Homepage › Magazine › Mibba Life › Featured: An Overview of 20th Century Music

Featured: An Overview of 20th Century Music

20th Century music is the name given to the period of music between 1900 and 2000. Although it directly follows the Romantic period, the music composed in the 20th Century period is a complete change from the structured and toned music of the periods before.

History

Towards the tail end of the Romantic period, the late Romantic composers were all beginning to depart from the traditional ‘nice’ sound of music. Many wanted change, and composers started experimenting with new sounds and key signatures, or even lack of. When the Romantic period began to fade out, along with the structured styles of music it had borrowed from the Classical period, the 20th Century period arrived and was instantly met with much criticism.

The biggest difference that 20th Century music exhibits is a complete breakup of the previous use of fourth and fifth chords. There are actually several types of music from the 20th Century period, each with their own important defining characteristic. Many pieces composed in the period were atonal, or without a key. This could create discord with the music and sometimes made the music extremely difficult to listen to. Some even believed that the lack of key meant the pieces composed were not proper music. However, many began to appreciate the difficulty it took to compose and record these pieces. As well as all of the other new movements, many influenced by art movements of the same time, nationalist music also remained a key genre in the music of the 20th century.

As well as using discordant notes and the lack of tone, some composers would record unusual sounds to include in their compositions. Some of the sounds included off-key circus music, pushing instruments down the stairs, and some composers would even experiment by placing bricks or other heavy objects on top of the strings of their piano and then playing. As a result, much of the music sounded extremely experimental and many of the pieces can have an almost eerie appeal to them.

As the century drew to a close and more contemporary music forms had become popular, instrumental music began to fade into the background. Popular music artists such as The Beatles had been pushing less mainstream music types into the background and by the turn of the 20th Century, the music composed in the various genres that were not popular music were almost desolate. Movement was made into a 21st Century period, where again, many elements from the Classical period are used, but the 20th Century period is widely regarded as one of the last great periods of instrumental music.

Famous 20th Century Composers

With the introduction of new technologies and new ways to make music came a new wave of composers, ready to experiment with the types of music that were currently around. Many of them are considered pioneers of their genre and are important figures in the movement of music.

Igor Stravinsky is considered one of the most important figures in 20th Century music. He was heavily involved in the neoclassical works – a type of music which took elements of Classical music and coupled them with new and experimental compositional techniques – and musical serialism – music which organises the 12 notes in the chromatic scale into an order and then manipulates that to create a tune – the latter of which he was credited with bringing to the forefront. Perhaps the most famous of his works is a ballet, the music for which is entitled "The Firebird Suite".

Arnold Schoenberg is another composer that was incredibly important to the 20th Century movement. He is widely credited with the introduction of atonality to music – a compositional tool in which the composer does not use any key or tones. Much of his music after 1908 uses this compositional tool and these pieces are perhaps what he is known for most. A perfect example of this is "Pierrot Lunaire".