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Stephane Mallarme
French Poet; Recognized as a great poet of France in the second Half of the 19th century. His work was acknowledged as being difficult to interpret due to its torturous syntax, ambiguous expressions, and obscure imagery. -
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Mahler
Austrian Jewish composer and conductor; Known for his 10 Symphonies. Regarded as an important forerunner of 20th century techniques of composition. -
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Debussy
French composer. Credited as the most important composer of the early 20th century. Known for writing the first modern orchestral work. Interested greatly in non traditional scales and tonal structures. -
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Strauss
German composer; Best known for his use of Maximalism. Considered as a Famous for Operas, poems and Lieder. Composed 150 Lieder and 15 Operas. -
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Shoenberg
Austrian composer; Created new forms of music involving atonality. Namely serialism and the 12 tone row. Very influential teacher of the early 20th century. -
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Ives
American Composer; Charles Ives is a well regarded composer and credited with inventing atonality. -
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Ravel
French Composer; Credited with writing the first impressionist piano composition. One of his famous works is 'Bolero', which is commonly used today in ice skating performance. -
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Stravinsky
Russian Composer; Stravinsky had a diverse and eclectic range of styles. Starting with his Russian period (1920), French period (1910, living in Paris), Neoclassical period (1920-1954), and the Serialist period (1954-1968). He has many famous pieces, but the most musically influential would be "The Rite of Spring". -
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Stokowski
English Conductor: Leopold Stokowski was one of a few extremely famous conductors of the time. He is primarily known for his participation in the Philadelphia Orchestra and his cartoon adaptation in Disney's "Fantasia". -
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Webern
Austrian protegeé of Schönberg -
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Berg
Student of Schönberg; Austrian composer who stuck close to Schönberg atonality teachings and techniques. -
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Post-Romantic Period
The Post-Romantic Period is the time between 1890 and 1930 where there was a shift from Romantic era music to more complex musical styles and techniques. Some styles to come out of the era were Maximalism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Dadaism, and Neo-Classism. -
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Maximalism
Maximalism was a new style in the post-romantic period. It was characterized by the most excessive forms of everything. There was extreme levels of chromaticism and motivic complexity in the music. There was also massively sized performance groups. -
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Impressionism
Impressionism was a style of music that came out of the post-romantic period. It was characterized by dissonance, atonality, and rejecting classical forms of music. -
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Milhaud
French composer, Conductor, and teacher: Darius Milhaud was part of Les Six. As well as a very important composer/musician of the 20th century. His compositions were predominantly influenced by American Jazz and Brazilian “Pop” music. His Interest in Jazz was credited to it’s freedom, as you can tell by his extensive use of polytonality in his work. -
Prelude A L'apres-midi D'un Faune
Debussy composed Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun after a poem by artist Stéphane Mallarmé, "The Afternoon of a Faun." It is a very famous impressionist work. -
"Salome"
"Salome" is and written by German composer, Richard Strauss. This opera includes many gruesome scenes and is famous for the "risqué" "Dance of Seven Veils". -
Invention of Neon Lighting
Invented by Georges Claude; neon made its Debut at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. By sending a voltage through a glass tube filled with neon gas, he was able to make light with a magical glow. -
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Neo-Classicism
Neo-Classicism was a time where many returned to the classical way of thinking. People adhered to the more traditional musical scope of rules. This was a period in which textures, topics, forms from the past were combined with the modern harmonies, tonalities, and timbres. -
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Expressionism
Expressionism is a style of music that came about in the post-romantic era (circa 1910). It is characterized primarily by atonality. There is a freeing quality to the music and no traditional chord progression rules are adhered to. -
"The Rite of Spring"
"The Rite of Spring" was a ballet produced by Stravinsky in 1913. It premiered brash music and choreography that was considered "ugly" to most dancers. It was not well received on its opening night, but it did become successful regardless. -
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World War 1 “The Great War”
The war pitted the Central Powers mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Against the Allies mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States. -
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Dadaism
Dadaism was a movement of anti-art thinking where artists and poets were acting against the war and bourgeoisie. Everything anyone knew was questioned and the people preferred free living and irrationality. -
Red Scare
Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. -
Atonality in Composition
Atonality was introduced and heavily employed in the Post-Romantic period. The expressionist style displays very heavy use of atonality. It is credited to Charles Ives. -
Polygraph Machine
If I told you id have to kill you… The lie detector was first produced in 1921 when a California based policeman, and psychologist John A. Larson, devised an apparatus to simultaneously measure continuous changes in blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate in order to aid in the detection of deception. -
The Invention of Neoprene
As the demand for natural rubber increased the cost skyrocketed. Thus a scientist at DuPont’s research lab invented a synthetic rubber known as “Neoprene”. It is used in the production of divers suits, automobile fan belts, hose covers, etc.