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Arnold Schoenberg
The father of 12-tone music; important as an innovator; teacher of Webern and Berg -
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Igor Stravinsky
One of the most versatile and interesting composers of the 20th century; rhythmic style; harmonically interesting -
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Zoltan Kodaly
Hungarian; ethnomusicologist, music educator; created moveable 'do' solfege system -
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Gian Francesco Malipiero
Italian composer and musicologist; original and inventive -
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Edgard Varese
French-American; wrote non-tonal music, focusing on elements other than pitch; innovative; took interest in electronic music and the idea of organized sound as music -
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Heitor Villa-Lobos
Brazilian composer and cellist -
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Ernst Toch
Austrian composer; awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his Symphony No. 3; prolific composer -
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Louis Durey
Turned communist in 1936; not talked about much in music history; anti-USA -
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Frank Martin
Swiss composer of French descent -
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Sergei Prokofiev
Russian composer and pianist; important as a Russian voice in Western culture -
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Germaine Tailleferre
French composer; too modest; beautiful music -
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Arthur Honegger
From Switzerland; admired Bach -
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Darius Milhaud
Friends with Satie; used polytonality; one of the first to use jazz in concert music; came to the United States in 1940 -
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Paul Hindemith
German conductor, teacher, author, and composer; wrote music for the practicing musician -
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William Grant Still
American composer; the first African-American composer to have his symphony performed by a leading orchestra; the first black American to conduct a major orchestra; the first black American to write for radio, TV, and films; he incorporated folk idioms, jazz, and spirituals -
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Roger Sessions
American composer, theorist, and teacher, atonal mostly; intense and dissonant -
Period: to
Virgil Thomson
American composer, teacher, and conductor of Swedish ancestry; neo-romantic style -
Period: to
George Gershwin
Influential American composer, pianist. and conductor who worked in Hollywood; he successfully fused jazz and pop music -
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Duke Ellington
American jazz composer, band-leader and pianist; Created a unique style of big-band jazz; one of the first African-American composers to cross races with his music -
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Georges Auric
French composer; by age 15 he had written over 200 works; wrote for French film -
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Francis Poulenc
French composer; delicate and sometimes irreverent style; harmonically charming -
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Aaron Copland
Most popular American composer of the 20th century; teacher, conductor, author; his music still has a special appeal to the American public -
Period: to
Louis Armstrong
African-American jazz musician who revolutionized jazz; singer, band-leader, and trumpeter -
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Dimitri Shostakovich
Versatile; the most important Russian composer working in Russia in his day -
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William Schuman
American composer and teacher; used borrowed subjects -
Period: to
Samuel Barber
American composer and accomplished singer; child prodigy and gifted melodist; continued with a successful conservative tonality in the midst of the 20th-century musical experimentations -
Period: to
John Cage
American composer and philosopher; most innovative composer of the 20th century, changed the definition of music; used indeterminacy; he was the center of avant-garde music in the mid-20th century -
Period: to
The Great Depression
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Stylistic Traits
Melodic freedom; dissonant chords; polychords and tone clusters; 12 tone system; large scope of types of music; cadences are most predictable depending on the piece -
Period: to
Genres
Maximalism and minimalism; impressionism; expressionism; jazz; serialism; electronic, primitivism -
Electric Guitar Invented
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Period: to
World War II
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Amplifier