20th Century Music
(1900-2000)
Movements in 20th-Century
Music
Modernism
 Neo-Classicism
 Minimalism
 Popular Music-inspired, Folk-music
inspired, Jazz Music-inspired Pieces

Modernism
“Assumptions” of music are challenged
and/or taken to extremes
 Can involve complex rhythms,
melodies, and harmonies
 “The wierder, the better”
 Composers:

– Arnold Schoenberg
– Igor Stravinsky
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
Mondestrunken (Moondrunk)
from Pierrot Lunaire
(Moonstruck Pierrot) (1912)

Genre: Song Cycle
 Super-complex harmonies with lots of
dissonance called atonality
 Example of weird instrumental effects and
scary-sounding half-sung/half-spoken vocal
sound called sprechstimme (song-speech)
 Example of Expressionism - movement in arts
seeking to express innermost extreme
feelings (Freud)
Moonstruck

The wine that with eyes is drunk, at night the
moon pours down in waves, and a springflook overflows the slient horizon.
 Desires shuddering and sweet swim
countless through the floods!
 The poet, whom devotion inspires made
drunk by the sacred drink, toward heaven he
turns his entranced head and ,reeling, sucks
and slurps the wine that with eyes is drunk.
IGOR STRAVINSKY
Part 1 from Le Sacre du
printemps (The Rite of Spring)
(1913)

Genre: Ballet
 Example of Primitivism - recalling the
prehistoric power of rhythm and form (Darwin)
 From ballet based on story of ancient ritual
sacrifice of a maiden
 Lots of rhythmic complexity - including
– SYNCOPATION
– Complex tone colors (unusual combinations of
NEO-CLASSICISM
(includes neo-romanticism, neobaroquism, neo-renaissancism,
and neo-medievalism)

A reaction against the wierdness of
Modernism
 A return to the past in thematic material and
formal structures
 Composers:
– Bela Bartok
– Benjamin Britten
– Ellen Taffe Zwilich
BELA BARTOK Second
Movement: Game of Pairs from
Concerto for Orchestra (1943)
Genre: Concerto
 A B A’ form - used Classical forms such
as sonata and rondo in an established
form such as Concerto
 Use traditional melodic shapes

BENJAMIN BRITTEN Young
Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
(1946)
Genre: (like a ) Concerto (for orchestra)
 Theme and Variations Form
 Theme is borrowed from a 17th-century
Baroque composer Henry Purcell

MINIMALISM
A movement in music also against the
complexities of Modernism
 Composers use simple melodic and
harmonic ideas and repeat them over
and over with very gradual changes
 Composer:

– Philip Glass
PHILIP GLASS Knee Play 1 from
Einstein on the Beach (1976)
Genre: Opera
 Simple melodic, harmonic and rhythmic
patterns
 These patterns are repeated over and
over again with subtle changes

POPULAR MUSIC-INSPIRED,
FOLK-MUSIC INSPIRED, JAZZ
MUSIC-INSPIRED PIECES
Composers look to popular, folk, and
jazz music for inspiration and musical
material
 Composers:

– William Grant Still
– Aaron Copland
WILLIAM GRANT STILL
Third Movement from
Afro-American Symphony (1931)
Genre: Symphony
 Inspired by African-American spirituals
and Jazz music
 Featured lots of syncopation

AARON COPLAND Section 7
from Appalachian Spring:
Theme and Variations on Simple
Gifts (1943-44)
Genre: Ballet
 Theme is based on early American
Shaker folk hymn called Simple Gifts
 Theme and Variaitons form

ELLEN TAFFE ZWILICH First
Movement from Concerto
Grosso 1985 (1985)
Genre: Concerto
 Uses instruments from the past (harpsichord)
 Modelled after concerto grosso of
Handel and Bach
 Example of Neo-Classicism (although it
goes back to Baroque music models)
