Contemporary Classical Music – Sheet Music

After the Second World War, there emerged a new generation of composers, who sought to stretch the boundaries of music history, and find new and exciting styles and forms. Browse our sheet music and scores, take a look at our Modern Classical Music, and explore the wide world of contemporary music with Stretta Music today!

An Overview of Post-War Contemporary Music

Dodecaphony & Serialism

Dodecaphony or Serialism is the use of the twelve semi-tones as the harmonic and structural basis, rather than the traditional harmonic key structure which governed classical music until the turn of the twentieth century. Arnold Schoenberg was the father of twelve-tone composition in the 1930s. Moving into the post-war era, all dodecaphonic or serial musical parameters, including note lengths, dynamics and even timbres were set in rows. After 1948, the Darmstadt “holiday courses” became the centre of Dodecaphony or Serialism for almost a decade. Despite the mathematical and logical basis, twelve-tone composition still produced many highly emotional works such as Luigi Nono’s Il Canto sospeso.

Electronic Music

As the technical and electronic possibilities continued to grow and thrive after the war, the first studio solely dedicated to electronic music was founded in Cologne in 1951 by Herbert Eimert. Important electronic music composers were Edgar Varese, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ernst Krenek, Maurice Kagel, Luciano Berio and Iannis Xenakis, who was also an assistant to the architect Le Corbusier.

Aleatoric Music

Aleatoric comes from the Latin “alea”, meaning dice. Aleatoric composition leaves elements of the music to chance. The American composer John Cage was the first to experiment with aleatoric music, and many others followed, in particular K. Stockhausen, P. Boulez, W. Lutosławski.

Soundscapes

Soundscape composition plays with sense and emotion, it uses long drawn musical landscapes to give the listener time to recognise and experience the music in a whole new way. The most important compositions include Atmosphères and Lontano by György Ligeti. Other works of this type were created by Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Iannis Xenakis.

Minimalism

Minimalism also came to Europe from the USA. Minimalism uses repetitive, wide blocks of sound, without strong contrasts or dramatic changes. It is in the repetition, with gradual, small changes, that the minimalist effect is achieved. The pioneers of minimalism in the 1960s were American composers Philip Glass, John Adams, Le Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. They were followed in Europe by Henryk Górecki and Arvo Pärt.

Important Post-War Contemporary Classical Composers

• Benjamin Britten – Sheet Music
• Karlheinz Stockhausen – Sheet Music
• Pierre Boulez – Sheet Music
• Iannis Xenakis – Sheet Music
• Olivier Messiaen – Sheet Music
• Luciano Berio – Sheet Music
• John Cage – Sheet Music
• Witold Lutosławski – Sheet Music
• György Ligeti– Sheet Music
• Luigi Nono – Sheet Music
• Krzysztof Penderecki – Sheet Music
• Terry Riley – Sheet Music
• Steve Reich – Sheet Music
• Philip Glass – Sheet Music
• Henryk Górecki – Sheet Music
• Arvo Pärt – Sheet Music
• Helmut Lachenmann – Sheet Music
• Jörg Widmann – Sheet Music
• Wolfgang Rihm – Sheet Music
• Adriana Hölszky – Sheet Music
• Rebecca Saunders – Sheet Music