Composer Profile - Activefolio

118 Chapter 10
Music History Timeline
Medieval Renaissance Baroque Classical Romantic 20th Century
313–1450 1450–1600 1600–1750 1750–1800 1800–1900 1900–present
As one can see from the timeline, we will classify the twentieth century as the name
for the period stretching from about 1900 all the way to the present day (even though
we are already into the twenty-first century). The results of the expansion of orchestral
forms in the works of Mahler and Richard Strauss forced a “rethinking” of the direction
music was going. Even without the invention of recording, many musicians were beginning
to wonder if music had grown too huge, too melodramatic, too symbolic, to be
really useful as an expressive tool. For these musicians, the works of Mahler and Richard
Strauss represented excess in the worst way. Others respected the work that they began
along harmonic frontiers, and sought to continue their ultra-chromatic concepts. Eventually,
these composers would discover ways to avoid tonality altogether. This concept,
called atonality, would dominate much of the music in Germany in the early twentieth
century. Some musicians were not as ambivalent about the music of the late Romantic,
but nevertheless tried to modify music’s descriptive qualities to some extent. Still others
were essentially disciples of Romanticism and nationalistic music, and continued along
the path paved by Mahler, Strauss, and others.
Five Major Stylistic Trends in the Twentieth Century
At different points in the twentieth century, certain styles developed which seemed to
address the changing needs and tastes of musicians in different regions of Europe and
the United States.
Twentieth Century General Styles
Style Description Major Composers
Impressionism vague, dreamy imagery Debussy, Ravel
Expressionism atonal, serial or 12-tone technique Schoenberg, Webern,
Berg
Neo-Classicism smaller ensembles, stricter forms Honegger, Milhaud,
Stravinsky (middle
period)
Neo-Romanticism continuation of Romantic traditions Stravinsky (early period),
Elgar, Holst, Vaughan
Williams, Copland,
Gershwin, Prokofiev,
Rachmaninoff,
Shostakovich, Bartok
Modern avant-garde, sometimes avoiding Cage, Berio, Glass,
conventional instruments and
notation
Crumb