20th century music :: essays research papers

By the turn of the century and for the beside few decades, artists of all nationalities were searching for exciting and different modes of expression. Composers much(prenominal) as Arnold Schoenberg explored unusual and unorthodox harmonies and tonal schemes. French composer Claude Debussy was fascinated by eastern medicine and the whole-tone scale, and created a style of music named after the movement in French painting called Impressionism. Hungarian composer Bla Bartk continued in the traditions of the still strong Nationalist movement and amalgamate the music of Hungarian peasants with twentieth century forms. Avant-garde composers such(prenominal) as Edgard Varse explored the manipulation of rhythms rather than the usual melodious/ good-hearted schemes. The tried and true genre of the symphony, albeit somewhat modified by this time, attracted such masters as Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich, while Igor Stravinsky gave full rein to his manipulation of kaleidoscopic rhy thms and instrumental colors throughout his extremely long and varied career. eyepatch many composers throughout the twentieth-century experimented in bleak ways With traditional instruments such as the "prepared piano" used by American composer bottom Cage, many of the twentieth-centurys greatest composers, such as Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini and the Russian pianist/composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, remained true to the traditional forms of music history. In addition to new and eclectic styles of musical trends, the twentieth century boasts numerous composers whose harmonic and melodic styles an average listener can still easily appreciate and enjoy.The build of technology has also had an enormous impact on the evolution of music in this century, with some composers using, for instance, the cassette player as a compositional utensil or electronically generated sounds alongside classical instruments, the use of computers to compose music, and so on.