20th Century Music - Quarter 1 PDF

Quarter I: MUSIC OF THE 20th CENTUR me start of the 20th century saw the rise of distinct musical styles that reflecteas move away from the conventions the rise of distinct asical music. These new styles nationalism. wat impressionism, expressionist, ica-classicism, avant-garde music, and modern...

Quarter I: MUSIC OF THE 20th CENTUR me start of the 20th century saw the rise of distinct musical styles that reflecteas move away from the conventions the rise of distinct asical music. These new styles nationalism. wat impressionism, expressionist, ica-classicism, avant-garde music, and modern The distinct musical styles of the 20th century would not have developed if not for the musical Belius oF individual composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenaste Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofief, and George Gershwin. They stand out as the moving forces behind the innovative and experimental styles mentioned above. IMPRESSIONISM ne of the earlier forms clearly declaring the entry of 20th century music was known as impressionism. This was based on an art movement started by 19th century Paris-based visual artists, specifically Claude Monet through his painting Impression Sunrise. The term found its way to music in the late 19th and early 20th century among French composers. The sentimental melodies and dramatic emotionalism of the preceding Romantic Period had themes and melodies that were easy to recognize and enjoy. In impressionism, they were being replaced in favor of moods and impressions. There was an extensive use of different timbres (tone color or tone quality) and effects, vague melodies, and innovative chords and progressions leading to mild dissonances through orchestration, texture, or harmonic usage. Sublime moods and melodic suggestions replaced highly expressive program music, or music with preconceived visual imagery. With this trend came new combinations of extended chords and harmonies, whole tone, chromatic, and pentatonic scales. Impressionism was an attempt to suggest reality not to depict it. It was meant to create an emotional mood rather than a specific picture. In terms of imagery, impressionistic forms were translucent and hazy, as if trying to see through a rain-drenched window. In impressionism, the sounds of different chords overlapped lightly with each other to produce new subtle musical colors. Chords did not have a definite order and a sense of clear resolution. Other features included the lack of a tonic-dominant relationship which normally gives the feeling of finality to a piece, moods and textures, harmonic vagueness about the structure of certain chords, and use of the whole tone scale. Most of the impressionist works centered on nature and its beauty, lightness, and brilliance. A number of outstanding impressionists created works on this subject such as Debussy\'s La Mer and Claire de Lune. The impressionist movement in music had its foremost proponents in the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, Both had developed a particular style of composing adopted by many 20th century composers. Among the most famous impressionist composers in other countries were Ottorino Respighi (Italy), Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albeniz (Spain), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (England). CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) One of the most important and influential of the 20th century composers was Claude Debussy. He was the primary exponent of the impressionist movement and the focal point for other impressionist composers. He changed the course of musical development by evolving traditional rules and conventions into a new language of possibilities in harmony, rhythm, form, texture, and color. Debussy was born in St. Germain-en-Laye in France on August 22, 1862. His early musical talents were channeled into piano Tessons. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1873. He gained a reputation as an erratic pianist and a rebel in theory and harmony. He added other systems of musical composition because of his musical training. In 1884, he won the top prize at the Prix de Rome competition with his composition L\'Enfant Prodigue (The Prodigal Son). This enabled him to study for two years in Rome. Debussy\'s mature creative period was represented by the following works: Ariettes Oubliees Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun String Quartet Pelleas et Melisande (1895) his famous operatic work that drew mixed extreme reactions for its innovative harmonies and textural treatments La Mer (1905) a highly imaginative and atmospheric symphonic work for orchestra about the sea Images, Suite Bergamasque, and Estampes---his most popular piano compositions; a set of lightly textured pieces containing his signature work Claire de Lune (Moonlight) His musical compositions total more or less 227 which include orchestral music, chamber music, piano music, operas, ballets, songs, and other vocal music. The creative style of Debussy was characterized by his unique approach to the various musical elements. His compositions deviated from the Romantic Period, as is clearly seen by the way he avoided metric pulses and preferred free form to develop his themes. Debussy highly admired the virtuosity of Franz Liszt, the music of Frederick Chopin, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Giuseppe Verdi. He was profoundly influenced by Richard Wagner\'s compositional style which he later rejected when he became acquainted with the symbolist poets and impressionist painters of Paris café society. From the East, he was fascinated by the Javanese gamelan that he had heard at the 1889 Paris Exposition. The gamelan is an ensemble with bells, gongs, xylophone, and occasional vocal parts which he later used in his works to achieve a new sound. From the visual arts, Debussy was influenced by Monet, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, and Renoir; and from the literary arts, by Mallarme, Verlaine, and Rimbaud. Most of his close friends were painters and poets who significantly influenced his compositions. As the \"Father of the Modern School of Composition,\" he made his mark on the styles of later 20th century composers like Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, and Olivier Messiaen. Debussy spent the remaining years of his life as a critic, composer, and performer. He died of cancer in Paris on March 25, 1918 at the height of the First World War. MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Joseph Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France to a Basque mother and a Swiss father. He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 14 where he studied with the eminent French composer Gabriel Faure. During his stint with the school where he stayed until his early 20s, he composed a number of masterpieces. The compositional style of Ravel is mainly characterized by its uniquely innovative but not atonal style ofharmonic treatment. It is defined with intricate Image: rateyourmusic.com and sometimes modal melodies and extended chordal components. It demands considerable technical virtuosity from the performer with a virtuoso being a person who exhibits exceptional musical technique or execution. The harmonic progressions and modulations in Ravel\'s works are not only musically satisfying but also pleasantly dissonant and elegantly sophisticated. His refined delicacy and color, contrasts and effects add to the difficulty in the proper execution of the musical passages. These are extensivelyused in his works of a programmatic nature, wherein visual imagery is either suggested or portrayed. Many of his works deal with water in its flowing or stormy moods, as well as with human characterizations. Ravel was a perfectionist and every bit a musical craftsman. He strongly adhered to the Classical form, specifically its ternary structure. A strong advocate of Russian music, he also admired the music of Chopin, Liszt, Schubert, and Mendelssohn. Ravel\'s works include the following: Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899) a slow but lyrical requiem Jeux d\'Eau or Water Fountains (1901) String Quartet (1903) Sonatine for Piano (c.1904) Miroirs (Mirrors) (1905) a work for piano known for its harmonic evolution and imagination Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) a set of demonic-inspired pieces based on the poems of Aloysius Bertrand which is arguably the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (1911) Le Tombeau de Couperin (c.1917) a commemoration of the musical advocacies of the early 18th century French composer Francois Couperin Rhapsodie Espagnole (1907-1908) Bolero (1875-1937) Comparative Styles of Debussy and Ravel As the two major exponents of French impressionism in music, Debussy and Ravel had crossed paths during their lifetime, although Debussy was 13 years older than Ravel. While their musical works sound quite similar in terms of their harmonic and textural characteristics, the two differed greatly in their personalities and approach to music. Whereas Debussy was more spontaneous and liberal in form, Ravel was very attentive to the classical norms of musical structure and compositional craftsmanship. Debussy was more casual in his portrayal of visual imagery while Ravel was more formal and exacting in the development of his motive ideas. \- ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951) Arnold Schoenberg was born in a working-class suburb of Vienna, Austria on September 13, 1874, He taught himself music theory, but took lessons in counterpoint. German composer Richard Wagner influenced Schoenberg\'s work. This was evidenced by his symphonic poem or tone poem Pelleas und Melisande, Op 5 (1903). The music of the opera with the same title, Pelleas et Melisande, was composed by Debussy who was also influenced by Richard Wagner. Schoenberg\'s style was constantly undergoing development. From the early influences of Wagner, his music gradually turned to the dissonant and atonal, as he explored the use of chromatic harmonies. He is credited with the development of the twelve-tone system. Although full of melodic and lyrical interest, his Image: blog.dataphilesmusic.com music is also extremely complex, creating heavy demands on the listener. Thus, his works were met with extreme reactions either strong hostility from the general public or enthusiastic acclaim from his supporters. \- His works include the following: Verklarte Nacht, Three Pieces for Piano, op. 11 Pierrot Lunaire Gurreleider Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night, 1899) one of his earliest successful pieces, which blends the lyricism, instrumentation, and melodic beauty of Brahms with the chromaticism and construction of Wagner. Schoenberg\'s approximately 213 musical compositions include concerti, orchestral music, piano music, operas, choral music, songs, and other instrumental music. He died on July 13, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA where he had settled since 1934. IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) Igor Stravinsky stands alongside fellow composer Schoenberg, painter Pablo Picasso, and literary figure James Joyce as one of the great trendsetters of the 20th century. He was born in Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov), Russia on June 17, 1882› Stravinsky\'s early music reflected the influence of his teacher, the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. But in his first successful masterpiece, The Firebird Suite (1910), composed for Diaghilev\'s Russian ballet, his skillful handling of material and rhythmic inventiveness went beyond anything composed by his Russian predecessors. He added a new ingredient to his nationalistic musical style. Stravinsky adapted the forms of the 18th century with his contemporary style of writing. Despite its \"shocking\" modernity, Image: 8notes.com his music is also very structured, precise, controlled, full of artifice, and theatricality. Other outstanding works include the ballets Petrouchka (1911), featuring shifting rhythms and polytonality, a signature device of the composer; and The Rite of Spring (1913), in which a new level of dissonance was reached and the sense of tonality was practically abandoned. Asymmetrical rhythms successfully portrayed the character of a solemn pagan rite. When Stravinsky left Russia for the United States in 1939, he slowly turned his back on Russian nationalism and cultivated his neo-classical style. The Rake\'s Progress (1951), a full-length opera, alludes heavily to the Baroque and Classical styles of Bach and Mozart through the use of the harpsichord, small orchestra, solo and ensemble numbers with recitatives stringing together the different songs. Stravinsky\'s musical output approximates 127 works, including concerti, orchestral music, instrumental music, operas, ballets, solo vocal, and choral music. He died in New York City on April 6, 1971. OTHER MUSICAL STYLES side from impressionism, other innovative musical styles arose within the 20th century. Among these were the following: Primitivism Neo-classicism Avant-garde music Modern nationalism Primitivism simple events to create a more complex new event. In its purest form, primitivism combines two familiar or simple ideas together creating new sounds. Primitivism has links to Exoticism through the use of materials from other cultures, to Nationalism through the use of materials indigenous to specific countries, and to Ethnicism through the use of materials from European ethnic groups. Two well-known proponents of this style were Stravinsky and Bela Bartok. It eventually evolved into Neo-classicism. BELA BARTOK (1881-1945) Bela Bartok was born in Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary (now Romania) on March 25, 1881 to musical parents/He started piano lessons with his mother and later entered Budapest Royal Academy of Music in 1899. Bartok was inspired by the performance of Richard Strauss\'s Also Sprach Zarathustra to write his first nationalistic poem, Kossuth, in 1903. He also performed as a concert pianist as he travelled exploring the music of Hungarian peasants. In 1906, with his fellow composer Zoltán Kodály, Bartok published his first collection of 20 Hungarian folk songs. For the next decade, although his music was being badly received in his home country, he continued to explore Magyar folk songs. Later, he resumed his career as a concert pianist, while composing several works for his own use. As a neo-classicist, primitivist, and nationalist composer, Bartok used Hungarian folk themes and rhythms. He also utilized changing meters and strong syncopations. His compositions were successful because of their rich melodies Image: almusic.com and lively rhythms. He admired the musical styles of Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky. But he eventually shed their influences in favor of Hungarian folk and peasant themes. These later became a major source of the themes of his works. Bartok is most famous for his Six String Quartets (1908-1938). These represent the greatest achievement of his creative life, spanning a full 30 years for their completion. The six works combine difficult and dissonant music with mysterious sounds. The Concerto for Orchestra (1943), a five-movement work composed late in Bartok\'s life, features the exceptional talents of its various soloists in an intricately constructed piece. The short and popular Allegro Barbaro (1911) for solo piano is punctuated with swirling rhythms and percussive chords, while Mikrokosmos (1926-1939), a set of six books containing progressive technical piano pieces, introduces and familiarizes the piano student with contemporary harmony and rhythm. Bartok\'s approximately 700 musical compositions include concerti, orchestral music, piano music, instrumental music, dramatic music, choral music, and songs. In 1940, the political developments in Hungary led him to migrate to the United States, where he died on September 26, 1945 in New York City. Neo-Classicism co-classicism was a moderating factor between the emotional excesses of the Romantic period and the violent impulses of the soul in expressionism/it was, in essence, a partial return to an earlier style of writing, particularly the tightly-knit form of the Classical period, while combining tonal harmonies with slight dissonances. It also adopted a modern, freer use of the seven-note diatonic scale. Examples of neo-classicism are Bela Bartok\'s Song of the Bagpipe and Piano Sonata. In this latter piece, the Classical three-movement format is combined with ever-shifting time signatures, complex but exciting rhythmic patterns, as well as harmonic dissonances that produce harsh chords. The neo-classicist style was also used by composers such as Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, and Sergei Prokofieff. SERGEI PROKOFIEFF (1891-1953) Sergei Prokofieff is regarded today as a combination of a neo-classicist, nationalist, and avant-garde composen His style is uniquely recognizable for its progressive technique, pulsating rhythms, melodic directness, and a resolving dissonance. Born in the Ukraine in 1891, , Prokofieff set out for the St. Petersburg Conservatory equipped with his great talent as a composer and pianist. His early compositions were branded as avant-garde and were not approved of by his elders. He continued to follow his stylistic path and fled to other places, hoping for a better acceptance of his creativity. His contacts with Diaghilev and Stravinsky gave him the chance to write music for the ballet and opera, notably the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the opera War and Peace, Much of Prokofieff\'s Image: quintessentialrurt wordpress.com ópera was left unfinished, due in part to resistance by the performers themselves to the seemingly offensive musical content. He became prolific in writing symphonies, chamber music, concerti, and solo instrumental music. He also wrote Peter and the Wolf, a lighthearted orchestral work intended for children, to appease the continuing government crackdown on avant-garde composers at the time. Prokofieff was highly successful in his piano music, as evidenced by the wide acceptance of his piano concerti and sonatas, featuring toccata-like rhythms and biting harmonic dissonance within a Classical form and structure. Other significant compositions include the Symphony no. 1 (also called Classical Symphony), his most accessible orchestral work linked to the combined styles of classicists Haydn and Mozart and neo-classicist Stravinsky. He also composed violin sonatas, some of which are also performed on the flute; two highly regarded violin concerti, and two string quartets inspired by Beethoven. FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963) \- Francis Jean Marcel Poulene was one of the relatively few composers born into wealth and a privileged social position. He was a member of the group of young French composers known as \"Les Six,/ He rejected the heavy romanticism of Wagner and the so-called imprecision of Debussy and Ravel. His compositions had a coolly elegant modernity, tempered by a classical sense of proportion. Poulene was also fond of the witty approach of Erik Satie, as well as the early neo-classical works of Stravinsky. Poulenc was a successful composer for piano, voice, and choral music. His instrumental works include the harpsichord concerto, known as Concert Champetre (1928); the Concerto for Two Pianos (1932), which combines the classical touches of Mozart with a refreshing mixture of wit and exoticism in the style of Ravel; and a Concerto for Solo Piano (1949) written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Poulenc\'s vocal works reveal his strength as a lyrical melodist. Image:youtube.com His opera works include Les Mamelles de Tiresias (1944), which explain his light-hearted character; Dialogues des Carmelites 1956), which highlighted his conservative writing style; and La Voix Humane (1958), which reflects his own turbulent emotional life. Poulenc\'s choral works tended to be more somber and solemn, as portrayed by Litanies a la vierge noire (Litanies of the Black Madonna, 1936), with its monophony, simple harmony, and startling dissonance; and Stabat Mater (1950), which carries a Baroque solemnity with a prevailing style of unison singing and repetition. Poulenc\'s musical compositions total around 185 which include solo piano works, as well as vocal solos (known as melodies) which highlight his temperament in his avant-garde style. He died in Paris on January 30, 1963. Other members of \"Les Six\" Georges Auric (1899-1983) wrote music for the movies and rhythmic music with lots of chergy. Louis Durey (1888-1979) used traditional ways of composing and wrote in his own, personal way, not wanting to follow form. Arthur Honegger (1882-1955) liked chamber music and the symphony. His popular piece Pacific 231 describes a train journey on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was a very talented composer who wrote in several different styles. Some of his music uses bitonality and polytonality (writing in two or more keys at the same time). His love of jazz can be heard in popular pieces like Le Boeuf sur le Toit which he called a cinema-symphony. Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) was the only female in the group. She liked to use dance rhythms. She loved children and animals and wrote many works about them. She also wrote operas, concerti, and many works for the piano. Avant-Garde Music losely associated with electronic music, the avant-garde movement dealt With the parameters or the dimensions of sound in space! The avant-garde style exhibited a new attitude toward musical mobility, whereby the order of note groups could be varied so that musical continuity could be altered. Improvisation was a necessity in this style, for the musical scores were not necessarily followed as written. For example, one could expect a piece to be read by a performer from left to right or vice versa. Or the performer might turn the score over, and go on dabbling indefinitely in whatever order before returning to the starting point. From the United States, there were avant-garde composers such as George Gershwin and John Cage with their truly unconventional composition techniques; Leonard Bernstein with his famed stage musicals and his music lectures for young people, and Philip Glass with his minimalist compositions. Through their works, these composers truly extended the boundaries of what music was thought to be in earlier periods. The unconventional methods of sound and form, as well as the absence of traditional rules governing harmony, melody, and rhythm, make the whole concept of avant-garde music quite strange to ears accustomed to traditional compositions. Other composers who used this style include Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez. GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) George Gershwin was born in New York to Russian Jewish immigrants. His older brother Tra was his artistic collaborator who wrote the lyrics of his songs. His first song was written in 1916 and his first Broadway musical, La La Lucille, in 1919. / From that time on, Gershwin\'s name became a fixture on Broadway. He also composed Rhapsody in Blue \(1924) and An American in Paris (1928), which incorporated jazz rhythms with classical forms. His opera Porgy and Bess (1934) remains to this day the only American opera to be included in the established repertory of this genre. In spite of his commercial success, Gershwin was more fascinated with classical music. He was influenced by Ravel, Stravinsky, Berg, and Schoenberg, as well as the group of contemporary French composers known as \"Les Six\" that would Image: songbook1. wordpress.com shape the character of his major works-half jazz and half classical. Gershwin\'s melodic gift was considered phenomenal, as evidenced by his numerous songs of wide appeal. He is a true \"crossover artist,\" in the sense that his serious compositions remain highly popular in the classical repertoire, as his stage and film songs continue to be jazz and vocal standards. Considered the \"Father of American Jazz,\" his \"mixture of the primitive and the sophisticated\" gave his music an appeal that has lasted long after his death. Gershwin\'s musical compositions total around 369 which include orchestral music, chamber music, musical theater, film musicals, operas, and songs. He died in Hollywood, California, USA on July 11, 1937. LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990) San in Massachusetts, USA, Leonard Bernstein endeared himself to his many to owers aske charismatic conductor, pianist, composer, and lecturer/His big break came when he was Orked to substitute for the ailing Bruno Walter in conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert on November 14, 1943. The overnight success of this event started his reputation as a great interpreter of the classics as well as of the more complex works of Gustav Mahler. Bernstein\'s philosophy was that the universal language of music is basically rooted in tonality. This came under fire from the radical young musicians who espoused the serialist principles of that time. Although he never relinquished his musical values as a composer, he later turned to conducting and lecturing in order to safeguard his principles as to what he believed was best in music. He achieved preeminence in two fields: Image: biography.com conducting and composing for Broadway musicals, dance shows, and concert music. Bernstein is best known for his compositions for the stage. Foremost among these is the musical West Side Story (1957), an American adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which displays a tuneful, off-beat, and highly atonal approach to the songs. Other outputs include another Broadway hit Candide (1956) and the much-celebrated Mass (1971), which he wrote for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He also composed the music for the film On the Waterfront (1954). PHILIP GLASS (born 1937) One of the most commercially successfil minimalist composers is Philip Glass who is also an elevisgarde composer/ He explored the territories of ballet, opera, theater, film, and even television jingles. His distinctivesye invoves cel-tike phrases emanating from bright electronic sounds from the keyboard that progressed very slowly from one pattern to the next in a very repetitious fashion. Aided by soothing vocal effects and horn sounds, his music is often criticized as uneventful and shallow, yet startlingly effective for its hypnotic charm. Born in New York, USA of Jewish parentage, Glass became an accomplished violinist and flutist at the age of 15. In Paris, he became inspired by the music of the renowned Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar. He assisted Shankar in the soundtrack recording Image: buffalo.edu for Conrad Rooks\' film Chappaqua. He formed the Philip Glass Ensemble and produced works such as Music in Similar Motion (1969) and Music in Changing Parts (1970), which combined rock-type grooves with perpetual patterns played at extreme volumes. Glass collaborated with theater conceptualist Robert Wilson to produce the four-hour opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), an instant sell-out at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It put minimalism in the mainstream of 20th century music. He completed the trilogy with the operas Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1984), based on the lives of Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, and an Egyptian pharaoh. Here, he combined his signature repetitive and overlapping style with theatrical grandeur on stage. His musical New York, USA. compositions total around 170. Today, Glass lives alternately in Nova Scotia, Canada and Modern Nationalism And siminatosury music development focused on nationalist composers and musical innovators who sought to combine modern techniques with folk materials. However, this common ground stopped there, for the different breeds of nationalists formed their own styles of writing. In Eastern Europe, prominent figures of this style included the Hungarian Bela Bartok and the Russian Sergei Prokofieff, who were neo-classicists to a certain extent. Bartok infused Classical techniques into his own brand of cross rhythms and shifting meters to demonstrate many barbaric and primitive themes that were Hungarian particularly gypsy in origin. Prokofieff used striking dissonances and Russian themes, and his music was generally witty, bold, and at times colored with humor. Together with Bartok, Prokofie ff made extensive use of polytonality, a kind of atonality that uses two or more tonal centers simultaneously. An example of this style is Prokofieff\'s Visions Fugitive. In Russia, a highly gifted generation of creative individuals known as the \"Russian Five\" --- Modest Mussorgsky, Mili Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, Cesar Cui, and Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov infused Image: sheetmusicdirect.com Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov chromatic harmony and incorporated Russian folk music and liturgical chants in their thematic materials. French composer and pianist Erik Satie was a colorful figure in early 20th century music, specifically avant-garde and modern nationalism. 21st CENTURY MUSIC TRENDS se scholars predict that the inhovative and experimental developments 20so century classical must it the intovaine and the music of the 21st century. With so mise techmical and sylisic wil continety enses, the possibilities for \"nee\" Me and radical experienchore pen to today son, moderm technology andads sil ave a great impact onciation a music he Ayer, what remains to be seen is when this trend wil shit, and what the distinet qualities of emerging classical works will be. SUMMARY The carly half of the 20th century also gav rise to new musical styles, whicher. These squite as extreme as the electronic, chance, and minimalist styles that arose later. These naionles were impressionism, expressionism, neo-classicism, avant garde music, and modern Impressionism made use of the whole-tone scale. It also applied suggested, rather than epicted, reality. It created a mood rather than a definite picture. It had a translucent and hazy texture, lacking a dominant-tonic relationship. It made use of overlapping chords, with 4th, Sth, octaves, and 9th intervals, resulting in a nontraditional harmonic order and resolution. Expressionism revealed the composer\'s mind, instead of presenting an impression of the environment. It used atonality and the twelve-tone scale, lacking stable and conventional harmonies. It served as a medium for expressing strong emotions, such as anxiety, rage, and alienation. Neo-classicism was a partial return to a Classical form of writing music with carefully modulated dissonances. It made use of a freer seven-note diatonic scale. The avant-garde style was associated with electronic music and dealt with the parameters or dimensions of sound in space. It made use of variations of self-contained note groups to change musical continuity and improvisation, with an absence of traditional rules on harmony, melody, and rhythm. Modern nationalism was a looser form of 20th century music development that focused on folk materials. nationalist composers and musical innovators who sought to combine modern techniques with A number of outstanding composers of the 20th century each made their own distinctive mark on the contemporary classical music styles that developed. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel were the primary exponents of impressionism, while Arnold Schoenberg was the primary exponent of expressionism, with the use of the twelve-tone scale and atonality. Igor Stravinsky was also an expressionist and a neo-classical composer. He incorporated nationalistic elements in his music, known for his skillful handling of materials and his rhythmic inventiveness. Bela Bartok was a neo-classical, modern nationalist, and primitivist composer who adopted Hungarian folk themes to introduce rhythms with changing meters and heavy syncopation. Sergei Prokofieff is regarded today as a combination of neo-classicist, nationalist, and avant-garde composer. Francis Poulene was a successful composer for piano, voice, and choral music. His compositions had a cooly elegant modernity tempered by a classical sense of proportion. George Gershwin is considered the \"Father of American Jazz.\" His works range from classical compositions to songs for stage and film. Leonard Bernstein is best known for his compositions for the stage and his music lectures for young people. Philip Glass is a commercially successful minimalist and avant-garde composer. EDGARD VARESE (1883-1965) Edgard (also spelled Edgar) Varèse was born on December 22, 1883\. He was considered an \"innovative French-born composer.\" However, he spent the greater part of his life and career in the United States, where he pioneered and created new sounds that bordered between music and noise. The musical compositions of Varese are characterized by an emphasis on timbre and rhythm. He invented the term \"organized sound,\" which means that certain timbres and rhythms can be Image: blogs.niz.de grouped together in order to capture a whole new definition of sound. Although his complete surviving works are scarce, he has been recognized to have influenced several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse\'s use of new instruments and electronic resources earned him the title \"Father of Electronic Music.\" Also described as \"The Stratospheric Colossus of Sound,\" his musical compositions total around 50, with his advances in tape-based sound proving revolutionary during his time. He died on November 6, 1965. KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN (born 1928) Karlheinz Stockhausen is a central figure in the realm of electronic music. Born in Cologne, Germany, he had the opportunity to meet Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern, the principal innovators at the time. Together with Pierre Boulez, Stockhausen drew inspiration from these composers as he developed his style of total serialism. Image:youtube.com Stockhausen\'s music was initially met with resistance due to its heavily atonal content with practically no clear melodic or rhythmic sense. Still, he continued to experiment with musique concrete. Some of his works include Gruppen (1957), a piece for three orchestras that moved music through time and space; Kontakte (1960), a work that pushed the tape machine to its limits; anthems from around the world. and the epic Hymnen (1965), an ambitious two-hour work of 40 juxtaposed songs and The climax of his compositional ambition came in 1977 when he announced the creation of Licht (Light), a seven-part opera (one for each day of the week) for a gigantic ensemble of solo voices, solo instruments, solo dancers, choirs, orchestras, mimes, and electronics. His recent Helicopter String Quartet, in which a string quartet performs while airborne in four different helicopters, develops his long-standing fascination with music which moves in space. It has led him to dream of concert halls in which the sound attacks the listener from every direction. Stockhausen\'s works total around 31. He presently resides in Germany. Chance Music Chance asic rates to ne and in hit the picte son, s dife ent st oring modulators or natural elements that become a part of the music. Most of the sounds emanate from the surroundings, both natural and man-made, such as honking cars, rustling leaves, blowing wind, dripping water, or a ringing phone. As such, the combination of external sounds cannot be duplicated as each happens by chance. An example is John Cage\'s Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds (4\'33\") where the pianist merely opens the piano lid and keeps silent for the duration of the piece. Amidst the seeming silence, the audience hears a variety of noises inside and outside the concert hall. JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) John Cage was known as one of the 20th century composers with the widest array of sounds in his works. He was born in Los Angeles, Califomia, USA on September 5, 1912 and became one of the most original composers in the history of Western music. He challenged the very idea of music by manipulating music. He challenged the very do achieve new sounds i.\" experimented with what came to be known as \"chance music.\" In one instance, Cage created a \"prepared\" piano, where screws and pieces of wood or paper were inserted between the piano surings to produce different percussive possibilities. The prepared image: piano style found its way into Cage\'s Sonatas and Interludes classical-sce (1946-1948), a cycle of pieces containing a wide range of hinds, rhythmic themes, and a hypnotic quality. His involvement with Zen Buddhism inspired him to compose Music of Changes (1951), written for conventional piano, that employed chance compositional processes. CONCERT FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA, 1958 (Cover, instruction sheet, and pages 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) John Cage He became famous for his composition Four Minutes and 33 Seconds (4\'33\"), a chance musical work that instructed the pianist to merely open the piano lid and remain silent for the length of time indicated by the title. The work was intended to convey the impossibility of achieving total silence, since surrounding sounds can still be heard amidst the silence of the piano performance. Cage also advocated bringing real-life experiences into the concert hall. This reached its extreme when he composed a work that required him to fry mushrooms on stage in order to derive the sounds from the cooking process. As a result of his often irrational ideas like this, he developed a following in the 1960s. However, he gradually returned to the more organized methods of composition in the last 20 years of his life. More than any other modern composer, Cage influenced the development of modern music since the 1950s. He was considered more of a musical philosopher than a composer. His conception of what music can and should be has had a profound impact upon his contemporaries. He was active as a writer, presenting his musical views with both wit and intelligence. Cage was an important force in other artistic areas especially dance and musical theater. His musical compositions total around 229. Cage died in New York City on August 12, 1992. SUMMARY The new musical styles created by 20th century classical composers were truly unique and innovative. They experimented with the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, and timbre in daring ways never attempted before. Some even made use of electronic devices such as synthesizers, tape recorders, amplifiers, and the like to introduce and enhance sounds beyond those available with traditional instruments. Among the resulting new styles were electronic music and chance music. These expanded the concept of music far beyond the conventions of earlier periods, and challenged both the new composers and the listening public. As the 20th century progressed, so did the innovations in musical styles as seen in the works of these composers. From France, Edgard Varese\'s use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the \"Father of Electronic Music\" and a description of him as \"The Stratospheric Colossus of Sound.\" From Germany, there was Karlheinz Stockhausen, who further experimented with electronic music and musique concrete. Stockhausen\'s electronic sounds revealed the rich musical potential of modern technology. From the United States, there was John Cage with his truly unconventional composition techniques. Cage\'s works feature the widest array of sounds from the most inventive sources.