20th Century Music: Impressionism to Electroacoustic
Features of Impressionism
Melodies without clear lines and cadences, which use modal, pentatonic, chromatic, and whole-tone scales. Harmony is free, with chords valued for their sound and not by tonal function. A new concept of using the instrument’s timbre individually and not as an orchestral set. Sound created an atmosphere based on “impressions” of hearing that has as its object the pleasure of sound.
Features of Expressionism
- Search for the dramatic through the continuous use of dissonances that produce a continuous tension.
- Using an atonal system that breaks all the rules of harmonic organization.
- Melodic replacement recited a kind of song that aims for violent and aggressive expression of text.
- Interpretation for small chamber ensembles in which each instrument plays a solo role.
Features of Neoclassical Music
Recovery of Baroque forms and genres and classic, looking for a new simplicity. Tonal music with a clear and concise style that avoids personal emotion, and the technique leaves development. Timbral richness but without using large groupings. Importance of melody, simple and without chromatisms. The objective is to achieve a nice and easy music to listen to.
The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky is one of the most notable musicians of the twentieth century. His work marks the beginning of a truly contemporary sound that affects all the composers of the era. The great work of Stravinsky is the ballet “The Rite of Spring.” Its release caused the greatest scandal in modern musical history. The force of its rhythms with constant shifts of emphasis, the overlapping of chords in different shades, the mix of timbres of the orchestra, and the percussive use of dissonance raised an absolute rejection from the Parisian public.
Arnold Schoenberg
Austrian composer and one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century and creator of the twelve-tone atonal Expressionism. He was also a painter.
Futurism
An aesthetic movement born in Italy in 1909 that rejected the art of the past to defend a new era characterized by modern machines and motion.
Dadaism
A deliberately unsightly movement that developed mainly in France, the U.S., and Germany between 1916 and 1920. The term “Dada” is a meaningless designation.
Twelve-Tone Technique
The technique of composition based on the twelve tones of the chromatic scale. It was created by Schoenberg in 1923 with the intention of establishing a new organized system to transform the world of composition.
Serialism
It is the application of the concept of series to all parameters of sound, not just the height of the notes.
Musique Concrète
Use any sound or noise removed from reality, related to the future.
Electronic Music
Produced completely in the laboratory in which sounds are created, processed, and recorded electronically. Interpreters are deleted and traditional scores, just like concrete music.
Electroacoustic Music
The union of concrete music with electronics, combining both together.
Stochastic Music
Algorithmic composition used to generate all the details of the work from certain instructions.
Aleatoric Music
It is an opposite current to the previous, offering unlimited music based on chance and the freedom of the performer.