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Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé was a French symbolist poet and critic. He served on the royal court of Paris. His work is muti-layered and structured in such an artistic and symbolic way, which allowed for one poem to have multiple meanings. He is famously credited with writing what became the inspiration for Debussy's "Prelude to 'The Afternoon of a Faun'". -
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G. Mahler
Gustav Mahler was an Austrian composer and conductor who made important expansions in symphonies and Lieder. He utilized aspects of non-Western musical culture. His orchestral and symphonic works were very influential on the Maximalist movement. He composed 10 programmatic symphonies, 5 orchestral song cycles, and many works of Lieder and chamber music. -
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C. Debussy
Debussy was by far the most important early 20th century, post romantic French composers. He is credited with writing the first modern orchestral work "Prelude to 'The Afternoon of a Faun'" in 1894. He was extremely influential in the formation of modern music and impressionism. He wrote an opera, a ballet, and many other chamber, choral, piano, and orchestral works. Some of his most famous works are 'Clair de Lune' (1890) and 'La Mer' (1905) -
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R. Strauss
Richard Strauss was a German composer whose works are the epitome of Maximalism. He expanded on Wagner's use of chromaticism, pushing the limits of tonality. His style had huge orchestration and an excessive amount of motives, often polyphonically. He was famous for operas, tone poems, and Lieder, having composed 150 Lieder and 15 operas in his time. Among his most famous works are 'Salome' (1905) and 'Elektra' (1909). -
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A. Schönberg
Arnold Schönberg was an Austrian composer, theorist, and painter. Schönberg began composing music at 10 years old. In the beginning, his works were more tonal and romantic like 'Verklarte Nacht' (1899), but over time evolved to become more atonal. He began going atonal in 1907, creating "tone rows" and inventing the 12 tone method or serialism. His later writings are much heavier with atonality like his compositions using 'Pierrot Lunaire'. He taught Berg and Webern his atonal techniques. -
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M. Ravel
Maurice Ravel was a French composer, credited with writing the first impressionist piano piece. He was an extremely versatile, skilled orchestrator, especially for piano works. -
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I. Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky was a famous evolving musical style. He composed things in a Russian style, French Style, Serialist, and Neoclassical style. His overall style was brash, rhythmically complex, and had sharp dissonant details. His most well known work is "The Rite of Spring". -
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L. Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski is a very famous English conductor. He is best known for his longstanding association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his cameo in the Disney movie 'Fantasia'. -
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A. Webern
Webern was a student of Schönberg and is known for his brevity and use of pointillism. -
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A. Berg
He learned to compose in the expressionist style under Schönberg and more completely carried on the atonal expressionism of his teacher. -
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Nadia Boulanger
Boulanger was an extremely influential teacher of 20th century composers; All of the most prominent composers of the first half of the 20th century studied under her. -
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Post-Romantic Period
The Post-Romantic period is a small amount of time between the Romantic period and Modern era, where there was a great amount of change. It had a few main musical styles, which were Maximalism, Impressionism, and Expressionism. -
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Maximalism
Maximalism is a style of Post-Romantic music, where everything was to the extreme. It contained high levels of chromaticism, motivic complexity, huge performance groups, and thick textures. -
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Impressionism
Impression is a style of Post-Romantic music named after the French style of painting. It is characterized by unresolved dissonance, exotic scales, parallel chords, and a general vague feeling. It is considered one of first anti-Romantic styles. It was meant to go as far from Germanic, heroic type music as possible. -
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a famous, 2 part ballet that was composed by Tchaikovsky. While it was not an immediate success, it was made popular by the suite and is still very popular in culture today. -
"Prelude to 'The Afternoon of a Faun'" (Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune)
"Prelude to 'The Afternoon of a Faun'" is an extremely famous impressionist work by Debussy. It is based off of a tone poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. In the piece, the piece represents the faun who intends to cause mischief. -
Cinematographe Invented
In 1895, Louis and Auguste Lumière introduced the first cinematographe and projector, essentially the worlds first movie projector. -
"Nocturnes"
"Nocturnes" is an impressionist orchestral composition by Debussy. It was very important and a good example of impressionist music. Though it was published and performed, Debussy worked on tweaking and changing parts of "Nocturnes", until he died. -
Introduction of Polytonality, Polyrhythm, and Atonality
Largely because of the shift away from romanticism, the Post-Romantic period was about pushing musical boundaries. Because of this, there was a large increase in atonality, polyrhythm, and polytonality. This resulted in much more complex music. -
First Sustained Flight
The first sustained, powered flight by the Wright brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. -
'La Mer' (The Sea)
"La Mer" is a popular composition by Debussy. It is described as being very beautifully symbolistic and impressionistic. It is often depicted in relation to the painting "The Great Wave". -
"Salome"
"Salome" is a world renowned opera written by German composer, Richard Strauss. This opera follows the acts of Salome and is famous for the "Dance of Seven Veils". -
Expressionism
Expressionism is a style of music that was popular in Germany and Austria in the Post-Romantic period. It focuses heavily on atonality and lacks of chord progression rules. -
MDMA Developed
MDMA, also known as ecstasy, was developed in 1912 by Merck chemical company to enhance psychotherapy. -
'The Rite of Spring'
"The Rite of Spring" was a ballet produced by Stravinsky in 1913. It was one of the first of its kind, with brash music and "ugly" choreography. It was not well received on its opening night for a myriad of audience based reasons, but it did become successful regardless. -
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World War I
World War I was a war between the Allied and Central powers, which began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. -
Les Six
Les Six is a group of composers, originally formed by Erik Satie and called Les Nouveaux Jeunes. The name Les Six was coined by Henri Collet in the 1920 French journal 'Commedia'. The group consisted of Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre. -
19th Amendment
This amendment gave women the right to vote. -
12 Tone Method (Serialism)
The 12 tone method is a system of musical composition, in which a 12 tone chart is used and each tone can only be applied to the chart one time. The line can then be read in either prime, retrograde, inversion, or retrograde-inversion. -
Black Thursday
Black Thursday is the historic day that the stock market plummeted, dramatically. This is considered the first day of the 1929 Stock Market crash.