Romantic Period/20th Century Modernism

Many important composers are from this period including: Franz Schubert, Robert & Clara Schumann, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvorak, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Wagner, and Gustav Mahler. And there are actually many more! Composers of the romantic period continued to use the musical forms of the classical era, however, there are still many differences to be found. Romantic works tend to have greater ranges of tone color, dynamics, and pitch. The romantic harmonic vocabulary is larger, with more emphasis on colorful, unstable chords. Romantic period music puts heavy emphasis on self expression and individuality of a style. There was a lot more nationalism in music of the period…national identity had become very important.

Program Music became prominent. This is instrumental music associated with a story, poem, idea, or a scene. The non-musical element is usually specified by a title or explanatory comments called a program. The idea that composers could be “free artists” became popular. This trend was set forth by Beethoven. Where earlier composers worked for courts or the church, now more of them became freelancers, and therefore wrote mostly for middle-class audiences. The growth and needs of this growing middle class resulted in the formation of many orchestras and opera groups. Music conservatories were also being built in both Europe and the United States.

The art song is a composition for voice and piano where poetry and music are intimately fused. Some are filled with yearning and because of poets’ lost love, nature, or a legend. Some are about love and the beauty of flowers, trees, brooks, and the supernatural happenings of folktales. Still others are about joy, wit, and humor. Above all, art songs were a reaching out of the soul. Sometimes art songs are grouped in a set called a song cycle. Composers used different methods to set the music to poems made up of several stanzas. One way is with strophic form, which is repeating the same music for each stanza of the poem. This makes the song easy to remember and is used in most folksongs. Another is the through-composed form, which changes the music for each stanza and which allows the music to reflect a poem’s changing moods.

Franz Schubert was the earliest master of the romantic art song, and was the first Viennese composer whose income was entirely from musical composition. He himself was not a conductor nor a virtuoso performer. Even though he died at the age of 31, he wrote over 1500 pieces. Schubert was nicknamed “little mushroom” because he was short and round. He admired Beethoven and was a torch-bearer at his funeral. His famous work, the “Unfinished Symphony” was discovered after he died. In European folklore and myth, the Erlking is a sinister elf who lingers in the woods. He stalks children who stay in the woods for too long, and kills them by a single touch. The name "Erlking" is a name used in German Romanticism for the figure of a spirit or "king of the fairies.” Schubert wrote an art song of the same title, in which the piano accompaniment gives a perfect example of tone painting to go along with the text being sung. “Der Erlkönig” starts with the piano rapidly playing triplets to create a sense of urgency and simulate the horse’s galloping. The left hand of the piano part introduces a low-register leitmotif composed of successive triplets. The right hand consists triplets throughout the whole piece, up until the last three bars. The constant triplets drives forward the frequent modulations of the peace as it switches between the characters. This leitmotif, dark and ominous, is directly associated with the Erlkönig. These motifs continue throughout. As the piece continues, each of the son’s pleas become louder and higher in pitch than the last. Near the end of the piece the music quickens and then slows as the father spurs his horse to go faster and then arrives at his destination. The absence of the piano creates multiple effects on the text and music. The silence draws attention to the dramatic text and amplifies the immense loss and sorrow caused by the son’s death. This silence from the piano also delivers shock experienced by the father upon the realization that he had just lost his son to the elf king, despite desperately fighting to save the son from the elf king’s grasps.

Der Erlkönig is a through-composed piece, meaning that with each line of text there is new music. Although the melodic motives recur, the harmonic structure is constantly changing and the piece modulates within characters. The elf king remains mainly in major mode due to the fact that he is trying to seduce the son into giving up on life. Using a major mode creates an effect where the elf king is able to portray a warm and inviting aura in order to convince the son that the afterlife promises great pleasures and fortunes.The son always starts singing in the minor mode and usually stays in it for his whole line. This is used to represent his fear of the elf king. Every time he sings the famous line “Mein Vater” he sings it one step higher in each verse, starting first at a D and going up to an F on his final line. This indicates his urgency in trying to get his father to believe him as the elf king gets closer. For most of the Father’s lines, they begin in minor and end in major as he tries to reassure his son by providing rational explanations to his son’s “hallucinations” and dismissing the Elf-king. The constant in major and minor for the father may also represent the constant struggle and loss of control as he tries to save his son from the elf king’s persuasion.

The rhythm of the piano accompaniment also changes within the characters. The first time the Elf-king sings in measure 57, the galloping motive disappears. However, when the Elf-king sings again in measure 87, the piano accompaniment is arpeggiating rather than playing chords. The disappearance of the galloping motive is also symbolic of the son’s hallucinatory state.

Robert Schumann was one of the greatest but underappreciated composers of the romantic period. He dropped out of law school and wanted to be a virtuoso pianist, however, he tried using experimental gadgets to stretch and strengthen his fingers which ended up crippling his hands. Therefore his dream was crushed. Schumann suffered from depression and tried to commit suicide more than once. He himself admitted that his music was directly reflected from his personal life. He fell in love with his piano teacher’s prize pupil, Clara Wieck. She was a child prodigy. They did eventually marry, and it was actually a happy marriage and they had eight children. Fantasiestücke is a set of eight pieces for piano, written in 1837. The title was inspired by the 1814–15 collection of novellas, essays, treatises, letters, and writings about music, Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (which also included the complete Kreisleriana, another source of inspiration for Schumann) by one of his favorite authors, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Schumann conceived of "Aufschwung" (or “soaring,” the 2nd piece in the set) as a depiction of one of the characters indulging in his desires, and as the Norton Anthology of Western Music describes "at the height of his passions.” The title “Traumes Wirren” (or “confused dreams,” the 7th piece in the set) is implicative of the struggle between the dreams and the passions within Schumann. In this piece the dreamy quality of Schumann, represented by one of the characters, becomes entangled by the passions of another, which symbolizes Schumann's more emotional side.

Clara Schumann married Robert the day before her 21st birthday, despite her father’s opposition. She was a famous virtuoso pianist who performed and made her husband’s pieces quite famous. The Schumanns were very close friends with composer Johannes Brahms. Clara was also a composer, although she considered herself more of a performer. The Lorelei is a 132 m (433 ft) high, steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany. The rock and the murmur it creates have inspired various tales. An old legend envisioned dwarfs living in caves in the rock. Numerous composers, including Clara Schumann wrote music for the story.

In 1801, German author Clemens Brentano composed his ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine as part of a fragmentary continuation of his novel. It first told the story of an enchanting female associated with the rock. In the poem, the beautiful Lore Lay, betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so and thinking that she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death; the rock still retains an echo of her name afterwards. Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth. In 1824, Heinrich Heine adapted Brentano's theme in one of his most famous poems, Die Lorelei. It describes the eponymous female as a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks. Here is an English translation of the lyrics, which is Heine's adaptation of the poem:

Frederic Chopin was a Polish child prodigy born in 1810. He was giving public concerts at age 7. He was heavily influenced by the music of J. S. Bach, although their compositional styles sound very different. In a time when his contemporaries were writing large scale works, Chopin was mostly writing shorter pieces for piano. In order to feel inspiration, he preferred to play piano in the dark. He died at the young age of 39. One of his last wishes was that all of his unpublished music be destroyed, however, his family and publisher did not honor that request.

An étude is a short piece of music focused on a specific area of technique . Étude’s are usually written for solo instruments and allow the player to practice or demonstrate areas of their musical skills. Although the étude started life as an exercise for the player, many pieces became popular with the public and are known as concert études. Well-known composers of concert études include Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin and Claude Debussy

Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer and pianist born in 1811. He and Chopin knew each other and were friendly rivals of sort. Chopin was jealous of Liszt’s enormous talent as a performer. After dedicating a set of Etudes to Liszt, Chopin even commented how he wished he could play them as well as Liszt. In addition to the professional rivalry, they also shared the same in their romantic lives.

Felix Mendelssohn was a phenomenal talent as both a composer and musician. He was an accomplished pianist, organist, and conductor. He had written ten symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and vocal works by the time he was 13. He would have private orchestra concerts in his family’s dining room to “try out” his new compositions. Mendelssohn renewed interest in Bach’s music to the public, and founded the Leipzig Conservatory when he was 33. One of his most well-known compositions is a suite of incidental music written for Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In this we hear the famous wedding march that is still used today in countless weddings.

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. It is often background music, and is intended to add atmosphere to the action. It may take the form of something as simple as a low, ominous tone suggesting an impending startling event or to enhance the depiction of a story-advancing sequence. It may also include pieces such as overtures, music played during scene changes, or at the end of an act, immediately preceding an interlude, as was customary with several nineteenth-century plays.

Hector Berlioz was one of the first French romantic composers and a daring creator of new orchestral sounds. His father sent him off to study medicine, but Berlioz was “filled with horror” by the dissecting room, so he abandoned those studies and pursued music. Berlioz was very passionate and a fanatic. He memorized many operas and would become furious if a conductor tampered with the orchestration. In one such performance he stood and shouted “not two flutes, you scoundrels! Two Piccolos! Two Piccolos!” He fell in love with a Shakespearian actress and would write wild and impassioned letters to the point that she thought he was a lunatic and refused to see him. He struggled to survive as a composer as many thought his compositions to be too wild, and his personality often clashed with directors and musicians. His Symphonie fantastique is an epic work for a huge orchestra. Through its movements, it tells the story of an artist's self-destructive passion for a beautiful woman. The symphony describes his obsession and dreams, tantrums and moments of tenderness, and visions of suicide and murder, ecstasy and despair. This work was radical for several reasons: 1) It required program notes to be read in order to understand the story the music was telling. 2) It required the largest number of players ever used in a symphony orchestra at that point. 3) The work represents the composer’s autobiography. 4) The harp had never before been used as a part of a symphony orchestra. 5) Berlioz used the instruments for sound effects, such as instructing the violinists to use the back of their bows and the timpani to sound like a passing storm. 6) He used a recurring theme for the main character, which he called the “Idee Fixe.”

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most famous Russian composers of the Romantic period. He didn’t study composition and music until age 21, which was fairly late in life. He had studied law instead because at the time it wasn’t acceptable to be a full-time musician in Russia. Like Mendelssohn, he also wrote music to a play of Shakespeare - the great concert-overture, Romeo and Juliet. Among his other famous works are the 1812 overture which used actual cannons firing as part of the music, and several ballets including Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and the Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky was known for having an extremely delicate and hyper-sensitive personality with hypochondria and extended bouts of depression. He attempted suicide more than once. As we have seen with many composers, this seems to be a catalyst for the emotionalism and outpouring of one’s soul through musical composition. He died at the age of 53 from cholera poisoning.

Ballet is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways. A ballet as a unified work comprises the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery.

Bedrich Smetana was the founder of Czech national music. His works are full of folksongs, dances, and legends of his native Bohemia (which became part of the Czech Republic). At the age of 50 he suffered the same fate as Beethoven, he became completely deaf. However, some of his finest compositions followed that tragedy. The last decade of his life was a struggle both mentally and physically because of syphilis. He died in an insane asylum at the age of 60. "The Moldau," is a symphonic tone poem, which is the name given to a mighty river that runs through his homeland. The tone poem depicts what different sights one might see if they traveled down the river. As is common in program music, Smetana provided his own description of his musical ideas with the music itself. According to Smetana: "Two springs pour forth in the shade of the Bohemian forest, one warm and gushing, the other cold and peaceful. Their waves joyously rush down over their rocky beds, then unite and glisten in the rays of the morning sun. Coming through Bohemia's valleys, they grow into a mighty river. Through the thick woods it flows as the joyous sounds of a hunt and the hunter's horn are heard ever closer. It flows through grass-grown pastures and lowlands where a wedding feast is being celebrated with song and dance. At night, wood and water nymphs revel in its sparkling waves. Reflected on its surface are fortresses and castles—witnesses of past days of knightly splendor and the vanished glory of bygone ages. The Moldau swirls through the St. John Rapids, finally flowing on in majestic peace toward Prague to be welcomed by historic Vyšehrad [a legendary royal castle]. Then it vanishes far beyond the poet's gaze."

Antonin Dvorak succeeded Smetana as the leading composer of Czech national music. His music was also infused with Bohemian folksongs and dances. Dvorak’s compositions didn’t gain popularity until Johannes Brahms heard them and declared him a talented composer. In 1892 he moved to the USA, teaching in New York at the National Conservatory of Music. He tried to influence American composers to write more nationalistic music after becoming interested in Native American melodies and African American spirituals.

Nationalism was prominent everywhere in Europe, but especially in Russia where native folk songs were heard in everyday life. A 19th century Russian music critic wrote “Every musician, carpenter, bricklayer, doorkeeper, cabman; every peasant woman, laundry-maid and cook, every nurse and wet nurse - all bring the folksongs of their villages with them to Petersburg, Moscow, to each and every city, and we hear them the whole year round.” His most famous work is probably the Symphony No. 9 (From the New World). The New World Symphony is noted for using elements characteristic of slave spirituals, including syncopated rhythms, pentatonic scales, and flatted seventh. It’s been debated whether Dvořák derived from specific songs in the New World Symphony. For his part, Dvořák said he was inspired by the music without directly using specific melodies. Yet many can’t help but hear echoes of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in the second theme of the first movement. Leonard Bernstein, in a lecture deconstructing the work, identified themes with Czech, French, German, Scottish and Chinese origins. Indeed, music critic James Huneker, in his review of the symphony’s premiere, described it as “distinctly American,” exactly because it was made up of so many elements representing the diverse American culture.

Johannes Brahms was a romantic who breathed new life into classical forms. Coming from a very poor family, he was sent to play piano at the local inns, brothels and taverns to supplement the family income.

Brahms’ music is deeply influenced by folk and Gypsy music. This was a result of having met the Hungarian refugee violinist, Eduard Remenyi in 1850 when Brahms was only 15. Remenyi had been banned from Hungary due to his taking part in the Hungarian Revolution in 1848. The two of them subsequently toured together in 1853.

Robert Schumann, the composer and writer, was deeply impressed with the young Brahms’ music, and wrote about him in his magazine, New Journal for Music; he called him a genius and heralded him as the one to overthrow the New German School of Wagner and Liszt – it the beginning of what became known as the ‘War of the Romantics’. Brahms was deemed to be more old-fashioned at the time whilst Liszt and Wagner were more progressive; they pushed the boundaries of structure, harmony and they advocated programme music. Brahms stood for absolute music – music for music’s sake.

It has always been assumed that Brahms was in love with Schumann’s wife, Clara; she, like so many composer’s loves, was unobtainable as she was married. When Robert Schumann died in 1856, Brahms went to comfort Clara and between them, they reportedly destroyed letters between the two of them. They remained good friends, but no more; Brahms never did marry (he did get engaged briefly to Agatha von Siebold in 1859, but he broke it off), and remained alone for the rest of his life. Brahms became a wealthy man through his composing although he didn’t show it. He lived in a small apartment and happily gave money to friends and aspiring musicians. He was also known to give candy to children in the streets, which was probably an OK thing to do back then. He was known to eat in the cheapest restaurants and dressed like he was homeless with a large safety pin to hold his coat together.

Brahms didn’t work very quickly; he was a perfectionist. After destroying all his early music because he thought it no good, he then wrote over 20 string quartets before finally presenting his first official one.

When he died, he was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery where, if you were deemed worthy enough, you were placed in a special area; Brahms was buried close to Beethoven and Schubert and was later joined by Johann Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg. There is even a memorial to Mozart; Salieri, Mozart’s great adversary, didn’t get put in the same special area, however. Brahms’ German Requiem (opus 45) was his longest composition with seven movements; it can last up to 80 minutes. It was composed between 1856 and 1868 and was thought to have been inspired initially by Robert Schumann’s attempted suicide, and then by grief from the loss of his own mother in February 1865.

Brahms was, apparently quite a disagreeable, grumpy character. He did have a lot of friends, however, and enjoyed cigars and beer; he drank in the Red Hedgehog Tavern in Vienna on a daily basis.

Camille Saint-Seans was a nineteenth century French composer who was a child prodigy and a master musician and composer. His compositions weren’t highly regarded in his own country of France, but other countries (the USA and England) hailed him as France’s leading composer.

Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre is based on the French legend that Death packs a fiddle and comes to play at midnight on Halloween, causing the skeletons in the cemetery to crawl out of the ground for their annual graveyard dance party. The music begins with a warning from the violins, a call to attention that things are going to get weird. And then suddenly the entire ensemble begins to flood in, a flurry of activity from all corners of the orchestra, and it's a breathless race that would sound almost harmless if it weren't for the increasing urgency and then the light clatter of xylophone bones.

The call and answer is itself a dance, at once coy and maybe a little dangerous, but still rich with pomp and propriety. There's the gentle blush of woodwinds and romance, and then suddenly an epic shift. Madness grips the violins, fluttering up and up, frenzied and volatile, a crescendo of intoxicating power and unrelenting violence. The sensation of weight crushing into you over and over, of suffocating but never breaking. The feeling of being swallowed whole, sucked inside a heaving mass, and never knowing the autonomy of your own body again.

Written in 1886, the Carnival of the Animals is a humorous piece by french composer Camille Saint-saens. The piece is made up of 14 different movements which represent different animals including lions, chickens, donkeys, tortoises, elephants, kangaroos, swans, and birds. Each of the different animals are portrayed by different instruments in the ensemble. The piece is written for 2 pianos, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, xylophone, and glass harmonica. The glass harmonica isn't well known today and is usually substituted with a glockenspiel.

Giuseppe Verdi is the most popular of all opera composers. He was born in a tiny Italian village and had a deep love of music. When he was only ten years old he moved to a nearby town to study music and go to school. Every Sunday for nine years he would walk three miles barefoot to serve as church organist in his own village, carrying his shoes to preserve them. Verdi was a staunch nationalist and his operas symbolized a free and united Italy. A poet once wrote: “The very soul of Italy…has today its voice in the name of Giuseppe Verde.” His most popular opera, Rigoletto, is still performed and enjoyed by audiences today.

Rigoletto is set in the world of the Duke of Mantua – a morally corrupt, womanizing ruler. We begin at the Duke’s party, during which he mentions having his eye on a mystery beauty. His jester Rigoletto – who is despised for being different – mocks all the guests, including a statesman, Monterone, who is furious that his daughter has been molested by the Duke. In retaliation, Monterone places a curse on Rigoletto.

Back at Rigoletto’s safehouse, we meet his beloved daughter Gilda, whom he fiercely protects. Even so, she has managed to fall in love with a mystery man she has seen (who turns out, of course, to be the Duke). Later that night, Gilda is abducted and delivered, much to the Duke’s delight, to his bedroom!

On discovering that the Duke has got his hands on Gilda, Rigoletto is distraught, and approaches the assassin Sparafucile to help him wreak his revenge. However, the plan goes terribly wrong, and we see Monterone’s curse come to pass in a devastating way…

Giacomo Puccini succeeded Verdi as the most important Italian opera composer of his time. He came from a long line of composers and church organists. His most famous operas are La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly. He had a great sense of theater, and many of his works reflect an artistic trend of the 1890’s known as verismo-realism, or the quality of being “true to life.”

La Boheme tells the story of four struggling bohemians – a poet, a painter, a musician and a philosopher are living together in Paris, when one freezing Christmas Eve their lives are changed forever. A girl named Mimì knocks on their door looking for a candle light, and she and Rodolfo fall in love.

However, the rush of love at first sight soon gives way to something much darker – it becomes clear that Mimì is desperately ill, and that Rodolfo, in his poverty, cannot provide for her. Our bohemians try to find their way, but are soon sharply awoken to the harsh realities of life…

Richard Wagner was one of the key German composers in the history of music. Just as Beethoven altered the course of music in the nineteenth century, so did Wagner for those who came after him.

Without Wagner, the development of late nineteenth- and much twentieth-century music (Richard Strauss, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) would have been different.

Wagner was responsible for changing the orientation of opera, through developing organically conceived through-composed works, expanding the orchestral resources, encouraging new types of singers and exploring innovative theatrical practices. He created a new, revolutionary genre, Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), which set to combine all aspects of the arts, and became better known as ‘music drama.’ Wagner greatly influenced the future of music especially in film scoring with his idea of using a Leit Motif, or musical theme that represents each prominent character or place within an opera or play.

A towering European artistic figure, he was as active as a theorist and theatrical practitioner as he was a composer. He was astute at cultivating wealthy patrons to finance his plans – notably Ludwig II of Bavaria, who bankrolled the construction of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre and which is still active today as the major center for performances of Wagner’s operas.

In Die Walküre, it is human emotion that takes center stage. Above all, there is the great confrontation between the god Wotan and his favorite daughter, Brünnhilde – the Valkyrie of the title – who love each other deeply, yet whose relationship has been irreparably broken by her disobedience.

The story of Die Walküre is based on Norse mythology. Deriving from an Old Norse word, a valkyrie is a ‘chooser of the slain’ — they have power to choose who lives and who dies, and afterwards bring the souls of their chosen fallen heroes to Valhalla. This plays an important part in the opera, as the valkyrie of the title, Brünnhilde, is ordered by her father Wotan to ensure that his son Siegmund dies in his conflict with Sieglinde’s husband Hunding (confused yet?). However, when Brünnhilde sees Siegmund’s love for Sieglinde, she chooses to disobey her father and grant victory to Siegmund instead of Hunding.

Die Walküre features the first appearance of the Ring’s famous sword: Nothung. It is revealed that an old man plunged the sword into an old ash tree which no-one has ever been able to remove since. Realizing that this old man must have been Wotan himself, Siegmund knows his destiny and finds that (surprise surprise!) it is he who is able to draw the blade out of the tree.

The ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ (‘Walkürenritt’), scribbled down on a loose sheet of paper in July 1851, has become the best-known passage of music in the entire cycle. The ‘Ride’ builds up multiple layers of accompaniment, until the eight Valkyrie sisters of Brünnhilde gradually appear, gathering to prepare for the transportation of fallen heroes to Valhalla. The familiar tune is carried by the orchestra, while, above it, the Valkyries greet each other and sing their battle-cry

20th Century Music continued the intensification and diversity already seen in the romantic period. When listening to music from this period (1900-1945) we must listen openly with no assumptions about how tones should relate to each other. Chords, rhythms, and percussive sounds that were baffling in 1913 are now commonly heard in jazz, rock, and music for movies and television.

Tone color became more important than ever before. Uncommon playing techniques became normal…such as a glissando, which is a rapid slide up or down the scale.

Composers used more and more dissonant chords freely. New chord structures were also established that blurred the lines between consonance and dissonance. Tone clusters were often used for dramatic effect…this is a chord made up of tones only a half or whole step apart. Polytonality is an approach where a piece of music uses two or more keys at the same time. Atonality is the absence of tonality or key.

Rhythm was also stretched to a new level. Basically, anything goes! Beats can be grouped irregularly, and accented beats may come at unequal time intervals. We often see the use of polyrhythms, two or more contrasting, independent rhythms at the same time.

This is also a time when recordings and radio broadcasts of music were becoming common.

Neoclassicism was a movement which reacted against romanticism and impressionism. Sometimes this movement is also called Neobaroque since many of the works were modeled after J.S. Bach. In fact, the slogan for this movement was “Back to Bach.”

Expressionism is an artistic movement which stressed intense, subjective emotion…depicting inner feelings rather than outward appearances.

Claude Debussy was a French impressionist composer who linked the romantic era with the 20th century. Impressionism stresses tone color, atmosphere, and fluidity of the music. Debussy wrote some of his finest music for piano creating new sonorities. His frequent use of the damper pedal results in hazy sounds and chords blend together. He did utilize pentatonic scales, but also the whole-tone scale, which uses six different notes each a whole step apart.

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, is a symphonic poem for orchestra composed in 1894. It is one of Debussy's most famous works and is considered a turning point in the history of Western art music, as well as a masterpiece of Impressionist composition. It later provided the basis for the ballet Afternoon of a Faun. The piece was Debussy's musical response to the poem of Stephane Mallarmé (1842–1898), in which a faun playing his pan-pipes alone in the woods becomes aroused by passing nymphs and naiads, pursues them unsuccessfully, then wearily abandons himself to a sleep filled with visions. Though called a "prelude," the work is nevertheless complete – an evocation of the feelings of the poem as a whole.

Maurice Ravel was a French composer and a master of orchestral and pianistic tone color. He had a taste for exotic music idioms…many works containing a Spanish flavor. This is true of his best known work, Bolero. Ravel described this work as an experiment consisting of one long, very gradual crescendo. The same theme is heard repeatedly throughout with different instruments and tonalities. The steady rhythm stays constant throughout.

John Cage was an American 20th Century composer, philosopher, and writer. He brought about great change in musical composition with his open ideas and vision. One of his most famous works is titled 4’33” in which a performer is instructed to walk out on the stage and sit silently for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Cage’s idea was that the sounds that happen naturally around the audience would be the music. He also experimented with instruments, and was the first to write specific instructions for how to create a Prepared Piano. This is where objects are added to the strings of a piano and then a piece is played that results in interesting sounds

Charles Ives was a truly original American composer. Although he played piano, organ, cornet, violin, and drums, he never made a living as a composer or a musician. In fact, he ran a very successful insurance agency by day (he invented the concept of estate planning), and at night he would hurry home to write music. He, like Cage, had loved experimenting with new ideas in music. In Ives’ music, one moment you will have a lush melody, then in an instant a clash of inharmonicity. The Unanswered Question: the (tonal) stings represent silence(the silence of the universe perhaps), especially because they lack dominant harmony. The solo (semi-tonal) trumpet represents the question(what is the meaning of life?) and its dominant/ diminished melody represents that the question is loud within the silence. The (Atonal) flutes represent the experts, trying to answer the question, getting more and more frustrated and descending into chaos

Primitivism in music is the deliberate evocation of primitive power through repetitive rhythms, harsh dissonances, and percussive sounds.

Igor Stravinsky was considered to be a legendary figure and the world’s greatest composer before he died. His musical output was vast and had enormous influence on 20th century music. The eruption of World War I and the later Russian revolution caused him to take up residence in Switzerland. In Switzerland, homesickness led him to introduce Russian folklore and jazz influences into his compositions. Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring is a prime example of using primitivism in music. This work has two large parts that are subdivided into sections that move in different speeds. Each section follows the other without pause. The titles of the dances suggest their primitive subject matter

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer born in Vienna, the city of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Unlike these earlier masters, he was mostly self-taught. He was on a mission to abandon the traditional tonal system. He prominently used atonality and developed the twelve-tone system. This system gives equal importance to each of the 12 tones in a chromatic scale. The ordering of this sequence is called a tone row.