20th Century Music: Styles, Movements, and Evolution

20th Century Music: A Transformation

20th-century music transformed into a variety of styles and currents, breaking the unity of language for a new world of sound relations. Key movements include:

Romanticism

Romanticism used music to express subjective and subtle emotions through modal melodies, independent chords, and a large, colorful timbre.

Impressionism

Impressionism, a typical French movement, used music to evoke moods and atmospheres.

Expressionism

Expressionism sought to express the most heartbreaking emotions through atonal music and sprechgesang-laden dissonance.

Early Vanguard Movements

Futurism

Futurism introduced noise and machine sounds into music.

Dadaism

Dadaism rebelled against all established forms of art.

Twelve-Tone Technique

The twelve-tone technique broke with over three hundred years of tonal music, introducing all twelve tones of the chromatic scale equally.

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism cultivated Baroque and Classical forms and genres, seeking simplicity. It aimed for a new tonality and melody, prioritizing accessibility and avoiding technical complexity and emotional excesses.

After World War II, new avant-garde movements emerged:

New Vanguards

Integral Serialism

Integral serialism applied a series concept to all parameters of sound.

Concrete and Electronic Music

Musique concrète and electronic music laboratories created sounds that sometimes suppressed performers and traditional musical instruments.

Open Works

Open works supported random or aleatoric elements, changing the concept of composition and interpretation.

Contemporary Ballet and Dance

Contemporary ballet's precursor was the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev. Modern theatrical dance is based on emotion and freedom of approach. 20th-century social dance in America was influenced by Black and Latino rhythms and popular music styles, creating a variety of dances that form urban dance today.

Recovery of Spanish Music

The recovery of Spanish music began with the Generation of '98 and continued through the Republic, achieving full integration into the European avant-garde. After the interruption of the Civil War and subsequent years of isolation, the Generation of '51 marked the opening to a modern, free, and original language.