Roussel’s music reflects the many influences of the 20th Century. He was fundamentally influenced by impressionists like Debussy, but at times adopted more dissonance, sounding somewhat like Stravinsky. His late style has been described as neoclassical.
Born in Kiev, of German and Polish descent, Gliere worked in both Ukraine and Russia. As a late romantic, his music retained more-or-less conventional harmony, included Russian ethnic flavors, with little of the dissonance promoted by his contemporaries.
Though he lived well into the 20th century, Dohnanyi was stylistically conservative, retaining an essentially romantic German style, without too much reference to his native Hungarian folk music. He admired both Brahms and Liszt. If he assimilated anything from the 20th century, it was some dissonance, showing up particularly in his later works (e.g. in his second symphony).
Like many in the 20th century, Bloch experimented with many of the styles that emerged from the modernist movement. The harmony of his Concerto Grosso evokes the earlier Baroque era, but his piano sonata employs modernist tone clusters, and his piano quintet contains serialist elements. All, however, are quite engaging. Whatever the style, Bloch manages to make his music human.
Enescu is regarded as the greatest musical figure in Romanian history. He wrote operas, symphonies and other forms of music, essentially tonal/romantic in style, and often imbued with native Romanian folk elements.
Varèse was clearly influenced by Stravinsky in his early works for conventional instruments, which were dissonant and rhythmically complex. (e.g. Ameriques, Arcana). He was an experimentalist, though, and explored a variety of styles, some serialistic in result if not method. He experimented with new sounds, new instruments, and electronic music. He came to think of his work as being “organized sound” and thus influenced later experimentalists such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Pejačević was born into an aristocratic family, and so had the freedom to pursue a musical career. Her music was initially romantic, with little clue that it was written in the 20th century, but in her later works, she incorporated more impressionistic and expressionistic flavors into her work, in an effort to express more philosophical, particularly nihilistic themes. In all, she produced a varied catalogue of over 100 works.
Rebecca
Clarke (1886-1979) had a complex and disheartening relationship with the male
musical establishment. Her tyrannical and abusive father at first allowed her
to attend the Royal College of Music in London, where she was the only female
composition student accepted by the famed teacher, C. V. Stanford. Her father withdrew her from the school,
however, after one of her teachers proposed to her. After some ensuing domestic
discord, he banished her from home. She
spent some years as a professional violist, in 1912 becoming one of the first
women to play with a professional orchestra, the Queen’s Hall Orchestra in
London.
One of her notable encounters with public gender prejudice was at a recital she gave in 1918, where she played a number of her own works. She decided to list one of the pieces on the program under a male pseudonym, and it was that one that attracted the most notice! Her biggest compositional success, and another notable encounter with the male establishment, was her Viola Sonata, which tied with a work by Ernest Bloch for first place in the 1919 Berkshire Festival of Music Competition. The ugly head of prejudice rose again, in the form of rumors that someone else had composed the piece for her, that it was impossible for her to have written it herself, or most laughably that she didn’t exist – that Ernest Bloch had written it under a female pseudonym.
She did eventually marry, in her late 50’s, to James
Friskin, who was also a composer and supportive of her career. However, by then she was worn down by the
discouragement received from the musical establishment, and lacked the
self-confidence to battle with it.
Though her husband didn’t intend it, she found it difficult to balance
her happy and satisfied married life with composing. "I can't do it
[compose] unless it's the first thing I think of every morning when I wake and
the last thing I think of every night before I go to sleep," (C14). So in 1944 she gave up composing and
performing altogether.
Though she lived to be 93, Clarke’s total catalogue is thus small. In the middle of the 20th century, she was defeated by the prejudice that all women faced to some extent, and only a few managed to surpass.
Florence Price, was African-American, and so had to fight prejudice on two fronts. In 1923, her Symphony in E minor won the Wanamaker Competition, and a few years later was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the first piece by an African-American woman played by a major orchestra. It is a fabulous, rich, “anachronistic” symphony of the grand romantic tradition, to be held up beside that of Amy Beach. Though her family was reasonably well-to-do, and she had a first-rate education, she had a rough time with her marriage, and after her divorce was at times on the brink of poverty. She worked for a while as a silent film theater organist. Though trained in the European tradition, she incorporated American idioms, and particularly African-American spirituals into her work. Her work was well-received in her time but neglected thereafter. Her lifetime output included four symphonies, piano and violin concertos, and much other choral, instrumental, and vocal works. Her work has been revived and newly appreciated in recent times
Martinu’s music has a definite 20th century vibe to it, sometimes reminding us of Stravinsky, sometimes Alban Berg. It is often described as neoclassical, but richer than Stravinsky’s music in that style, with the dissonant flavor of the century.
Born of Swiss parents living in France, Honegger developed his career in both countries. He associated intellectually and socially with “Les Six,” which included the more famous Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc, along with Germaine Tailleferre (profiled below) and the lesser known Georges Auric and Louis Durey.
Of all the women composers, Lili Boulanger's story is the most heart- breaking, and possibly our greatest loss. Lili was from a musical family, who nourished her musical ability from a young age. As a composer, she surpassed her sister Nadia, who became a highly respected and sought out teacher of composition. Lili won the Paris Conservatoire’s Prix de Rome in 1913 at the age of 19, with a remarkably mature and sophisticated cantata called Faust et Helene. It is a grand, romantic, Wagnerian tour-de-force, and as a Wagner fan, I wish she could have gone on to write operas in this style. She was attentive to the trends of the early 20th century, however, with influences from Debussy and Stravinsky, and had she been able to write operas, they might have been more modernist in style. I hear signs of Debussy in her Vielle Prière Bouddhique, written in 1914, but still in her uniquely lush and grand orchestral style.
Lili, however, suffered from a lifelong battle with Crohn’s disease. Already doomed to a short life, chronic ill-health limited her productivity even more. Her final two works of 1918 were the beautiful and delicately scored D’un Matin du Printemps, and the darker D'un soir triste, in which she might have foreseen her imminent death. We wonder what Mozart, Schubert or Mendelssohn could have done with another 30 or 40 years, but if Lili could have lived to the age her sister did, she would have had another 68 years! The prospects are unimaginable.
Carl Orff composed over 50 works, but is known primarily for his popular cantata trilogy Trionfi, which includes Carmina Burana, Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. For these at least, he seems to draw upon ancient tribal rhythms, prompting an apparently unappreciative Igor Stravinsky to label Orff's music "neoneanderthal."
His early work shows influence of Debussy, conventional orchestration, and without too much dissidence: An example is his Tanzende Faune: Ein Orchesterspiel (1914)
A leading American composer in the development of a
distinctive American style, Thomson incorporated American Speech rhythms and the idioms of American folk song, religious
hymns, and even the blues. His music was mostly tonal/diatonic, often playful, but with
modernist influences in some of his orchestral writings, including his densely chromatic Three Tone Poems, and his serialist A Solemn Music. He also wrote operas, ballets, and movie scores.
An unabashed 20th century romanticist, Korngold wrote in the style of Wagner and Richard Strauss, with influences from Mahler and Puccini. He wrote several operas, a single symphony, and a number of miscellaneous pieces for piano and concertos for solo instruments, but is best known for his magnificent scores for Hollywood films, several of which earned academy awards.
It is said that the rousing score for Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood helped launch the career of Errol Flynn. It didn’t hurt that the latter was one of the first major films in technicolor, but the music was indeed extraordinary and set the dominant tone for film composers through the rest of the century, including Miklas Roszas and John Williams . So, if you are an unabashed fan of romanticism, you will find much to enjoy in in Korngold’s catalogue.
Harris was an American composer with a moderately dissonant, style based on renaissance modes (older forms of scales originating in the middle ages). His style reminds one of the better known Aaron Copland. He was the first American composer to be recorded by a record company. He employed patriotic themes and folk music, particularly in his earlier years. His catalogue includes over 170 works, with 14 symphonies, a handful of piano works and a variety of others. His most popular work is the 3rd Symphony.
Chavez is the best-known and most influential Mexican composer. He incorporated native folk idioms into his music, with influences of 20th century composers and styles as well. Note the Stravinsky-like use of dissonance and varied rhythmic structures in pieces like his ballet, Caballos de vapor (“Horse Power”).
About the same time that George Gershwin successfully fused jazz elements with symphonic music in his enormously popular Rhapsody in Blue, George Antheil was doing his own experiments, but with a more modernistic touch. He, and his Jazz Symphony, have been overlooked until recently. His symphony is more complex rhythmically and thematically than Gershwin's work, and cast in a vivid, clear fabric of orchestral color which is quite exciting.
The daughter of a Methodist minister, Ruth Crawford Seeger developed broad intellectual interests, including poetry, folk music, and the American philosophy known as theosophy, as well as classical music. She first studied to be a concert pianist, and taught piano at a school. As she turned to composition, she embraced the dissonance of 20th century modernism, combining it with classical contrapuntal structure. She thus created a unique style of her own and is now considered a major figure in the development of 20th century American music.
Walton was by nature an experimentalist, and so can’t be said to belong to any particular “school.” He is recognized for his melodic ability and distinctive personal style that emerges from wide-ranging 20th century influences. In his later works he even returned to a more romantic style that was considered old-fashioned by critics of the time. Though overshadowed by fellow Englishmen like Elgar and Vaughn-Williams, Walton is highly respected, even more so in recent decades, and nearly all his music has been recorded.
Walton was however a perfectionist and
his total catalogue is relatively small for the long career he had, but still
an impressive 132 works. He worked hard to constantly expand his technical
expertise and to make each piece the best it could be. His output includes several symphonies and
other orchestral works, film scores, a few operas and other vocal works,
ballets, and chamber music.
Like other Soviet-era composers, Khachaturian steered clear of the radical experimentation of the 20th century, with largely tonal music, often reflecting the melodies and rhythms of his native Armenia. His penchant for driving rhythms is most evident in his popular Sabre Dance, a staple of the standard repertoire. That single hit, like most others in this series, was no accident. He has much other beautiful music worth exploring.
Like his Soviet contemporaries, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Kabalevsky wrote in a style approved by the State - largely tonal with only modest nods to modernist dissonance. The resulting music, largely hidden in the shadows of his contemporaries, is eminently listenable. In fact, like a good book, hard to put down when you get started. He was a prolific composer, with four symphonies, other orchestral works, many works for piano, concertos for violin and cello, operas, ballets, much choral and vocal music, film scores, and a handful of chamber works.
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