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Schoenberg
Father of 12-tone music and was an important innovator. Taught Webern and Berg. -
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Stravinsky
One of the most versatile and interesting composers of the 20th century, His works had rhythmic style and were harmonically interesting. -
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Kodaly
Hungarian ethnomusicologist. Also a music educator and created the movable do solfege system. -
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Malipiero
Italian composer and musicologist. Original and inventive. -
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Varese
French-American. He wrote non-tonal music and focused on elements other than pitch. Was innovative and was interested in electronic music and the idea of organized sound as music. -
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Villa-Lobos
Brazilian composer and cellist. -
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Toch
Austrian composer. Awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his Symphony No. 3. Prolific composer. -
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Durey
He was born in Paris to a family of non-musicians. He was the one who instigated Les Six's first album. Anti-War. Wrote many songs for the French Resistance during World War 2. Wrote with Vietnamese themes in the 1960s as a protest to the war. -
Impressionism
Starting in the post-romantic period and continued well into the 20th century. Introduced by Debussy in France. Another one of the first moderns styles. Held onto many musical elements, but let go of traditional rules. All chords treated equally and chord progression rules abandoned. Vague. Conveys atmosphere. Harmonics vague, but tonal. Lots of parallels. Harps and flutes favored. -
Expressionism
Started in the post-romantic period and continued into the 20th century. Emerged in Germany with Schoenberg leading the way sometime in post-romantic period. Tonality abandoned and all 12 notes treated equally. Strong emotional expression was the goal and melodies were optional. The parts that remained traditional were rhythm, form, and timbre. Schoenberg created new organized compositional practice in 1921. -
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Maximalism
One of the first modern styles. In direct contrast with minimalism as every musical element is pushed to the extreme. Tried to push against thresholds. Music was thick. Often used an orchestra. -
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Martin
Swiss composer of French descent. -
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Prokofiev
Russian composer and pianist. Important as a Russian voice in Western culture. -
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Honegger
Born to Swiss parents and considered himself Swiss. He had a huge composition outlook in all his mediums. He was an appreciator of the architecture of music. Most of his works were composed on commission. -
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Milhaud
He was friends with Satie. He operated out of Southern France. He studied Debussy, but immediately rejected impressionism. Tailleferre and him quickly became friends. His encouragement to continue composing helped Tailleferre. His travels to Brazil greatly influenced his -
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Tailleferre
French composer. Too modest. Made beautiful music. -
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Hindemith
German conductor, teacher, author, and composer. Wrote music for the practicing musician. Gebrauchsmusik. -
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Still
American composer. He was the first African American composer to have his symphony performed by a leading orchestra. Also, the first black American to conduct a major orchestra. The first black American to write for radio, TV, and films; he incorporate folk idioms, jazz, and spirituals. -
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Sessions
American composer, theorist, and teacher. Atonal mostly. Intense and dissonant. -
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Thomson
American composer and critic. Influenced by hymnody. His style unwittingly foreshadowed minimalism. -
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Gershwin
Brother of George. Used the pen name Arthur Francis early in his career. -
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Auric
French composer who had written over 200 works by the time he was 15. Also, wrote for French film. Studied composition with Satie's teachers in Paris. He ran SACEM and was a music journalist. He was known as a neo-classicist. -
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Poulenc
Was born to rich parents in Paris. He taught himself for the most part but also had tutors. -
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Ellington
American Jazz composer, band-leader, and pianist. Created a uique style of big-band jazz. One of the first African-American composers to cross races with his music. -
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Copland
Most popular American composer of the 20th century. Teacher, conductor, author. His music still has a special appeal to Americans. -
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Armstrong
African-American jazz musician who revolutionized jazz. Singer, band-leader, and trumpeter. -
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Shostakovich
Versatile. The most important Russian composer working in Russia in his day. -
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Schuman
American composer and teacher. Used borrowed subjects. -
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Barber
American composer and accomplished singer. Child prodigy and gifted melodist. Continued with a successful conservative tonality surrounded by 20th century musical experimentations. -
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Menotti
Composer in American who was born in Italy. Important as a modern opera composer. Samuel Barber's partner in life and work. -
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Cage
American composer and philosopher. Most innovative composer of the 20th century. He changed the definition of music. Used indeterminacy. He was the center of avant-garde music in the mid-20th century. -
Les Six formed
A famous group of six composers formed. Henry Collet formed the term. Origins lie in an earlier group Satie created called Les Nouveaux Jeunes whichw as formed in 1913-1914. -
12-tone technique invented by Schoenberg
Each of the 12 pitches was taken once and ordered, then manipulated in a very contrived manner into a musical composition. Produced some of the most random sounding music of all time. -
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The Great Depression
Started with an economic crash and lead to massive unemployment. Banks also closed as did many businesses. People struggled to buy food and pay bills. -
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Twentieth Century
Diverse in music styles, trends, and forms. There wasn't one stylistic trait that unified the century. -
Electric guitar invented
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Musique concrete
Had huge effects on modern music. Pierre Schaeffer was the first to develop this technique with a tape recorder in the late 1940s. Took natural sounds such as water dripping and manipulated it by splicing it and mixing it electronically. -
Aleatoric music
Also know as chance music. It was a new concept of composing where the composer left some of the musical elements in performance up to chance. Charles Ives and Henry Cowell deserve credit for laying foundation for future variations of chance music. -
Indeterminate music
Indeterminate music was also based on chance, but it directly implied three specified types of chance music. The first type of indeterminate music was presented as aleatoric. John cage lectured on the topic in 1958 and 1961 -
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Textural music
Functioned alongside non-tonal music with its broad sonic chunks which were called sound masses. They could function contrapuntally though they weren't constructed of individual melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. It used sound blocks which were manipulated through musical means. -
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Maximized Expressionism
It included integral serialism and was no surprise to composers who were seeking the ultimate fulfillment of complete complexity. Followed in the footsteps of Taruskin's notions of Maximalism. -
Electronische Musik
Electronic music was developed in Germany in the 1950s when Stockhausen worked in Scaheffer's studio in 1952. -
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Minimalism
Emerging in the 1960s, it was a style of repetitive of music. It reached its height in the 1980s. Its idea was that small parts of music could be repeated with only a bit of variation over a long amount of time. -
Amplifier invented
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Neo-Romanticism
1970s-present. A title given to the sort of music that appeals to audiences looking for music they can understand and embrace. Dissonances more prevalent than Romanticism, the romantic elements of melody harmony, and texture are prevalent in neo-romanticism. Neo-tonality, a non-functional tonality, was created within and for this style during the 1970s. -
Neo-Tonality
1970s - present. Idea of "post-tonality roots itself in the idea of that through the use of chromaticism, someone can aurally perceive more complex chords and progressions so that as time passes our perceptions will become acclimated. What started as dissonant is not any longer over time. Neo-tonality is mostly consonant, dissonant intervals of sevenths and seconds are now part of the new tonal system. -
Postmodernism
1970s-present. It was an aesthetic attitude developed in the late 1970s that was focused on uniting lots of past elements of music such earlier parts of the 20th century into a new eclectic style. Most inclusive type of music up until now. -
Totalism
1980s-present. A term used recently to describe music that was developed particularly among composers working in New York City as a response to minimalism. Features complexity as primary aim, placing this above all other goals. -
New Complexity
1980s-present. Ties closely with the concepts central to Totalism. It's often abstract, dissonant, microtonal, and relies on extreme contrast as the desirable aesthetic trait. It's a reaction against minimalism.