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Mahler (1860 - 1911)
Gustav Mahler was born in 1860. He was an Austrian composer who was renounced for his conduction and building a bride between 19th century tradition and 20th century modernism. Popular pieces include 'Symphony no. 5' and 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'. -
Debussy (1862 - 1918)
Claude Debussy was born in 1862. He was considered a rare genius of composition and the father of impressionism. He specialized in piano ballads with delicate melodies with suggestion of harmonies. His popular pieces include "Afternoon of a Faun", "Claire de Lune", "La Mer", and "Reverie". -
Strauss (1864 - 1949)
Richard Strauss was born in 1864. Strauss is known for his injection of unusual realism into his pieces, although he could write beautiful melodies. Popular pieces include 'Salome', 'RosenKavalieu', and "Thus Spake Zauathustua". -
Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)
Arnold Schoenberg was born in 1874. He is known for his formulation of the 12 tone system compositions, writing the first "atonal" piece. He had stated in his life that he had composed a song cycle that had "broken the bonds of bygone aesthetic". Popular pieces include "Variations for Orchestra" and " Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten". -
Bartok (1881 - 1945)
Bela Bartok was born in 1881. He is known as a composer with an ethnic mix on classical works. He traveled significantly in his 20's throughout the Hungarian and Romanian countryside, collecting and recording melodies throughout that time, which were later released as composition. Popular pieces include "Duke Bluebeard's Castle", "Miraculous Mandarin', and "Cantata Profana". -
Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)
Igor Stravinsky was born in 1882. He is regarded highly for his restored unwavering pulse that proved essential to advancing the modern ballet. He focuses on articulation and emphasis in his pieces, leading to a "clean" sound, and made a lasting contribution to serial music (12-tone music). Popular pieces include "Rake's Progress", "Movements", and "Variations (Aldous Huxley in Memoriam)". -
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Melody
Changes of melody during this era focused on chromatic, whole-tone scales. Many composers decided to turn away from western scales by emphasizing on the importance of either traditional form or harmony. -
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Genres
Genres during this era focused heavily on the rise of the opera and the symphony. Solo song paired with orchestra (homophonic) melodies often paired with symphonic poems for pieces. Single instrument preludes and introductions to larger pieces were also common. -
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Audience
In the Post-Romantic era, public reach of music skyrocketed due to the rising popularity of the public theater, giving people the opportunity to attend operas, orchestras, and other public performances and experience them live. -
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Impressionism, Expressionism, & Neo-Classicism
Impressionism, Expressionism, and Neo-Classicism was a huge influence of post-romantic songs. Not devoid of romantic elements, impressionism focused on the "vagueness" of a piece, while expressionism focused on the expression of the inner self, especially the subconscious. Neo-Classicism is the return of 18th-century ideals while retaining modern techniques of harmony, tonality, and melody. -
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Individualism
Individualism was one of the most prominent traits in the Post-Romantic era of music, emphasizing the principle of being unique and relatable to the human experience of self-reliance. Debussy popularly used this technique by creating songs based on poetry. -
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Harmony
Harmony in this era focused solely on weak tonal centers, adding chromaticism and free treatment of dissonance. -
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Rhythm
Rhythm during this era heavily emphasized on floating rhythm, meaning that it lacked a sense of meter to better enhance the feeling of unpredictable nature and individualism. Pulse could be obsessive and homophonic. -
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Naturalism & Realism
During the Post-Romantic era, composers wrote their music with the idea of naturalism, and realism. These forms of music put insistence on nature's beauty, the reality of human experience, and the sound of "skimming colors" and light. -
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Instruments & Vocals
Popular forms of instruments during this era included the harp, classical piano, and bell-like percussion. Popular vocal forms included operatic and "angelic" harmonies accompanied by simple melodies of instruments. New inventions of this era included the Electronic Organ, Synthesizer, Electric Guitar, Electric Keyboard, and the introduction of electronic music through computers or other technology. -
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Gebrauchmusik
Gebrauchmusik is the utility of music, which describes how it is written for special purposes. This closes the gap between composer and audience by giving the audience an inside look into the experience of the composer when they wrote this piece. -
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Jazz
Jazz is hailed as one of the greatest original American artforms. Jazz originated in African-American communities throughout the late 19th century, specifically in New Orleans, LA. Popular forms of jazz created during this time include Ragtime, which attends prominence of syncopation in various patterns, and Blues, in which the subject matter usually deals with an atmosphere of self-pity, loss or heartbreak, and can be performed arranged or improvised. -
Milhaud (1892 - 1974)
Darius Milhaud was born in 1892. He is noted for his stage works, in which he wrote 15 operas, 13 ballets, and numerous pieces for cinema. Popular pieces include 'Suite Provencale' and 'Sumare'. -
Nutcracker
Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' is performed for the first time as a ballet at Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersberg, Russia. -
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Music through Media
In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi proved the feasibility of the radio connection, later leading to mass communication of music through radios, tape recordings, and photographs. This made music largely accessible to vasts amounts of the population/ -
Louis Armstrong (1901 - 1971)
Louis Armstrong was born in 1901. Often called the most influential figure in the rise of American Jazz, Armstrong was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist, and actor, whose career began in the 1920s and spanned almost 5 decades. Popular pieces include "What a Wonderful World" and "Dream a Little Dream of Me". -
Movie Theater
The first movie theater opens on June 19, 1905, in Pittsburgh, Penn. This begins the rise of cinematic scoring. -
Assasination of Archduke Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, Austria on June 28th, 1914, triggering a chain of events that leads to the first World War. -
19th Amendment
Women are given the right to vote in America. -
Walt Disney Studios
Walt Disney Company is formed in 1923 in a small office in Los Angeles, CA. The company later turns into a massive monopoly and creates the first animated film. -
Black Thursday
Panicked investors send the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging 11 percent at the open in very heavy volume, beginning the Stock Market Crash that later causes the Great Depression.
