20th Century Music

A search for the meaning of music

Copyright 2005 - Frankel Consulting Services, Inc.

What is music?
 What happened during the
20th Century?
World War I Kennedy Assassination
Communism Space Exploration
Capitalism Civil Rights - Martin Luther
Womens Rights King Jr.
The Great Depression The Vietnam War
Television Man on the Moon
World War II - Watergate
Holocaust Iran Hostage Crisis
The Atomic Bomb Personal Computers
The Cold War Gulf War
Cuban Missile Crisis Internet
The Korean War Fall of Communism
 Famous People from the
20th Century
Mahatma Gandhi Ernest Hemingway
Adolph Hitler Pablo Picasso
Neil Armstrong Fidel Castro
Vladimir Lenin Nikita Kruschev
Joseph Stalin Mikhail Gorbachev
Mother Theresa Ronald Reagan
Franklin D. Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt
Winston Churchill Walt Disney
Martin Luther King Jr. Elvis Presley
John F. Kennedy The Beatles
Nelson Mandela Charles Dickens
Frank Lloyd Wright Marilyn Monroe
Margaret Thatcher
Famous Artists of the
20th Century
Pablo Picasso
Jackson Pollack
Henri Matisse
Salvador Dali
Andy Warhol
Wassily Kandinsky
Piet Mondrian
Georgia OKeefe
Rene Magritte
 Characteristics of 20th
Century Music

Break every existing rule

Challenge the ear
Challenge the mind
Respect the past - look toward the future
If it doesnt work - copy the past
 Styles of Music during the
20th Century
Late Romantic
Avant-garde
Impressionist
Polytonal
Neo-Classical
Serialism
Minimalism
Experimentalism
Chance Music
Electronic
It is important to note the vast
amount of different styles and
composers from this era of
music history.

Why do you think there are so

many in such a relatively short
period of time?
 Famous Composers of the
20th Century
Igor Stravinsky Aaron Copland
Claude Debussy Leonard Bernstein
Arnold Schoenberg Bela Bartok
Dmitri Shostakovich Alban Berg
Philip Glass Milton Babbitt
Steve Reich Sergei Rachmaninov
John Cage George Crumb
Karlheinz Stockhausen Charles Ives
Vincent Persechetti Edgard Varese
We will now listen to what
music historians feel is the
single most important
composition of the 20th
Century
Igor Stravinskys
Le Sacre du Printemps
The Rite of Spring
Premiered in Paris in 1913