What is It
20st Century Musical Styles
Impressionism
It was based on the art movement that started by the 19th century Paris-based
visual artists, specifically Claude Monet through his painting Impression
Sunrise and found its way to music in the late 19th century and early 20th
century among French composers.
Impressionism made use of whole-tone scale. It made use of overlapping
chords. It suggested reality rather than depict it. It creates a mood rather than
a definite picture. Most of the impressionist work centered on nature and its
beauty, lightness and brilliance.
It had a translucent and hazy texture; lacking a dominant-tonic relationship.
It made use of overlapping chords, with 4th, 5th, octaves, and 9th intervals,
resulting in a non-traditional harmonic order and resolution. Composers
under this style were Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea2WoUtbzuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A4Lxm3IpvY
Expressionism used atonality and the twelve-tone scale, lacking stable and
conventional harmonies. Composers in this style were Arnold Schoenberg
and Igor Stravinsky.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqODySSxYpc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP42C-4zL3w
Primitivism
Primitivistic music is tonal through the stressing of one note as more
important than the others. New sounds are synthesized from old ones by
juxtaposing two simple events to create a more complex new event. It
combines two familiar or simple ideas together creating new sounds.
Primitivism has links to Exoticism through the use of materials from other
cultures, Nationalism through the use of materials indigenous to specific
countries, and Ethnicism through the use of materials from European ethnic
groups. A famous composer arise in this style is this style was Bela Bartok.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaQvPhVvQaY
Neo-Classicism
It was a moderating factor between the emotional excess of the Romantic
period and the violent impulses of the soul in expressionism. It was a partial
return to a classical form of writing music with carefully modulated
dissonances. It made use of a freer seven-note diatonic scale.
The neo-classicist style can be reflected on the works of Francis Poulenc,
Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith and Sergei Prokofiev.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueGfjBKbiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-VSj7bSsfo
Avant-Garde Music
Avant-garde style was associated with electronic music and dealt with the
parameters or dimensions of sound in space. It made use of variations of
selfcontained note groups to change musical continuity, and improvisation,
with an absence of traditional rules on harmony, melody, and rhythm.
Composers in this style were George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and
Philip Glass.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU1X3Wut-k0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srb2EyvTSGw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EftcxbXXSOQ
Modern Nationalism
It was looser form of 20th century music development focused on nationalist
composers and musical innovators who sought to combine modern
techniques with folk materials.
Electronic Music
The capacity of electronic machines such as synthesizers, amplifiers, tape
recorders and loudspeakers to create different sounds was put to creative
use by 20th century composers like Edgar Varese, Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Mario Davidovsky.
Musique concrete or concrete music creates sound from tape recorder.
Different sounds from the environment were used by the composer to record
sound such as barking dogs, cry of infant, sound of wind etc. The composer
arranged the sound in different ways by playing the tape recorder in a fast
way or in reverse. In this musical style, the composer is able to experiment
sounds that cannot be produced by a regular musical instrument.
Go to this link and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqxMgC7C3po
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0aeagbZBRs
Chance Music
It was style of music wherein the piece always sounds different at every
performance because of the random techniques of production, including the
use of ring modulators or natural elements that become a part of the music.
Most of the sounds emanate from the surroundings, both natural and manmade, such as honking cars, rustling leaves, blowing wind, dripping water, or
a ringing phone. The combination of external sounds cannot be duplicated as
each happens by chance. A well-known composer in this style was John
Cage.
What I Have Learned
1.
Impressionism made use of the whole tone scale.it also applied
suggested, rather than depicted reality. It created a mood rather than a
definite picture. It had a translucent and hazy texture; lacking a dominant tonic relationship. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel were the primary
exponents of impressionism.
2.
Expressionism revealed the composer’s mind, instead of presenting
an impression of the environment. It used atonality and the twelve-tone scale,
lacking stable and conventional harmonies. It served as a medium for
expressing strong emotions, such as anxiety, rage, and alienation. Arnold
Schoenberg was the primary exponent of expressionism, and Igor Stravinsky
was also an expressionist and a neo-classical composer.
3.
Neo-classicism was a partial return to a classical form of writing music
with carefully modulated dissonances. It made use of a freer seven-note
diatonic scale.
4.
The Avant Garde style was associated with electronic music and dealt
with the parameters or dimensions of sound in space. It made use of
variations of selfcontained note groups to change musical continuity, and
improvisation, with an absence of traditional rules on harmony, melody, and
rhythm. George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Philip Glass were the
prominent composers.
5.
Modern nationalism is a looser form of 20th century music
development focused on nationalist composers and musical innovators who
sought to combine modern techniques with folk materials. Nikolai Rimsky
Korsakov together with his members in the group “Russian Five” and Edgar
Satie were the composers.
6.
Bela Bartok was a neo-classical, modern nationalist, and a primitivist
composer who adopted Hungarian folk themes to introduce rhythms with
changing meters and heavy syncopation.
7.
As the 20th century progressed, so did the innovations in musical
styles as seen in the works of these composers. From France, Edgard Varese’s
use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as
the “Father of Electronic Music” and a description of him as “The
Stratospheric Colossus of Sound.” From Germany, there was Karlheinz
Stockhausen, who further experimented with electronic music and musique
concrete. Stockhausen’s electronic sounds revealed the rich musical potential
of modern technology. From the United States, there was John Cage with his
truly unconventional composition techniques. Cage’s works feature the
widest array of sounds from the most inventive sources arrived a chance
music.