20th-century classical

History and character

Twentieth-century music is a plurality of languages responding to the crisis of tonality. The main stages:

1908–1925 — ruptures. Arnold Schoenberg moves to free atonality (Second String Quartet 1908, Pierrot lunaire 1912) and then to twelve-tone technique (Suite op. 25, 1921–23); with his students Alban Berg (Wozzeck, Violin Concerto 1935) and Anton Webern (very brief, rarefied works) he forms the Second Viennese School. Igor Stravinsky shocks Paris with The Rite of Spring (1913): primitive rhythm, irregular meters, polytonal dissonances. Béla Bartók fuses the folklore of Eastern Europe (collected in the field with Zoltán Kodály) with a highly modern language (Allegro barbaro, Mikrokosmos, the quartets, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta 1936, Concerto for Orchestra 1943). Charles Ives experiments with polytonality and collage in the United States; Edgard Varèse works on sound as mass (Ionisation, 1931, for percussion alone).

1920–1950 — neoclassicism and national musics. Stravinsky (Pulcinella 1920, Symphony of Psalms 1930), Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev (“Classical” Symphony, Romeo and Juliet), Dmitri Shostakovich (15 symphonies, 15 quartets), the French group Les Six (Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud), Aaron Copland (Appalachian Spring 1944, the “American” sound built on open fourths and fifths), George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue 1924), Benjamin Britten (Peter Grimes 1945, War Requiem 1962), and in Italy Respighi, Casella, Malipiero and Dallapiccola (lyrical twelve-tone writing). Olivier Messiaen builds a personal system: modes of limited transposition, non-retrogradable and additive rhythms, birdsong, colors (Quatuor pour la fin du temps 1941, Turangalîla 1948).

1950–1975 — avant-gardes. Total serialism (Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna; the Darmstadt summer courses), electronic and concrete music (Pierre Schaeffer and musique concrète 1948; the WDR studio in Cologne; the RAI Studio di Fonologia in Milan, 1955, with Berio and Maderna; Stockhausen, Gesang der Jünglinge 1956; Varèse, Poème électronique 1958), chance and indeterminacy (John Cage, 4'33'' 1952; prepared piano; Witold Lutosławski with controlled aleatoricism), music of sound masses and texture (György Ligeti, Atmosphères 1961 and micropolyphony, used by Kubrick in 2001; Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody 1960; Iannis Xenakis with stochastic music, Metastaseis 1954), Luciano Berio (Sinfonia 1968, Sequenze), and Giacinto Scelsi (on a single note).

1970–today — pluralism. Minimalism (Riley, Reich, Glass, John Adams), “sacred minimalism” (Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki with Symphony No. 3 1976, John Tavener), spectralism (Gérard Grisey, Partiels 1975; Tristan Murail, Gondwana 1980; IRCAM in Paris, founded by Boulez in 1977), new complexity (Brian Ferneyhough), postmodernism and quotation (Alfred Schnittke), Salvatore Sciarrino, Kaija Saariaho, Unsuk Chin, Thomas Adès, Georg Friedrich Haas (microtonality), Caroline Shaw (Partita for 8 Voices, Pulitzer Prize 2013), and crossover with electronics, cinema, ambient and post-classical (Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hildur Guðnadóttir).

Scales and keys

Each current has its own “system.” Roman numerals (where needed) in minor keys are relative to natural minor.

Free atonality and pitch-class sets

• No tonic; unity comes from sets (pitch-class sets) and their transformations (transposition, inversion). Example: the set (0,1,4) — C, C#, E — used as an intervallic cell in Schoenberg and Webern.
• Analysis: Allen Forte, The Structure of Atonal Music (1973).

Twelve-tone technique (12-note rows)

• A row orders the 12 pitches without repetition; it is used in the forms P (prime, or original), I (inversion), R (retrograde), RI (retrograde inversion), each in 12 transpositions (12×12 matrix).
• Example: the row of Berg's Violin Concerto (1935): G Bb D F# A C E G# B C# Eb F — it rises in thirds and contains minor and major triads (G minor, D major, A minor, E major) and a final whole-tone scale (B C# Eb F), which allows the quotation of Bach's chorale “Es ist genug.”
• Common mistake: thinking the row is a melody: it is a reservoir of intervals from which melodies and chords are drawn.

Modes of limited transposition (Messiaen)

• Mode 1 = whole-tone (C D E F# G# A#): 2 transpositions.
• Mode 2 = octatonic semitone–tone (C Db Eb E F# G A Bb): 3 transpositions.
• Mode 3: tone–semitone–semitone repeated (C D Eb E F# G Ab Bb B): 4 transpositions.
• Characteristic note: internal symmetry that prevents gravitation toward a tonic; an “immobile” and “mystical” color.

Synthetic and folk scales (Bartók)

• Acoustic (Lydian dominant): 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7 — C: C D E F# G A Bb (harmonics 8–14).
• Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian folk modes; polymodal scales (Lydian and Phrygian on the same tonic: “polymodal chromaticism”).
• Axis system (Ernő Lendvai): keys a minor third apart have the same function (C, Eb, F#, A = tonic). A debated interpretation, but useful for analysis.

Pandiatonicism and fourths (Stravinsky, Copland, Hindemith)

• The 7 diatonic notes used freely, without functional hierarchy (Copland: fourth and fifth chords for the American landscape).
• Hindemith: the theory of “Series 1 and 2” (Unterweisung im Tonsatz, 1937), tonality extended to 12 notes.

Microtonality and spectralism

• Quarter tones (Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Alois Hába), sixth tones (Busoni), just intonation (Harry Partch, 43 tones per octave).
• Spectralism: harmony comes from sound spectra (the harmonic series, sonograms): chords built on the harmonics of a fundamental (e.g. on the fundamental E1, harmonics 1–16, with the 7th, 11th and 13th “flat” relative to equal temperament), spectral transformations over time.

New tonality and minimalism

Static diatonic, modal, triads without function (Reich, Glass, Pärt with tintinnabuli: one voice on the tonic triad, the other moving by step).

How to choose

Twelve-tone for intervallic control and unity; free atonality for expressionism; Messiaen's modes for mystical color; folk and polymodal scales for rhythmic energy and ethnic color; pandiatonic and fourths for the open and the neoclassical; spectral for timbral fusion; static diatonic for minimalism.

Harmony

New sonorities

• Polytonality and polychords: two or more triads or keys superimposed (Petrushka chord: C + F#; the “Augurs of Spring” chord in the Rite: Fb major over an Eb7, i.e. E major + Eb7, repeated with irregular accents).
• Quartal chords (Schoenberg, Chamber Symphony op. 9, 1906; Hindemith; Copland).
• Clusters (Henry Cowell, The Tides of Manaunaun; Ligeti; Penderecki with quarter-tone bands in the strings).
• Serial chords derived from the row (verticalization of segments).
• Resonance and “color” chords (Messiaen: chords “of resonance,” “of limited transpositions,” “turned”).
• Spectral chords: harmonics of a fundamental, inharmonic sonorities (bells), transformations from harmonic to noise.
• Micropolyphony (Ligeti): dozens of lines in close canon that fuse into a texture in which the harmony changes slowly.
• “Expanded” tonality: Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten: tonality with lowered modes (Shostakovich's scale with b2 and b4), sudden tonal leaps, ironic cadences.

Function and harmonic rhythm

Tonal function is replaced by other criteria: density (number of notes and register), dominant interval, color, tension/release through relative dissonance (Hindemith), process (minimalism, spectralism). Harmonic rhythm ranges from immobility (Scelsi, Feldman) to changes on every note (pointillistic serialism).

Voicing and register

Register as a compositional parameter: the same set of notes distributed in extreme registers (Webern: intervals of sevenths and ninths instead of seconds); bands of sound in a narrow register (Ligeti, Lux aeterna); spectra distributed like the harmonic series (wide in the low register, narrow in the high).

Typical progressions

Rhythm and groove

• Meters changing every bar (Stravinsky, Rite: the Danse sacrale alternates 2/16, 3/16, 5/16; Bartók; Varèse).
• Additive rhythms (Messiaen: a small value — an eighth note, a dot — is added to a regular rhythm), non-retrogradable rhythms (palindromes), revisited isorhythmic talea and color, rhythmic characters that grow, shrink or remain fixed.
• “Bulgarian” rhythms (aksak) and folk rhythms in Bartók (6 Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, Mikrokosmos), motoric ostinatos (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Orff with Carmina Burana 1937).
• Metric modulation (Elliott Carter): a value of the old tempo becomes the new pulse (e.g. at ♩=120 the triplet eighth note is worth 360 per minute; if it becomes the new eighth note, the new tempo is ♩=180).
• Polyrhythms and polytempi (Ives, The Unanswered Question 1906: strings, trumpet and woodwinds in different tempos; Conlon Nancarrow for player piano).
• Aleatoricism (Lutosławski: coordinated “ad libitum” sections; Cage: indeterminacy), proportional notation (seconds instead of bars: Penderecki).
• Constant pulse and phasing in minimalism.
• Still time (Feldman, Scelsi, Ligeti in Atmosphères: no perceptible pulse).

Drums

Percussion in the twentieth century

The twentieth century is the century of percussion: it becomes an autonomous orchestra and a laboratory of timbre.

• Stravinsky (Rite): bass drum and timpani as rhythmic engine, strokes on irregular accents, guiro, antique cymbals, tambourine.
• Bartók: pedal timpani with glissandi (Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta), xylophone, “Bartók” pizzicato (the string snapping against the fingerboard) as string percussion.
• Varèse (Ionisation, 1931): 13 percussionists, sirens, anvils, lion's roar (friction drum), piano used as percussion.
• Cage: prepared piano (screws, rubbers, bolts between the strings: Sonatas and Interludes 1946–48), “First Construction (in Metal),” percussion of found objects.
• Messiaen: xylophone, marimba, tubular bells, gong; Indian rhythms (deçi-tâlas).
• Orff: timpani, bass drum, xylophones, pianos in Carmina Burana.
• Xenakis (Pléïades, Psappha), Stockhausen (Zyklus for one percussionist), Reich (Drumming): percussion as form.
• Extended techniques: bow on vibraphone and cymbals, superball on drumheads, rim strokes, friction drums, waterphone, thundersheet.

How they think rhythmically

From keeping time to constructing timbral and rhythmic structures (density, registers from the low of the drums to the high of the metals, decay durations). Percussion also defines space (Stockhausen, Gruppen for three orchestras).

Typical mistakes (in the DAW)

Using loops or regular patterns when the piece calls for irregular accents; sampled percussion without dynamic variation; ignoring the long decays of metals and gongs.

Bass

• Extreme registers as color: double basses in very high harmonics, contrabassoon and tuba on pedal notes, piano in the lowest octaves (Ligeti, Messiaen).
• Ostinatos (Stravinsky, Orff, Shostakovich, minimalists), pedals and drones (La Monte Young, Scelsi, Pärt: tonic pedal in the double bass), serial basses without fundamental function.
• Spectral bass: the fundamental of the spectrum (e.g. the E1 of the trombone in Partiels) from which the whole chord derives.
• Electronics: sine oscillators below 40 Hz, sub and filtered noise in mixed works (Nono, Stockhausen, Saariaho).
• In the mix: contemporary works often use low sounds at pianissimo dynamics: you need monitors and headphones with good low-end response.

Harmonic instruments

• Orchestra used for timbres and masses: strings divided into 40–50 parts (Ligeti, Atmosphères; Penderecki, Threnody for 52 strings), extended techniques (sul ponticello, col legno battuto, harmonics, glissandi, quarter tones, behind the bridge).
• Chamber ensemble (after Pierrot lunaire: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, voice): the “Pierrot” ensemble became a standard; specialist ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Klangforum Wien, London Sinfonietta, Divertimento Ensemble (Milan), Alter Ego (Rome).
• Piano: percussive (Bartók, Prokofiev), prepared (Cage), clusters (Cowell), resonances (Messiaen), sostenuto pedal.
• Ondes Martenot (Messiaen, Turangalîla), theremin, live electronics (live electronics: Nono, Boulez with Répons 1981, IRCAM), magnetic tape, synthesizers (Stockhausen, Subotnick with Silver Apples of the Moon 1967 for the Buchla synthesizer).
• Voicing: extreme and wide registers (Webern), compact bands (Ligeti), harmonic spectra (Grisey), diatonic triads (minimalism, Pärt).

Melody and vocals

• Atonal and expressionist melody: wide leaps (sevenths, ninths), extreme dynamics, extreme registers; Sprechstimme (spoken singing, Pierrot lunaire).
• Stylized folk melody (Bartók, Kodály, Janáček with “speech melody”).
• Transcribed birdsong (Messiaen, Catalogue d'oiseaux) as melodic material.
• Contemporary voice: extended techniques (Berio, Sequenza III for Cathy Berberian, 1965: laughter, whispers, breaths, phonemes), overtone singing (Stockhausen, Stimmung 1968), electronically processed voice (Berio, Thema – Omaggio a Joyce 1958; Stockhausen, Gesang der Jünglinge), choruses of texture (Ligeti, Lux aeterna 1966).
• Neoclassicism and neotonality: diatonic, ironic melodies (Prokofiev, Poulenc), lyrical ones (Britten, Barber with Adagio for Strings 1936, Górecki No. 3).
• Minimalism: repeated cells, voices without text (Reich, Glass).

Instruments

Symphony orchestra with expanded percussion (up to 6–13 percussionists), chamber ensemble (Pierrot ensemble), piano (also prepared), celesta, harp, saxophones, electric guitar (Berio, Reich, Louis Andriessen), ondes Martenot, theremin, electric organ, samplers and synthesizers, magnetic tape, live electronics (multichannel spatialization), microtonal instruments (Partch), voice with extended techniques, choruses.

Drum patterns

Synths and sounds

• Modular V — Electronic studio music: The Moog modular is the basis of classic analog synthesis: oscillators, filters and envelopes to recreate the first electronic studies, drones, glissandi, textures and processes (pure sine oscillators for the Cologne tradition).
• Buchla Easel V — “West Coast” synthesis: The Buchla is the synthesizer of Morton Subotnick (Silver Apples of the Moon, 1967): complex oscillator with wavefolder, low-pass gate, 5-step sequencer; organic and percussive timbres for experimental music.
• Synthi V — European electronics of the '60s–'70s: The EMS VCS3/Synthi, with its pin matrix, was used in European studios and by experimenters: noise, ring modulator, spring reverb, unstable textures.
• ARP 2600 V — Synthesis lab: An educational semi-modular for studying subtractive synthesis, envelopes and modulation; useful for reconstructing electroacoustic timbres and simple spectra.
• Synclavier V — Additive synthesis and spectra: Additive synthesis by partials lets you build “spectral” sounds (harmonics chosen one by one, inharmonicity), close to the ideas of spectralism.
• Piano V — Contemporary piano: For studying Bartók, Messiaen, Ligeti (Études) and clusters; adjust the resonance and the pedal for suspended sonorities.

Song structure

Forms and principles

• Revisited classical forms: sonata, variations, passacaglia, fugue in an atonal or neoclassical context (Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, Shostakovich).
• Arch forms (A–B–C–B–A) and symmetrical forms (Bartók: Quartets No. 4 and No. 5 in five movements in arch form).
• “Moment” form (Stockhausen, Momentform): autonomous sections, variable order.
• Open and aleatoric forms (Boulez, Third Sonata; Stockhausen, Klavierstück XI: the performer chooses the order of the fragments).
• Process form (minimalism; spectralism: gradual transformation from a harmonic sound to an inharmonic one or to noise).
• Form by masses and density (Ligeti, Penderecki, Xenakis: bands that open, close and change color).
• Music theater and contemporary opera (Berio, Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre; Adams, Nixon in China 1987; Saariaho, L'amour de loin 2000).
• Mixed works (instruments + electronics) and sound installations.

Proportions

From a few seconds (Webern: some movements of 10–20 seconds) to hours (Feldman, String Quartet II, over 4 hours; Stockhausen, Licht, a cycle of seven operas). The perception of form relies on contrasts of density, register, timbre and dynamics.

Mixing and mastering

Sound goal

Render with precision timbres, extended techniques, extreme dynamics (from pppp to ffff), space and registers; in works with electronics, integrate acoustic and electronic sounds into the same space. The recording should be analytical (every detail audible) but not unnaturally close. References: the labels ECM New Series, Kairos, Wergo, Deutsche Grammophon (Boulez), Nonesuch (Reich, Adams), Erato; IRCAM for electronics.

Orchestra and ensemble

• Miking: main pair (A–B or ORTF) or tree + spots on every instrument/group (often many spots, because details matter); ambient for space.
• Strings with extended techniques: close spots for sul ponticello, col legno, harmonics, Bartók pizzicatos; moderate high-pass (Ligeti's low bands have content down to 30–40 Hz); no compression.
• Winds: spots at 50 cm–1 m for multiphonics, slap tonguing, breath sounds (“intentional” noises that should not be eliminated).
• Percussion: a spot for each station, watch the long tails of gongs and tam-tams and the transients (−6/−10 dBFS headroom for peaks); no compression; panning according to the layout (often in a semicircle or around the audience).
• Prepared piano: microphones close to the prepared strings (20–40 cm) + a pair at 1.5 m; the noises are part of the work.
• Space: natural reverb; for spectral works and textures, a large hall (2–2.5 s).

Voice

• Spot at 30–80 cm for extended techniques (whispers, breaths), + a microphone at 1.5 m for full singing; high-pass 60–80 Hz; no compression (or a limiter as protection from screams).
• Sprechstimme and narrating voice: a bit closer, little reverb.

Electronics and live electronics

• Electronic sounds in separate stems (stereo, quadraphonic, octophonic or Ambisonics); in the stereo mix they must seem to be in the same space as the instruments: add the hall reverb to the electronics too.
• EQ: remove useless sub below 20 Hz; watch for aliasing and digital noise in the processing.
• Spatialization: automated panning, distance (level + reverb + low-pass), positions consistent with the score.
• Live electronics: record both the acoustic signal and the outputs of the electronic system (Max/MSP), so you can rebalance them.

With virtual libraries and instruments

• Libraries with extended techniques (aleatoric strings, clusters, glissandi, effects: e.g. orchestral “texture” libraries), contemporary percussion, sampled prepared piano.
• Proportional notation and aleatoricism: in the DAW, play by hand (or with controlled random modulations) to avoid the feeling of a grid.
• Extreme dynamics: CC1 from 0–10 (pppp) to 127; test the mix at low volume to check that the pppp passages remain audible.

Buses and groups

By families or by spatial “stations”; a separate electronics bus; shared reverb + any “artificial” reverbs (explicitly called for by the score).

Sidechain

Rarely; it can be useful in mixed works to prevent the electronics from covering a soloist (better done with automation).

Master

• Indicative target: −24/−18 LUFS integrated (highly variable), short-term in the ffff −10/−6, true peak −1 dBTP, LRA often 20–30 LU: do not compress.
• Chain: no compression, limiter only as protection from sudden peaks (bass drum strokes, tam-tam, screams).

Common mistakes

• Compressing or normalizing the pppp passages (the writing is destroyed).
• Eliminating performance noises that are part of the piece (breaths, keys, bows, preparations).
• Electronics “in another room” compared with the instruments.
• Random panning that ignores the intended spatialization.

Reference tracks for the mix

• Stravinsky — Le Sacre du printemps (Boulez, Cleveland Orchestra, DG 1991).
• Bartók — Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (reference recordings).
• Ligeti — Atmosphères and Lux aeterna (reference recordings, also in the soundtrack of 2001).
• Messiaen — Quatuor pour la fin du temps (reference recordings).
• Grisey — Les espaces acoustiques (reference recordings, Kairos or Accord).

Reference listening

• Arnold Schoenberg — Pierrot lunaire, op. 21 (1912)
• Igor Stravinskij — Le Sacre du printemps (1913)
• Charles Ives — The Unanswered Question (1906, rev. anni '30)
• George Gershwin — Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
• Edgard Varèse — Ionisation (1931)
• Alban Berg — Concerto per violino «Alla memoria di un angelo» (1935)
• Béla Bartók — Musica per archi, percussioni e celesta, Sz. 106 (1936)
• Samuel Barber — Adagio for Strings (1936)
• Dmitrij Šostakovič — Sinfonia n. 5 in re minore, op. 47 (1937)
• Olivier Messiaen — Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941)
• Aaron Copland — Appalachian Spring (1944)
• John Cage — 4'33'' (1952)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen — Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)
• Krzysztof Penderecki — Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)
• György Ligeti — Atmosphères (1961)
• Luciano Berio — Sinfonia (1968)
• Gérard Grisey — Partiels (1975)
• Henryk Górecki — Sinfonia n. 3 «dei canti lamentosi», op. 36 (1976)
• Arvo Pärt — Spiegel im Spiegel (1978)
• Caroline Shaw — Partita for 8 Voices (2012)