As the world made the transition from 19th-century Romanticism to 20th century Modernism, its inhabitants witnessed a musical change that would forever affect the course of history. Rejecting the emotions-dominated Romantic period, the 20th century wanted to represent the world as it was actually perceived. Artists desired to be objective, while objects existed on their own terms. While past eras concentrated on spirituality, this new period placed emphasis on physicality and things that were concrete. A focus on restraint and balance resulted in the Neoclassicism of the 1920s, and modern artists sought a return to primitive life in their work in a movement called Primitivism. Neoclassicism rejected the programmatic music characteristic of the 19th-century era. Instead, composers looked back to the 18th-century Classical period’s absolute music of order and clarity in a "back to Bach" movement of the early 1920s (Machlis & Forney 460).

Returning to a classical style affected composers in different ways, and especially had an impact on Russian-born composer, conductor, and pianist Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), who wrote that "the more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free" (qtd. in Machlis 161). Through bringing back absolute forms, such as the symphony, chamber music, the sonata and concerto, earlier musical forms were also revived: suite, divertimento, toccata, and fugue (Machlis 163). Nationalism was important to Romanticism, but composers in the 20th century wanted to retain the original sound of the folk singers. With more options in technology available to them, composers like the Hungarian masters Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) could travel among the peasant villages and record the music making. In fact, Bartók spoke of those days among the peasants as the happiest of his life.
 

.: IMPRESSIONISM

Stylistic musical changes were being made in many European countries, in nonwestern countries, and in America. Paris was the center for music, art, and literature during the early years of this period, and Impressionism was a particular style that evolved out of this city during the second half of the 19th century. Composers imitated the painters’ impressionist subtle style, which French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) thought to be "discreet" (qtd. in Machlis 86). But music professors of Debussy at the Paris Conservatoire warned: "Beware of this vague impressionism which is one of the most dangerous enemies of artistic truth" (qtd. 86). Ironically, Debussy and other impressionist composers hated this label, and he complained of "what some idiots call impressionism, a term that is altogether misused, especially by the critics" (qtd. 86). Another French modern movement is called musique concrète, a late 20th-century style in which composers derive musical sounds from nature, everyday sounds, and general noise, altering them to fit their piece. Modern French composer, organist, and teacher Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) also felt inspired by nature, notating songs of French birds in pieces that reflected an intense love for mysticism.

The 1920s rejection of Romanticism was also found in works of French author Jean Cocteau, who joined a contemporary French composer named Erik Satie (1866-1925) to mentor a group of young Paris musicians called Les Six. With a focus on objectivity and understatement in their compositions, three of these men later became musical leaders in France: Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), and Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). Spreading throughout Europe after 1918, a movement called Dadaism began in Switzerland. Comprised of artists and writers who produced works based on simple concepts, this movement rejected the idea and accepted concept of Art, as well as any form of art that was complex. Influencing Les Six, the Dadaists fused with Surrealists, a group that focused on the dream world. Promoting simplicity, Dadaist Erik Satie and others took music on a different track after World War I and introduced "everyday" music, or "workaday music" that interested the average listener and producers (Machlis 159). Besides Satie, German-born American Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), Austrian Ernst Krenek (1900-1991), and German composers Kurt Weill (1900-1950) and Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) were involved. Hindemith remarked in 1927 that "a composer should write today only if he knows for what purpose he is writing" (qtd. 160).

Expressionism was the German version of Impressionism, an idea that came from painting and was musically prominent in central Europe and with Viennese composers. Influencing Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Expressionism featured melodic leaps and instruments that played in their very high and low registers.

Since they no longer depended solely on patrons for financial support, composers grew apart from the public they had been close to in earlier periods. Some revived the 17th- and 18th-century French court music that was meant strictly for entertainment (Machlis 156-7) whereas others used satire, irony, and humor marked by dissonance. Jazz music became important after the first World War, especially in America. Using syncopation and polyrhythm, the melody of a jazz group was represented with the reeds and brass instruments, while rhythm was found in percussion, string, and piano instrument families.

Considered a Jazz Age, the 1920s in America featured George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and Piano Concerto in F (Machlis 352), as well as Leonard Bernstein's musical theater with jazz influences. Some musical selections were inspired by urban life, specifically with the rhythmic hum of the city. Opera subjects exploited city life, seen in Hindemith’s News of the Day from 1929 (Machlis 154-5).
 

.: INSTRUMENTS

Moving from the Romantic period and into the 20th century and throughout this modern era, instruments changed and developed drastically. For example, pianists will sometimes reach inside the piano to pluck the strings while performing; vocalists may whisper or laugh, and even hiss. More than any other family, percussion instruments expanded. But orchestras in the 20th century dwindled in size. As orchestral music became more concise and complex, the length of compositions also diminished. Symphony orchestras expanded in other ways, as their goal was to make individual instruments stand out and be heard.

Expanding instruments in notes, technique, and other areas, performers had greater possibilities to work with. Mixed chamber ensembles with three to 20 players featured piano, strings, winds, and percussion. With advances made in the percussion family, musicians took an interest in African, Asian, and Latin American music. American pianist and composer John Cage (1912-1992) introduced the "prepared piano" of the 1940s that highlighted a small percussion orchestra connected to the keyboard (Machlis 460). Singers also created percussive effects vocally through humming, hissing, and other rhythmic expressions. Gradually the percussive sound began to dominate the orchestra, and pianos became part of the ensemble, as opposed to the virtuoso solo instrument it had been during the Romantic period.
 

.: 20TH-CENTURY MUSICAL STYLE
 

Was melody a primary emphasis of 20th-century compositions? American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) once said that "the melody is generally what the piece is about" (qtd. in Machlis 11). But the concept of melody changed with the modern time, resulting in no standard patterns that musicians were used to. As melodic themes were generally stated only once in a work, music required focused attention of listeners to figure it out. Some modern music has no melody, and many feature tiny clusters of melodic ideas and themes throughout a piece. Melodies had wide leaps of notes and were often dissonant, with the 20th century turning back to past eras of counterpoint. Other older forms were a place to explore this dissonance in separate lines so each part could be easily heard.

In a way, this restored the balance and clarity characteristic of the Classical period. But since composers in the 20th-century period had a different focus, melodic importance was often ignored.

Rhythm deviated from the typical, accepted meter of past periods. Metric time became less regular and, later in the modern era, composers wrote music without any defined pulse at all. In many genres, music had a meter that was abruptly changing. Stravinsky and Bartók incorporated driving rhythms into their music, and jazz pieces made use of syncopation. Using nonwestern rhythm, composers received musical ideas from Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe. But they also featured the songs and dances of Western culture from southeastern Europe, Asiatic Russia, and the Near East (Machlis 129). Examples of these influences are seen in Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Odd-numbered rhythms of five, seven, eleven, and thirteen could change and alternate throughout a composition.

German composer Paul Hindemith spoke of tonality as "a natural force, like gravity" (qtd. in Machlis 23). Expanding tonality in the 20th century to include all twelve tones in a scale with a special focus on a central note, Schoenberg invented a method Austrian composer and conductor Anton Webern (1883-1945) later called serialism in order to change the conventional major/minor tonal system. A certain arrangement of all twelve tones called a tone row serves as the base for a piece, and the composer is allowed to create many versions of the row. Serialism gave composers more musical control, and later expanded from notes to include rhythm, dynamics, and the space between notes (called intervals).

While tone rows provided a strict form of musical organization, some music wasn’t ordered in any specific way at all, but was left to the decision of the performer. Composers also returned to use of modes from the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods. Schoenberg, however, emphatically stated that "there is still much good music to be written in C Major" (qtd. in Machlis 29).

Instead of the typical harmonic chords containing three or four notes, modern composers wrote polychords of five, six, and even seven notes. In addition, polyharmony combined the new and different kinds of harmony available. Polytonality was associated with Igor Stravinsky and his ballet Petrushka, and a listener could hear two different keys sounding at once. Instead of two keys, Schoenberg introduced atonality with no definite key; all notes were the same in importance and emphasis. In most cases, harmony stayed within the defined tonal scale. One modern example is called pandiatonicism, which consists of playing all the white notes on the keyboard.

With new ideas about form, musicians considered "the overall organization of these elements in musical time and space" (Machlis 47). Bringing back Classical period form, pieces typically had the traditional feelings of tension and release. Texturally, modern composers used as few notes as possible, as they were striving for a bare sound. Only writing in the essential tones, musicians turned away from the Romantic period’s thick and involved texture.
 

.: NATIONALISM

To make music accessible for the whole nation, Russia created a style within Communism. Their music was called socialist realism, and was connected with life images that were expressed through exciting rhythms and flashy orchestral effects (Machlis 214). Late romantic composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) had said that "art is a means of communicating with mankind" (qtd. 214). Most famous of the modern Russian composers are probably Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). Later, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) entered the Russian musical scene as prominent composers. Musicians like Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) left the Communist country, but others like Shostakovich, Armenian composer Aram Khatchaturian (1903-1978), and Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987) stayed in Russia. In the 1930s, the opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk by Shostakovich was attacked by the government. After World War II, Soviet theoretician Andrei Zhdanov demanded that Russian composers follow the 18th-century Classical masters, but composers had more freedom after the years of Stalin’s reign.

In England, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) had an international impact, while Carl Orff (1895-1982), Kurt Weill, and Paul Hindemith influenced the Western world from a German point of view. But when Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich didn’t allow Hindemith’s music to be heard in concert, the composer left Germany and moved to the U.S., teaching composition at both Yale and Tanglewood. 20th-century Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály fused their national style with folk music, while Leos Janácek from Czechoslovakia was a nationally known figure in teaching, conducting, and composing. Pianists and composers Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) and Enrique Granados (1867-1916), provided modern Spanish music. From Finland came Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), with musical contributions also from Danish Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) and Swiss Ernest Bloch (1880-1959).
 

.: MUSIC IN AMERICA

During the 19th century, American composers were influenced by Italian opera and the German symphony. Later in the Romantic period, French Impressionism had an impact on musicians in America who wanted to make their music as good in quality as that of the Europeans. Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) is now considered the first truly 20th-century American composer with his expression of American style that fuses music from around the world, and New York-born pianist and composer Edward MacDowell (1861-1908) became quickly known in other countries. Other important American composers like Stephen Foster (1826-1864) and John Knowles Paine (1839-1906) taught music at Harvard University.

Before the historical stock market crash of 1929, the United States was financially stable during the 1920s. So, musicians received grants and fellowships to help support their interest in composition and performance.

Prizes included the Guggenheim; the Prix de Rome that awarded three years of study at the American Academy of Music; the Pulitzer Prize; and the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Composers’ works were published by awards from the Eastman School of Music, Juilliard, and the Society for the Publication of American Music. In addition, the League of Composers commissioned much 20th-century music (Machlis 350). Begun in 1921, the International Composers Guild allowed aspiring musical artists to join a professional organization. This was followed by the International Society for Contemporary Music, the American Composers’ Alliance, and the National Association of American Composers and Conductors. An 1927 magazine called New Music was founded to promote the generating of new ideas.

As prominent music schools started to pay attention to young and new composers, they allowed these musicians to serve as school directors and to teach composition. Famous Parisian instructor, composer, and conductor Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) taught many Americans: Aaron Copland, Roy Harris (1898-1979), Walter Piston (1894-1970), Douglas Moore (1893-1969), and Quincy Porter (1897-1966), to name a few. Copland, in turn, made a great impact on Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990). An active music educator and pianist, conductor and composer, Bernstein fused jazz with musical theater, which resulted in the very popular West Side Story.

When the Great Depression hung over America in the 1930s, music helped lift the pessimistic mood. Folk songs, spirituals, and work songs ensured that musicians would still be financially supported. At the end of the 1930s and later, composers became interested in native American music, American religious music, patriotic songs, work songs, and jazz "city music" (Machlis 377). Like Europe, Latin American music was supported by the government. Popular styles from this country had an impact all over the world, and both ragtime and jazz reached Europe in no time.

World War II caused great chaos in the musical life of Europe. Bombs ruined opera houses and concert halls, and many European composers came to the United States to seek refuge and artistic freedom. During the years of Nazi rule, America enjoyed being the musical center of the world, with legendary composers like Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, Ernst Krenek, and Czechoslovakian Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). This, of course, left a void in German music after the war.
 

.: NEW STYLES

Evolved with the intent to express emotions that were important during the 19th-century period, "New Romanticism" has brought modern styles full circle with composers like American Samuel Barber (1910-1981) and Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) from Scotland. Minimalist music was invented to eliminate all nonessentials and focus on repetition of a few important details. Minimalism is seen in music of Terry Riley (b. 1935) and Philip Glass (b. 1937).
 

.: MUSIC AND TECHNOLOGY

In the 1950s, scientists came out with the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer that produced tones electronically. Radio also became accessible throughout Europe. The LP record from 1948 and the tape recorder eliminated some expenses, and recording equipment was used in villages (particularly by Bartók and Kodály) throughout the world to capture the essence of folk music. Society grew from disc recording to magnetic tape recorders, and electronic and acoustic instruments were put into use. Beginning in the 1960s, computers were programmed to synthesize sounds as well as used to compose. Today we have MIDI, or Musical Instruments Digital Interface, allowing for computer music and composing electronically.

.: Musical Terms

Absolute Music: Instrumental music that is not illustrative or connected with words. Opposite program music.

Atonality: The absence of any defined key in a composition, with no tonal center nor preference given to any note. Opposite tonality.

Chamber Music: Instrumental music written for a small ensemble with two or more equal parts, becoming prominent during the time of Viennese Classical master Franz Joseph Haydn.

Concerto: A work in which an instrument is blended with orchestra or contrasted as a soloist.

Counterpoint: Derived from the expression meaning "note against note," this term is the combination of two or more melodic lines sounding together in a linear sense; the musical ability to hear and understand two lines at once. Beginning in the 9th century, counterpoint reached its height between the 16th and 17th centuries.

Dissonance: A chord that sounds restless and unstable, usually resolved to justify the sound for the listening ear. Opposite consonance.

Divertimento (It. "amusement"): An 18th-century suite comprised of light movements for entertainment purposes; secular instrumental works for chamber ensemble or soloist in the late 18th century.

Fugue: One type of contrapuntal composition for a certain number of voices, each entering one at a time in imitation of each other. The theme of the first voice is known as the subject, whereas the next voice to enter would be the answer. When all voices have stated their theme, the exposition is complete. Subjects alternate with brief episodes, or short independent sections, throughout the piece.

Mode: Scales that dominated European music until about 1500, which were then revived in the 20th century; a rhythmic pattern making up the set of medieval music modes; a series of related concepts in scales and melodies.

Neoclassicism: A 20th-century musical style developing in the 1920s in which composers utilized styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. Characterized by objectivity, clarity, balance, and emotional restraint and detachment. Directly associated with works of Igor Stravinsky, as well as music between the world wars.

Pandiatonicism: Term introduced by Russian-born American musicologist, conductor, and composer Nicolas Slonimsky. The free use of the seven-note diatonic scale degrees in construction of chords.

Polychord: In 20th century music, a chord comprised of two or more simple and often familiar chords.

Polyrhythm: Several different rhythms sounding at once but not necessarily associated with one another.

Polytonality: The use of more than one key at once in different contrapuntal combinations.

Program Music: Instrumental composition depicting nonmusical ideas, concerning literary ideas, or telling a story.

Serialism: 20th-century musical structure of a composition in which a series of elements (notes, rhythm, duration) are placed in a certain order that develops the work.

Sonata: ("to sound"): Instrumental composition in several movements for piano solo or instrumental combination with piano accompaniment. Originated in the 16th century to mean any work played and not sung.

Suite: Originally an instrumental composition in dance style and in several unified movements. During the Baroque period, a typical suite would have featured movements called allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue.

Syncopation: Contradicting the predominant meter or pulse, syncopation is a rhythmic tool that changes the stressed beats to avoid regularity, thus accenting the weak beats. In addition to shifting which notes are accented, this term applies to a change in the entire meter. Associated mainly with jazz music, and with the works of Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók.

Toccata (It. "touched"): An early form of keyboard composition in which the performer’s touch is displayed through passagework in an improvisatory style. The name was first association with organ preludes, and expanded to include orchestral music in the 20th century.

Tonality: In Western music, the center or defined key around which the other notes are organized. This defined key serves as the base for the entire composition.

Tone Row: Music based on a serial arrangement of all twelve chromatic pitches, or half steps. Begun in the 1920s with music of Arnold Schoenberg, a tone row is the chosen order in which all the notes are arranged within in the octave in twelve-tone music. In strict usage, no note within the octave is repeated until the row is complete, and the row is the foundation for the entire composition.

.: Suggested Listening

Antonin Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New World

Claude Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)

Béla Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring

Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story