MUSIC

20th-Century Classical Music 1 / 7

Giacomo Puccini

(1858 – 1924)

This period is a big challenge to define among all good listeners, but we will try to mention some of the most remarkable composers, starting with Giacomo Puccini who lived the transition of two centuries, and became one of the best Italian opera composers after Verdi. His reknown masterpieces include La Boheme ( 1896 ), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904 ) and the unfinished Turandot which turned out to be one of the most beloved by opera singers of both XX and XXI Century.

Please enjoy all of his works but especially with our first selection, the famous Nessum Dorma, a beautiful creation of all times and tastes.

ALMO

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WIKIPEDIA - The Free Encyclopedia

20th-century classical music is Western art music that was written between 1901 and 2000, inclusive. Musical style diverged during the 20th century as it never had previously, so this century was without a dominant style. Modernism, impressionism, and post-romanticism can all be traced to the decades before the turn of the 20th century, but can be included because they evolved beyond the musical boundaries of the 19th-century styles that were part of the earlier common practice period. Neoclassicism and expressionism came mostly after 1900. Minimalism started later in the century and can be seen as a change from the modern to postmodern era, although some date postmodernism from as early as about 1930. Aleatory, atonality, serialism, musique concrète, and electronic music were all developed during the century. Jazz and ethnic folk music became important influences on many composers during this century.

History

At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of post-Romantic symphonic writing. At the same time, the Impressionist movement, spearheaded by Claude Debussy, was being developed in France. Debussy in fact loathed the term Impressionism: "I am trying to do 'something different—in a way realities—what the imbeciles call 'impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics". Maurice Ravel's music, also often labelled as impressionist, explores music in many styles not always related to it (see the discussion on Neoclassicism, below).

Many composers reacted to the Post-Romantic and Impressionist styles and moved in different directions. An important moment in defining the course of music throughout the century was the widespread break with traditional tonality, effected in diverse ways by different composers in the first decade of the century. From sprang an unprecedented "linguistic plurality" of styles, techniques, and expression. In Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg developed atonality, out of the expressionism that arose in the early part of the 20th century. He later developed the twelve-tone technique which was developed further by his disciples Alban Berg and Anton Webern; later composers (including Pierre Boulez) developed it further still. Stravinsky (in his last works) explored twelve-tone technique, too, as did many other composers; indeed, even Scott Bradley used the technique in his scores for the Tom and Jerry cartoons.