20th Century

Styles and

Forms

Serial MusicA 20th-century method of musical composition invented by Arnold Schoenberg

in which the twelve notes of the Chromatic scale are organised into a series or a tone row. This row can be transposed, inverted or played in retrograde.

Serial music is highly dissonant.

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Anton WebernAudio Clip

Arnold SchoenbergAudio Clip

Alban BergAudio Clip

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Tone Row – A serial of 12 notes. Each note is a different note of a chromatic scale

Retrograde – Playing a melody backwards

Inversion – Playing a melody upside down

The Tone Row

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Another technique adopted by Schoenberg and Berg was Sprechgesang .This is a technique used in vocal music where the singer is required

to use the voice in an expressive manner half-way between singing and speaking.

Audio ClipSprechgesang

Edvard GriegNorwayAudio Clip

Leos JanacekCzechoslovakia

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Aaron CoplandAmericaAudio Clip

Bela BartokHungary Audio Clip

Nationalism A term used to describe music which incorporates elements of folk music of the composer’s country. It emerged about the second half of the 19th

century and was a type of Romanticism.

Manuel De FallaSpain

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Neo-classical New classicism. From about 1929 onwards this style in music

came about when composers reacted against Romanticism and wanted to return to the structures and styles of earlier periods but combined

with dissonant, tonal and even atonal harmonies. The composers started to write for smaller orchestras.

Igor StravinskyAudio Clip

Paul HindemithAudio Clip

Sergei ProfievAudio Clip

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Musique concrète Recorded natural sounds which are transformed using simple editing

techniques such as cutting and re-assembling, playing backwards, slowing down and speeding up.

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Weather ReportAudio Clip

Jazz funk A combination of jazz Improvisation and the amplified instruments and

character of Rock. A chord very common in all jazz styles is the added 6th.

Chick CoreaElektric Band

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Marcus MillerAudio Clip

Audio ClipChant A series of chords to which the words of psalms are sung in the Church of England.

The texture of the music is homophonic and the word setting mainly syllabic.

Other Important Features

PolytonalityThe use of two or more keys played or sung at the same time, e.g. the melody may be in the key of C major whilst the accompaniment might

be in E major.

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Darius Milhaud Gustav Holst

MicrotoneAny interval noticeably smaller than a semitone, most often found in

the music of Eastern European countries and also in Indian and Arabic music. It is sometimes used by contemporary classical

composers.

György LigetiAudio Clip

Krzysztof PendereckiAudio Clip

John CageAudio Clip

Charles IvesAudio Clip

Tritone

Interval of an augmented 4th, e.g. C–F# or F–B. It is made up of three whole tones.

The tritone has commonly been used in music since the Romantic Period. The tritone interval is also known as Diabolus in Musica (The Devil in

Music)

Romantic MusicAudio Clip

Heavy MetalAudio Clip

West Side StoryAudio Clip

StingAudio Clip

Irregular metres Often in modern or rhythmically based ethnic music, groupings of

notes change, but the underlying pulse remains constant. Sometimes composers in the 20th century try to destroy the feeling of a regular

down beat by changing the time signature frequently or using unusual time signatures eg. 5/4, or 7/8

Howard ShoreAudio Clip

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Dave BrubekAudio Clip

Electric Counterpoint – Steve Reich