The Music of the 20th Century — the USSR, the US, the Postwar Avant-Garde, Minimalism

20th-Century Music — The Age of “Diversity”

From the 1913 riot at The Rite of Spring in the previous article on Impressionism and the Second Viennese School, the music of the 20th century displays unprecedented diversity. There is no single “mainstream style”:

• The Soviet Union — Shostakovich, Prokofiev
• The US — Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein
• The postwar avant-garde — Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Nono
• Experimental music — Cage
• Minimalism — Reich, Glass, Adams
• Spectralism — Grisey, Murail
• Asia and Japan — Takemitsu
• Polystylism — Schnittke, Pärt

These are mutually opposed and together form the musical panorama of the late 20th century.

Music Under Totalitarianism — The Soviet Union

For 70 years under the Soviet Union (1922–1991) following the 1917 Russian Revolution, music developed distinctively under state control.

“Socialist Realism”

In 1934, Stalin’s government made “socialist realism” the official artistic doctrine:

• Music comprehensible to the people
• Rejection of “formalism” — avant-garde music was “the harmful influence of the bourgeois West”
• Music as a tool of propaganda
• Control through State Prizes, Stalin Prizes, and Lenin Prizes

Musicians were forced into “double language” — outwardly compliant, inwardly resistant.

Dmitri Shostakovich — “The Master of the 20th-Century Symphony”

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (Дмитрий Шостакович, 1906–1975) was born in Saint Petersburg and lived his whole life in the Soviet Union. Fifteen symphonies, fifteen string quartets, and much else. One of the greatest symphonists of the 20th century.

Life (Outline)

• 25 September 1906 — Born in Saint Petersburg
• 1919–1925 — Saint Petersburg Conservatory; studies with Glazunov
• 1925 — At 19, his Symphony No. 1 as a graduation piece is a worldwide success
• 1934 — Premiere of the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a triumph
• January 1936 — Stalin, having seen Lady Macbeth, is furious; the Pravda article “Muddle Instead of Music” attacks it. Shostakovich lives the rest of his life in fear of purges
• 1937 — With the Symphony No. 5 he “returns to favour” — “a Soviet artist’s creative reply”
• 1941–1945 — Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” — composed under the German siege of Leningrad; he becomes an international hero
• 1948 — The Zhdanov Decree; attacked again as a “formalist”
• 1953 — Stalin dies
• 1960 — Forced to join the Communist Party (a lifelong regret)
• 9 August 1975 — Dies in Moscow at 68

The 15 Symphonies

• No. 1, Op. 10 (1925) — the debut of a 19-year-old
• No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 (1937) — “A Soviet Artist’s Creative Reply,” the “return” from Stalin’s criticism; double language
• No. 7 in C major “Leningrad”, Op. 60 (1941) — huge (75 minutes), composed under the siege of Leningrad
• No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 (1943) — during the war, bleak
• No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 (1953) — after Stalin’s death; features the DSCH motif (D–Es–C–H = D–E♭–C–B, spelling his own name)
• No. 13 “Babi Yar”, Op. 113 (1962) — on poems by Yevtushenko, the Nazi massacre of Jews
• No. 14, Op. 135 (1969) — soloists, strings, and percussion; “music of death”
• No. 15 in A major, Op. 141 (1971) — his last, quoting Rossini and Wagner

“Double Language”

The finale of the Fifth Symphony, ostensibly a triumphal hymn, in fact conceals — as posterity has come to see — the message “this is a coerced joy”.

Shostakovich’s music always has an outer and an inner face. Irony and deep sorrow.

The 15 String Quartets

• No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960) — “To the victims of fascism and war,” the DSCH motif, autobiographical
• Together the 15 quartets are a musical diary of the stages of a life

Alongside Beethoven’s 16 and Haydn’s 68, the great string-quartet legacy.

The “Testimony” Controversy

Shostakovich’s pupil Solomon Volkov published in 1979 Testimony — Memoirs of Shostakovich. It claimed that Shostakovich had been “deeply opposed to Stalinism.”

• A sensation in the 1980s
• Later scholarship (from the 1990s) argues it is “fabricated and rewritten”
• The debate about its authenticity continues to this day

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)

Born in Sontsovka, Ukraine. Fifteen years older than Shostakovich, with an unusual biography: exiled in 1918 → returned to the Soviet Union in 1936:

Life

• 23 April 1891 — Born
• 1904–1914 — Saint Petersburg Conservatory; studies with Rimsky-Korsakov
• May 1918 — Emigrates to the US and Paris
• 1936 — Returns to the USSR (a choice that still troubles historians)
• 1948 — Attacked with Shostakovich in the Zhdanov Decree
• 5 March 1953 — Dies in Moscow (on the same day as Stalin; the press reports only Stalin’s death)

Main Works

• Five piano concertos — the Third (1921) is particularly famous
• Nine piano sonatas (Nos. 6–8, the “War Sonatas,” are masterpieces)
• Seven symphonies — especially No. 1 “Classical” (1917) and No. 5 (1944)
• Romeo and Juliet (1935) — ballet; “The Montagues and the Capulets” is famous
• Peter and the Wolf (1936) — for children, world-famous
• Alexander Nevsky (1938) — film music for Eisenstein

The “War Sonatas” — Piano Sonatas 6–8

Three piano sonatas composed 1939–1944:

• No. 6 in A major, Op. 82 (1940) — percussive
• No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83 (1942) — defined by Richter’s premiere; the third-movement Precipitato is famous
• No. 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84 (1944) — quiet, deep

Standard repertoire for pianists today.

American Music — The Music of the “New World”

George Gershwin (1898–1937)

Born in New York, of Jewish descent. A fusion of classical music and jazz; died at 38 of a brain tumour:

• Rhapsody in Blue (1924) — symbol of the union of jazz and classical
• Piano Concerto in F (1925)
• An American in Paris (1928) — orchestral
• Opera Porgy and Bess (1935) — “Summertime”

The composer who convinced the world of “the birth of American music.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

Born in New York, of Jewish descent. “The father of American music,” long-lived (90):

• Appalachian Spring (1944) — ballet, choreographed by Martha Graham
• Rodeo, Billy the Kid — ballets
• Fanfare for the Common Man (1942)
• El Salón México (1936)

“The sound of the Western” in film music descends from Copland (a remote ancestor of John Williams).

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)

Born in Massachusetts. Composer, conductor, pianist, and educator — all four:

• West Side Story (1957) — a Broadway musical; “Mambo,” “Tonight,” “Maria”
• Candide (1956) — musical
• Serenade for Violin and Piano (1954)
• Music director of the New York Philharmonic (1958–1969), alongside Karajan one of the great conductors of the late 20th century

The “Young People’s Concerts,” the New York Philharmonic’s children’s programme, are world-famous. He is the successor generation to Ives (the avant-garde insurance executive-composer) whom we met in the [Lineage of Mathematics] series.

The Darmstadt School — The Postwar Avant-Garde

In 1946, the Summer Course for New Music began in Darmstadt, Germany, becoming the centre of postwar avant-garde music.

Pierre Boulez (1925–2016)

France, the leader of the postwar avant-garde:

• Piano Sonata No. 2 (1948) — piano; “the radicalization of twelve-tone technique”
• Le Marteau sans maître (1955) — voice and ensemble
• Pli selon pli (1957–1962) — voice and orchestra
• Répons (1981) — live electronics
• Founding director of IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, Paris)
• Music director of the BBC Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Cleveland Orchestra

Composer, conductor, and theorist. A musical authority in the second half of the 20th century.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)

Germany, a pioneer of electronic music:

• Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–1956) — a masterpiece of electronic music
• Gruppen (1955–1957) — for three orchestras, spatial music
• Licht (1977–2003) — a cycle of 7 operas, 26 hours

One of the greatest avant-garde composers of the 20th century. Like the mathematicians in the [Lineage of Mathematics] series, he pursued the “complete design” of music.

Luigi Nono (1924–1990)

Venice, Italy. A communist and political composer:

• La fabbrica illuminata (1964)
• Prometeo (1984) — “a tragedy to be listened to”

Pupils and Successors

• Helmut Lachenmann (Germany, 1935–) — musique concrète instrumentale
• Finnissy (UK), Ferneyhough (UK) — the “New Complexity”

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

Hungarian Jewish, fled to Vienna after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. A unique sound-world:

• Atmosphères (1961) — used in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; “tone clusters”
• Lux Aeterna (1966) — chorus, in 2001
• Requiem (1963–1965) — in 2001
• Études (1985–2001) — for piano, a peak of contemporary piano music

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Kubrick made enormous use of Ligeti’s music in the film, bringing him worldwide fame. Ligeti protested the unauthorised use, but the film made his name known around the world.

John Cage — Experimental Music

John Cage (1912–1992), born in California, introduced chance and indeterminacy into music:

• The prepared piano — screws and erasers inserted between piano strings turn it into a percussion instrument
• Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946–1948)
• 4′33″ (1952) — the performer plays silence; environmental sound becomes the music
• Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) — for 12 radios
• The influence of Zen and the I Ching

A giant of experimental music who questioned “what music is” at the root.

Minimal Music — From America

In 1960s America, minimal music arose as a reaction to the difficulty of the avant-garde:

Steve Reich (1936–)

• It’s Gonna Rain (1965) — tape phasing
• Drumming (1971) — percussion
• Music for 18 Musicians (1976) — a minimalist masterpiece

Philip Glass (1937–)

• Einstein on the Beach (1976) — opera, 5 hours without intermission
• Akhnaten, Satyagraha — operas
• Many film scores (The Hours, The Truman Show)

John Adams (1947–)

Post-minimalist:

• Harmonium (1980)
• Nixon in China (1987) — opera
• The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) — opera

Spectralism — France

In the 1970s at IRCAM in Paris:

• Gérard Grisey (1946–1998) — died young
• Tristan Murail (1947–)

They analysed the overtone structure (spectrum) of sound and composed from those data. Closely tied to electronic music.

Eastern European “Postmodernism”

As the postwar avant-garde grew formalist, another current emerged:

Alfred Schnittke (Russia, 1934–1998)

• “Polystylistic” — combining many styles of the past
• Concerto Grosso No. 1, Symphony No. 1

Arvo Pärt (Estonia, 1935–)

• The Tintinnabuli style — a sacred music of only three pitches
• Fratres (1977), Tabula Rasa, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

Henryk Górecki (Poland, 1933–2010)

• Symphony No. 3 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”, Op. 36 (1976) — an enormous international hit in the 1990s

East Asian Music

Takemitsu Tōru (1930–1996)

Japan, a composer of world reputation:

• November Steps (1967) — shakuhachi, biwa, and orchestra; East–West fusion
• Requiem for Strings (1957) — at 27; praised by Stravinsky
• Many film scores (Harakiri, Woman in the Dunes, Confessions of a Mask)

A fusion of East (Zen, shakuhachi, biwa) and West (Impressionism, Messiaen). A symbol of contemporary Japanese music.

Isang Yun (Korea → Germany, 1917–1995)

A Korean German, a Darmstadt participant, a pioneer of East–West fusion.

Tan Dun (China, 1957–)

• Film music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Academy Award)
• A fusion of Chinese traditional music with the avant-garde

20th-Century Conductors (Overview)

The professionalization of the conductor that we touched on in the previous article on the late Romantic reached its limit in the 20th century:

• Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) — strict faithfulness to the score
• Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954) — the deep German interpretation
• Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) — Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years; enormous body of recordings
• Leonard Bernstein — see above
• Carlos Kleiber (1930–2004) — a perfectionist; few recordings
• Claudio Abbado (1933–2014) — a democratic conductor
• Simon Rattle (1955–) — former head of the Berliners
• Kirill Petrenko (1972–) — current head of the Berliners
• Ozawa Seiji (1935–2024) — Japan; Boston Symphony for 29 years; the Saito Kinen
• Sado Yutaka, Yamada Kazuki, Ōno Kazushi — contemporary Japan

Detailed in the next article.

Modern Impact

• The postwar avant-garde → contemporary art music, electronic music, museum-of-modern-art music
• Minimalism → film music (Hans Zimmer), game music (Uematsu Nobuo), pop (electronica)
• Takemitsu → contemporary Japanese music (Sakamoto Ryūichi, Fujikura Dai)
• American music → the foundation of Hollywood film scoring
• Soviet music → the contemporary Russian and Eastern European musical tradition

From This Article to the Next

We have traced the diverse developments of 20th-century music. The next article moves into the great conductors. The “independent conductor” as a profession, born in the 19th century, became the central figure of music in the 20th. Toscanini, Furtwängler, Karajan, Bernstein, Carlos Kleiber, Abbado, Rattle, Ozawa Seiji, and Sado Yutaka — we follow the 100 years in which a musical history centred on the composer shifted to being “centred on the interpreter.”