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| Twentieth-Century Music | |
|---|---|
| Name | Twentieth-Century Music |
| Period | 20th century |
| Stylistic origins | Late Romanticism, Impressionism, Serialism |
| Cultural origins | Early 20th century |
| Derivatives | Minimalism, Electronic music, Postmodernism |
| Notable instruments | Piano, Violin, Synthesizer, Electric guitar |
Twentieth-Century Music Twentieth-century music encompassed a vast range of styles, movements, and practices that transformed Vienna, Paris, New York City, Berlin, and London into hubs of innovation. Composers, performers, ensembles, and institutions such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Ballets Russes, New York Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Radio Corporation of America engaged with changing technologies, global conflicts, and shifting patronage systems to produce works linking Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Béla Bartók to later figures like John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Rapid political, social, and technological change shaped musical life across Europe, the United States, Russia, Japan, and Latin America. The fallout from the First World War and the Second World War influenced composers associated with the Weimar Republic, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy while migrations through ports like Ellis Island and cities such as Buenos Aires and Istanbul altered cultural networks for figures including Arnold Schoenberg, Erik Satie, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Institutions including the Guggenheim Foundation, Library of Congress, Juilliard School, Conservatoire de Paris, and Curtis Institute of Music mediated commissions, premieres, and pedagogy affecting performers like Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Maria Callas, and Dmitri Mitropoulos.
Movements ranged from Impressionism associated with Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel to Expressionism tied to Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg and from Neoclassicism exemplified by Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith to Serialism led by Anton Webern, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono. Jazz interactions involved Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis, intersecting with concert music through George Gershwin, Billy Strayhorn, and Deliu Glemĕr. Minimalism emerged with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass while Electronic music progressed via Hugh Le Caine, Morton Subotnick, Wendy Carlos, Delia Derbyshire, and institutions like Radiodiffusion Française and Studio für elektronische Musik des WDR. Nationalist tendencies appeared in works by Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, and Carlos Chávez.
Composers adopted techniques from atonality and twelve-tone technique to aleatoric music, graphic notation, and extended techniques for instruments and voice. Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern developed serial procedures later expanded by Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, and Olivier Messiaen, whose rhythmic innovations influenced Iannis Xenakis and Olivier Messiaen's students such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Innovations in timbre and texture involved Edgard Varèse, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, and György Kurtág, while John Cage introduced indeterminacy and prepared piano techniques informing performers like Merce Cunningham and institutions such as Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Electronic synthesisers and tape music developed through work by Vladimir Ussachevsky, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Max Mathews, and companies including Bell Labs and Mellotron Ltd.
A wide roster includes Igor Stravinsky, Igor Stravinsky's collaborators like Sergei Diaghilev, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Gustav Mahler's late followers, and soloists and conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Arturo Toscanini, Claudio Abbado, Mariss Jansons, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pablo Casals, Itzhak Perlman, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Jascha Heifetz, Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini, Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter, Martha Graham, and Pina Bausch. Opera figures include Richard Strauss, Giacomo Puccini, Benjamin Britten, Maria Callas, Montserrat Caballé, and Plácido Domingo.
Broadcasting and recording transformed dissemination through entities like the BBC, Deutsche Grammophon, Columbia Records, RCA Victor, EMI, Blue Note Records, Verve Records, and venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Teatro alla Scala, Sydney Opera House, and Lincoln Center. Conservatories including the Conservatoire de Paris, Moscow Conservatory, Juilliard School, Royal College of Music, and Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg shaped pedagogy linked to organizations like the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire and festivals such as Donaueschingen Festival, Tanglewood, Aldeburgh Festival, and Salzburg Festival. Technology firms Bell Labs, Moog Music, Yamaha Corporation, and Fender Musical Instruments Corporation influenced instrument design and studio practice.
Non-Western traditions and hybridizations appeared across regions: Latin American modernists such as Alberto Ginastera, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Chávez, and Heitor Villa-Lobos; East Asian figures like Toru Takemitsu, Sukeyasu Shiba, Isang Yun, and Takashi Yoshimatsu; African and Afro-diasporic currents involving Fela Kuti, Kwame Nkrumah's cultural policies, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, and Cuban developments led by Arsenio Rodríguez, Ignacio Piñeiro, and Celia Cruz. Cross-cultural exchanges occurred through tours by the International Society for Contemporary Music, collaborations with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and ethnomusicological collections at the Smithsonian Institution and British Library.
Critical debates involved journals and critics from The New York Times, The Times (London), Die Zeit, Le Monde, and publications like The Musical Quarterly and Tempo. Institutions such as the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature crossover influences, Grammy Awards, and Prix de Rome shaped reputations alongside academic scholarship at universities including Harvard University, Yale University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and University of California, Los Angeles. The century's legacies persist in contemporary festivals, conservatory curricula, and recording catalogs maintained by Decca Records, Nonesuch Records, ECM Records, and digital platforms emerging from companies such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc..
Category:20th-century music