Twentieth Century (1930-2000)

By veejay.andres
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    Nadia Boulanger

    American; important composition teacher; most American composers studied with her
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    Sergei Prokofiev

    Russian; "Peter and the Wolf" (1936)
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    William Grant Still

    First African American to have his symphony performed by a leading orchestra, conduct a major orchestra, and write for radio, tv, and films
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    Aaron Copland

    Most popular American composer of the 20th century; "Appalachian Spring" (1944)
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    Samuel Barber

    American; "Adagio for String" (1936)
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    Leonard Bernstein

    American; "West Side Story" (1957)

  • Les Six

    Louis Durey (1888-1979); Arthur Honegger (1892-1955); Darius Milhaud (1892-1974); Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983); Georges Auric (1899-1983); Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
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    Non-tonal

    Composition style that focused on musical elements besides pitch. Edgard Varese (1883-1965): new orchestration ideas of less or no strings
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    Pierre Boulez

    French avant-garde; advocated total serialism; post-modern

  • The National Anthem

    "The Star Spangled Banner" was adopted as the U.S. national anthem.

  • John Williams

    American; important film score composer

  • Amelia Earhart

    First female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
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    Henryk Gorecki

    Combined aspects of clusters, neotonality, especially major seconds, minimalism, and strong emotional expression

  • John Corigliano

    American; addresses social issues in his intense music
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    World War II

  • Musique Concrete

    Took recorded sounds such as water, birds, speaking voices, etc. and edited the sound through tape splicing.
    Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995): first developed this style in the 1940s with a tape recorder

  • Paul Lansky

    American composer important to digital sound synthesis

  • John Adams

    American; leading voice in Post-Minimalist music

  • Andrew Lloyd Webber

    Famous British composer; known for stage works and film scores

  • Indeterminate

    Specific types of chance music. John Cage (1912-1992): 4'33" (1952); Iannis Xenakis (1922-2002): French-Greek; Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007): used probability theory

  • Aleatoric

    Concept of a composer leaving one or more elements of a performance up to chance. Charles Ives (1874-1954): American; Henry Cowell (1897-1965): American, teacher of John Cage

  • Electronische Musik

    German; fusion of technology with traditional music
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    Maximized Expressionism

    Included integral serialism; furthered Maximalism and pushed emotional expression to the extreme. Milton Babbitt (1916-2011): American, used serialism, disconnected from audience. George Crumb (b. 1929): American, known for Vietnam War related despair.
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    Vietnam War

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    Textural

    Non-tonal music with broad sound masses creating contrapuntal texture. Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006): his music was used in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey"
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    Minimalism

    Style made up of small musical elements (pitches, rhythm, etc.) that would be repeated. Phillip Glass (b. 1937): American-Jewish, important to this style
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    Postmodernism

    Continuous to today; style that combines present popular music with past styles of music; inclusive and incorporates all styles; diverse
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    Neo-tonality

    Continuous to today; mostly consonant, but dissonant intervals such as sevenths and seconds are used; over time consonance and dissonance have become less different. Eric Whitacre (b. 1970): American composer; known for online musical performances; neotonal style
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    Neo-Romanticism

    Continuous to today; Music with Romantic era melody, harmony, texture, and neotonality in the 1970s
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    Totalism

    Continuous to today; response to Minimalism; developed in New York; complexity is the goal; not musical or aesthetic ideas
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    New Complexity

    Continuous to today; similar to Totalism but is more abstract and dissonant; focus on extreme contrast. Brian Ferryhough (b. 1939): British composer known for complex notation, big role in the New Complexity movement

  • MIDI

    Musical Instrument Digital Interface was officially adopted and incorporated into all new synthesizers; enables computer interactions with synthesizers and sequences
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    Globalization

    Continuous to today; result of technological advances; ideas, music, and cultural practices practices are able to be shared around the world