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Thread: 20th century music

  1. #1
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    20th century music

    When did 20th C music really become such. Was it with the folk-preservation-modern-classical work of the 1890s and onwards amongst composers like Vaughan Williams et al?

    Or was it with the first inklings of jazz in the music hall/vaudeville/entertainment/dance music of the 00s and 10s?

    It does seem that the modernists, if CD liner notes and album covers are anything to go by, have won that particular contest with almost every second Naxos CD having something like "20th century piano music" or "20th century pastoral cello suite" in big letters across the top as a type of explanatory sub-title for those who know what they want to hear.

    You don't see that on early jazz albums.

    I may be rambling.

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    Member Rick Robson's Avatar
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    I guess 20th century modern music began just the year when the first World War finished, because that was also the year of the first commercially done radio broadcasting. Add to it the fact that phonograph players were not mass-marketed until twenty years before (the mid-1890s). So, imo, these were the main factors which steered the development of popular music genres.

    As for Vaughan Williams, he was amongst the pioneers of the introduction of saxophones in 20th-century orchestra scores (Symphonies no.6 and 9), but besides him there was also a bunch of important modernists pioneering the experimentation with form, tonality and orchestration. Ravel and Gershwin pioneered the fusion of classical and jazz idioms, Stravinsky and Schoenberg were already recognized before 1914 as modernists, and Charles Ives was retrospectively also included in this category for his challenges to the uses of tonality.

    As it's also a fact that US musicians played an important role on 20th century music, which turned out a decisive role on the difusion of music innovations with the end of the second World War.
    "Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth. ". Ludwig van Beethoven

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    Thanks Rick for a very informative answer. An important factor which you mention, that slipped my mind when composing my text, is the classical-jazz mix employed by Gershwin, Ravel etc.

    Another thing to factor in is that the Golden Era of peace and prosperity came to an abrupt end on the eve of the war in 1914, and with that disappeared a lot of the light pastoral and easy going entertainment aspects from music and of course from people's lives in general. A darker period settled on the world.

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    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    First World War is probably a good threshold for a full blossom , but it started earlier
    Claude Debussy - Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra composed 1903

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ikPiMRxRE

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    That has now reminded me of Ravel's Introduction & Allegro. I now need to go and find a date for it.

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    Erik Satie should be mentioned

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    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by philsunset View Post
    Erik Satie should be mentioned

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