Contemporary classical music

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Periods of European art music
Early
Medieval	(500–1400)
Renaissance	(1400–1600)
Baroque	(1600–1760)
Common practice
Baroque	(1600–1760)
Classical	(1730–1820)
Romantic	(1815–1910)
Modern and contemporary
20th-century	(1900–2000)
Contemporary	(1975–present)
21st-century	(2000–present)

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism.^[1] However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.^[2]

Contents 1 Categorization 2 History 2.1 Background 2.2 1945–75 2.3 Developments since the 1970s 3 Movements 3.1 Modernism 3.2 Electronic Music 3.2.1 Spectral music 3.3 Post-modernism 3.4 Polystylism (eclecticism) 3.4.1 Historicism 3.4.2 Neo-romanticism 3.4.3 Art rock influence 3.4.4 "World music" influence 3.5 New Simplicity 3.6 New Complexity 3.7 Minimalism and post-minimalism 4 New Tools 4.1 Improvisation 4.2 Extended techniques 5 Developments by medium 5.1 Orchestra 5.2 Opera 5.3 Chamber 5.4 Choral 5.5 Concert band 5.6 Cinema 6 Contemporary music festivals 7 See also 8 References 8.1 Notes 8.2 Bibliography 9 External links

[edit] Categorization

Generally "contemporary classical music" amounts to:

• The modern forms of art music
  • The post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern^[3]
    (including serial music, electroacoustic music, Concrete music, experimental music, atonal music, minimalist music, etc.)
  • the post-1975 forms of this music^[4]
    (including post-modern music, Spectral music, post-minimalism, sound art, etc.)

Strictly speaking, the term "contemporary music" only retains meaning when it refers to a work's specific date of publication and/or performance and its subgenre of musical purpose.

[edit] History

[edit] Background

At the beginning of the 20th century, composers of classical music were experimenting with an increasingly dissonant pitch language, which sometimes yielded atonal pieces. Following World War I, as a backlash against what they saw as the increasingly exaggerated gestures and formlessness of late Romanticism, certain composers adopted a neoclassic style, which sought to recapture the balanced forms and clearly perceptible thematic processes of earlier styles^[5]; see also New Objectivity and Social Realism). After World War II, modernist composers sought to achieve greater levels of control in their composition process (e.g., through the use of the twelve tone technique and later total serialism). At the same time, conversely, composers also experimented with means of abdicating control, exploring indeterminacy or aleatoric processes in smaller or larger degrees.^[6] Technological advances led to the birth of electronic music.^[7] Experimentation with tape loops and repetitive textures contributed to the advent of minimalism.^[8] Still other composers started exploring the theatrical potential of the musical performance (performance art, mixed media, fluxus).^[9]

[edit] 1945–75

European and the US traditions traditions diverged after World War II. In Europe among the most influential composers were Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono. The first two were both pupils of Olivier Messiaen.

In America composers like Milton Babbitt, Roger Sessions, George Rochberg. John Cage, Henry Cowell, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Elliot Carter formed their own ideas. Their music often had a more rhythmical focus.

[edit] Developments since the 1970s

Since the 1970s there has been increasing stylistic variety, with far too many schools to count, name or label. However, in general, there are two broad trends.

• The first is the continuation of modern avant-garde musical traditions, including experimental music.
• The second are schools that seek to revitalize tonal style found in traditional western music.

[edit] Movements

[edit] Modernism

Many of the key figures of the high modern movement are alive, or only recently deceased, and there is also still an extremely active core of composers (e.g., Elliott Carter), performers, and listeners who continue to advance the ideas and forms of Modernism.^[10]

Serialism is one of the most important post-war movements among the high modernist schools. Serialism, more specifically named "integral" or "compound" serialism, was led by composers such as Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Nono, and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Europe, and by Milton Babbitt, Donald Martino, and Charles Wuorinen in the United States. Some of their compositions use an ordered set or several such sets, which may be the basis for the whole composition, while others use "unordered" sets for the same purpose. The term is also often used for dodecaphony, or twelve-tone technique, which is alternatively regarded as the model for integral serialism.

Active modernist composers include Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Thomas Adès, Magnus Lindberg and Gunther Schuller.

[edit] Electronic Music

[edit] Spectral music

Epitomized by the works of such composers as Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, and Horaţiu Rădulescu, "spectral music" implies the use of the spectrum of a sound as a basis of composition.

A number of spectral composers are from Romania; these include Iancu Dumitrescu, Octav Nemescu, Ana-Maria Avram, Costin, Calin Ioachimescu, and Corneliu Cezar. Other spectral composers include Philippe Hurel, Michael Levinas, and Phillippe Leroux, Joshua Fineberg, and Julian Anderson.

[edit] Post-modernism

Explanations of what post-modernism is, and why it is influential, vary widely, as do opinions regarding whether post-modernism is "good" for music (or even good per se).

Key figures include the Scottish composer James MacMillan (who draws on sources as diverse as plainchant, South American 'liberation theology', Scottish folksongs, and Polish avant-garde techniques of the 1960s),^[11] the American Michael Torke (drawing on European music of the early nineteenth century, minimalism, jazz, and popular music),^[12] and Mark-Anthony Turnage from the UK (drawing from jazz, rock, Stravinsky, and Berg).^[13]

[edit] Polystylism (eclecticism)

Some authors equate polystylism with eclecticism, while others make a sharp distinction.^[14] Polystylism is the use of multiple styles or techniques of music, sometimes within the same composition, and is seen as a postmodern characteristic. Polystylist composers include Luciano Berio, William Bolcom, Peter Maxwell Davies, Sofia Gubaidulina, Roberto Carnevale, Hans Werner Henze, George Rochberg, Arturo Rodas, Frederic Rzewski, Giovanni Sollima, Alfred Schnittke, Frank Zappa and John Zorn.

[edit] Historicism

Musical historicism—the use of historical materials, structures, styles, techniques, media, conceptual content, etc., whether by a single composer or those associated with a particular school, movement, or period—is evident to varying degrees in minimalism, post-minimalism, world-music, and other genres in which tonal traditions have been sustained or have undergone a significant revival in recent decades.^[15] Some post-minimalist works employ medieval and other genres associated with early music, such as the "Oi me lasso" and other laude of Gavin Bryars. Other composers have assimilated elements of medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, or romantic styles in varying degrees, including Benjamin Bagby, Thomas Binkley, Easley Blackwood, René Clemencic, Joseph Dillon Ford, Vladimir Godar, Ladislav Kupkovič, Winfried Michel, George Rochberg, Christopher Rouse and Jordi Savall.

Peter Schickele wrote works that parody many different styles of classical music and often draws upon specific works for its inspiration. They were mostly published as albums under the name of P. D. Q. Bach, a composer he invented and then pretended to have discovered among the children of J.S. Bach. Some of these works are published under his own name, however, such as Eine Kleine Nichtmusik a work which layers quotes from other classical music and many folk melodies over the top of a complete performance of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

The historicist movement is closely related to the emergence of musicology and the Early Music Revival. A number of historicist composers have been influenced by their intimate familiarity with the instrumental practices of earlier periods (Hendrik Bouman, Grant Colburn, Michael Talbot, Alexandre Danilevsky, Paulo Galvão, Roman Turovsky-Savchuk). The musical historicism movement has also been stimulated by the formation of such international organizations as the Delian Society and Vox Saeculorum.^[16]

[edit] Neo-romanticism

The vocabulary of extended tonality, which flourished in the late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries, continues to be used throughout the contemporary period. It never has been considered shocking or controversial in the larger musical world—as has been demonstrated statistically for the United States, at least (Straus 1999, 322–29, et passim). Composers who have worked in the neoromantic vein after 1975 include John Williams, John Corigliano, George Rochberg (in some of his works), David Del Tredici, Ladislav Kupkovič, Gian Carlo Menotti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Isang Yun, Christopher Rouse, and Lorenzo Ferrero.

[edit] Art rock influence

Similarly, many composers have emerged since the 1980s who are heavily influenced by art rock. Many, such as Scott Johnson and Steven Mackey, started out as rock musicians and only later moved into the realm of scored music. Other notable composers who draw on rock include Christopher Rouse, Marc Mellits, Evan Ziporyn, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Steve Martland, Anne LeBaron, Paul Dresher, Kitty Brazelton, Rhys Chatham,^[17] Glenn Branca, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Robert Paterson, Annie Gosfield, and Nick Didkovsky. Many of these composers (Gordon, Lang, Mellits, Dresher, Wolfe, Ziporyn, Martland, Branca) are post-minimalist in orientation, but some (Didkovsky, Brazelton and Rouse) are very much not.

[edit] "World music" influence

Some composers mix western and non-western instruments, including gamelan from Indonesia, Chinese traditional instruments, ragas from Indian Classical music. There is also an exploration of eastern-European and non-Western tonalities, even in relatively traditionally structured works. This trend was present already in the 1920s and 1930s, for example in the music of Béla Bartók, Henry Cowell, Colin McPhee, Alan Hovhaness, and Lou Harrison, and slightly later in the work of Olivier Messiaen, Chou Wen-chung, Halim El-Dabh, and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. The trend can be found also in the context of post-minimalist works, such as Janice Giteck's and Evan Ziporyn's Balinese-influenced works. Some composers have used traditional instruments from their own cultures, such as Tōru Takemitsu, Minoru Miki, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, or Julian Kytasty. World music influence may also be found in the context of post-classic tonality, such as in the music of Bright Sheng, or in the context of thoroughly modernist works by composers such as Claude Vivier.

[edit] New Simplicity

A movement in Denmark (Den Ny Enkelhed) in the late nineteen-sixties and another in Germany in the late seventies and early eighties, the former attempting to create more objective, impersonal music, and the latter reacting with a variety of strategies to restore the subjective to composing, both sought to create music using simple textures. The German New Simplicity's best-known composer is Wolfgang Rihm, who strives for the emotional volatility of late 19th-century Romanticism and early 20th-century Expressionism. Called Die neue Einfachheit in German, it has also been termed "New Romanticism", "New Subjectivity", "New Inwardness", "New Sensuality", "New Expressivity", and "New Tonality".

Styles found in other countries sometimes associated with the German New Simplicity movement include the so-called "Holy Minimalism" of the Pole Henryk Górecki and the Estonian Arvo Pärt (in their works after 1970), as well as Englishman John Tavener, who unlike the New Simplicity composers have turned back to Medieval and Renaissance models, however, rather than to 19th-century romanticism for inspiration. Important representative works include Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" (1976) by Górecki, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977) by Pärt, and The Veil of the Temple (2002) by Tavener, "Silent Songs" (1977) by Valentin Silvestrov.

[edit] New Complexity

New Complexity is a current within today's European contemporary avant-garde music scene, named in reaction to the New Simplicity. Amongst the candidates suggested for having coined the term are the composer Nigel Osborne, the Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich, and the British/Australian musicologist Richard Toop, who gave currency to the concept of a movement with his article "Four Facets of the New Complexity".^[18]

Though often atonal, highly abstract, and dissonant in sound, the "New Complexity" is most readily characterized by the use of techniques which require complex musical notation. This includes extended techniques, microtonality, odd tunings, highly disjunct melodic contour, innovative timbres, complex polyrhythms, unconventional instrumentations, abrupt changes in loudness and intensity, and so on. The diverse group of composers writing in this style includes Richard Barrett, Brian Ferneyhough, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, James Dillon, Michael Finnissy, James Erber, and Roger Redgate.

[edit] Minimalism and post-minimalism

The minimalist generation still has a prominent role in new composition. Philip Glass has been expanding his symphony cycle, while John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, a choral work commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, won a Pulitzer Prize. Steve Reich has explored electronic opera (most notably in Three Tales) and Terry Riley has been active in composing instrumental music and music theatre.

Many composers are expanding the resources of minimalist music to include rock and world instrumentation and rhythms, serialism, and many other techniques. Another notable characteristic is storytelling and emotional expression taking precedence over technique. Post-minimalism is also a movement in painting and sculpture that began in the late 1960s.^[19] (See lumpers/splitters)

[edit] New Tools

[edit] Improvisation

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[edit] Extended techniques

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Composers often obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres through the use of non-traditional (or unconventional) instrumental techniques. Examples of extended techniques include bowing under the bridge of a string instrument or with two different bows, using key clicks on a wind instrument, blowing and overblowing into a wind instrument without a mouthpiece, or inserting object on top of the strings of a piano. Composers’ use of extended techniques is not specific to contemporary music (for instance, Berlioz’s use of col legno in his Symphonie Fantastique is an extended technique) and it transcends compositional schools and styles.

Twentieth-century exponents of extended techniques include Henry Cowell (use of fists and arms on the keyboard, playing inside the piano), John Cage (prepared piano), and George Crumb. The Kronos Quartet, which has been among the most active ensembles in promoting contemporary American works for string quartet, takes delight in music which stretches the manner in which sound can be drawn out of instruments.

European composers who make heavy use of extended techniques include Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, Helmut Lachenmann, Salvatore Sciarrino, Heinz Holliger, Carlo Forlivesi and Georgia Spiropoulos.

[edit] Developments by medium

[edit] Orchestra

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• Inclusion of new instruments (amplified instruments, rock/jazz instruments, synthesizers, computer, non-western instruments, pre-recorded parts, experimental custom-made instruments)
• Concertos for non-western instruments (Nancy Van de Vate)^{[citation needed]}
• Inclusion of visuals

[edit] Opera

Notable composers of operas since 1975 include:

John Adams Thomas Adès Robert Ashley Luciano Berio Harrison Birtwistle John Cage Roberto Carnevale Elliott Carter Brian Ferneyhough Michael Daugherty John Eaton Lorenzo Ferrero Philip Glass Elliot Goldenthal Ricky Ian Gordon

Hans Werner Henze York Höller André Laporte Liza Lim Richard Meale Olivier Messiaen Olga Neuwirth Luigi Nono Per Nørgård Michael Nyman Einojuhani Rautavaara Kaija Saariaho Karlheinz Stockhausen Josef Tal Judith Weir

[edit] Chamber

• See also List of contemporary classical ensembles

[edit] Choral

At the turn of the century, Eric Whitacre, whose music combines tonal music with tone clusters and similar experimental techniques has received considerable attention.^{[citation needed]} Other choral composers of note include Karl Jenkins, Arvo Pärt, John Rutter, Veljo Tormis, and Morten Lauridsen.

[edit] Concert band

Composers such as Mark Camphouse, Michael Colgrass, Michael Daugherty, David Del Tredici, Karel Husa, David Maslanka, Olivier Messiaen, Alfred Reed, Joseph Schwantner, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Frank Ticheli, and Eric Whitacre have composed notable works for concert band in recent years.

[edit] Cinema

Contemporary classical music can be heard in film scores such as John Williams' original score for War of the Worlds, Tan Dun's original score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Philip Glass's score for The Hours and Kundun, as well as his scores for Godfrey Reggio's Qatsi Trilogy of films: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi, John Corigliano's original score/soundtrack for François Girard's film The Red Violin, Michael Nyman's scores for Peter Greenaway's films, Shigeru Kan-no's score for Der Rosarote Elefant or Zbigniew Preisner's scores for Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors.^{[citation needed]} Other directors have used contemporary music in soundtracks. Franklin J. Schafner for example, used atonal works by Jerry Goldsmith for Planet of the Apes and Patton 1968 and 1970, respectively,^{[citation needed]} and Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) used music by György Ligeti, and in The Shining (1980) music by both Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki. Jean-Luc Godard, in La Chinoise (1967), Nicolas Roeg in Walkabout (1971), and the Brothers Quay in In Absentia (2000) used music by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

[edit] Contemporary music festivals

• Ars musica, Brussels, Belgium
• Bang on a Can Marathon
• Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (Santa Cruz, CA)
• Dallas Festival of Modern Music
• Darmstädter Ferienkurse
• Donaueschingen Festival
• Gaudeamus Foundation Music Week in Amsterdam
• Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
• Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival [1]
• Music From Angel Fire [2], blend of classical & contemporary—World Premiere pieces by contemporary composers
• Salzburg Aspekte
• Sound - North-East Scotland's Festival of New Music [3]
• soundSCAPE Pavia Concerts are held in historical venues throughout the town center of Pavia, 35 km south of Milan. Mid-July.
• Soundwaves Festival
• "Triennale" Contemporary Music Festival (Venice, Italy)
• Warsaw Autumn in Poland
• Winnipeg New Music Festival (the largest attended new music festival in the world)
• Nevada Encounters of New Music (NEON) http://music.unlv.edu/neon.shtml (Las Vegas, NV)
• "NWEAMO" - New West Electronics Arts and Music Organization www.nweamo.org (San Diego, New York, Berlin, Mexico D.F., Venice)

[edit] See also

• 20th-century classical music
• 21st-century classical music

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

[edit] Bibliography

• Botstein, Leon. 2001. "Modernism". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Botstein, Leon. "Modernism". Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 28 April 2007). (Subscription access)
• Chatham, Rhys. 1994. "Composer's Notebook 1990: Toward a Musical Agenda for the Nineties", with "Postscript, Summer 1994". Rhys Chatham website. (Accessed 20 January 2010)
• Chute, James. 2001. "Torke, Michael." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Colburn, Grant. 2007. "A New Baroque Revival." Early Music America 13, no. 2 (Summer): 36-45, 54-55.
• Cross, Jonathan. 2001. "Turnage, Mark-Anthony". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Danuser, Hermann. 1984. Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts: mit 108 Notenbeispielen, 130 Abbildungen und 2 Farbtafeln. Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft 7. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag. ISBN 389007037x
• Dibelius, Ulrich. 1998. Moderne Musik Nach 1945. Munich: Piper Verlag. ISBN 3492040373 (pbk.)
• du Noyer, Paul (ed.). 2003. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music: From Rock, Pop, Jazz, Blue, and Hip-Hop to Classical, Folk, World, and More. London: Flame Tree. ISBN 9781904041702
• Duckworth, William. 1995. Talking Music: Conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Five Generations of American Experimental Composers. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice-Hall International. ISBN 0028708237 Reprinted 1999, New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80893-5
• Du Noyer, Paul (ed.) (2003), "Contemporary" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music. Flame Tree, ISBN 1-9040-4170-1
• Gann, Kyle. 1997. American Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice Hall International. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning ISBN 002864655X.
• Griffiths, Paul. 1995. Modern Music And After: Directions Since 1945. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198165781 (cloth) ISBN 0198165110 (pbk.) Rev. ed. of: Modern Music: The Avant Garde Since 1945 (1981)
• Johnson, Stephen. 2001. "MacMillan, James (Loy)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Manning, Peter. 2004. Electronic and Computer Music. Revised and expanded edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195144848 (cloth) ISBN 0195170857 (pbk.)
• Morgan, Robert P. 1991. Twentieth-century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America. New York: Norton. ISBN 039395272X
• Nyman, Michael. 1999. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Second edition. Music in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521652979 ISBN 0521653835 (pbk.)
• Schwartz, Elliott, and Daniel Godfrey. 1993. Music Since 1945: Issues, Materials, and Literature. New York: Schirmer Books; Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada; New York: Maxwell Macmillan International. ISBN 0028730402
• Schwartz, Elliott, and Barney Childs (eds.), with Jim Fox. 1998. Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. Expanded edition. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306808196
• Smith Brindle, Reginald. 1987. The New Music: The Avant-Garde since 1945. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0193154714 (cloth) ISBN 0193154684 (pbk.)
• Straus, Joseph. N. 1999. "The Myth of Serial 'Tyranny' in the 1950s and 1960s." The Musical Quarterly 83, no. 3 (Autumn): 301–43.
• Watkins, Glenn. 1994. Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674740831
• Whittall, Arnold. 1999. Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198166842 (cloth) ISBN 0198166834 (pbk.)
• Whittall, Arnold. 2003. Exploring Twentieth-Century Music: Tradition and Innovation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521816424 (cloth) ISBN 0521016681 (pbk)
• Whittall, Arnold. "Neo-Classicism". Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 30 April 2007). (Subscription access)

[edit] External links

• Procembalo complete free catalog of Contemporary Harpsichord Music
• spnm - promoting new music, UK – UK-based organisation promoting new music and composers.
• Scores by contemporary classical composers
• Art of the States
• Contemporary Classical, Internet radio
• Modern classical electronic fusion
• Common Tone podcast
• Modern and contemporary classical music
• The Living Composers Project
• Sibeliusmusic.com - Newly Created Scores Using the Sibelius Program
• Sussurro - Contemporary Brazilian Music
• Musmap.com - Contemporary Composers and Classical Performers
• Gateway to Contemporary Music Resources in France
• Contemporary composers interactive timeline, including, if available, photos and biographies (in French).