List of modernist composers explained

The following is a list of modernist composers.

In music, modernism is an aesthetic stance underlying the period of change and development in musical language that occurred around the turn of the 20th century, a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories of music, innovations that led to new ways of organizing and approaching harmonic, melodic, sonic, and rhythmic aspects of music, and changes in aesthetic worldviews in close relation to the larger identifiable period of modernism in the arts of the time. The operative word most associated with it is "innovation". Its leading feature is a "linguistic plurality", which is to say that no one music genre ever assumed a dominant position.

Examples include the celebration of Arnold Schoenberg's rejection of tonality in chromatic post-tonal and twelve-tone works and Igor Stravinsky's move away from metrical rhythm.

Australia

Australia

• Roy Agnew (1891–1944)
• Arthur Benjamin (1893–1960)
• Hooper Brewster-Jones (1887–1949)
• Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912–1990)
• Percy Grainger (1882–1961)
• Margaret Sutherland (1897–1984)

Europe

Austria

• Alban Berg (1885–1935)
• Ernst Krenek (1900–1991)
• Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)
• Anton Webern (1883–1945)
• Alexander Zemlinsky (1871–1942)

Belgium

• Karel Goeyvaerts (1923–1993)^[1]

Finland

• Erik Bergman (1911–2006)
• Aarre Merikanto (1893–1958)

France

• Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
• André Jolivet (1905–1974)
• Charles Koechlin (1867–1950)
• Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
• Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)
• Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
• Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
• Erik Satie (1866–1925)
• Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)

Germany

• Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)
• Hans Pfitzner (1869–1949)
• Max Reger (1873–1916)
• Franz Schreker (1878–1934)
• Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Greece

• Nikos Skalkottas (1904–1949)

Hungary

• Béla Bartók (1881–1945)

Italy

• Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924)

Poland

• Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)

Russia

• Edison Denisov (1929–1996)
• Leo Ornstein (1893–2002)
• Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)
• Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915)
• Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
• Andrei Volkonsky (1933–2008)^[2]

Switzerland

• Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)

North America

United States

• George Antheil (1900–1959)
• Milton Babbitt (1916–2011)
• Elliott Carter (1908–2012)^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}
• Henry Cowell (1897–1965)
• Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953)
• Vernon Duke (1903–1969)
• Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975)
• Charles Ives (1874–1954)
• Harry Partch (1901–1974)

See also

• Modernism (music)
• Postmodernism

References

• Book: Ashby, Arved Mark . 2004a . Introduction . Arved Mark Ashby . The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology . 1–22 . University of Rochester Press . 1-58046-143-3.
• Book: Ashby, Arved Mark . 2004b . Modernism Goes to the Movies . Arved Mark Ashby . The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology . 345–86 . University of Rochester Press . 1-58046-143-3.
• Book: Bauer, Amy . 2004 . Tone-Color, Movement, Changing Harmonic Planes': Cognition, Constraints, and Conceptual Blends in Modernist Music . Arved Mark Ashby . The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology . 121–152 . University of Rochester Press . 1-58046-143-3.
  • • • Book: Gagné, Nicole V. . 2012 . Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music . . Scarecrow Press . 9780810867659.
  • Holden . Scott . 2010 . The 'Adventures and Battles' of Vladimir Dukelsky (a.k.a. Vernon Duke) . American Music . 28 . 3 – Fall . 296–319. 10.5406/americanmusic.28.3.0297 . 191312155 .
• Howell . Tim . 2011 . The Legacy of a Modernist . Finnish Music Quarterly . 4 . 38–41.
• Book: Jurkowski, Edward . 2020 . The Music of Joonas Kokkonen . Routledge . 9781138621114.
• Web site: Vlaanderen en de nieuwe muziek . Knockaert . Yves . 2005 . Kunstenpunt Muziek . April 30, 2021 .
  • • • Petersen . Nils Holger . June 2010 . Quotation and Framing: Re-contextualization and Intertextuality as Newness in George Crumb's Black Angels . Contemporary Music Review . 29 . 3 . 309–321. 10.1080/07494467.2010.535365 . 218546107 .
• Rifkin . Deborah . 2006 . Making It Modern: Chromaticism and Phrase Structure in Twentieth-Century Tonal Music . Theory and Practice . 31 . 133–158.
• Book: Ross, Alex . 2007 . The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century . New York City . Farrar, Straus, and Giroux . 9780374249397.
• Schwarz . K. Robert . 1990 . Process vs. Intuition in the Recent Works of Steve Reich and John Adams . American Music . 8 . 3 - Autumn . 245–273. 10.2307/3052096 . 3052096 .
  • Book: Whitesell, Lloyd . 2004 . Twentieth-Century Tonality, or, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do . Arved Mark Ashby . The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology . 103–120 . University of Rochester Press . 1-58046-143-3.
• Wilmotte . Marie-Hélène . 1994 . L'expérimental comme gage de la modernité: La Sequenza I de Luciano Berio . Les cahiers du CIREM . 30–31 . 71–84.

Footnotes

Notes and References

1. Book: Music in Belgium: Contemporary Belgian Composers . CeBeDeM/A. Manteau Ltd. . 1964 . Brussels . 71 . Karel Goeyvaerts.
2. Book: Dubinets, Elena . Князь Андрей Волконский: Партитура жизни . РИПОЛ Классик . 2010 . 978-5-386-02153-5 . Moscow . 12 . Russian.
3. Web site: Carter, Elliott Grove Music. www.oxfordmusiconline.com. en. 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05030. Schiff. David. David Schiff. 978-1-56159-263-0.
4. Web site: Elliott Carter's Own Website Biography . March 18, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180318182815/https://www.elliottcarter.com/biography/ . March 18, 2018 . live .
5. Web site: Carter's Continuing Presence. NewMusicBox. November 15, 2017 . March 18, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180319084512/https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/carters-continuing-presence/ . March 19, 2018 . live .
6. Book: Elliott Carter's Own Book on Harmony . 9780825845949. Carter. Elliott. 2002. Carl Fischer, L.L.C. .