20th Century Music

Many musical changes happened during the 20th century. It was a time of deepening psycological awareness.
 Experimentation and new systems of writing music were attempted by avant-garde composers like Edgard Varèse and although none gained a foothold with the public, these techniques had a profound influence on many of the composers who were to follow. Twentieth century music has seen a great range of various movements, like post-romanticism, serialism and neo-classicism. All of these were practiced by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Experimentation and new systems of writing music were attempted by avant-garde composers.

Since twentieth century composers weren't limited by the rules and restrictions of the classical period, they were free to write however they pleased. An example of work from the twentieth century is a ballet called "The Rite of Spring"  by Igor Stravinsky.  The Rite of Spring  debuted in May, 1913. It was one of his most famous works, but it was first met by harsh criticism and a riot even broke out simply because people weren't sure how to respond to those kinds of sounds. The audience was accustomed to the "grace" and "elegance" of traditional ballets like Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. There were people that liked Stravinsky's work and that's how the whole disagreement got started. Stravinsky was so taken aback by the audiences reaction that the actually fled the scene before the show was over.

Igor Stravonsky was noted for his stylistic diversity. After the first Russian phase, he turned to neoclassicism in the 1920's. Then in the 1950's he addopted serial procedures. Stravinsky's compositions of this period share traits with examples of his earlier output: rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells, and clarity of form, of instrumentation, and of utterance.

There were more musical advances than Stravinsky's works alone. Amplification permitted giant concerts to be heard by those with the least expensive tickets, and the inexpensive reproduction and transmission or broadcast of music gave rich and poor alike nearly equal access to high quality music performances. In the early twentieth century, devices were invented that were capable of generating sound electronically, without an initial mechanical source of vibration. As more electronic technology matured, so did the music.

The Romantic Period

We have just made our way through the Romantic period in my music appreciation class, and now it's once again my task to share what I've learned.

The Romantic differed from the Classical era in many different ways. The Classical period Had strict laws od balance and restraint, but the Romantic period took it's own direction and became a lot more emotionally expressive and more creative. Romantic composers used the expressive means to portray nationalism. Many changes in technique also came about in this period. Composers became more experimental with lengths of compositions, harmonies, and tonal relationships. Another important feature of Romantic music was the use of color. While new instruments were constantly being added to the orchestra, composers also tried to get new or different sounds out of the instruments already in use. A great example of a Romantic composer that used the "tone painting" was Hector Berlioz. We actually listened to his Symphonie Fantastique in class so we could see just how effective this technique was on the human mind in terms of helping you to create a picture from hearing the sounds of the music.

Another new form of music that came about was the song, which was a vocal musical work that had a great amount of emphasis on the text or the symbolical meanings of words within the text. During the Romantic period, the virtuoso began to be focused. Exceptionally gifted performers - pianists, violinists, and singers -- became enormously popular. Liszt, the great Hungarian pianist/composer, reportedly played with such passion and intensity that women in the audience would faint. Most composers were also virtuoso performers; it was inevitable that the music they wrote would be extremely challenging to play.

The Romantic period could actually be divided into two schools of composers. Some of them took a more conservative approach. Their music was clearly Romantic in terms of style and feeling, but it also did not want to stray too far from the Classical rules. While other composers felt comfortable with pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable. After so long of pushing the limits, the Romantic era left later composers wondering what to explore next. The period that includes the final decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth is sometimes called the post-Romantic era. This was when composers really began focusing on very nationalistic music.