The modern period or style covers the years from roughly 1900 onwards.
The modern style in music was part of a broader movement in art and literature called modernism. Modernism was all about questioning what had gone before and finding new ways to express yourself – often in ways intended to challenge the listener, reader or viewer and make you feel uncomfortable. Abstract art, for example, doesn’t fit with conventional ideas of beauty, and cubist art doesn’t look very ‘realistic’. Modernist novels of the early twentieth century often didn’t have easy-to-follow stories and they played about with language, sometimes making them difficult to read and understand.
Key features of the modern style
- The number one rule of modern classical music is that there are no rules!
- Modern classical music is about breaking rules. It is about being different. Whatever you think music should sound like, there is some modern classical music that doesn’t sound like that at all.
- There is a lot of modern classical music that doesn’t have a tune.
- There is a lot of modern classical music that is played on things that aren’t ‘traditional’ instruments. The composer John Cage wrote a piece for the orchestra called 4’33 where the instrumentalists play nothing at all for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The ‘music’ is the noise made in the concert hall during that time (such as people coughing, babies crying etc).
Notable composers
