Academic Music of the 20th Century

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, European musical tradition entered the stage of late romanticism . Composers such as Gustav Mahler , Richard Strauss and Jan Sibelius in their symphonic works pushed further and further ^{[ where? ] the} borders of post-romanticism , and in France at the same time musical impressionism developed, the most prominent representatives of which were Claude Debussy (although the composer categorically did not accept the term “impressionism” in relation to his works ^[1] ) and Maurice Ravel (who worked in others styles that are not related to impressionism).

Postromantism ^{[ what? ]} and impressionism forced ^{[ how? ] of} many composers to seek new means of expression and led to the development of music in unexpected directions. But the only truly significant innovation that became widespread in the 20th century was the rejection of traditional tonality . In the 1900s, many composers offered their options for avoiding the classics. ^{[ what? ]} , which gave rise to an unprecedented variety of styles, techniques and expressive means ^[2] . In Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg discovered atonal music , which became a manifestation of expressionism , which replaced impressionism in European art of the beginning of the 20th century. Schönberg later invented dodecafony , which was further developed by his students: Alban Berg and Anton Webern . Later, this technique was deepened by other composers, in particular, Pierre Boulez . Igor Stravinsky and many others addressed the dodecafonia in later works, including even Scott Bradley , who used it in music for the Tom and Jerry cartoon series ^[3] .

After the First World War, many composers turned to the music of the past for inspiration, borrowing from it many elements: form, harmony, melody, structure. This style of music was called " neoclassicism ." Neoclassical works are found in such authors as Igor Stravinsky ( Pulcinella , Psalms Symphony ), Sergey Prokofiev ( Classical Symphony ), Maurice Ravel (Tomb of Couperin) and Paul Hindemith (Artist Mathis).

Italian composers such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo turned to musical futurism . This style involved the use of everyday sound in a futuristic context. Constructivist “machine music”, represented in the works of George Anteyle (starting with Sonata No. 2 “Airplane”) and Alexander Mosolov (primarily “Machine Music”), grew out of this direction. The expansion of the available musical dictionary was also due to the use of all available tones in the form of microtone music , using intervals of less than half a tone . The works in this technique were written by Charles Ives , Julian Carrillo , Alois Hub , , Ivan Vyshnegradsky , .

In the 1940s and 1950s, composers, the most famous of which was Pierre Schaeffer , began to attract new technological advances. This is how concrete music appeared ^[4] . Later, all forms of such music were combined in the concept of electro-acoustic music . The opposite of creating sound from pre-recorded passages was live electronic music , in which the musician “on the fly” changes the sound of an electro-acoustic instrument using all available devices: amplifiers, filters, modulators. One example of early live electronic music is Cartridge Music (1960) by John Cage . Spectral music , based on a change in the sound spectrum , has become a further development of electronic music; its pioneers were Gerard Griset and Tristan Murray ^{[5] [6]} . Electro-acoustic music was also created by Luciano Berio , Pierre Boulez , Milton Babbitt , Luigi Nono and Edgar Varez .

Since the early 1950s, John Cage began to use an element of chance in music. Process music , almost identifiable with musical minimalism (“Procession” and “From Seven Days” by Karlheinz Stockhausen , Piano Phase and Clapping Music by Stephen Reich ) suggested creating compositions based on the simplest high-pitch and rhythmic “patterns” ^[7] , repeatedly repeated and combined each other with a friend. Such music was combined under the term “ experimental music ” - Cage, who proposed it, wrote that this method of creating a work is “an experiment whose result cannot be predicted” ^{[8] [9]} . It is also customary to call experimental music compositions that, within a certain style, expand its traditional boundaries or arise at the junction of incongruous genres, include unexpected, unconventional, innovative elements.

The formation of the musical trends of this period was strongly influenced by general cultural trends: romanticism, modernism, neoclassicism, postmodernism and so on. Igor Stravinsky ( The Sacred Spring ballet) and Sergei Prokofiev (The Tale of the Jester ballet) in their early works clearly gravitated to primitivism . Dmitry Shostakovich , who gravitated towards modernism from the late 1920s, in the 1950s, according to McBurney, was influenced by socialist realism ^[10] , and according to other authors, he remained modernist ^{[11] [12]} . Other composers, such as Benjamin Britten in The Military Requiem, addressed political topics ^[13] . An important role at the beginning of the century was played by nationalism : in particular, the musical culture of the USA was formed under its influence, which led to the emergence of a special style, reflected in the works of Charles Ives, and, in the late period, George Gershwin . Academic music was also influenced by folk music (Five Variations on the Dives and Lazarus by Ralph Vaughan-Williams , Sommerset Rhapsody by Gustav Holst ) and jazz (George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein , Creation of the World by Darius Millau ).

In the last quarter of the 20th century, musical eclecticism and polystylism came to the fore. In the late 1970s, there were also two notable trends: new complexity and new simplicity .

Romanticism

Modernism

Impressionism

Neoclassicism

Futurism

Expressionism

Postmodernism

Minimalism

Experimental Music

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