# "20th century composers"



## Calipso (May 10, 2020)

Another popular term is " 20th century great composer". What means this phrase? "Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich or Bartok are among 20th century greats". Why limit these artists on one century? This separation always seems to me as tendentiously underestimation.

Is Mozart 18th century great? Oh no, he is "greatest gift to humanity and "Beethoven struggle is inspiration for ages". They are "all time greats". First among equals.


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

The really odd thing is how "20th century" sometimes gets used interchangeably with "post-war". I get that the Second World War is probably the most consequential event in (barely) living memory, but still.


----------



## prlj (10 mo ago)

I think the century designation is utilized because there are too styles in play during the era. When we think of Baroque, Classical or Romantic eras, we can fairly easily ascertain what is meant by each, and what it vaguely will sound like. 

20th Century threw that all into a tizzy - we have all this niche styles...serialism, post-romantic, modern, post-modern, minimalism, musique concrète, film scores, etc. And some composers dipped in and out of different styles throughout their career. 

If you look at what was happening in CM between c.1907 - c.1913, everything was starting to head down different paths. It's a fascinating time.


----------



## Calipso (May 10, 2020)

I understand that 20th century is very specific in arts and generally in everything, this is period of fastest transformation in human history in every sense, but this tendency to isolate one century is a bit strange to me.


----------



## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Using "20th Century" as an adjective offers an indication to listeners that the musical content might contain harmonic vocabularies which may not be suitable for everyone in the audience.

My mind compares this with the rating system for motion pictures; music by Tchaikovsky could be rated "G" (suitable for anybody) whilst the compositions of Bruno Maderna might be deemed "R"-rated (for advanced individuals).


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

20th century with reference to classical music, seems to kind of used the same way: Baroque, Classical, Romantic are used to define eras of music. 

But as others have already mentioned, in the 20th century, classical music has diverted into so many different directions, considering the 20th century as an era in the same way, the Baroque is an era, is kind of meaningless. All Baroque has some pretty obvious similarities, that define the music.

But, the similarities between: Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter, Tower, Maderna, Glass, Berg, Finnissy, etc are almost non existent.


----------



## Calipso (May 10, 2020)

That is all fine, but not enough. Despite obvious differences, I dont see dramatic distinction between Prokofiev, Shosty, Stravinsky, Ravel etc., and composers before. This logic "20th century" may be much better applied on avant garde composers like Carter, Ligeti and company.


----------



## prlj (10 mo ago)

It would be great if we had suggestions for names for some of these eras...what might we suggest for the Prok/Shosty/Strav group, for example? And where would Strauss fit in there? And early Schoenberg? (Mahler?)


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Calipso said:


> Another popular term is " 20th century composer". *What means this phrase*? "Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich or Bartok are among 20th century greats". Why limit these artists on one century? This separation always seems to me as tendentiously underestimation.
> 
> Is Mozart 18th century great? Oh no, he is "greatest gift to humanity and "Beethoven struggle is inspiration for ages". They are "all time greats". First among equals.


The phrase means they composed their works in the 20th century. That's all it means.


----------



## Calipso (May 10, 2020)

EdwardBast said:


> This is ridiculous. The phrase means they composed their works in the 20th century. That's all it means.


Read my post with understanding.


----------



## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Deleted - posted a saved draft meant for a different thread - I didn't realize that the drafts carry over from one thread to another and if you hit "Enter" by mistake it posts the draft.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I did. It makes no sense


Calipso said:


> Read my post with understanding.


You changed the meaning when you edited the OP after my comment. Now I see what you were trying to say.

Now that I read it with understanding: I don't know anyone who calls these composers "20th century great composers" for the purpose of distinguishing them from great composers of all time. In any case, they are generally acknowledged as among the greats, particularly on TC. So you are complaining that they aren't widely considered as great as Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? 

Anyway, Calipso, I'd like to apologize for my unsympathetic reaction. Welcme to the forum!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

fbjim said:


> The really odd thing is how "20th century" sometimes gets used interchangeably with "post-war". I get that the Second World War is probably the most consequential event in (barely) living memory, but still.


It's kind of like the image described in


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

With music think of Modern as one of the genres derived from a given period like Baroque, Classical and Romantic. For me Modern music begins with the likes of Debussy and contains composers who had established themselves by1950. I'm not sure what we call music that came after that. Some might currently get labelled "contemporary" or "avant garde" but these are not terms that suit all. I don't think it works to consider the likes of Carter, Ligeti and Boulez as Modernist composers.


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

prlj said:


> It would be great if we had suggestions for names for some of these eras...what might we suggest for the Prok/Shosty/Strav group, for example? And where would Strauss fit in there? And early Schoenberg? (Mahler?)


Strauss, Mahler and early Schoenberg are late romantics. Shostakovich primarily falls in this, as Mahler as his primary influence
The Wikipedia article is not a bad place to start for the strains of music after that


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music#Styles


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

fbjim said:


> The really odd thing is how "20th century" sometimes gets used interchangeably with "post-war". I get that the Second World War is probably the most consequential event in (barely) living memory, but still.


Wars are probably the best markers for historical divisions. After all, history is but a series of cataclysms awaiting a final cataclysm.


----------



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> With music think of Modern as one of the genres derived from a given period like Baroque, Classical and Romantic. For me Modern music begins with the likes of Debussy and contains composers who had established themselves by1950. I'm not sure what we call music that came after that. Some might currently get labelled "contemporary" or "avant garde" but these are not terms that suit all. I don't think it works to consider the likes of Carter, Ligeti and Boulez as Modernist composers.


 Thank you for wrestling with difficult problems -- how to use the word "Modern" in a musical context, and what to call the 20th century as a musical period or era. I hope you will see my post as wrestling with these problems too, and that in questioning certain of your usages I recognize mine can be questioned too. Terms in different languages cause further confusion; English is the language I know, though I read French and German.
I am with you on the periods Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. But I am not clear on what you mean in calling Modern "one of the genres derived from a given period like Baroque, Classical, and Romantic." "Modern music" isn't really a genre (kind or type); it's a very general and now old-fashioned expression for the recent and novel in music. And I don't see how it is characterized by being derived from any given earlier period. I agree with you that "contemporary" or "avant-garde" don't suffice for the whole period under consideration, so I just use "20th-century music" now. 
As for "modernity" vs. "modernism," "modernism" vs. "postmodernism," or "21st-century music" those are topics for another time, and there may already be other threads on them. But these discussions are only useful if people calm down and stay that way ...


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Roger Knox said:


> Thank you for wrestling with difficult problems -- how to use the word "Modern" in a musical context, and what to call the 20th century as a musical period or era. I hope you will see my post as wrestling with these problems too, and that in questioning certain of your usages I recognize mine can be questioned too. Terms in different languages cause further confusion; English is the language I know, though I read French and German.
> I am with you on the periods Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. But I am not clear on what you mean in calling Modern "one of the genres derived from a given period like Baroque, Classical, and Romantic." "Modern music" isn't really a genre (kind or type); it's a very general and now old-fashioned expression for the recent and novel in music. And I don't see how it is characterized by being derived from any given earlier period. I agree with you that "contemporary" or "avant-garde" don't suffice for the whole period under consideration, so I just use "20th-century music" now.
> As for "modernity" vs. "modernism," "modernism" vs. "postmodernism," or "21st-century music" those are topics for another time, and there may already be other threads on them. But these discussions are only useful if people calm down and stay that way ...


I guess I use Modernist for the period it was originally used for. I think as we move further a way from a period we can hear more clearly what it involved. So we can now hear that the music of such diverse composers as, say, Bartok, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich etc belongs to or is rooted in that (Modernist) period. But there was a change in the aesthetic of composer who emerged after WW2. We hear huge diversity and may not be far enough away to hear what is common to all. Boulez, Carter, Ligeti, Takemitsu, Part and Schnittke are typical names from this period. So what to call it? "Contemporary" doesn't really work and will become less and less appropriate as time goes by. "Postmodern" is a word that gets used to mean so many different things that I am not sure we can communicate using it. We don't have a name for it but might often be using the term avant garde. 

And then I _think _the aesthetic shifted again towards the end of the 20th century, perhaps becoming more approachable while deepening the interest in exploring sounds and and sonorities. Anna Clyne might be a typical example of this emerging period. I guess, for now, we can call it "contemporary".


----------



## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> It's kind of like the image described in


Why do so many people feel compelled to make YTB videos about "Why [xxx] is so bad".

(I suppose for the same reason that so many people feel compelled to come on to internet forums about YTB videos about "Why [xxx] is so bad". 😄)


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ That clip has been posted to this forum perhaps a hundred times. It is rubbish and has no conceivable relevance for us. But I suppose, for those whose self esteem is threatened by their dislike of even Schoenberg and Berg, it is a salve. Perhaps those of us who do enjoy such music should all shout together "it's OK - we love it but you don't have to".


----------



## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I have no idea what happened with music after romanticism, does anyone know a good article or video where it is explained what has happened and all the different directions in classical music up till now? And maybe some signature works?


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

EvaBaron said:


> I have no idea what happened with music after romanticism, does anyone know a good article or video where it is explained what has happened and all the different directions in classical music up till now? And maybe some signature works?


Well, there's wikipedia. This article about the 20th century in classical should provide you with some answers.


----------



## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Xisten267 said:


> Well, there's wikipedia. This article about the 20th century in classical should provide you with some answers.


Thanks a lot!


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

EvaBaron said:


> I have no idea what happened with music after romanticism, does anyone know a good article or video where it is explained what has happened and all the different directions in classical music up till now? And maybe some signature works?


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Contemporary composer, Samuel Andreyev, has many great videos.












*Some other interesting videos:*

*Webern explained in 10 minutes

Understanding Stravinsky' late style*

*The birth of Spectral music*


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

David Bruce, another contemporary composer has quite a few excellent videos, also.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

If you say to me let's talk about "20th century composers", I'll assume enough not to bring up Vivaldi.

But then, I just did bring up Vivaldi in this post about "20th century composers."

Oh well...


----------



## John O (Jan 16, 2021)

fbjim said:


> The really odd thing is how "20th century" sometimes gets used interchangeably with "post-war". I get that the Second World War is probably the most consequential event in (barely) living memory, but still.


I would say it is usually the other way round: if someone says they like 20th century music they usually mean Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Ravel, Shostakovich , Britten : Music written before 1945 or if later in a similar style.
If they like Stockhausen and Xenakis they would say I like avant garde or post war music.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

John O said:


> I would say it is usually the other way round: if someone says they like 20th century music they usually mean Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Ravel, Shostakovich , Britten : Music written before 1945 or if later in a similar style.
> If they like Stockhausen and Xenakis they would say I like avant garde or post war music.


I think this is pretty accurate.

Before I got into post 1945 music, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel, Britten were exactly the composers I would have been referring to. 

Now, when I refer to post 1945 classical music, I do not refer to composers such as, Carter, Wuorinen, Maderna, Penderecki, Tower, Berio, Babbitt, etc as 20th century composers. 

Of course, technically they composed in the 20th century, but musically, they differ quite a bit from Bartok and Stravinsky,


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

kinda funny that people can have completely different experiences like that, hah. like i haven't really heard much Mahler, Britten or Ravel described as "20th century" versus Cage, Reich, Carter et al


----------



## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

"20th Century" is sometimes used interchangeably with "Early Modern" whereas "Ultra-Modern", "Avant-Garde", or whatever else you want to call it is more along the lines of what we might also call "Post-World War II". 

And some composers and their works can't even be identified as such in a precise way because they all have different styles that may forshadow the future or revert back to an earlier time. Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius lived most of their very long lives within the 20th century but to me they always seem to have at least one foot in the 19th Century, set firmly in the grand Late Romantic fasion. While Debussy (1862-1918) and Mahler (1860-1911) were near-contemporaries, Debussy (who influenced both Stravinsky and Schoenberg), to my ears, is far more innovative and "Modern" than Mahler, even if I also hear just a hint of the High-Romanticism of Schubert, Schumann, an Chopin in Debussy's piano pieces. 

Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Varese, Xanakis, Boulez, Ives, Cage, and Carter were all 20th Century composers who went far off the deep end, while the likes of Britten and Barber composed in a more traditional and style that to me was still tied to European Romanticism despite some elements of 20th century anxiety (Hence leonard Bernstein's _Age of Anxiety Symphony_). While Shostakovich seemed to start out as an Early Modernist whose _Symphony #1_ and _Age of Gold Suite_ shows the influence of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, the more mature Shostakovich that we know and love from such hits as the _Symphony #5, #7 _and _#15 _as well as the _Cello Concerto_ seem to harkin back to Mahler and Tchaikovsky where Shostakovich creates his symphony in a large way that touches upon Mahler's feeling of existential agnst, as well as Tchaikovsky's sad, Russian, soulfulness.


----------



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Calipso said:


> Another popular term is " 20th century great composer". What means this phrase? "Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich or Bartok are among 20th century greats". Why limit these artists on one century? This separation always seems to me as tendentiously underestimation.


Just for the record, my own thoughts. 

For most of my life, "modern era" and "20th century" were virtually synonymous descriptors of the "current era" in classical music, the successor to the Romantic era. Obviously, since the demise of the 20th century, this convenient terminology no longer works. So far, I haven't seen a definitive replacement term arise.

Personally, I see the 20th century as a coherent and utterly amazing era in classical music, encompassing great innovations, enhancements, expansions in the deployment of tonality and harmonic practice as well as form, rhythm, and other key features. It encompasses stylistic tendencies such as Modernism, Neo-Classicism, and Neo-Romanticism, as well as other major musical developments such as atonal/serial composition and Minimalism. In other words, I see the 20th century era as quite inclusive.

Particularly in terms of creative innovations in tonal composition, in my view, the 20th century as an era has been phenomenal, and its vast outpouring of magnificent compositions is an enormous resource to enrich both live performances and recordings.


----------

