20TH & 21ST CENTURY (1900-Present)

“Shut up and take your dissonance like a man!” – Charles Ives

THE SOCIETY

  • Hyper nationalism leads to World War I.

  • The first 20 years or so of the 20th century were an extension of late romantic ideals (Expressionism), taking dissonance to whole new levels. A label for what came next could be be the “Post Great War Era.”

  • Much of what happened in 20th century music was a reaction to the self-importance and nationalism that lead to a war unlike anything the world had ever experienced.

THE ROLE OF MUSIC

  • The purpose of Expressionist music was to convey the deep, primal urges and longings of the subconscious mind; think Sigmund Freud.

  • Post Great War music, often called Neo-Classical music, returned to the ideals of the Classical era.  Music was either written for its own sake or to serve another purpose: movie music, ballet music, etc. It was no longer about expressing the inner life of the composer.

MUSICAL STYLE

  • The first 20 years or so were all about experimenting with extreme dissonance (Second Viennese School).

  • Following World War I, the pendulum swung away from self-indulgence back to music for music’s sake alone: Neo-Classicism.

  • The importance of form and structure from the Classical era returned, but the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic progress of the Romantic Era continued.

  • As the 20th century progressed, some composers returned to less dissonant, more “accessible” music, reminiscent of Romantic style.  Some had never really left that style.

  • The extreme dissonance in much 20th-century music is the result of three factors: the horrors of the two World Wars, the drive to express the depths of the subconscious human mind, and the need to see through to completion the intense chromaticism that Romanticism had explored.

MUSICAL DEVELOPMENTS

  • Tonality was taken to the breaking point and then broken (in other words, music went from “do” changing frequently to having no “do” whatsoever): atonality.

  • As this era progressed, novelty became one of the most important qualities of music as composers searched for things that hadn’t been done before.

COMPOSERS  

FUN FACTS

  • Throughout his life, Arnold Schönberg had a phobia of Friday the 13th.  Perhaps his fears were not unfounded:  It was on one such Friday the 13th that he died.

  • Igor Stravinsky (born in Russia) and Arnold Schönberg (born in Austria) spent a number of years living near each other in Hollywood, CA, where they carried on their musical rivalry.

  • At the premier of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a riot broke out in the concert hall between the audience members.  In the end, many were injured and 40 people were ejected.

  • Aaron Copeland’s Rodeo was featured in a wildly famous 1993 TV commercial for beef.

  • Bartok, gravely ill, was finishing composing a piano concerto for his wife to perform for income after he died.  As Bartok was putting the finishing touches on the final movement one evening, an old friend stopped by for a visit.  After his friend departed, Bartok, tired, put the incomplete score down and went to bed.  That night, he died in his sleep, leaving with work unfinished.

  • At a performance of extremely dissonant music, a young man in front of Charles Ives continuously complained about the music to his companion.  Finally, having had just about enough the man’s whining, Ives stood up and shouted, “Why don’t you shut up and take your dissonance like a man!”