The 20th Century was a time of great exploration and experiment in music.
Key features
Key Musical Features
harmonic exploration, moving away from traditional keys
development of new composition techniques, eg tone row and serial music
a backlash against Romantic ideals, with new focus on sound and timbre rather than melody
improved communications brought much bigger (ultimately worldwide) audiences, and introduced composers to a wider variety of musical styles
composers drew on 'popular' influences such as ragtime, blues, jazz, folk music and popular dance styles
new techniques in recording, instrument making and amplification lead to new ways of music-making
Important composers
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Arnold Schöenberg (1874-1951)
Benjamin Britten ((1913-1976
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
Oliver Messian (1908-1992)
Pitch and texture
New kinds of pitch and texture were widely experimented within this period.
Pitch
Tone row (note row): a compositional technique which uses all 12 semitones organised into an order by the composer.
Retrograde: the playing of a musical figure such as a tone row backwards.
Inversion: playing a musical figure upside down, with the intervals inverted.
Modulation: moving from one key to another.
Atonal: music with no key.
Texture
Orchestra: As Romantic, but extended use of percussion including a variety of drums, rattle, tubular bells, gongs, cymbals, xylophones, glockenspiels, marimba etc. Saxophones are sometimes added also.
Electronic music: music produced by electronic means, often recorded and then manipulated.
Experimental sound production: for example, in prepared piano, invented by John Cage, objects such as rubber bands, nuts, bolts and hairpins are attached to the piano strings to produce unusual sounds when the keys are struck.
Musical forms
New forms were developed while many traditional forms continued to thrive.
Traditional forms
Musical form
Composition
Instrumental music
Chamber music, Solo pieces
Church music
Requiem, Cantata
Orchestral
Symphony, Solo, Concerto
Vocal
Opera, Song cycle
Technological
Electronic
New forms
Serial music: music that uses the Tone Row.
Microtonal music: music composed using tones smaller than a semitone.
Minimalist music: music in which phrases are repeated over and over, with small changes introduced one by one.
Neo-Classical: music which uses much dissonance and less feeling of key - developed by composers such as Stravinsky and Batok who wanted to move away from the emotion of Romanticism.
Aleatoric music is the music of chance applied to many works written after WWII. Composers using this technique include Cage, Lutoslavski, Stockhausen and Xenakis. Often the actual musical material is pre determined but it is the performers who decide which sections are played in which order.
Serialism and Minimalism
These were particularly influential innovations in 20th Century music.
Serialism
Schöenberg was the founder of serialism, a 12-note system that replaced tonality.
The composer first arranges the 12 notes of the chromatic scale in any order of his or her choice. This becomes the note-row.
All 12 notes are of equal importance and they should appear in the order of the note-row, although they can be repeated.
As well as using the note-row in its original form, it may be used backwards (retrograde), upside down (inversion), or both backwards and upside down (retrograde inversion).
Each of these can be transposed to begin on any note of the chromatic scale.
Playing the clips will help you to follow these changes.
Original
Retrograde
Inversion
Retrograde Inversion
Schöenberg's pupils Berg and Webern also took up serialism.
Berg was much freer in his approach and often brought in extra material not drawn form the series.
Webern was much stricter in his use of serialism.
Minimalism
This kind of music uses repeated ostinati.
Small changes in musical phrase are introduced one by one.
This may include phase shifting in which parts gradually move out of sync with each other.
The music has a hypnotic quality.
Music technology may be employed.
Philip Glass and Steve Reich are prominent minimalist composers.
Listen to these two examples of minimalist music by Steve Reich:
Popular traditions had a big impact on 20th century art music.
Jazz influences
Several ingredients in general 20th century music can be traced back to the influence of American Jazz:
fresh vitality in rhythm, relying on syncopation
syncopated melodies above a steady beat
blues notes - flattening certain notes of the scale such as the 3rd or 7th
muted brass effects
a keener interest in percussive sounds
instruments playing in shrill registers
improvisatory elements – even resulting in aleatoric music where improvisation and performance choice is at the core of the composition
Ravel, Milhaud, Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Stravinsky, Walton and Copland are amongst composers who have used jazz elements in their works
Examples: 'Ragtime for eleven instruments' by Stravinksky; 'Piano Concerto' by Gershwin.
Folk influences
During the first half of the 20th century, nationalism had a large influence on the music.
Many composers studied folk songs and used folk melodies in their compositions. Examples are Britten, Copland, and Williams.
Soviet composers
Three of the great 20th century composers were from the Soviet Union (now Russia).
Sergey Prokofiev
He studied at St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1904.
After the Revolution he was given permission to travel abroad.
When he returned to Russia he found himself out of favour with the authorities and in 1948 the subject of particular and direct censure.
He died in 1953, on the same day as Stalin, and so could not enjoy the subsequent relaxation in musical censorship.
His most famous piece is probably 'Peter and the Wolf'.
Dmitry Shostakovich
Like many Soviet composers of his generation, he tried to reconcile the musical revolutions of his time with the urge to give a voice to revolutionary socialism.
His career varied with the political climate in Russia.
His opera 'Lady Macbeth' was condemned by Stalin.
His 'Ninth Symphony' brought criticism from officials who thought it too frivolous.
After Stalin's death he had more freedom to compose.
Igor Stravinsky
He studied music with Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 he moved to Western Europe, and then to the USA in 1939.
In the post-war years he turned from a style of eclectic neo-classicism to composing in the twelve-note technique invented by Schöenberg.
His most famous work was probably 'The Rite of Spring', containing representations of prehistoric pagan Russian rituals and sacrifice.