Modern

1900 -

 

 

 

 

Composers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debussy

1862 - 1918

Stravinsky died in 1971
Schoenberg died in 1951
Berg
Bartok died in 1945
Copland
Modern Characteristics
Timber Noiselike and percussive sounds often used

Instruments playing in the very top and bottom of their ranges Piano is used as a percussive instrument

Sound is transparent, individual tone colors heard clearly

Music written for unusual combinations of instruments
Harmony Abandons the traditional distinction between consonance and dissonance

Chords built on the fourth

Use of two or more keys at the same time, polytonality

Atonality, the absence of a key
Movements:
Impressionism a movement in music very much like that in art. represented by Debussy in which the outlines are blurry, soft tones, as in the pastel shades of art. no double fortes.

Harmonies are vague and the tonality is often cloudy.

Expressionism music in very emotional and complex, taking the emotionalism of Romanticism to its uhimate conclusion into nightmares, hysteria, and even insanity
Serialism a twelve tone system, developed by Schoenberg, with the twelve tones of the chromatic scale solely in relation to one another with no central pitch as a point of reference. For each piece he composed he would develop a twelve tone series. The next piece would have a different senes.
Musical Terms:

 

 

Tonality the feeling of centrality, focus or homing toward a particular pitch that we get in simple tunes that are in a specific key such a C Major.
Atonality music in which no tonal center can be detected, all the tones are equal
Consonance consonant chords sound stable and at rest
Dissonance Sound tense and need to resolve to consonnant ones