
Fin de siècle), the
Romantic style was starting to break apart, moving along various parallel courses, such as
Impressionism and
Post-romanticism. In the 20th century, the different syles that emerged from the music of the previous century influenced composers to follow new trends, sometimes as a reaction to that music, sometimes as an extension of it, and both trends co-existed well into the 20th century. The former trends, such as
Expressionism are discussed later. In the early part of the 20th century, many composers wrote music which was an extension of 19th-century Romantic music, and traditional instrumental groupings such as the
orchestra and
string quartet remained the most typical. Traditional forms such as the
symphony and
concerto remained in use.
Gustav Mahler and
Jean Sibelius are examples of composers who took the traditional symphonic forms and reworked them. (See
Romantic Music) While some writers hold that Debussy's
Prélude à l'après-midi- d'un faune and Schoenberg's
Verklärte Nacht are dramatic departures from Romanticism and have strong modernist traits (Ibid.), others hold that the Schoenberg work is squarely within the late-Romantic tradition of Wagner and Brahms (Neighbour 2001, 582) and, more generally, that "the composer who most directly and completely connects late Wagner and the 20th century is Arnold Schoenberg" (Salzman 1988, 10).
Modernism
Modernism started as a reaction to late 19th-century Romanticism. It covers most of the movements that follow, up to, but not including, Postmodernism.
Impressionism
Impressionism started in France as a reaction, led by
Claude Debussy, against the emotional exuberance and epic themes of German Romanticism exemplified by
Wagner. In Debussy's view, art was a sensuous experience, rather than an intellectual or ethical one. He urged his countrymen to rediscover the French masters of the 18th century, for whom music was meant to charm, to entertain, and to serve as a "fantasy of the senses" (Machlis 1979, 86–87). Other composers associated with impressionism include
Maurice Ravel,
Albert Roussel,
Isaac Albéniz,
Paul Dukas,
Manuel de Falla,
Charles Martin Loeffler,
Charles Griffes,
Frederick Delius,
Ottorino Respighi, and
Karol Szymanowski (Machlis 1979, 115–18). Although impressionism is generally held to have been superseded in the 1920s by neoclassicism, many French composers continued its language, including
Albert Roussel,
Charles Koechlin,
André Caplet, and, later,
Olivier Messiaen. Composers from non-Western cultures, such as
Tōru Takemitsu, and jazz musicians such as
Duke Ellington,
Gil Evans,
Art Tatum, and
Cecil Taylor, also have been strongly influenced by the impressionist musical language (Pasler 2001).
Expressionism
Expressionism was a prominent artistic trend associated especially with Austria and Germany before, during, and immediately after World War I. In some measure a reaction against the perceived passive nature of impressionism, it emphasized an eruptive immediacy of expressive feeling, often based on the psychology of the unconscious. Expressionism is primarily identified with Arnold Schoenberg’s "free atonal’ period" (1908–1921), in particular the monodrama
Erwartung, the
Klavierstück op. 11, no. 3, and the first and last of his Five Orchestral Pieces op. 16. Certain works from this same period by his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern are also usually included. Although this music sets out from Wagner’s chromatic harmony (especially Kundry’s music in
Parsifal), it tends to avoid cadence, repetition, sequence, balanced phrases, and any reference to traditional forms or procedures, for which reason it came to be associated with a rejection of tradition. Other composers active in approximately this period such as
Gustav Mahler,
Alexander Skryabin,
Josef Matthias Hauer,
Igor Stravinsky,
Karol Szymanowski,
Béla Bartók,
Paul Hindemith,
Charles Ives, and
Ernst Krenek also exhibit expressionist traits, while important stage works of the 1920s by
Kurt Weill, Hindemith, and Krenek retain expressionistic textual and visual aspects even though their musical language no longer reflects expressionism's aesthetic principles. By the late 1920s, though many composers continued to write in a vaguely expressionist manner, it was being supplanted by the more impersonal style of the German
Neue Sachlichkeit and
neoclassicism. Because expressionism, like any movement that had been stigmatized by the Nazis, gained a sympathetic reconsideration following World War II, expressionist music resurfaced in works by composers such as
Hans Werner Henze,
Pierre Boulez,
Peter Maxwell Davies,
Wolfgang Rihm, and
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (Fanning 2001).
Futurism
At its conception, Futurism was an Italian artistic movement founded in 1909 by
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti; it was quickly embraced by the Russian avant garde. In 1913, the painter
Luigi Russolo published a manifesto,
L'arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises), calling for the incorporation of noises of every kind into music. In addition to Russolo, composers directly associated with this movement include the Italians Silvio Mix, Nuccio Fiorda,
Franco Casavola, and Pannigi (whose 1922
Ballo meccanico included two motorcycles), and the Russians Artur Lourié,
Mikhail Matyushin, and
Nikolai Roslavets. Though few of the futurist works of these composers are performed today, the influence of futurism on the later development of 20th-century music was enormous.
Sergei Prokofiev,
Maurice Ravel,
Igor Stravinsky,
Arthur Honegger,
George Antheil,
Leo Ornstein, and
Edgard Varèse are among the notable composers in the first half of the century who were influenced by futurism. Characteristic features of later 20th-century music with origins in futurism include the
prepared piano,
integral serialism, extended vocal techniques, graphic notation,
improvisation, and
minimalism (Dennis & Powell 2001).
Second Viennese School, atonality, twelve-tone technique, and serialism
Arnold Schoenberg is one of the most significant figures in 20th-century music. While starting off as a Late Romantic influenced by Wagner (
Transfigured Night), he moved to Atonality (
Drei Klavierstücke and
Pierrot Lunaire). In 1921, after several years of research, he developed the
twelve-tone technique of composition, which he first described privately to his associates in 1923 (Schoenberg 1975, 213) (Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31). He later returned to a more tonal style (
Kammersymphonie no. 2). He taught
Anton Webern and
Alban Berg and these three composers are often referred to as the principle members of the
Second Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - and sometimes Schubert - being the
First Viennese School in this context). Webern wrote works using a rigorous 12-tone method
String Quartet and influenced the development of
total serialism. Berg often combined the 12-tone method method with Late Romanticism and
Post-romanticism (
Violin Concerto, which quotes a Bach Choral and uses Classical form). He wrote two major operas (
Wozzeck and
Lulu).
Later developments of atonality
In Europe, the "
punctual", "pointist", or "pointillist" style of
Messiaen's "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" — in which individual tones' characteristics, or "parameters" are each determined independently — was very influential in the years immediately following
1951 among composers such as
Pierre Boulez,
Karel Goeyvaerts,
Luigi Nono and
Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Free dissonance and experimentalism
In the early part of the 20th century,
Charles Ives integrated American and European traditions as well as vernacular and church styles, while using innovative techniques in his rhythm, harmony, and form (Burkholder 2001). His technique included the use of
polytonality,
polyrhythm,
tone clusters,
aleatoric elements, and
quarter tones.
Edgard Varèse wrote highly dissonant pieces that utilized unusual sonorities and futuristic, scientific sounding names. He pioneered the use of new instruments and
electronic resources (see below).
Neoclassicism
In Neoclassicism, composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century. The term
Neoclassical is applied to several movements in the arts during the 18th- and 19th-centuries but the term has become the common name for music that revives earlier practices and techniques. Famous examples include
Prokofief's
Classical Symphony and
Stravinsky's
Pulcinella.
Paul Hindemith (
Mathis de Maler) and
Darius Milhaud also used this style.
Maurice Ravel's
Le Tombeau de Couperin is often seen as
Neobaroque (an architectural term), though the distinction between the terms is not always made.
Electronic music
Technological advances in the 20th century enabled composers to use
electronic means of producing sound.
After the
Second World War,
magnetic tape became available for the creation of music by recording sounds and then manipulating them in some way. When the source material was acoustical sounds from the everyday world, the term
musique concrète was used; when the sounds were produced by electronic generators, it was designated
electronic music. After the 1950s, the term "electronic music" came to be used for both types. Sometimes such electronic music was combined with more conventional instruments, Stockhausen's
Hymnen,
Edgard Varèse's
Déserts, and
Mario Davidovsky's series of
Synchronisms are three examples.
Jazz-influenced classical composition
A number of composers combined elements of the
jazz idiom with classical compositional styles, notably
Leonard Bernstein,
Aaron Copland,
George Gershwin,
Darius Milhaud, and
Maurice Ravel.
Postmodern music
Postmodernism is a reaction to Modernism, but it can also be viewed as a response to a deep-seated shift in societal attitude. According to this latter view, Postmodernism began when historic (as opposed to personal) optimism turned to pessimism, at the latest by 1930 (Meyer 1994, 331).
John Cage is a prominent figure in 20th-century Postmodernism whose influence steadily grew during his lifetime. His best-known work is
4′33″ in which any instrumentalist (or combination of instrumentalists) is instructed
not to play for the duration of the work. He often uses elements of chance:
Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12 radio receivers, and
Music of Changes for piano.
Sonatas and Interludes (1946–8) is composed for a
prepared piano, an instrument he invented in which the sound of a normal piano is altered by placing various objects between the strings.
Most of the styles and movements that follow can be classified as "Postmodern".
Minimalism
In the later 20th century, composers such as
La Monte Young,
Philip Glass,
Terry Riley, and
Steve Reich began to explore what is now called
minimalism, in which the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features; the music often features repetition and iteration. An early example is Terry Riley's
In C (1964), an
aleatoric work in which short phrases are chosen by the musicians from a set list and played an arbitrary number of times, while the note C is repeated in eighth notes (quavers) behind them. Steve Reich's works
Piano Phase (1967, for two pianos), and
Drumming (1970–71, for percussion, female voices and piccolo) employ the technique called
phasing in which a phrase played by one player maintaining a constant pace is played simultaneously by another but at a slightly quicker pace. This causes the players to go "out of phase" with each other and the performance may continue until they come back in phase. Philip Glass's
1 + 1 (1968) employs the additive process in which short phrases are slowly expanded. La Monte Young's
Compositions 1960 employes very long tones, exceptionally high volumes and extra-musical techniques such as "draw a straight line and follow it" or "build a fire".
Michael Nyman argues that minimalism was a reaction to and made possible by both serialism and indeterminism (Nyman 1999, 139). (See also
experimental music)
Recording technology
The 20th century saw a change in the way in which classical music was heard. Advances in recording technologies, beginning with the rise in popularity of the
phonograph in the early part of the century, and later with the inventions of
magnetic tape, the
cassette,
DAT, and the
compact disk. In addition,
broadcasting technologies, such as
radio and
television have meant that the
concert hall,
opera house,
salon, and domestic music-making are no longer the only means by which a performance can reach its audience.
Spectralism
A musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Prominent spectral composers include
Tristan Murail and
Gérard Grisey, and the 'post-spectral' composers
Kaija Saariaho and
Magnus Lindberg.
Other notable 20th-century composers
See also
