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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
An Austrian composer and conductor who was also known as a maximalist due to the nature of some of his orchestral works. He composed 10 symphonies during this musical career. -
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
An important French composer and pianist who invented musical impressionism. He was credited for composing the first modern orchestral work. He's composed one opera, one ballet, chamber music, piano music, choral music, and other orchestral works that are similar to tone poems. -
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
A German composer whose works were the epitome of maximalism. He composed tone poems and some of the first modern operas such as Salome. -
Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Although he wasn't an impressionist, he was a leader in new French aesthetics that impressionism was built on. He came up with what's known as furniture music. -
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
An Austrian-American composer who's the father of the 12-tone music. He was also the teacher of Webern and Berg. -
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
An American composer who was the most original, innovative, and creative of all 20th century composers. He is also known as a composer who innovated atonality. -
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
A French Impressionist composer who's been credited for writing the first Impressionist piano piece. -
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
A Russian composer whose musical style would often change. For example, he had a "Russian (circa 1920)", "French (1910)", "Neoclassical (1920-54)", and a "Serialist (1954-68)" period. Best known for his musical piece "The Rite of Spring." His musical styles include being harsh, ostinati, rhythmically complex, tonal with dissonance, and self-borrowing. -
Anton von Webern (1883-1945)
An Austrian composer who was a student of Arnold Schoenberg. -
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
This oil on canvas painting was done by Georges Seurat and the technique used to create it is called pointillism. Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small dots of color are applied to create an image. Being part of the impressionism movement, the main focus of artistic works was light and color. -
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Another Austrian composer and student of Arnold Schoenberg. -
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Maximalism
Despite 'maximalism' not being used as a term during its time period, it's been used by Richard Taruskin to describe the musical styles of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and others. Maximalism can be best defined as a style in which musical elements are pushed outside of traditional boundaries to the extreme. The music in Maximalism was thick and packed with themes and motives. The orchestras were huge and could contain hundreds to a thousand members. -
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Styles of the Post-Romantic Period
This includes maximalism, impressionism, expressionism, as well as undisguised avant-garde, dadaism, neo-classicism, primivitism, and non-tonal music throughout the era. -
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Impressionism (circa 1890)
This musical style was introduced by Debussy in France. Keeping many musical elements, the rules of chord progressions were ignored, meaning all chords were equal. Parallel chords created color and it was common to have dissonance without resolution. This style is also characterized by exotic, whole tone, and pentatonic scales. Melody is an important element, but didn't have to follow traditional expectations of growth and resolution. Harmonies were vague. Common forms were binary and ternary. -
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Common Genres of Composed Music
The some common types of genre during the post-romantic era include symphonies, operas, ballets, and Lieders.
Symphonies are musical compositions for full orchestras that are typically four movements and follow sonata form. Operas are a type of theatre that has one or more acts in which music and roles are taken by singers. Ballets are dance forms that are performed to music and is characterized by graceful movement. Lieders simply translates (from German) to songs. -
Nafea Fa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)
The painting 'Nafea Fa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)' by French artist Paul Gauguin. Represents the visual style of the primitivism era. -
Prelude A L'apres-midi D'un Faune (1894)
An example of impressionism, Debussy composed Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun after artist Stéphane Mallarmé requested him to. This piece represented Mallarmé's poem "The Afternoon of a Faun." -
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Primitivism
A Western visual art movement that made use of subjects that weren't Western, but instead native in nature. -
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Neo-Classicism
This was a time where there was a return to the clarity and objectivity of the 18th century. A period in which textures, topics, forms from the past were combined with the modern harmonies, tonalities, and timbres. -
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Expressionism (circa 1910)
Brought to Germany with Arnold Schoenberg leading the way. In expressionism, all twelve notes were treated equally and with that, atonality was created since tonality was abandoned. This musical style is the most rebellious of Post-Romantic styles as it turned away from all traditional expectations of music. The primary goal of using this style of music was emotional expression. The binary and ternary form as well as variations were popular in expressionism. -
Pierrot lunaire (1912)
This musical work serves as an example of expressionism and is a melodrama. It's an expressionism example due to its atonal style. -
The Rite of Spring (1913)
A ballet and orchestral piece by Igor Stravinsky. This tells the story of a pagan ritual in which sage elders sit around a young girl, to be sacrificed, dance to death. This ballet was one never seen before as its music and choreography was considered radical for its time. Its music was rhythmically forceful and other "disturbing" elements include irregular accents, a percussive orchestra, and polyrhythms. There were mixed reviews from people. Overall, this work is an example of primitivism. -
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World War I
Also known as the Great War, World War I started after the assassination of Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The war lasted for four years and was it between the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire) and the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States). -
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Dadaism
A movement of anti-art thinking where artists and poets (in the mid 1910s) reacted against war and the bourgeois in Europe. Artists including the literary and fine arts humanities were attracted by this movement. Art was questioned and what was preferred during this time was nonsense, intuition, and irrationality. -
Furniture Music (1917)
This music is intended to be played in the background without drawing attention to itself. Instead, it's supposed to harmonize with other noises and sounds that exist in a particular environment. Elevator music is an example of this. -
Atonality (A.K.A. Non-tonal Music)
The composition style of music that focused on musical elements except for pitch. This kind of music does not follow any major/minor keys or modes. -
The Great Depression
After the stock market crashed in 1929, millions of investors dropped and millions of people lost employment. It was the worst economic depression faced by the industrial world. It lasted until the late 1930s.