Neue Musik
[1] The most important step in the reorientation of musical language was taken in the field of harmony, namely the gradual abandonment of tonality – towards free atonality and finally towards twelve-tone technique.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the tendency to use increasingly complex chord formations led to harmonic areas that could no longer be clearly explained by the underlying major-minor tonality – a process that had already begun with Wagner and Liszt.
From this, Arnold Schönberg and his students Alban Berg and Anton Webern drew the most systematic consequence, which culminated in the formulation (1924) of the method of "composition with twelve tones related only to one another" (dodecaphony).
Also to be mentioned is Alexander Scriabin, whose atonal sound-centre technique, based on quartal layering, subsequently paved the way for remarkable experiments by a whole generation of young Russian composers.
The significance of this generation of composers for New Music, which emerged in the climate of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, could only penetrate into consciousness in the second half of the century, as they were already systematically eliminated by the Stalinist dictatorship in the late 1920s.
Even the fundamental idea of a continuous, purposeful processing of musical thoughts within a work loses its primacy, parallel to the loss of the 19th century's belief in progress.
Free montage techniques in Igor Stravinsky or Charles Ives, the rejection of the time directionality of music, as well as an increasing individualism claim their place.
In this context, the work of Béla Bartók, who had already explored most of the fundamental characteristics of his new style by means of a systematic study of Balkan folklore in 1908, is to be regarded as exemplary.
These include Alois Hába, who, encouraged by Busoni, found his preconditions in Bohemian-Moravian musicianship, and on the other hand Ivan Wyschnegradsky, whose microtonality is to be understood as a consistent further development of the sound-centre technique of Alexander Scriabin.
With Edgar Varèse and Charles Ives, two composers should be mentioned whose works, which are exceptional in every respect, cannot be attributed to any larger movement and whose significance was only fully recognised in the second half of the century.
The increasing industrialisation, which slowly began to take hold of all areas of life, is reflected in an enthusiasm for technology and (compositional) machine aesthetics, which was initially carried by the Futurist movement.
This old longing for progress and modernity – through conscious separation from tradition and convention – can, however, take on a fetish-like character in Western society, which is shaped by science and technology.
This relationship – the small elite group of privileged people here and the large uninvolved masses there – has only changed outwardly through the increasing dissemination of music through the media.
The vivid descriptions of various legendary scandalous performances (e.g. Richard Strauss' Salome 1905, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring 1913) with scuffles, key whistles, police intervention etc., as well as the journalistic response with blatant polemics and crude defamations testify to the difficult position that the "neutöners" had from the beginning.
In particular, musicological and music-theoretical writings, such as Schönberg's or Busonis visionary Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (1906) are of great influence on the development of New Music.
Also noteworthy in this context is the almanac Der Blaue Reiter (1912) edited by Kandinsky and Marc, which contains, among other things, an essay on Free Music by the Russian Futurist Nikolai Kulbin.
This willingness to engage intellectually and technically with the unsolved problems of tradition, as well as the sometimes unbending attitude in the pursuit of set compositional goals and experimental arrangements, are further characteristic features of Neue Musik.
Perhaps the composers and works that have been able to establish themselves as "classics of modernism" in the concert hall in the course of the last century and whose innovations have found their way into the canon of compositional techniques can best be understood under the heading of "new music": Thus, in addition to Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, Igor Stravinsky, Phillipp Jarnach, Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith.
Impressionism is the transfer of the term from the visual arts to a music from about 1890 to the First World War in which tonal "atmosphere" dominates and colourful intrinsic value is emphasised.
It differs from the late Romanticism that took place at the same time, with its heavy overloading, by Mediterranean lightness and agility (which does not exclude spooky or shadowy moods) and by avoiding complex counterpoint and excessive chromaticism in favour of sensitive tone colouring, especially in orchestral instrumentation.
The centre of this movement is France, the main representatives being Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel (who, however, also composed many works that cannot be described as impressionistic) and Paul Dukas.
Through the Paris World's Fair of 1889, Claude Debussy learned the sound of Javanese gamelan ensembles, which strongly influenced him, as did the chinoiserie of his time.
It should not be overlooked that Schoenberg and Berg also developed a number of intersections with neoclassicism – mainly on the level of form and less in terms of composition and adopted stylistic elements.
The main representatives are the composers of the Second Viennese School: Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg as well as, against a different background of the history of ideas, Alexander Scriabin.
After the end of the Second World War, the Kranichsteiner Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, organised every two years by the Staatstheater Darmstadt, became the most influential international event for new music in Germany.
Traditionally strong musical countries such as France (with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis), Italy (Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono) made important contributions, others such as Poland (Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki) or Switzerland with Heinz Holliger and Jacques Wildberger joined in.
Last but not least, some important representatives of New Music found their way from elsewhere to their places of work in Germany, such as György Ligeti from Hungary, Isang Yun from Korea and Mauricio Kagel from Argentina.
From the 1950s onwards, various developments took place, among others: Another dimension in the case of some composers is the addition of an ideological or political (as a rule, "left-wing") orientation, which is particularly noticeable in vocal compositions.
The quasi father of the idea is Hanns Eisler, later Luigi Nono, Hans Werner Henze, Rolf Riehm, Helmut Lachenmann, Nicolaus A. Huber and Mathias Spahlinger.
The Italian improviser and composer Giacinto Scelsi, the Englishman Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, the Estonian Arvo Pärt and the Mexican by choice Conlon Nancarrow represent completely independent positions.
