Understanding Music Eras

Modernism

• Not the same as “contemporary”

• A movement of radical experimentation

• Anti-traditionalism, avant-garde

• First phase 1980-1914 (pre-WWI)

Fauvism

• Part of Modernism

• Translates to “wild beasts”

• Group of artists and musicians centered in Paris

• Sought to express the most extreme, disturbing emotions

• Used abstract images, Tribal Art motifs, distortion, grotesqueness

• Art with a threatening, violent quality

Expressionism

• Part of Modernism - Vienna

• A music of increasing emotionality

• Exploited extreme psychological states

  • Hysteria, nightmare, insanity

  • Reflected fascination with Freud’s work

• Paralleled similar movement in art

  • Subjective expression of inner turmoil

  • Distorted, exaggerated melody and harmony

  • Fascination with tone color and color theory

• Stark, brutal

• Deliberately distorted in line and texture

• Filled with nervous tension

• Dissonant, atonal, jagged melodies

Impressionism

• Part of Modernism - Paris

• Evoking an ideal state

• Transparent, sensuous textures

• Smooth, doesn’t break away from tonality

• Influences:

  • Preference for texts by symbolist poets

  • Subtlety, understatement

  • Melodies and harmonies using whole-tone and pentatonic scales

  • Sparing use of forte and fortissimo

Minimalism

• A reaction to modernism’s complexity

• Very simple melodies, motives, and harmonies repeated many, many times

Postmodernism

Includes

• Electronic music

• Chance music

• Minimalism