6. 20TH CENTURY

Picasso - Three Musicians (1921)

1. INTRODUCTION

The 20th century was a period of rapid changes in which several musical styles coexisted. The development of recording systems and modern media made it easier to spread this variety of styles.

Characteristics

Rhythm: irregular and unpredictable.
Melody: complex and difficult to remember.
Texture: polyphony was explored and new textures appeared: micropolyphony, pointillism…
Form: traditional forms were recreated using non-Western musical techniques.
Timbre: the orchestra increased in size and timbre. New instruments emerged: theremin, synthesizer... Any sound source is accepted.
Musical notation: it became more experimental by using new symbols, e.g. graphic notation.

Example of graphic notation: Hans-Christoph Steiner - Solitude

Pierre Henry - Psyché rock

2. LATE 19TH CENTURY

Postromanticism: some composers continued to write in a style which was basically Romantic. E.g. Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams in England, Rachmaninoff in Russia, Richard Strauss in Germany, Sibelius in Finland and Puccini in Italy.

Two movements related to Romanticism were developed:
Impressionism and Expressionism.

Impressionism: French movement, related with the
symbolist poetry and impressionist painting, that
searched for the pleasure of sounds by means of faded
melodies, free chords, blurred tonality and a great timbric
color. E.g. Debussy and Ravel.

2. LATE 19TH CENTURY

Claude Monet - Impression, sunrise (1872)

Puccini - Turandot. Aria "Nessun dorma"(Postromanticism)

Debussy - Clair de lune

(Impressionism) Snowboard

Expressionism: German movement that depicts the human soul in a very harsh and pessimistic way using dissonance, atonal music and a recited singing called "Sprechgesang". E.g. Schoenberg.

New sonority: Stravinsky began a new path with works as The Rite of Spring, which was written for the Russian Ballets directed by Diaghilev. When it was premiered it caused a scandal due to its violent rhythms, dissonances and a bold choreography by Nijinsky.

Edvard Munch - The Scream (1893)

Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire
(Expressionism)

Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring

3. FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

First avant-garde movements broke with traditional music. Many composers felt that the tonal system had been used for so long that it was time to try something different.

Futurism: brief Italian movement that introduced noise and machines from modern societies in music. E.g. Russolo, Varèse and Honnegger.

3. FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

«A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.»
— Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Dadaism: brief movement developed in Germany, France and USA that rejected all established forms of art. It anticipated later movements like aleatoric music. E.g. Kurt Schwitters.

Varèse - Ionisation
(Futurism)

Kurt Schwitters - Ursonate
(Dadaism)

Dodecaphonism: composition technique created by Schoenberg in 1923 that used the twelve notes of the chromatic scale placed in rows, without any relationship between them. These rows can be presented in three ways: retrograde (backwards), inversion (mirror-like) or retrograde-inversion. E.g. Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

Neoclassicism: 1920s movement that returned to the formal clarity of Baroque and Classicism. They used tonality, jazz, music-hall, parody and humor to create pleasant and easy-to-listen music. E.g. Satie and Carl Orff.

«If it is art, it is not for all,
and if it is for all, it is not art.»
— Arnold Schoenberg

(dodecaphonism)

«We have had enough of clouds, waves,

aquariums, mermaids and perfumes of the night:

we want to have music which is down to earth,

everyday music.»
— Jean Cocteau (neoclassicism)

Webern - Variations Op. 27
(Dodecaphonism)

Satie - Gymnopédie n. 1
(Neoclassicism)

4. SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

New avant-garde movements found new languages by widening the concept of music and using technologies.

Serialism / Integral Serialism: movement that applied the concept of dodecaphonic rows to all parameters of sound and not just the pitch. E.g. Messiaen and Boulez.

Musique concrète: movement connected with Futurism that used any sound or noise tape-recorded from reality and later manipulated in a laboratory. The work is shown in a recording, without performers or scores. E.g. Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry.
The modification of sound in a laboratory can be carried out in two ways:
- Physically manipulating the tape: changing the speed, reversing the direction, mixing different tapes, etc.
- Electronically modifying sounds: changing the pitch or timbre, applying effects, etc.

4. SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Messiaen - Mode de valeurs et d'intensités
(Serialism)

Pierre Henry - Variations pour une porte et un soupir (Musique concrète)

Electronic music: movement in which music is completely made in a laboratory, where sounds are created, processed and recorded electronically. E.g. Maderna and Berio.

Electroacoustic music: movement that combines recorded and manipulated natural sounds (musique concrète) with purely electronic sounds (electronic music). E.g. Stockhausen.

Bruno Maderna - Notturno
(Electronic music)

Stockhausen - Song of the Youth
(Electroacoustic music)

Stochastic music: movement that used computers, algorithms, statistics and maths in order to generate all the details of the piece. E.g. Xenakis.

Aleatoric music: movement that depends on chance and the freedom of the performer. Composers didn’t write a finished piece, they relied on the performer’s independence to turn each performance into a unique piece. E.g. John Cage (4’33).

Minimalism: 1960s movement that is based around a simple idea which repeats itself again and again but gradually changes. E.g. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and John Cage.

Xenakis - Metastasis
(Stochastic music)

John Cage - 4'33
(Aleatoric music)

Steve Reich - Clapping Music
(Minimalism)

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