20th century classical music

20th century classical music, the classical music of the 20th century, was extremely diverse, beginning with the late Romantic style of Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Impressionism of Claude Debussy, and ranging to such distant sound-worlds as the complete serialism of Pierre Boulez, the simple triadic harmonies of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, the musique concrète of Pierre Schaeffer, the microtonal music adopted by Harry Partch, Alois Hába and others, and the aleatoric music of John Cage.

Electronic music

Main article: Electronic art music

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Technological advances in the 20th century enabled composers to use electronic means of producing sound. This took several forms: some composers simply incorporated electronic instruments into relatively conventional pieces. Olivier Messiaen, for example, used the ondes martenot in a number of works.

Related Topics:
Electronic - Olivier Messiaen - Ondes martenot

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Other composers abandoned conventional instruments and used magnetic tape to create music, recording sounds and then manipulating them in some way. Pierre Schaeffer was the pioneer of such music, termed Musique concrète. Some figures, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, used purely electronic means to create their work. In the United States of America, Milton Babbitt used the RCA Mark II Synthesizer to create music. Sometimes such electronic music was combined with more conventional instruments, Stockhausen's Hymnen, Edgar Varèse's Déserts, and Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms offer a few examples (although Déserts is sometimes performed today without the tape part).

Related Topics:
Magnetic tape - Pierre Schaeffer - Musique concrète - Karlheinz Stockhausen - United States of America - Milton Babbitt - RCA Mark II Synthesizer - Edgar Varèse - Mario Davidovsky

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Oskar Sala, created the non-musical soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds, using the trautonium electronic instrument he helped develop. Morton Subotnick provided the electronic music for the film '.

Related Topics:
Oskar Sala - Alfred Hitchcock - The Birds - Trautonium - Morton Subotnick

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Some well known electronic works generally regarded as in the classical tradition include "Film Music" by Vladimir Ussachevsky, A Rainbow in Curved Air and Shri Camel by Terry Riley, "Silver Apples", "The Wild Bull", and "Return" by Morton Subotnick, Sonic Seasonings and Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos, "Light Over Water" by John Adams, Aqua by Edgar Froese, and Poème électronique by Edgar Varèse.

Related Topics:
Terry Riley - Switched-On Bach - Wendy Carlos - Edgar Froese

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Iannis Xenakis is another modern composer who used computers and electronic instruments, including one he invented, in many compositions. Some of his electronic works are gentle ambient pieces and some are savage sonic violence.

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Composers such as Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and David Tudor created and performed live electronic music, often designing their own electronics or using tape.

Related Topics:
Alvin Lucier - Gordon Mumma - David Tudor

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A number of institutions sprung up in the 20th century specialising in electronic music, with IRCAM in Paris perhaps the best known.

Related Topics:
IRCAM - Paris

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