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Stockhausen: Sounds in Space

Analysis, explanation and personal impressions of the works of the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Welcome Works: Alphabetic Works: Chronological Works: Timeline The Complete Stockhausen CD Series

The LICHT Opera Cycle The LICHT Super-Formula KLANG, The 24 Hours of the Day

All content here is for educational

A Timeline History of 20th Century Classical and

purposes only and is designed to
illuminate and otherwise share the great
work of the composer/sound designer
Electronic Music Karlheinz Stockhausen. Please support
the Stockhausen Foundation for Music
by purchasing CDs, DVDs and scores
The below timeline of contemporary classical music was first inspired from Paul Griffiths' excellent book Modern Music
from their website:
A Concise History, which covers the years 1903 to 1988. I subsequently added many more entries based on various other
sources (see links at bottom) and on personal taste (the focus of this timeline is on "innovation", as opposed to popular www.karlheinzstockhausen.org
works, thus many "famous" repertoire works are not listed). The organization of entries within each year is generally
Stockhausen's works first, followed by acoustic works, acoustic and electronic ensembles, tape/electronic works, Thanks to Stockhausen Verlag for
performance art, and finally "miscellaneous". allowing usage of images from their
CDs and scores.
Griffiths' more recent book Modern Music and After, 3rd Edition (also superb) lists additional works going up to 2010.
Since I personally am not as familiar with the more recent era, from 1988 to 2010 the listing at this point includes all of the Analyses and editorial content
works cited in Griffiths' book "unedited" (comments and probably some editing added as I become more familiar with these copyright Ed Chang unless otherwise
works). An initial version of this timeline didn't include some of the more obscure electronic music pioneers, so now it has indicated.
been updated to include all of the works cited in David Dunn's brilliant essay History of Electronic Music Pioneers (which
unfortunately only covers up to 1970). Again, not an expert here myself on this field, but worth listing for further exploration
in the future (an earlier version of this timeline without the electronic music entries can be found here). In any case, this is
a "work in progress"... SPECIAL FEATURES
Stockhausen Equipment Gallery (WDR)
More detail on the works of Karlheinz Stockhausen (who I do know pretty well) can be found here.
The Stockhausen Courses in Kürten
To look for a specific year, composer, or work, use "CTRL-F" (find) and "CTRL-G" (find next) to fast navigate. Also, A Timeline History of 20th Century
every entry is formatted so that you can highlight a composer/work and right click on it to open a menu which will allow you Classical and Electronic Music
to do a quick Google/Bing search (taking you to a YouTube clip, Wikipedia entry, etc...). "This is your pilot speaking..."

1920 - 1940 - 1960 - 1980 - 2000 LOOKING FOR A SPECIFIC

PIECE?

1804: Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica"), transcends Classical sonata form by
introducing an extra theme subject in the development section (as well as a bizarre "pre-echo"
before the recapitulation), signalling the beginning of the path to "modern music" A FEATURED WORK
1865: Richard Wagner: "Tristan and Isolde", opera, pushes tonal harmony into new realms
MICHAELION
1888: Erik Satie: "Gymnopédies", for piano, Satie playfully defies traditional form and harmony
using humor, and this work foreshadows "ambient music" in its innocuousness …
Percy Grainger conceives of "Free Music" which is not constrained by Western equal tempered
tuning or rhythmic meter.
1894: Claude Debussy: "Prelude a L'apres-midi d'un faune", for orchestra, (premiere),
ambiguous harmony leads to multiple keys, has non-traditional form (theme is embellished as
THE LICHT CYCLE
fragments in an improvisation), orchestration (coloring) is an integral element
1896: Richard Strauss: "Also sprach Zarathustra", uses symphonic poems to derive form, Overview
paints narratives DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT
PRE-
1899: Arnold Schoenberg: "Verklärte Nacht"/"Transfigured Night", string sextet, tonal with SAMSTAG AUS LICHT
LUDE
chromatic elements, still uses classical form MONTAG AUS LICHT
1900: Schoenberg: "Gurre-Lieder" (completed 1911), cantata, chromatic but still basically DIENSTAG AUS LICHT
influenced by Wagner and the Romantic style (in 1903 Mahler's music would influence the FREITAG AUS LICHT
newer sections)
MITTWOCH AUS LICHT
Gustav Mahler writes mostly tonal symphonies which are based on psychological confessions,
SONNTAG AUS LICHT
using dynamics to shape the form structure. He uses exotic instruments to create a more
LICHT Works
worldly atmosphere.
1901: Maurice Ravel: "Jeax d'eau" (Water Games), for piano, impressionistic, uses extended
chords, bitonal harmony and sliding chromaticism to blend melody and harmony OFFICIAL STORE:
1902: Debussy: "Pelléas et Mélisande" (opera, mostly completed 1895), whole tone and modal
CDs
scales suggesting states of mind
DVDs
1902: Charles Ives: 2nd Symphony (1st version), prefigures American Neo-Romanticism by
drawing on popular hymns and tunes (including "Camptown Races") Scores
Books

Debussy: "Pagodes" (from "Estampes"), piano work, uses oriental scales and rhythms
1903 Ravel: String Quartet, uses odd time signatures (5/8 in the last movement) POPULAR CHAPTERS
Satie: "Trois morceaux en form de poire"/"Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear" for piano duo
Stockhausen on Electronic Music (1952-
 Béla Bartók first begins transcribing Magyar and other folk songs (and continues for the next 15 1960) --------- WDR
years) in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, N. Africa and Turkey. Though initially influenced by R. Electronic Music Studio
Tour (2015)
Strauss and Debussy, these folk studies eventually provide Bartók with a way to transcend
1904 traditional harmony (church modes, pentatonic scales, etc..., enigmatic rhythm changes). This
would be a different path than Schoenberg's later serial (dodecaphonic) approach. Zoltán
Kodály also collects Hungarian folk recordings, independently (at first). GESANG DER
Schoenberg takes on Anton Webern and Alban Berg as students. JÜNGLINGE

Debussy: "La Mer", for orchestra, (premiere), has a huge influence on 20th Century form and
expressionistic orchestration, uses pentatonic, octatonic, modal and chromatic scales
KONTAKTE - Planning &
Max Reger and Ferruccio Busoni address chromaticism through Baroque counterpoint. Design
Many composers during the 20th century continue the tonal music tradition in the guise of Neo-
Romanticism:

Edward Elgar (1857-1934),

Frederick Delius (1862-1934), GRUPPEN
Alexander Glazunov(1865-1935),
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943),
Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949),
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958),
KLAVIERSTÜCKE V - X
Frank Bridge (1879-1941),
John Ireland (1879-1962),
1905
Arnold Bax (1883-1953),
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957),
Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), AUS DEN SIEBEN
TAGEN
Erich Wolgang Korngold (1897-1957),
Edmund Rubbra (1901-86),
William Walton (1902-83),
Aram Khachaturian (1903-78), The LICHT Super-
Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-87), Formula
Michael Tippett (1905-98),
Samuel Barber (1910-81),
Benjamin Britten (1913-76),
ETUDE, STUDIE I & II
Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006),
Hans Werner Henze (also integrates atonality and jazz, 1926-2012), etc...

Schoenberg: "Chamber Symphony No. 1", uses harmony based on 4ths instead of the
traditional major/minor 3rds. KLAVIERSTÜCK XI
Charles Ives: "Central Park in the Dark" (1st ver.), a polytonal symphonic sound portrait
1906 designed to evoke an environment from the past (nature, a fire engine, casino, runaway cab
horse, street musicians, etc)
Thaddeus Cahill invents the Telharmonium (1st version 1900), the first music synthesizer
(weighing 200 tons) PLUS-MINUS

Ravel: "L'heure espagnole", opera, uses Spanish imagery

1907 "Sketch Of A New Aesthetic Of Music" published by Busoni, proposes the necessity for an
expansion of the chromatic scale and new (possibly electrical) instruments to realize it

Schoenberg: String Quartet 2, Schoenberg fully embraces atonality in the final 2 movements of CATEGORIES
this Quartet (a guest soprano sings, "I breathe the air of other planets..." in the previous
1950s (17)
movement).
1960s (23)
Some other composers also arrive at atonality, but not through Schoenberg's influence (Varèse,
1970s (18)
Ives, Cowell, Carl Ruggles, Nikolay Roslavets, Roger Sessions, etc...)
1980s (11)
Some composers approach atonality, but never quite make the complete leap:
1990s (14)
Gustav Mahler,
2000s (16)
Jean Sibelius,
Chamber (41)
Richard Strauss,
Electro-Acoustic (29)
Carl Nielsen,
Electronic Music (or solo synth)
Karl A. Hartmann,
Intuitive/Plus-Minus/Aleatoric
1908 Karol Szymanowski,
Orchestral (24)
Lennox Berkeley,
Piano (13)
Ernest Bloch,
Ring-Modulation (5)
Alexander Scriabin
Shortwave Radio (5)
etc....
Vocal/Choral (31)
Debussy: "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" (from "Children's Corner"), for piano, uses elements from jazz
ragtime.
Bartók: "14 Bagatelles", for piano, influenced by Debussy, leads farther away from the influence BLOG ARCHIVE
of Strauss (and Romanticism) ▼ 2014 (39)
Camille Saint-Saëns: "L'assassinat du duc de Guise", for orchestra, one of the first film scores ▼ May (7)
(the 1st is Nathaniel D. Mann's "The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays", from just 4 months earlier) MIKROPHONIE I
Strauss: "Elektra", opera, stretches tonal harmony
MIKROPHONIE II
CARRÉ
Schoenberg: "Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11", first totally atonal work, but uses dramatic form
(classical/epic form) DIENSTAGs GRUSS,
WILLKOMEN, SUKAT
Schoenberg: "Book of the Hanging Gardens" (begun 1908), for voice and piano, uses lyric form
JAHRESLAUF
 (less rigid arc) INVASION – EXPLOSION, PIETÀ,
Schoenberg: "Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16", 3rd movement "Klangfarbenmelodie" creates a SYNTHI-FOU
"sound color melody" by using changing orchestrating on slow, shifting chords without much REFRAIN
harmonic motion
► June (4)
Schoenberg: "Erwartung", opera
1909 ► July (5)
Anton Webern: "5 Lieder from "Der siebente Ring" by S. George, Op. 3", follows Schoenberg
into atonality with 14 songs based on poems of Stefan George ► August (3)

Bartók : String Quartet 1, chromatic, but Straussian ► September (6)

Kodály: String Quartet 1, captures Hungarian folk melody ► October (6)
Isaac Albéniz: "Iberia" (begun 1905), for piano, uses Spanish (Andalusian) impressionism (also ► November (4)
Enrique Granados, "Tonadillas al estilo antiguo", voice/piano, 1910, and Joaquín Turina,
► December (4)
"Danzas fantásticas", piano/orchestra, 1919)
Mahler: "Das Lied von der Erde", symphonic work with vocal soloists, probably considered ► 2015 (55)
Mahler's most important work ► 2016 (1)
► 2018 (9)
Debussy: "Preludes, Book 1", for piano
Webern: 6 Orchestral Pieces, Op.6, influenced by both Schoenberg and Mahler
Alban Berg: "Vier Lieder", Op. 2, begins to approach extreme chromaticism
STOCKHAUSEN RESOURCES
Igor Stravinsky: "The Firebird", ballet, blends Russian Romanticism with bursts of primitivism Sounds in Space Facebook
1910
and exotic melodicism Official Stockhausen Page
Alexander Scriabin: "Prometheus: The Poem of Fire", for piano, organ, choir and orchestra, Video, CD Samples, etc...
uses his "mystic chord" and accompanied by a "color organ" Stonebraker Stockhausen Archive
Scott Joplin: "Treemonisha", opera, folk and ragtime elements Stockhausen Discography
Stockhausen Forum
Schoenberg: "Pierrot Lunaire", for soprano and 5 players, notates pitches for a soprano using Albrecht Moritz's Essays
sprechstimme ("speech-song"), where notes are immediately abandoned as they rise or fall
Fin O'Suilleabhain's Set Sail For the Sun
away. It is written with a "light, ironic satirical tone" to show that atonal music was not all
Composer's Compendium
"disturbing feelings" (tho it still has elements of isolation, violence, glee and nostalgia). The
form revisits counterpoint. Sonoloco Record Reviews
Bartók: "Duke Bluebeard's Castle", uses Straussian orchestration but Hungarian melodies and Stockhausen's Spaceship (GMG Forum)
1911 rhythms, ballad form The Stockhausen Society
Bartók: "Allegro Barbaro", for piano, uses folk elements but in a driving, propulsive manner Markus Stockhausen on Stockhausen
("Primitivism") James Ingram's Page
Stravinsky: "Petrushka", uses polyrhythms and bitonality/polytonality (more than 1 key at once,
C and F# Major). Many others also use this technique: Charles Ives ("Psalm 67", 1894-1902),
Sergei Prokofiev ("Sarcasms for piano", 1912), Darius Milhaud (Saudados do Brazil", 1920) YOUR PILOT:
Ravel: "Daphnis et Chloe", ballet, uses classical Greek imagery Ed Chang
View my complete profile
Henry Cowell: "The Tides of Manaunaun", presents piano clusters for the 1st time, also used in
"Adventures in Harmony"
Stravinsky: "Rite of Spring" (premieres to a riot in 1913), explores advanced asymmetrical
1912 rhythm (folk-inspired "additive rhythm"), free meter, cell structures, etc… uses polytonal folk MY OTHER RESEARCH
music as a melodic basis. This work is sometimes considered an example of "Primitivism".
PROJECTS
Along with Debussy's "La Mer", "Rite of Spring" is probably the most influential symphonic work
of the 20th century. Michael Moorcock: Terhali's Particular
Satisfaction
Radio Station EXP
Debussy: "Préludes, Book 2" (begun 1912), for piano, continues to explore harmony using
exotic modes and scales, makes his atonality more "palatable" Giacinto Scelsi: A Thumbnail Guide

Debussy: "Jeux", for orchestra, almost atonal in places, abandons classical form by continually Music of Turkey
making sudden changes in structure reminiscent of a game of tennis (total emancipation from Japanese Traditional Music: Hogaku
consecutive development). This evolution in form was first begun in" Prelude a L'apres-midi Cue By Cue: Film Music Narratives
d'un faune" and "Jeux de vagues" (from "La Mer")). The premiere is just days before Music of Allan Holdsworth Analyzed
1913 Stravinsky's equally influential "Rite of Spring".
The Daily Beethoven
Webern: "6 Bagatelles for String Quartet", atonal, concise, haiku-like. Breaths of sound or
HP Lovecraft: The Horrible Conclusion
subtle ostinatos tend towards timelessness (in stark contrast to Stravinsky's motivic rhythms)
The Cryptofictional Records Wing
Webern: "Five Pieces for Orchestra" Op.10
Marvel Comics Chronology
Grainger: "Random Round" (begun 1912), explores indeterminate form.
The Quodlibet Recordings Annex
Luigi Russolo: "The Art of Noises" ("L'Arte dei Rumori") published, Futurist manifesto arguing
Quodlibet Recordings
for acceptance of noise as music, predicts electronic music

Ives: "Three Places in New England" (begun 1911, sketches from 1903), features collaged
genre elements (marches, popular songs, dance music and hymns), particularly in the 2nd
movement ("Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut"), which includes "Yankee Doodle", "The
British Grenadiers" and John Philip Sousa's "Semper Fidelis" march.
1914 Satie: "Sports et Divertissements", short pieces for piano
Russolo: "Risveglio di una città (Awakening of a City)", "Convegno d'aeroplani e d'automobili
(The Meeting of Aeroplanes and Automobiles)", for Intonarumori. Russolo exhibits his
"Intonarumori" noise machines in London.
World War I begins

Berg: "3 Orchestral Pieces", chromatic, but in between Schoenberg and Mahler
Ives: Piano Sonata 2: "Concord Sonata", for piano (begun 1911)
Ives: "String Quartet No.2, for 4 men--who converse, discuss, argue (in re: 'Politick', fight, shake
hands, shut up) --then walk up the mountain side to view the firmament!"
Manual de Falla: "Nights in the Gardens of Spain", piano and orchestra, influenced by Debussy
and the Paris music scene
Sergei Prokofiev: "Scythian Suite" for orchestra, Primitivism style, inspired by Stravinsky's "Rite
 of Spring"
Kodály: "Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8", blends Hungarian folk elements with modern
1915 instrumental technique, including scordatura (alternate tunings)
Microtonal music becomes more popular for exploration:
Alois Hába ("Suite for String Orchestra", 1917),
Charles Ives ("Three Quarter Tone Pieces for Two Pianos", 1923-24),
Ernst Bloch ("Piano Quintet 1", 1923),
Alban Berg ("Chamber Concerto, 1925),
Julian Carrillo ("Bosquejos for String Quartet", 1926),
Ivan Vishnegradsky,
Aaron Copland ("Vitebsk", 1929),
Bartok (Violin Concerto 2, 1937),
Arseny Avraamov ("The Universal System of Tones", 1927), etc...

Cowell: "Dynamic Motion", for piano, further explores tone clusters

Gustav Holst: "The Planets" (begun 1914), for orchestra, along with Debussy's "La Mer",
provides a template for 20th Century film music, most notably John Williams' "Star Wars"
scores. The 1st section, "Mars" is in 5/4 and bitonal. The "Neptune" movement features a
1916 hidden off-stage female choir. Also considered a work of Primitivism.
Stravinsky: "Renard" (begun 1915), chamber opera-ballet ("burlesque in song and dance"),
uses a Russian folk tale as inspiration
Leoš Janáček: "Jenůfa", opera, draws from Czech folk music and Moravian speech rhythms
(much like Bartók did with Hungarian folk music)

Bartók: String Quartet 2, the 2nd movement is influenced by N. African folk music
Bartók: "The Wooden Prince", ballet
Satie: "Furniture Music", various small ensembles, Dadaist influence, foreshadows "muzak"
1917
Satie: "Parade", ballet, scenario by Jean Cocteau, set and costumes by Picasso, has some
ragtime and other popular elements, prompts the term "surrealism"
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1, the "Classical Symphony", foreshadows Neoclassicism

Stravinsky: "The Soldier's Tale", operetta, originates from Russian folk stories, includes
parodies of popular dance forms (ragtime, tango, etc...), early Neoclassicism.
1918 Stravinsky: "Rag-Time", for piano, or 11 players (extract from "The Soldier's Tale"), and "Piano-
rag-music", for piano, these jazz tendencies will also eventually lead to Neoclassicism.
World War I ends. Death of Claude Debussy.

Bartók: "The Miraculous Mandarin" (begun 1918, rev. 1925), ballet, influenced by the
primitivism of the "Rite of Spring" (as well as Schoenberg and Strauss)
Falla: "The Three-Cornered Hat", ballet, London premiere has set and costumes by Picasso.
Returning to Spain, Falla finds his own (Spanish folk) voice, but still with some influence from
Stravinsky.
Prokofiev: "The Love for Three Oranges", opera, has elements of Neoclassicism (musical
satires)
Francis Poulenc: "Cocardes", voice and piano, song cycle setting Jean Cocteau's text
1919 Edward Elgar: "Cello Concerto", probably the most famous cello concerto of the 20th-century
Ravel: "Le Tombeau de Couperin", for piano, approaches Neoclassicism, based on a French
Baroque suite. Ravel's later works are further influenced by Neoclassicism.
Cowell: "Quartet Euphometric" (begun 1916), string quartet, expresses frequencies as rhythms
Erwin Schulhoff: "Fünf Pittoresken, 3rd part: In futurum", piano, the first "silent" movement of a
work written in the 20th Century, consisting only of a series of rests (preceded in 1897 by
Alphonse Allais' silent "Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Great Deaf Man").
Schulhoff: "Sonata Erotica for female voice solo", Dada-inspired, a soprano spends several
minutes faking a carefully notated orgasm

Stravinsky: "Symphonies of Wind Instruments", 24 wind and brass players, explores sudden
changes in unrelated textures (jumps back and forth between multiple musical ideas)
Stravinsky: "Pulcinella" (ballet, premier), signals the "official" beginning of his Neoclassicism
phase, a satirical/ironic (yet affectionate) return to old 18th Century music styles (opera buffa,
etc...), sometimes using "wrong-note" tonality. Other composers who explore the Neoclassic
style include:
Busoni
Reger
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Ravel
Hindemith
Milhaud
Honegger
Poulenc
1920
Falla
Chávez
Albert Roussel,
Bohuslav Martinů
Ottorino Respighi
 Vagn Holmboe
Ernst Krenek
Prokofiev: "Chout", ballet, uses Neoclassical elements
Heitor Villa-Lobos: "Carnaval das Crianças", for piano, explores Brazilian carnival atmospheres
Darius Milhaud: "Le Boeuf sur le Toit", ballet, inspired by Brazilian and Latin popular music
(tango, maxixe, samba, fado)
Joseph Hauer: "Nomos", for piano, uses a primitive unstructured form of 12-tone technique
Schulhoff: "Partita", for piano, begins to explore jazz melodies and rhythms in a classical setting
(1st Movement: "all art is useless...")

Paul Hindemith: "Kammermusik No. 1", for small ensemble, uses Neoclassicism's Baroque
(contrapuntal) forms, but bending harmonies and adding tricky mechanical rhythms. 6 more
Kammermusik follow (1924-27). Generally, Neoclassicism in Germany is less satirical and
more "pugnacious" than the "ironic" Neoclassic style of Paris.
Webern: "Sechs Lieder Op. 14" ("Six Trakl Songs") (begun 1917), atonal works for voice,
clarinets and strings
Edgard Varèse: "Amériques" (1st version), for orchestra with sirens, influenced by Europian
music and Stravinsky (updated in 1929 to include the ondes Martenot).
1921
Ralph Vaughan Williams: "The Lark Ascending", Romance for violin and orchestra (Neo-
Romantic), originally scored for violin and piano in 1914, often voted the most popular classical
work in England
Schulhoff: "Suite for Chamber Orchestra", further development of jazz tendencies
Luigi Russolo exhibits his Intonarumori noise machines in Paris which are seen by Stravinsky,
Arthur Honegger and Edgard Varèse.
Jörg Mager's "Sphärophon" ("Electrophon", "Spherophone") is designed to create synthesized
quarter tones as well as different timbres.

Berg: "Wozzeck" (begun 1914), opera, the first "atonal" opera, it has leitmotif-driven
explorations of character. It still, however, references tonality and classical forms in its
movement structures.
Stravinsky: "Mavra", opera buffa satire, uses conventional rhythms and harmony (Neoclassical)
Ives: "114 Songs", art songs, explores dissonance in some, (some "unsingable")
Varèse: "Hyperprism", for wind, brass and exotic percussion, sirens

1922 Nielsen: Symphony 5, includes a battle between snare drum and orchestra
Russolo: "Corale" and "Serenata", recordings of intonarumori machines with orchestra.
Arseny Avraamov: "Simfoniya gudkov" ("Symphony of factory sirens"), essentially a noise
installation, employs navy ship sirens and whistles, bus and car horns, factory sirens, cannons,
the foghorns of the entire Soviet flotilla in the Caspian Sea, artillery guns, machine guns, hydro-
airplanes, a specially designed "whistle main," and renderings of the Internationale and
Marseillaise anthems by a mass band and choir. The piece was conducted by a team of
conductors using flags and pistols.

Schoenberg: "Fünf Klavierstücke, Op. 23" (5 Piano pieces, begun 1920), begins using 12-tone
serialism in some parts. Also sometimes called "dodecaphonic", a 12-tone work is derived from
iterations and layerings of a unique sequence of 12 non-repeated notes (a "row") and its
permutations (layered, reversed, upside-down, transposed). These early works, however, still
use old classical forms (ex. Baroque suite) to house the new methods of atonality.
Schoenberg: "Suite für Klavier, Op. 25" (begun 1921), the first work written completely in 12-
tone technique.
Stravinsky: "Les Noces", ballet with voice, choir, percussion and 4 pianos, Primitivist style,
Russian choreographic scenes based on Russian folk wedding music, also uses the additive
rhythmic cell technique. An element of "ritualism" surfaces.
Stravinsky: "Octet for Winds", "Concerto for Piano and Winds", Neoclassic, inspired by Baroque
structures and Bach, respectively, creating "brilliant and witty" string-less textures
Arthur Honegger: "Pacific 231", tone poem, a driving orchestral work influenced by Futurism
and trains. Other "Futurist/Machine Age" composers include
1923
George Antheil ("Ballet mecanique"),
John Alden Carpenter ("Skyscrapers"),
Prokofiev ("Le pas d'acier"),
Alexander Mosolov (Op.19 "The Iron Foundry: Zavod/Machine Music") and
Carlos Chávez ("Horse-Power: Ballet Symphony"/"Caballos de vapor").
Milhaud: "La Creation du Monde", a "sleazy" jazz ballet, influenced by African-American music,
uses polytonality where several keys are present at once
George Enescu: "Violin Sonata 3", uses Romanian fiddler elements with Romanticism
Henry Cowell: "Aeolian Harp", uses the inside strings of a piano.
Eugène Ysaÿe: "Six Sonatas for Solo Violin", summarizes violin technique from Bach to the
present time (whole tone and quarter tone scales, sul ponticello, Spanish folk elements, etc...)
Alexander Tcherepnin: "Ajanta's Frescoes", ballet, inspired by ancient Indian cave paintings,
draws connections between Eastern and Western music

Cowell: "Ensemble" for 2-6 players (string quintet and "thundersticks"), improvisiation on a few
provided fragments
Schoenberg: "Wind Quintet Op. 26", has serial elements, but it's 4 movements are in traditional
forms (sonata, scherzo, etc…)
Prokofiev: Symphony 2, contains witty Neoclassic elements
1924
George Gershwin: "Rhapsody in Blue", piano concerto (jazz band), approaches classical from
 the jazz side
Leos Janáček: "The Cunning Little Vixen" (opera)
Ottorino Respighi: "Pines of Rome", for orchestra, includes the phonographic playback of a
nightingale recording (1st live electronics)

Schoenberg: "Three Satires for Mixed Chorus, Op. 28" (criticizes Neoclassicism)
Bloch: "Concerto Grosso No. 1", piano and string orchestra, blends 20th century harmony with
Baroque idioms
Varèse: "Intégrales" for wind and percussion (begun 1924), imitates backwards tape with
acoustic instruments
1925
Janáček: "Sinfonietta", for orchestra, emphasizes brass, partly derived from military fanfares
Ives: Symphony 4, summation of Ives' stylistic explorations, 3 conductors layer 3 different
tempos and meters
Cowell: "The Banshee", uses rubbing, plucking and scratching of piano strings
American "maverick" Harry Partch begins experimenting with alternate tunings

Berg: "Lyric Suite for string quartet" (begun 1925), serial and non-serial movements are based
on a tonal background
Bartók: Piano Concerto 1, influenced by folk scales, rhythms and harmonic forms. Bartók
begins using palindromic (mirror) and inverted forms, somewhat influenced by Neoclassicism
(but without satire elements).
Bartók: "Out of Doors", for piano, the movement "The Night's Music", presents his "night music"
texture, consisting of eerie chord clusters and/or ostinati with background melodies, evoking the
natural sounds of night.
Aaron Copland: "Piano Concerto", influenced by jazz
1926 Ernst Krenek: "Jonny spielt auf", opera, includes jazz elements
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1, brash and ironic, before censorship submerges this
style in later years from Symphony 5 (1937)
Falla: "Concerto for Harpsichord (and 5 Instruments)", reflects on Spanish musical history in a
Neoclassical context.
Kodály: "Háry János", Hungarian folk opera
George Antheil: "Ballet mecanique" premiered in Paris, requires exotic percussion (16 player
pianos (or pianolas) in four parts, 2 regular pianos, 3 xylophones, at least 7 electric bells, 3
propellers, siren, 4 bass drums, and 1 tam-tam)
Jean Sibelius: "Tapiola", orchestral tone poem, draws on Nordic culture

Bartók: String Quartet 3, folk elements but dissonant with wild glissandi and snapped pizzicato
effects
Ravel: Violin Sonata (begun 1923), includes a "blues" movement, premiered by Enescu
Stravinsky: "Oedipus Rex", opera-oratorio, inspired by Baroque forms, but with additional
modern day-influenced ritual elements
Schoenberg: 3rd String Quartet, begins loosening reliance on the old classical forms
Webern: String Trio, Webern's first 12-tone piece
1927
Varèse: "Arcana", for orchestra, a musical idea is repeated with different orchestrations
Tcherepnin: Symphony No. 1, 1st symphonic movement consists entirely of percussion.
Tcherepnin explores his synthetic "Tcherepnin scale" and his own contrapuntal "interpoint"
technique.
Hans Haass: "Capriccio fuge und intermezzo für mechanisches klavier" (for mechanical piano),
premieres at Donaueschingen and foreshadows Conlon Nancarrow's experiments with "supra-
human" piano rolls

Bartók: String Quartet 4, probably Bartok's most influential string quartet, features synthetic
scales, "night music" and extended techniques
Webern: Symphony, Op.21, 12-tone using a 4-part canon, melodies are articulated by
constantly-changing instrumental colors. From here Webern never breaks the 12-tone rules or
leaves serialism (he still draws from traditional forms though).
Schoenberg: "Orchestral Variations", Schoenberg's first serial work for orchestra
1928 Berg: "Der Wein", for soprano and orchestra, sets Baudelaire text with cabaret-tinged elements
Shostakovich: "The Nose", opera, satirical, Neoclassic
Stravinsky: "Apollo", ballet for strings, inspired by French Baroque
Kurt Weill: "The Three-Penny Opera", jazz and cabaret elements
Ravel: "Boléro", uses hypnotic orchestration on repeating refrains
Theremin and Ondes Martenot invented

Varèse: "Amériques" is updated to include Ondes Martenot ("early live electronics")

Villa-Lobos: "Introduction aux chôros: Ouverture, for guitar and orchestra", "Chôros"
1929 compositions, various solos and ensembles (begun 1920), Brazilian folk elements
Villa-Lobos: "12 Etudes", for guitar
Trautonium invented

Bartók: "Cantata Profana", Bartók's self-proclaimed personal "credo"

Copland: "Piano Variations", early atonal, almost serial work
Poulenc: "La voix humaine", opera with soprano (on a phone call), using Cocteau text,
Poulenc's works also use Neoclassicism to satirize old forms or mix new and old genres to
seductive or perturbing effect.
Villa-Lobos: "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1", for orchestra of cellos, blends Baroque and Brazilian
 styles (also No. 5 (1938/45) for soprano and cello orchestra)
1930
Amadeo Roldán: "Ritmicas", works for percussion orchestra, Afro-Cuban elements
Eduard Tubin: "Süit eesti tantsuviisidest"/"Suite on Estonian Dance Themes", violin or
orchestra, uses Estonian folk elements
Ernst Toch: "Geographical Fugue", choral work, based on rhythmic chanting (foreshadows rap
music?)
Kurt Weill: "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny", opera, is a hit
Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch recycle records to create sound montages.

Bartók: Piano Concerto 2 (begun 1930)

Stravinsky: "Violin Concerto in D", Neoclassical
Carl Ruggles: "Sun-Treader" for orchestra (begun 1926), uses "American-style" serial
counterpoint (something like 8-tone pitch classes)
Ruth Crawford Seeger: "String Quartet", quasi-serial but more rhythmic, 3rd movement begins
exploring an element of "total serialism" in that the rising/falling dynamics of held tones
1931 determine how collaborative melodies surface
Ravel: "Piano Concerto in G", jazz influenced
William Grant Still, "Afro-American Symphony", has 12-bar blues, ragtime, banjo, etc...
Varèse: "Ionisation", for 13 percussionists, the first work entirely for Western percussion
orchestra, the first musical work to be organized solely on the basis of noise (includes "lion's
roar" and fire sirens).
Hindemith: Concertino for Trautonium and Strings (orchestra)\

Poulenc: "Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra", Neoclassical, parodies Mozart's K. 466 Piano
Concerto's slow movements, has elements of Balinese Gamelan and music hall slapstick
Schoenberg: "Moses und Aron", opera, 1st 2 acts completed, based on a single series
1932 Shostakovich: "The Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District", opera, begun 1930. In 1936 is
condemned, triggering a retreat from progressive composition.
"Rhythmicon", a primitive drum machine/sequencer invented by Henry Cowell and Leon
Theremin (6 years later Theremin is forced to return to the Soviets and work as a spy)

Bartók: Hungarian Peasant Songs and Hungarian Folksongs arranged for orchestra (BB
107/108)
1933 Krenek: "Karl V", opera, dabbles with serialism
Partch: "The Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po", voice and microtonal instruments, Partch gains fame in
New York doing solo shows

Cowell: "Ostinato pianissimo" for percussion ensemble, uses ethnic percussion, inspires John
Cage's later percussion ideas
Bartók: String Quartet 5
Webern: "Concerto for Nine Instruments", uses Brandenberg-like form
1934
Messiaen: "L'Ascension", for orchestra, uses Hindu rhythms for the first (but not last) time
Varèse: "Ecuatorial", for voice, choir and ensemble, uses ondes Martenots or theremin-cellos
Kosaku (Kôsçak) Yamada: "Nagauta Symphony", incorporates Kabuki music elements and
instruments

Cowell: "Mosaic Quartet" (String Quartet 3), features variable form structure (indeterminate)
Ives: "The Unanswered Question", for strings, solo trumpet and wind quartet (begun 1908,
continued 1930), uses spatially separated groups with individual tempi.
Roger Sessions: "Violin Concerto" (begun 1927), breaks from Neoclassic style and forms his
1935
own "flowing" style where ideas slowly surface and then fade away
Grainger: "Free Music" is performed for the first time to the public at one of his Melbourne
broadcast lectures.
Death of Alban Berg.

Bartók: "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta", uses "polymodal chromaticism" (layers of
modal scales) use in the 1st movement fugue.
Varèse: "Density 21.5" for solo flute, explores solo polyphony between atonality and modal
scales
Carl Orff: "Carmina Burana" (begun 1935), scenic cantata based on 13th century poems
Colin McPhee: "Tabuh-Tabuhan: Toccata for Orchestra", uses folk gamelan elements from Bali
1936
Prokofiev:"Romeo and Juliet", ballet, leaves Neoclassicism and returns to Romanticism
Copland: "El Salón México", for orchestra, based on Mexican folk melodies
Carlos Chávez: Symphony No. 2 ("Sinfonía india"), uses many Mexican ethnic percussion
instruments and is based on 3 indigenous Mexican melodies
Grainger: "Free Music No. 1", graphic notation for 4 theremins exploring non-scalar, non-
metered melodies

Bartók: "Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion"

Berg: "Lulu", opera, uses serial technique, but also "tonal schmalz" from saxophone and vibes
Shostakovich: 5th Symphony, after censure is forced to abandon wit and Neoclassicism and
writes a more conservative work (possibly in a tacit satire)
1937 Grainger: "Lincolnshire Posy", for concert band, based on rural English folksongs
Messiaen: "Fêtes des belles eaux", for six ondes Martenots
Copland: "Billy the Kid", ballet, introduces rural American folk to classical music with cowboy
 songs

Webern: "String Quartet, Op. 28", serial, uses permutations of the B-A-C-H pitch sequence
Stravinsky: "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto", "Concerto in D" (1946), also inspired by Bach's
Brandenburg Concertos but less cynical than earlier Neoclassic works
1938
John Cage begins exploring "prepared piano", eventually leading to "Bacchanale" (1940).
Samuel Barber: "Adagio for Strings"
Silvestre Revueltas: "Sensemayá" (begun 1937), for orchestra, inspired by a Cuban poem

Bartók: String Quartet 6

Bartók: "Mikrokosmos", pedagogical piano pieces (begun 1926). Some pieces combine layers
using different scales (Ex.: No. 148 has Phrygian over Ionian modes)
Webern: Cantata No. 1, related to Bach cantata form
Cage: "First Construction (in Metal)", percussion sextet, explores rhythmic divisions of time.
Cage: "Imaginary Landscape 1", for two variable-speed turntables, frequency recordings,
1939 muted piano, and cymbal, another early "live electronics" work (test tone records).
Joaquín Rodrigo: "Concierto de Aranjuez", probably the most famous guitar concerto
Villa-Lobos: "New York Skyline" for piano, the melody is a transcription of the NY skyline
Poulenc: "Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani" ("Organ Concerto"), probably the most
famous 20th century concerto
Vocoder invented by Homer Dudley, one of the 1st sound processors.
World War II begins.

Cage: "Bacchanale", for prepared piano

Stravinsky: "Symphony in C", uses tonal patterns and Neoclassic forms, no longer "corrupting"
the old forms
Messiaen: "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" (“Quartet for the End of Time”), Bb clarinet, violin,
1940 cello, and piano, written and premiered 1941 in a prison camp. Composed using "additive
rhythmic" (see "Rite of Spring") and symmetrical modes, this work also features an early use of
bird song imitation.
Chávez: "Xochipilli (An Imagined Aztec Music)", for concert band (winds, percussion, ethnic
instruments), inspired by Mexican antiquity

Schoenberg: "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" for speech-song/sprechgesang vocal, piano and

string quartet, mixes serial elements with tonal sections. This vocal part also uses one of the
1941
earliest examples of graphic notation (indeterminate pitch) after Grainger's "Free Music 1".
Cage: "Third Construction", for 4 percussionists

Schoenberg: Piano Concerto (begun 1941), has a slightly more tonal approach to 12-tone
composition.
Luigi Dallapiccola: "Cinque frammenti di Saffo", for voice and chamber orchestra, uses 12-tone
serial technique
Hindemith: "Ludus Tonalis (Counterpoint, tonal and technical studies for the piano)", a modern
answer to Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier"
Copland: "Rodeo", ballet, continues exploration of "American Romanticism" (or Neoclassicism),
which uses largely tonal American folk elements ("Americana").
Copland: "Fanfare for the Common Man", for brass and percussion
Many other American composers (besides Copland) also explore tonal American Romanticism:
1942
William Schuman
Virgil Thomson
Samuel Barber
Walter Piston
Roy Harris
Howard Hanson
David Diamond
Ned Rorem
Leonard Bernstein, etc...

1943 Bartók: "Concerto for Orchestra", one of Bartok's final works, and most popular.

Copland: "Appalachian Spring", for orchestra, American romanticism

Messiaen: "Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus" for piano. Messiaen explores what he calls
"Modes of Limited Transposition", which can only have certain key centers due to their
symmetry
Alan Hovhaness: "Lousadzak (The Coming of Light), Op. 48, concerto for piano & strings", uses
Armenian folk melodies with one of the earliest forms of indeterminate notation. Hovhaness'
1944 aleatory technique, "spirit murmur", is based on rhythmically free, asynchronous repeated
phrases.
Bohuslav Martinů: "Fantasia for Theremin (or Ondes Martenot), Oboe, String Quartet and
Piano", Czech elements, mostly Neoclassic/Neo-romantic
Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett will eventually move from Neoclassicism to more
conservative forms, inspired by English music of the past (Elizabethan madrigals, Purcell,
etc…), though both would also explore atonality in later years as well.

Bartók: 3rd Piano Concerto

1945 Stravinsky: "Symphony in 3 Movements", uses tonal patterns and Neoclassic forms, originally
written as score for war or religious films
Magnetic recording tape starts becoming available (for general use by 1950).
World War II ends. Deaths of Anton Webern and Béla Bartók.

Schoenberg: String Trio, uses serialism but recaptures some of the "craziness" of his earlier
1946 atonal works
Britten: "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", originally for a BBC film

Pierre Boulez: 2nd Piano Sonata, the level of difficulty makes him famous
Milton Babbit: "Three Composition for Piano", uses serialism applied to rhythm in a somewhat
wittier, more organic way than the more "dry" style of the "Darmstadt serialists" in later years
Maurice Duruflé: "Requiem" (begun 1941), for organ or organ with orchestra, combines
Gregorian chant, modal polyphony and 20th-century French harmony
In America, some composers explore ways of blending 12-tone technique with tonal harmony,
but outside of American Romanticism/Neoclassicism:
1947 Wallingford Riegger (ex. "Dichotomy", 1931/Symphony 3, 1946-47, 1960),
Stefan Wolpe (ex. "The Man From Midian", 1941),
George Perle (ex. "Lyric Piece for cello and piano", 1946) and
Leon Kirchner (ex. "Duo per violino e pianoforte", 1947),
etc...
André Jolivet: Concerto for ondes Martenot and orchestra
Partch publishes "Genesis of a Music", describing his tuning theories.

Messiaen: "Turangalîla-Symphonie" (begun 1946), uses exotic folk rhythms, as well as ondes
Martenot, organizes rhythm and pitch in series
Tubin: "Double Bass Concerto", has Estonian folk elements
Elliott Carter: "Sonata for Cello and Piano", breaks from (American) Neoclassicism and uses
"metric modulation" (proportionate tempo changes)
Cage: "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano" (begun 1946)
Cage: "Suite for Toy Piano, for toy piano or piano"
Henri Dutilleux: "Piano Sonata", a new style born from in between Bartok and Debussy
Dallapiccola: "Il prigioniero" (begun 1944), opera, 12-tone
Conlon Nancarrow: "Boogie-Woogie Suite", Nancarrow begins using player pianos to realize
1948 his compositions
Oskar Sala's Mixtur-Trautonium is developed to produce filtered noise and subharmonics
(fractions of the dominant pitch instead of multiples). In the future, Sala would synthesize the
bird noises in the Hitchcock film, "The Birds".
Yves Klein: "Symphonie Monotone-Silence", a 20 minute drone (sustained chord) is followed by
20 minutes of silence
Pierre Schaeffer: "Étude aux chemins de fer" (from "Cinq études de bruits" (Five Studies of
Noises)), first piece of "musique concrète", created from tape-manipulated field recordings of
trains (this style also later labelled "acousmatic" due to its "enigmatic" properties).
Paul Boisselet: "Symphonie Rouge, Symphonie Jaune", blends live instruments, sound effects,
electronic instruments and tape in an abstract collage (possibly 1947 and pre-dating Schaeffer
as the first musique concrete work)

Messiaen: "Modes de valeurs et d'intensities" (from "Quatre études de rythme"), for piano, puts
durations, dynamics and attack into ordered scales (modes), eventually leading others
1949 (Goeyvaerts, Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono...) to the idea of "total serialism"
Copland: Clarinet Concerto (begun 1947), uses elements of popular music from North and
South America

Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry: "Symphonie pour un homme seul", a musique concrète
radioplay, considered a masterpiece
1950 Bebe and Louis Barron: "Heavenly Menagerie", the first electronic music on magnetic tape,
created mostly by recording circuits as they burned out (probably also the first examples of
"circuit bending")

Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Kreuzspiel", uses total serialism (systematic organization of pitch,

duration, dynamic, articulation) in a "jazz-tinged" way. Stockhausen would continue to use
forms of serialism in probably the most diverse, stylistic and influential collection of works in the
20th century
Karel Goeyvaerts: "Opus No, 1 for 2 Pianos", "Opus No. 2 for 13 Instruments", possibly the first
works of "total serialism"
Boulez: "Polyphonie X" for 18 instruments, total serialism, subsequently withdrawn.
Many composers continue to explore serialism to various degrees:
Jean Barraqué
Milton Babbitt
Hans Werner Henze
Luciano Berio
Luigi Dallapiccola
Hanns Jelinek
Alexander Goehr
Walter Piston
 George Perle
Charles Wuorinen
Einojuhani Rautavaara
York Höller
Peter Maxwell Davies
Oliver Knussen, etc...
also briefly: Ginastera, Stravinsky, Copland, Bernstein
1951
Cage: "Music of Changes", for piano, uses chance operations on the I Ching for compositional
decisions
Cage: "Imaginary Landscape 4", uses 12 radio signals as a sound source, chance composition
Cage: "Concerto for Prepared Piano" (with chamber orchestra)
Morton Feldman: "Projection" and "Intersection" (1950-53), works for small chamber groups
using aleatoric (indeterminate) notation for quiet and held dynamics-based works
(respectively). Many New York-based composers follow suit with works exploring indeterminate
notation (Cage, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff...later Karlheinz Stockhausen, Witold Lutoslawski,
Henri Pousseur, Helmut Lachenmann)
Carter: String Quartet 1, further explores metric modulation and atonal individuality, 4 string
layers explore individual tempi.
Lou Harrison: "Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra", explores Balinese gamelan timbres
Tubin: "Alto Saxophone Sonata", for alto sax and piano, Tubin's works mix Estonian folk and
chromaticiscm
Hans Werner Henze: "Boulevard Solitude", opera with serial and jazz elements
Stravinsky: "The Rake's Progress", opera, uses Mozart's operas (esp. "Don Giovanni") as a
foil. Essentially ends Stravinsky's Neoclassic phase.
GRMC ("Group for Research on Musique Concrète", later GRM: Groupe de Recherches
de Musicales), the first electroacoustic music studio established in Paris, led by Pierre
Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, devoted to musique concrete.
WDR Studio for Electronic Music (West German Radio) established in Cologne, Germany,
devoted to synthesizing sound, typically organized through serialism.
The Music for Magnetic Tape Project (led by John Cage ("Williams Mix"), Earle Brown ("Octet
No. 1"), Christian Wolff ("For Magnetic Tape"), David Tudor, and Morton Feldman
("Intersection")) established in the US, using the studios of Bebe and Louis Barron in NYC
Death of Arnold Schoenberg.

Boulez: "Structures" (begun 1951) for 2 pianos, total serialism, causes controversy and doubt
on Boulez' part.
Boulez: "Etudes I sur un son" and "Etudes II sur sept sons" for electronic tape, uses total
serialism (begun 1951)
Jean Barraqué: "Piano Sonata", 40 minute work of total serialism
Stravinsky: "Septet", for clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano, violin, viola and cello, confronts
Schoenberg's serial music technique
Cage: "4'33"", silent piece basically consisting of unintentional ambient noise, 3rd "silent work"
after Allais and Schulhoff, but most famous by far
Cage: "Imaginary Landscape No. 5 for any 42 recordings", free content (indeterminate) collage
1952
Earle Brown: "December 1952" (part of "Folio"), unspecified instrumentation, freely-interpreted
graphic score (indeterminate)
Partch: "Castor and Pollux" for "Surrogate Kithara, Harmonic Canon, Diamond Marimba, Bass
Marimba, and Cloud Chamber Bowls"
Bruno Maderna: "Musica su due dimensioni" for flute and magnetic tape, 1st use of tape with
live instruments
The first "tape music" concert is held in the United States (MoMA, NYC), featuring Otto
Luening's "Fantasy in Space" (flute recordings manipulated on magnetic tape) and Vladimir
Ussachevsky's "Sonic Contours" (overdubbed and processed piano layers). These works were
created in the homes of Henry Cowell, Arturo Toscanini and Ussachevsky's own living room.

Stockhausen: "Kontra-Punkte", for chamber group, "starfields of serial points" gradually clump
together
Stockhausen: "Studie I", synthetic music from sine complexes, the first published electronic
music score
Cage: "Williams Mix" (begun 1952), for tape, 600 tape fragments based on chance operations
on the I Ching
Feldman: "Intersection for magnetic tape", concrete sounds
Brown: "Twenty-Five Pages", for 1-25 pianos, uses indeterminate form and graphic notation
György Ligeti: "Musica ricercata" for piano, uses 1 additional pitch for each new section (begun
1951), foreshadows the mechanistic "clocks" from his "clocks and clouds" style
Messiaen: "Réveil des oiseaux" for piano and orchestra, derived entirely from bird songs,
compresses a 12-hour field transcription into 20 minutes, at the same time slowing down the
individual birdcalls.
1953
Henry Brant: "Rural Antiphonies", for orchestra, explores spatial orchestration
Wolpe: "Enactments, for 3 pianos" (begun 1950), independent layers of chromaticism and
"organic modes", influenced by Arabic maqams
Alberto Ginastera: "Variaciones concertantes", explores "subjective nationalism", or Argentinian
folk culture
Boris Blacher: "Abstrakte Oper Nr. 1", opera scene, jazzy, with nonsense words
Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: "Orphée 53", musique concrete
Studio de Fonologia (for electronic music) established in Milan, Italy
 Harry Partch creates his Gate 5 label/home in Sausalito, California
Moondog's album "Moondog on the Streets of New York" (among others) is released.
Moondog's work, influenced by street sounds of New York City and featuring some invented
instruments, would influence the early Minimalist composers.

Boulez: "Le Marteau sans Maitre" (begun 1952), for contralto and six instrumentalists, utilizes
exotic sounds and rhythms from Bali and sub-Saharan Africa to add variety to serialism
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1, "Métamorphoses nocturnes" (begun 1953), Ligeti's first mature
work, but still inspired by Bartok and uses chromatic motifs in traditional forms
Rolf Liebermann: "Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra", blends jazz and 12-tone
music
Rodrigo: "Fantasía para un gentilhombre", guitar concerto, elements of Spanish antiquity
incorporating 6 17th-century dances
Witold Lutoslawski: "Concerto for Orchestra" (begun 1950), uses atonality and Polish folk
1954
music, as well as old structural forms such as the Baroque Concerto grosso, passacaglia,
toccata, etc...
Varèse: "Déserts" for wind, percussion and tape (begun 1949), alternates tape with orchestra.
The premiere in Paris is introduced by Boulez, and Stockhausen does the sound mix.
Iannis Xenakis: "Metastasis", for orchestra, uses statistical sound mass and glissandi
("stochastic music"). This "textural" style would be a huge influence for many composers from
Penderecki's string clusters to Ligeti and his "micropolyphony" to the Spectral music
composers.
Luening: "A Poem In Cycles And Bells For Tape Recorder And Orchestra"

Stockhausen: "Zeitmasse", wind quintet, uses player ability as a tempo scale value (layers of
tempos)
Barraqué: "Séquence" (begun 1950), soprano with chamber ensemble, serial, but somewhat
influenced by Romanticism
Partch: "The Bewitched (A Dance Satire)", for 18 Partch-invented instruments
Astor Piazzolla: "Sinfonía de tango", bandoneon and chamber group, creates "nuevo tango", a
1955
modern blend of tango with modern music
Hovhaness: Symphony No. 2 ("Mysterious Mountain"), anticipates the "Holy Minimalism"
movement (?)
Gottfried Michael Koenig: "Klangfiguren Il", for electronic tape
Bebe and Louis Barron compose the electronic score for the film "Forbidden Planet" using their
self-extinguishing "cybernetic" electronics

Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge", 5-channel tape (reduced to 4), uses concrete recordings
of a boy soloist with synthetic tones and spatializes them
Nono: "Il canto sospeso": cantata, uses total serialism with political texts
Xenakis: "Pithoprakta", for orchestra, uses statistical processes
Messiaen: "Oiseaux Exotiques" (begun 1955), for piano and small ensemble, bird song
1956
transcriptions from India and America (global birds)
Ussachevsky: "Piece for tape recorder"
Maderna: "Notturno", for tape, filtered white noise
Krenek: "Spiritus Intelligentiae Sanctus", for solo voices and tape.
Aram Khachaturian: "Spartacus", ballet, Khachaturian uses Armenian ethnic elements

Stockhausen: "Gruppen", for 3 spatially-separated orchestra groups, treats large instrumental

groups in different tempo proportions (and spacial placement). Each group is composed with
layers based on scales of rhythmic subdivision in order to imitate harmonic overtone
properties. Includes an electric guitar solo. The premiere in 1958 is conducted by
Stockhausen, Boulez and Maderna.
Stockhausen: "Klavierstuck XI", for piano, uses indeterminate form ("polyvalent/mobile form")
Boulez: Third Piano Sonata, uses indeterminate form
Berio: "Allelujah II" (begun 1955) for 5 orchestra groups
Toru Takemitsu: "Requiem" for string orchestra (impresses Stravinsky)
Lejaren Hiller: "Illiac Suite for String Quartet", composed by a computer (CAC: "computer-
1957
assisted composition")
Edgard Varèse: "Poème électronique" (begun 1956), 3-channel tape collage for the 1958
Brussels World's Fair Exhibition (as part of a pavilion designed by Le Corbusier). This work is a
spatial work and required up to 450 speakers controlled by sound projectionists.
Henri Pousseur: "Scambi", electronic work open to multiple form realizations
Henk Badings: "Evolutionen", Dutch electronic music for ballet
The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City is established in the early
1950's by Ussachevsky, Luening, Babbitt and Sessions, who eventually obtain the RCA Mark II
Sound Synthesizer (co-designed by Ussachevsky and Babbitt). This device is used for most of
the important works from the Center.

Messiaen: "Catalog d'oiseaux" (begun 1956), for piano, more bird song transcriptions
Cage: "Aria" for voice, as 10 graphically-notated "characters"
Cage: "Variations I", uses transparencies to create aleatorically-created scores
Cage: "Fontana Mix", for tape, based on transparencies
Cage: "Concert for piano and orchestra", using many aleatoric notation techniques
Boulez: "Poesie pour pouvoir", for spatialized tape and orchestra
Berio: "Sequenza I", for flute, contains first notated multiphonic. Berio would continue with a
 series of Sequenza pieces for different instruments exploring solo extended technique and
often theatricality
Berio: "Thema--Omaggio a Joyce", manipulations of Cathy Berberian's voice, reading James
Joyce texts
Mauricio Kagel: "Anagrama" (begun 1957), for vocalists and chamber orchestra, presents an
excerpt of Dante's "Divine Comedy" in 4 languages. Kagel's work usually involves some kind of
humorous theatrical element expressed in modern compositional techniques
Stravinsky: "Threni" for solo singers, chorus and orchestra, Stravinsky's first serial work
1958
Jolivet: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra
Roh Ogura: "Nine Pieces on Children's Songs of Tohoku Region", for female chorus a cappella,
one of several works exploring Japanese folk and rural music
Kagel: "Transición I", for tape
Ligeti: "Artikulation", electronic music, begins developing the concept of "micropolyphony" from
working at the WDR Electronic Music Studio
Xenakis: "Diamorphoses" and "Concret PH", Xenakis' first electro-acoustic works, based on
sound mass density changes
Pousseur: "Rimes Pour Différentes Sources Sonores", instruments and noises projected
spatially from loudspeakers
Lejaren Hiller establishes the Studio for Experimental Music at the University of Illinois at
Champaign/Urbana.
La Monte Young: "Trio for Strings" (ongoing revisions), serial work based on extremely long
drones and silences in various tunings
Babbitt's essay on contemporary classical complexity "The Composer as Specialist" is renamed
"Who Cares if you Listen" by High Fidelity.

Stockhausen: "Zyklus", percussion solo, uses graphic notation, explores indeterminate form
(can be started in different places or read upside-down) and scales of indeterminacy (some
notation rhythmically free in duration and sequence)
Carter: String Quartet 2, further explores independent tempo schemes
Stravinsky: "Movements for Piano and Orchestra", serial, influenced by Stockhausen's music
(?)
Giacinto Scelsi: "Quattro pezzi su una nota sola", for orchestra, approaches his mature style of
monotonal harmony based on slow-moving pitch clusters
Ligeti: "Apparitions" (begun 1958), for orchestra, first explores "micropolyphony" (vibrating,
melodically indistinct sound masses, the "clouds" from his "clocks and clouds" style).
Xenakis: "Duel" for 2 small orchestras, explores "game theory"
Feldman: "Atlantis", for orchestra, scored with graphic notation
Dutilleux: Symphony 2 ("Le double"), orchestra groups reflect and dialogue with each other
1959
from the front and back of the hall
Galina Ustvolskaya: "Grand Duet For Violoncello And Piano", Ustvolskaya's works explore a
uniquely powerful and stark austerity in her approach to spiritual/sacred themes
Berio: "Différences", for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, harp and tape, where the tape is pre-
recorded processed sounds of the live acoustic quintet
Cage: "Indeterminacy", electronics and text readings
Kagel: "Transición II" for piano, percussion and tapes
Daphne Oram invents "Oramics", in which sound is synthesized by "drawing" on film (prior to
this she and Desmond Briscoe found the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958).
Roberto Gerhard: "Audiomobiles I-IV" (begun 1958), electronic music from the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop
Karl-Birger Blomdahl: "Aniara", opera, based on science-fiction themes, uses jazz, serial
writing, tape, etc...

Stockhausen: "Carré", for 4 choirs and 4 orchestra groups, uses "moment form", based on
systemized organization of discrete musical sections
Stockhausen: "Kontakte", for tape with/without piano and percussion, applies serial technique
to electronic music, invents "rotation table" to create swirling spatial effects, probably
Stockhausen's best work
Messiaen: "Chronochromie", for orchestra, last major birdsong work, uses an 18-layer birdsong
polyphony in the Epode movement
Berio: "Circles", for voice, harp and percussion, written for vocalist Cathy Berberian, explores
voice and theatricality in ee cummings' text
Krzysztof Penderecki: "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", string orchestra, uses graphic
notation with massed string clusters (immediately preceded by "Anaklasis", 42 strings and
percussion)
Shostakovich: String Quartet 8, dedicated to the victims of fascism and war
Ginastera: "Cantata para America Magica op. 27, for dramatic soprano and percussion
1960 orchestra", mixes Latin American folklore with serialism, includes 2 pianos, banging rocks and
ethnic instruments
Cage: "Cartridge Music", for amplified sound, uses phono cartridges as contact mikes
Cage publishes "Silence", a book collecting his writings
Gerhard: Symphony 3: "Collages", for orchestra and tape
Takemitsu: "Water Music", for tape, consists of minimal, haunting concrete sounds
Robert Ashley: "The Fourth of July", for tape
Richard Maxfield: "Night Music", tape
Xenakis: "Orient-Occident", tape
François-Bernard Mâche: "Volumes", tape
 Kagel: "Sur Scene", for voice, mimes, actors and instrumental ensemble, includes a
musicologist's lecture and performers practicing scales, warming up, etc... as part of the work
La Monte Young: "Compositions 1960", various instrumentation, a series of Fluxus-inspired
performance art works ("Push the piano up to a wall... Then continue pushing into the wall...")

Boulez: "Structures II" for 2 pianos, a "looser" version of "Structures I"

Lutoslawski: "Jeux vénitiens" for orchestra, uses "limited aleatoricism", where scored phrases
are played in independent attacks (asynchronously) or cued, producing "aleatoric counterpoint"
(also indicated as "ad libitum")
Ligeti: "Atmosphères", for orchestra, uses "micropolyphony clouds". Repurposed in Stanley
Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey".
Ginastera: 1st Piano Concerto, 4th mvmt later arranged for rock band by ELP
Luigi Nono: "Intolleranza 1960", a protest opera attacking capitalism, fascism and exploitation
of the working classes
Penderecki: "Polymorphia", for string orchestra, some pitch shapes based on encephalogram
readings taken on people listening to "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"
1961
Berio: "Visage" for voice and tape, with Cathy Berberian
Babbitt: "Composition for Synthesizer", tape created from the RCA Mark II, essentially the first
synthesizer, total serial electronic music
James Tenney: "Collage #1 (Blue Suede)", tape, samples and recycles Elvis Presley
Tenney: "Analogue #1: Noise Study (for tape)", uses computer-synthesized noise (based on
MUSIC IV, software codesigned by Max Mathews)
Mel Powell: "Electronic Setting", tape, Benny Goodman's swing pianist turns to serial and
electronic music (also "Events for Tape Recorder, 1963)
Nancarrow: "Studies for Player Piano: Study No. 21", layers 2 voices with changing tempi.
Piotr Zak, "Mobile for Tape and Percussion", a "joke" radio broadcast made of improvised
percussion noises and whistling, created by Hans Keller and Susan Bradshaw at the BBC

Stockhausen: "Momente" (completed 1969), for soprano, choir, brass, electric organs and
percussion, features systematic organization of musical attributes into sections of indeterminate
form (moment form)
Britten: "War Requiem", for voice, chorus and 2 orchestra groups
Ligeti: "Aventures" for voices and ensemble, uses polyphonic nonsense words for 5 emotional
states, also modified for use in Kubrick's "2001". This would be further explored in "Nouvelles
Aventures" (1962–65)
Ligeti: "Poème Symphonique, for 100 metronomes", inspired by Fluxus movement
Messiaen: "Sept haïkaï", for piano and chamber group, inspired by Indian tâlas and Japanese
Gagaku music (4th mvmt), as well as some birdsong
Cage: "Atlas Eclipticalis" (begun 1961), for 86 instruments, chance composition based on star
charts
Brown: "Available Forms II", open form work for 2 conductors and orchestra ("orchestra 4-
1962 hands")
Copland: "Connotations", for orchestra, Copland returns to serialism here
Mario Davidovsky: "Synchronisms No. 1 for Flute and electronic sound" (first of a series of
electro-acoustic works)
Kenneth Gaburo: "Antiphony III (Pearl-White Moments), for sixteen voices and electronics"
(third in a series of electro-acoustic works)
Xenakis "Bohor", tape
Michel Philippot: "Étude III", tape
Bernard Parmegiani: "Danse", tape, manipulates voice
San Francisco Tape Music Center established by Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender (later
with Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley).
La Monte Young creates his own performing group, The Theatre of Eternal Music, which
includes members John Cale and Terry Riley, and plays music based on proportionate drone
frequencies..

Ligeti: "Requiem" for chorus, soloists and orchestra (completed 1965), also used in Kubrick's
"2001"
Lutosławski: "Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux" (begun 1962), for 2 conductors, chorus and
orchestra, uses "aleatory counterpoint"
Lukas Foss: "Echoi", for 4 players, mixes improvisation with atonal scoring
Hovhaness: Symphony No.17 ("Symphony for Metal Orchestra Op.203"), inspired by Japanese
Gagaku orchestra music, uses metal instruments only (including flute and trombone)
1963
Arne Nordheim: "Epitaffio", for taped chorus and live orchestra
Luc Ferrari: "Hétérozygote", collage tape
François Bayle: "Portraits de I'Oiseau-Qui-N'existe-Pas (Portraits of the Bird-That-Does-Not-
Exist)", tape, manipulates concrete, electronic and instrumental sounds
Tenney: "Phases", blends pure tones and noise elements, computer-assisted composition
Don Buchla begins building modular sound sequencers with a more "unpredictable" approach
than what the Moog keyboard-driven synthesizerswill eventually present

Stockhausen: "Mixtur", uses ring modulation on 5 small orchestral groups

Stockhausen: "Mikrophonie I", uses close-miked noises from a manipulated giant tam-tam, 1st
"live electronics" work using aleatory elements, sound production is based on onomatopoeic
word notation
Xenakis: "Eonta", for piano and brass quintet, computer-assisted composition to calculate
 stochastic (statistical) values
Ben Johnston: String Quartet 2, microtonal, 53 notes to an octave
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 10, has a brutal 2nd movement ("Allegretto furioso")
Terry Riley: "In C", unspecified instrumentation, uses 53 tonal, aleatoric modal fragments in C
major. This work ushers in "Minimalism", a style based on repetition, usually tonal. The main
composers of Minimalism during the 20th-century are Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and to a
lesser extent, La Monte Young (later joined by Michael Nyman, John Tavener, John Adams,
etc...).
Britten: "Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71)", singers and chamber
ensemble (including organ), inspired by Japanese noh theatre
1964 Babbitt: "Ensembles for Synthesizer" (begun 1962), tape created from RCA Mark II synthesizer,
total serial electronic music
Babbitt: "Philomel", voice and synthesizer/processed vocal tape
Nono: "La Fabbrica illuminata", blends soprano with tape recordings of factory workers and
factory environments in order to make a connection with the "common people". He would later
incorporate recordings of street protests and speeches by Fidel Castro.
Herbert Brün: "Futility 1964", tape, blends noise, concrete sounds, voice narration
J.K. Randall: "Quartets in Pairs", tape, computer-assisted composition which realizes wide pitch
ranges unachievable by most acoustic instruments
Ramon Sender: "Desert Ambulance", amplified accordion, voice, 3-track tape, projections.
Sender collaborates with Don Buchla on synthesizer design
Robert Ashley: "The Wolfman" (noise piece based on found sound tapes feeding back at high
volume)
La Monte Young: "The Well-Tuned Piano" (begun, ongoing) an improvisatory work for specially-
tuned piano. Also "The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys" (ongoing, for Theatre of Eternal
Music ensemble)
Robert Moog invents his own synthesizer.

Harrison Birtwistle: "Tragoedia" for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp and string quartet
Bernd Alois Zimmerman: "Die Soldaten", opera, employs "klangkomposition pluralism", which
includes speech-song, large orchestra, electronics, and Bach quotes, sometimes
simultaneously on separate stage areas, influenced by Berg's "Wozzeck".
Hovhaness: "Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints" for Xylophone and Orchestra (inspired by
Japanese culture)
Cage: "Rozart Mix" for tape loops
Steve Reich: "It's Gonna Rain", tape loop experiment using the idea of rhythmic phasing (2 or
more layers slowly go out of sync, creating degrees of syncopation)
1965
Gaburo: "Lemon Drops", somewhat more "charming" electronic sounds
İlhan Mimaroğlu: "Agony", tape, Turkish electronic music, concrete-like sounds through
electronic means
Randall: "Mudgett-Monologues By A Mass Murderer", a soprano monologue is recorded
together with the computer synthesized elements
Moog demonstrates his new modular synthesizer, which is available the next year.
Alvin Lucier: "Music for Solo Performer", derives sound from only the performer's alpha
brainwaves
Death of Edgard Varèse.

Stockhausen: "Telemusik", tape, appropriates folk music recordings for electronic manipulation
(ring modulation, filtering, etc...)
Ligeti: "Lux Aeterna", for chorus, micropolyphony clouds in canon, also used in Kubrick's "2001"
Penderecki: "De natura sonoris No. 1", for orchestra, further exploration of contrasting
instrumental effects (No. 2, 1971, No. 3, 2012)
Zimmermann: "Musique pour les soupers du roi Ubu", instrumental collage of other popular
classical works
Hovhaness: "Vishnu Symphony (No. 19)", aleatoric modal elements to create statistical
structures
Xenakis: "Terretektorh", for 88 musicians scattered among the audience
Scelsi: "Uaxuctum", for choir and orchestra, evokes lost civilizations in monolithic sound
masses
1966 Kagel: "Musik für Renaissance-Instrumente", "Kammermusik fur Renaissance-Instrumente"
Partch: "And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma", begun 1966, one minute verses of
duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and one septet, essentually a showcase/pedagogical work for
Partch's invented instruments
Kirchner: String Quartet 3, for strings and tape, Pulitzer Prize winner
John Eaton: "Concert Piece for Syn-Ket and Orchestra", uses an early micro-tonal Moog-
related synthesizer
Pauline Oliveros: "I of IV", tape, feedback/drone electronic music
Gordon Mumma: "Mesa, For Cybersonic Bandoneon", amplified and processed bandoneon
Mumma, David Behrman, Ashley, and Lucier form the electroacoustic performing group, the
Sonic Arts Union.
The Beatles: "Tomorrow Never Knows", utilizes tape loop techniques in popular music, partly
inspired by Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge"

Stockhausen: "Prozession", for tamtam, viola, electronium, piano, uses process symbols (plus-
minus symbols) to direct indeterminate performer actions
Stockhausen: "Hymnen", tape, national anthems as musique concrete with electronics
 Ligeti: "Lontano", for orchestra, micropolyphony clouds
Birtwistle: "Punch and Judy", opera, brutalizes the classic puppet drama
Cornelius Cardew: "Treatise" (begun 1963), consisting of 193 pages of graphic notation open to
free interpretation and instrumentation. The previous year saw Cardew join AMM, a free
improvisation group.
Reich: "Piano Phase", for 2 pianos, one of the earliest minimalist instrumental phasing works,
also "Violin Phase"
1967
Takemitsu: "November Steps", for shakuhachi, biwa, and orchestra, contrasts Japanese
traditional and Western classical music
Babbitt: "Correspondences" for synthesized tape music and string orchestra
Gaburo: "Antiphony IV (Poised), for voice, piccolo, trombone, bass and electronics"
Subotnick: "Silver Apples of the Moon", tape, uses electronic synthesis technology developed
by Don Buchla
Koenig: "Terminus II", "Funktion Grün" for tape, Koenig explores aleatoric and groupwise
selection of serial elements in Project 1 (1964) and Project 2 (1966)
Pril Smiley: "Eclipse", tape
John Chowning discovers the FM synthesis algorithm, eventually leading to the development of
the Synclavier (1977) and the Yamaha DX7 (1983)

Stockhausen: "Kurzwellen", for six players with shortwave receivers and live electronics
Stockhausen: "Stimmung", for 6 vocalists, uses aleatoric overtone singing, foreshadows the
"Spectral Music" movement
Stockhausen: "Aus Den Sieben Tagen", intuitive music (improvisation) based only on text
Ligeti: "Ramifications" for "mistuned" string orchestra (quarter-tones) and String Quartet 2
(indeterminate microtonality smaller than quarter tones)
Alfred Schnittke: 2nd Violin Sonata (begun 1967), explores "polystylism"
Leo Brouwer: "Canticum", guitar, Brouwer's style changes from Cuban folk to avant-garde after
hearing Penderecki and Xenakis, sometimes using indeterminacy.
Lutoslawski: "Livre pour orchestre", 4 orchestral 'chapters' separated by aleatoric interludes.
Jani Christou: "Enantiodromia" (begun 1954), for orchestra, employs textured noise, abrupt
dynamics and indeterminacy
Xenakis: "Kraanerg", 23 instruments and 4-channel tape
Helmut Lachenmann: "temA", for chamber group, concentrates on "breath noises", and marks
the beginning of his "mature period" where he explores the concepts of "touch".
Pousseur: "Votre Faust" (begun 1960), opera, allows the audience to choose the form structure
of the opera by ballots or verbal cues. Pousseur called the 2nd production a "shipwreck", and
"an artistic disaster"
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV): "Sound Pool" and "Free Soup", with members including Alvin
Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, and Allan Bryant, invites open, public
improvisations in its performances
Jacob Druckman: "Animus II for mezzo-soprano, percussion and electronic tape", begun 1967
1968
Nono: "Contrappunto dialettico alla mente", tape
Gaburo: "Dante's Joynte", tape
Randall: "Lyric Variations for Violin and Computer" (begun 1965)
Jean-Claude Risset: "Computer Suite From Little Boy", tape, Rissett explores an eternally
falling glissandi (Risset scale or Shepard-Risset glissando)
Brün: "Infraudibles", computer music in two versions (with and without live ensemble)
Hiller: "Algorithms I, Version 1 (I. The Decay of lnformation, II. Icosahedron, Ill. The
Incorporation of Constraints), a computer and ensemble work (
computer-assisted composition)
Behrman: "Runthrough" for synthesizers and photocell mixers (begun 1967), activated by
lighting
David Tudor: "Rainforest", live electronics installation, environment populated by small noise
machines
Reich: "Pendulum Music (For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers)", uses
pulsed, phasing feedback
Annea Lockwood: "Piano Transplants" (1968-1982, including "Piano Burning", 1968) in which
the performer plays freely as a piano is slowly destroyed (by fire or exposure to natural
elements)
Wendy Carlos: "Switched on Bach", Moog synth realizations of Bach works, sells many copies
and wins awards
Frank Zappa: "Lumpy Gravy", sound collage of musique concrete, rock and orchestral recorded
pieces, as well as voice resonating from piano strings

Carter: "Concerto for Orchestra", 4 orchestra groups each have different harmonies and tempo
schemes
Shostakovich: Symphony No.14, applies serialism in an 11 movement meditation on death
Berio: "Sinfonia" (begun 1968), middle movement quotes many works, all contained in a
scherzo from Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony"
George Crumb: "Night of the Four Moons" for voice and a few exotic instruments (slide banjo,
Kabuki blocks, etc...), inspired in part by Mahler’s "Das Lied von der Erde" and Haydn’s
Symphony No. 45 ("Farewell").
Philip Glass: "Music in Similar Motion", explores repetitive phrases at different levels of unison
and syncopation. Glass uses an "additive/subtractive" process where a single note/fragment is
added or subtracted from loops or parts of loops.
Horatiu Rădulescu: "Credo" for 9 cellos, 1st "spectral music" work, which orchestrates 45 layers
of harmonics of a C fundamental
 Per Nørgård: "Voyage into the Golden Screen", for chamber orchestra, explores his "Infinity
Series"
Peter Maxwell Davies: "Eight Songs for a Mad King", bizarre monodrama with quotes from
Handel, birds, the Beatles, foxtrots, etc...
Henze, Symphony No. 6, for 2 chamber orchestras, includes Cuban revolutionary songs and
Cuban dance rhythms
Cardew forms the Scratch Orchestra, which melds improvisation with simple music structures in
an attempt to create a "communal situation"
Merrill Leroy Ellis: "Kaleidoscope, for Orchestra, Synthesizer, and Soprano", collaboration with
Robert Moog
Cage: "Cheap Imitation", for piano, (later orchestra (1972) or violin), a Satie work, "Socrates"
(1918) is modified so that vocal line pitches or fragments are transposed according to chance
1969 operations. Other works consisting of "altered" pre-existing material would follow ("Hymns and
Variations", for 12 singers, 1979)
Cage and Hiller: "HPSCHD" for 1 to 7 amplified harpsichords playing permutations of Mozart,
Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gottschalk, Busoni, Schoenberg, Cage and Hiller) and 1 to 51
tapes of computer music (begun 1967), the LP includes a score for manipulation of the stereo
controls when listening to the record
Nancarrow: "Studies for Player Piano: Study No. 37" (begun 1965) has 12 somewhat canonic
voices in 12 independent tempi schemes.
Luc Ferrari: "Music Promenade" (begun 1964), tape, explores organized field recordings as
music
Risset: "Mutations", computer music
Charles Dodge: "Changes", computer music
Charles Wuorinen "Time's Encomium" for electronic tape (begun 1968, Pulitzer Prize winner)
Salvatore Martirano: "The SalMar Construction", invention of an interactive "composing"
synthesizer, which projects sound through loudspeakers which float around based on air
currents
Douglas Leedy: "Entropical Paradise", Moog and Buchla synthesizers, triple LP recording of
randomized patches that, once set, played without further intervention by the performer,
intended as "background environmental music" (ambient).
John Mizelle: "Photo Oscillations", uses lasers and photocells triggering sounds
Mini-Moog presented for sale to the public, designed for live performance.
Peter Zinovieff, Tristram Cary and David Cockerell found EMS (Electronic Music Studios),
which would create the VCS 3 and Synthi synthesizer/sequencers (notable used by
Stockhausen and his live electronics group).
The Beatles: "Revolution No. 9", uses tape loop cut up techniques

Stockhausen: "Mantra", for 2 pianos and ring modulators, begins a new phase of "formula
compositions" based on articulated melodies
Ligeti: "Continuum" for harpsichord, "Chamber Concerto", works begin to add moments of
rhythmic complexity and phasing to "clouds"
Reich: "Phase Patterns" and "Four Organs", gradual lengthening of a chord
Brian Ferneyhough: "Cassandra's Dream Song" for flute, explores difficult notation, aleatory
elements come from the "impossible" technical demands, "not literally realisable", signals the
beginning of the "New Complexity" movement (the "old complexity" being Stockhausen, Boulez,
Babbitt, etc... during the 1950s' total serialism era). Other New Complexity composers
eventually include
Michael Finnissy,
James Dillon,
Chris Dench and
Richard Barrett.
Lachenmann: "Pression" for cello, "Guero" for piano body, works explore new timbres from
bowing pressure and other extended techniques ("instrumental musique concrète")
Iancu Dumitrescu: "Sound Sculptor (I), spectral music for piano", Dumitrescu explores acoustic
overtones
Crumb: "Black Angels, Thirteen Images from a Dark Land" for electric string quartet,
percussion, crystal glasses, tam-tams, etc…
Crumb: "Ancient Voices of Children", includes eerie vocal effects from singing into an amplified
piano (previously explored by Frank Zappa)
1970
Richard Rodney Bennett: "Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Ensemble", Bennett's style
traversed many different realms, including jazz and film ("Murder on the Orient Express")
Henze, "El Cimarrón (The Runaway Slave)", 15 "political tableaus" for a baritone, guitar, flutes
and percussion
Kagel: "Acustica" (begun 1968), for ensemble using experimental sound-producers and loud-
speakers with electroacoustic tape
Kagel: "Staatstheater" (begun 1967), a plotless, absurd "anti-"opera
Davies: "Taverner" (begun 1962), opera, reworks pre-Baroque forms (plainchant, etc...) with
avant-garde techniques
Davidovsky: "Synchronisms No. 6", for piano and electronics, Pulitzer Prize
Ferrari: "Presque rien No. 1: Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer", tape, organized field
recordings
Bülent Arel: "Stereo Electronic Music No.2", tape
Lucier: "I am sitting in a room", tape, looped resonating speech
Dodge: "Earth's Magnetic Field", computer music, maps magnetic field data to musical sound
Chowning: "Sabelithe", tape, synthesized music
 Sofia Gubaidulina: "Vivente - Non vivente", for ANS (early Russian synth using drawn shapes
on plates to form pitch figures, used for Tarkovsky films "Solaris" and "Stalker")
Hovhaness: "And God Created Great Whales", taped whale songs accompanied by orchestra
(relatively Romantic)
David Rosenboom: "Ecology of the Skin", translates biofeedback readings of brainwaves and
heart signals from performers and audience members into music textures

Carter: String Quartet 3, 2 duos play separate and independent layers

Feldman: "Rothko Chapel", soprano, alto, choir, percussion and viola, static, droney textures
Reich: "Drumming", percussion group, phasing with beat substitution, includes bongos,
marimbas, glockenspiel and voice
Crumb: "Lux Aeterna, for 5 Masked Musicians", for soprano, bass flute (w recorder), sitar and
two percussionists, spare and haunting
Kagel: "Exotica" for 6 "singing instruments" (players) with 10 or more non-European
instruments, aleatory elements come from the players' "ignorance" of their instruments' playing
techniques
Harrison: "La Koro-Sutra", choir and homemade percussion, uses his own homemade
1971 "American gamelan" percussion kit
Christian Wolff: "Burdocks" (begun 1970), various instrumentation, for one or more groups of
five or more players, uses indeterminate form based on layering of 10 entirely different types of
composition (such as one simply based on the word "flying")
Druckman: "Synapse", tape, to be played leading into the contrabass solo "Valentine (1969)
Gavin Bryars: "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet", tape and orchestra, field recording of a
homeless person's chant is looped and orchestral elements are added on top
Eliane Radigue: "Chry-ptus", ARP synthesizer and tape, explores haunting electronic
drones/landscapes
Shostakovich: Symphony No.15, quotes Rossini's "William Tell" and Wagner
Death of Stravinsky.

Lachenmann: "Gran Torso", for string quartet, further explores new string timbres from string
pressure
C. Curtis-Smith: "Rhapsodies" for bowed piano (1973), Curtis-Smith invents the bowed piano
technique, which would be further developed by other composers including the tonal minimalist
Stephen Scott (Bowed Piano Ensemble: "Entrada").
Schnittke: Symphony No. 1, further explores "polystylism" (begun 1969), which includes
quotations from Bach, Haydn ("Farewell Symphony"), Beethoven, Chopin, Strauss, etc... as
well as "jazz improvisation episodes".
Dieter Schnebel:"ReVisionen" (completed 1989?), reworkings of classic works by Bach,
1972
Beethoven ("Beethoven-Sinfonie"), Wagner ("Wagner-Idyll"), Webern ("Webern Variationen"),
Verdi ("Verdi-Moment"), Mozart, etc...
Michael Tippett: Symphony 3, quotes Beethoven's 9th Symphony
Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 2, Op. 31 ("Copernican"), violent, contrasting sound masses
leading to hymnal textures and Polish folk themes
Mâche: "Korwar Pour Clavecin Et Bande Magnétique", harpsichord and concrete tape with
voices, etc...
Einojuhani Rautavaara: "Cantus Arcticus, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra", includes field
recordings of birds, largely Romantic but with some birdlike loops

Ustvolskaya: "Composition No. 2, Dies Irae, for eight double basses, piano and wooden cube",
uses a large beaten wooden cube of her own design
Boulez: "...explosante-fixe" (various revisions), MIDI-flute and chamber orchestra, explores live
1973
sound manipulation
Henze: "Tristan", for piano, tape and orchestra, includes elements of Wagner, Brahms and
Chopin, essentially an homage to Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde".

Stockhausen: "Inori", for orchestra and dancer-mimes, uses a melodic formula and dancer-
mimes which interpret the music in gesture-based scales
Glass: "Music in 12 Parts" (begun 1971), 5 players on voice and various instruments, 4 hours
and more in length
Gérard Grisey: "Périodes" for septet, Grisey helps popularize "spectral music" by exploring tone
color derived from analyzing overtone structures. Spectral music is based on pleasantly-
dissonant layers of overtone pitches, realized orchestrally. This piece would become part of the
larger work "Les espaces acoustiques", completed 1985
1974
Rădulescu: "A Doini" for bowed vertical concert grand pianos, "spectrally retuned"
Wojciech Kilar: "Krzesany", for orchestra, influenced by songs and dances of the Tatra
Mountains in southern Poland, ending includes a loud free improvisation crescendo
Wolfgang Rihm's "Morphonie-Sektor IV" (for orchestra) at the Donaueschinger Festival marks
the beginning of a return to more "conservative" musical styles (eventually leading to the "New
Simplicity" movement). This movement was also probably led by George Rochberg's String
Quartet 3 (1971), which reverts to Romantic styles (but with some dissonance). Penderecki
and others would soon follow suit.

Stockhausen: "Sirius", for soprano, bass (vocal), trumpet, and bass clarinet, with electronic
tape, uses the EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer to compress and expand spatial melodies both
horizontally and vertically
Frederic Rzewski: "The People United Will Never Be Defeated", for piano, applies 19th and
20th century piano vocabulary to a Chilean protest song in a set of 36 variations
Cage: "Etudes Australes" (begun 1974), for piano, more star signs and chance composition
1975 Cage: "Child of Tree", for amplified cactus (or amplified plant materials)
Carter: "A Mirror on Which to Dwell", for soprano and ensemble, Carter begins to use poetry as
texts for somewhat more lyrical chamber cantatas
Jonathan Harvey: "Inner Light 3" orchestra w synth
Parmegiani: "De Natura Sonorum", tape, musique concrete masterpiece
Lou Reed: "Metal Machine Music", processed and feedback-driven guitar layers creating an
aleatoric drone landscape

Carter: "Symphony of Three Orchestras", 4 groups with overlapping movements and 12 types
of music
Dutilleux: "Ainsi la nuit", string quartet, each of 7 movements focuses on a different "special"
technique
Nono: "...sofferte onde serene...", piano and tape, uses tapes of pre-recorded and processed
held piano chords and string noises
Xenakis: "Dmaathen", for oboe and percussion, features extended techniques, sinuous and
rhythmic
Ferneyhough: "Unity Capsule" for flute (begun 1973), more "unplayable" notation, designed to
keep the player (and listener) off-balance and in a constant state of alertness (or panic!)
Salvatore Sciarrino: "Sei Capricci" for solo violin (begun 1975), explores fleeting harmonics and
similar extended textures
1976 Arvo Pärt: "Für Alina", for piano, uses "tintinnabuli style", where notes of a scale melody are
combines with notes of a resonating triad ("Holy Minimalism")
Louis Andriessen: "Hoketus", chamber group, uses chromatic cells in a minimalistic way (or
perhaps minimalism with more dynamics and dissonance).
Andriesson: "De Staat", choir and ensemble, dissonant minimalism
Maurice Ohana: "Sacral d'Ilx", uses harpsichord, brass and wind and multiphonics to evoke
"ancient" traditions
Gubaidulina: "Revue Music for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band", combines textural effects
with funk jazz
Reich: "Music for 18 Musicians" (begun 1974), female voice, piano, tuned percussion, wind,
strings, probably the most famous Reich work
Glass: "Einstein on the Beach", opera, plotless and minimalist, the audience is invited to come
and go during the performance

Stockhausen: "Der Jahreslauf", contemporary classical scored for traditional Japanese Gagaku
orchestra
Stockhausen begins working on his "LICHT" opera cycle, which would incorporate all of his
future works for almost the next 29 years
Xenakis: "Jonchaies" for 109 musicians, Xenakis explores folk (tribal) rhythm in his own
personal style and incorporates some Balinese melodic elements
Ferneyhough: "Time and Motion Study II", for cello and live electronics, the cellist is miked so
that the sounds of extreme exertion become part of the music
Michael Finnissy: "English Country-Tunes", for piano, New Complexity frenzied ornamentation
confronting English heritage, dreamy/pounding
Lachenmann: "Salut für Caudwell" for 2 acoustic guitars, explores slides, muffled picking and
1977
harmonics over and around the soundhole
Sciarrino: "All'aure in una lontananza", flute, begins exploring breathy extended flute techniques
in trembling pianissimo
Górecki: Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", begun 1976), uses
medieval modes, not popularized until 1992, another of the "Holy Minimalists"
Pärt: "Tabula Rasa" for two violins, prepared piano, and chamber orchestra, tintinnabuli style
(also "Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten" for strings and bell)
Silvestrov: "Quiet Songs"/"Silent Songs", voice and piano, settings of classic Russian poems
using Romantic style, gives the feeling of "perpetually ending"
Ligeti: "Le Grand Macabre" ("anti-anti-opera") 1st ver completed (begun 1975)
Boulez becomes the first director of IRCAM, a new electroacoustic studio facility in Paris

Pärt: "Spiegel im Spiegel", piano and violin, various other arrangements, uses "tintinnabuli
style"
Dutilleux: "Timbres, espace, mouvement", for orchestra without high strings, interprets Van
Gogh's "The Starry Night"
1978
Xenakis: "Ikhoor", string trio, rhythmic and dynamic explorations reminiscent of Stravinsky early
period
Xenakis: "La Légende d'Eer " (begun 1977), 7-channel tape, designed for "Le Diatope", a
curved building with laser lights

Crumb: "Makrokosmos", 4 volumes, for amplified piano (begun 1972)

Nono: "Con Luigi Dallapiccola", for 6 percussionists with electronics (sine generators, ring
modulation, etc...)
Meredith Monk: "Dolmen Music", vocal sextet and cello, extended vocal techniques in
tonal/minimalist settings
Grisey: "Jour, Contre-jour" (begun 1978), for electric organ and ensemble, spectral drone
music
Grisey: "Tempus ex Machina", percussion group and pulsar signals, (later expanded into "Le
1979 Noir de l'etoile" (1989-90), explores polyrhythmic pulse rates
Oliver Knussen: Third Symphony (begun 1973), engages both early 20th century
expressiveness and Carter-like rhythmic complexity
 Brant: "Orbits, a Spatial Symphonic Ritual for 80 Trombones, Organ and Sopranino Voice"
Sciarrino: "Un'immagine Di Arpocrate", opera
Xenakis finishes the computer program UPIC, which can convert images to music (such as
"Mycenae Alpha" from the previous year)
A movement dubbed "New Simplicity" arises (including Rihm) which rebels against the
complexity of avant garde music and turns back towards traditional harmony, melody and forms

Tristan Murail: "Gondwana", for orchestra, spectral work based on harmonics from bell and
trombone sounds, inspired by continental drift
Claude Vivier: "Lonely Child", for soprano and orchestra, spectral music with more melodic and
ritual elements
Sciarrino: "Anamorfosi", piano, humourous work which layers Nacio Herb Brown's "Singin' in
the Rain" over Ravel's "Jeux d'eau" (Water Games)
1980
Boulez: "Répons" (revised 1984), orchestra with live electronics, uses computer transformation
on percussion soloists, premiered at IRCAM.
Subotnick: "After the Butterfly", trumpet and chamber instruments with "ghost electronics"
Harvey: "Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco", 8-track tape
John Stump: "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz (from 'A Tribute to Zdenko G. Fibich')", humor
score

Stockhausen's 1st opera, "Donnerstag aus LICHT"/"Thursday from Light" is premiered.

Cage: "Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras", first usage of "time bracket" notation (placement of
note attack is aleatoric in a time duration), which would be used in the "number pieces" and the
"Music for __" pieces.
Sessions: "Concerto for Orchestra", Pulitzer Prize
1981 Andriessen: "De Tijd", for orchestra, sustained textures with high metallic accents
Sciarrino: "Efebo con Radio", for voice and orchestra, imitates the sound of scanning through
popular radio stations (includes instrumentally-created "static")
Poul Ruders: "Violin Concerto", a modern pastiche of Vivaldi
Arthur Kreiger: "Variations On A Theme By Davidovsky", first (?) electronic work based on
variations of a previous electronic work

Stockhausen: "Lucifer's Farewell", a male chorus enacts a drama in a church, and then release
a live bird at the end
Ligeti: "Horn Trio", signals a return to Bartokian folk elements
Gubaidulina: "Seven Words" for cello, bayan, and strings
1982
Tenney: "Clang", spectral work for aleatory chamber orchestra
Harrison: "Double Concerto (begun 1981) for violin, cello, and Javanese gamelan
Rădulescu: "Clepsydra" for 16 "sound icons", side-turned open string pianos
Harvey: "Bhakti" for ensemble and electronics

Feldman: 2nd String Quartet, (up to) 6-hours long, explores large scale but quiet surfaces
John Adams: "Shaker Loops", for 7 strings, explores (mostly) tonal and minimalistic tremolo, trill
and ostinati patterns
Cage: "Ryoanji", various arrangements, uses graphic notation to indicate pitch, based on the
Japanese sand garden
Sciarrino: "Piano Sonata II", explores dialogue between an extreme high and low register chord
1983
and the rest of the piano
Dumitrescu: "Gnosis", for contrabass, Dumitrescu continues his "phenomenological" approach,
emphasizes unusual sounds and textures hiding the original instrument's identity
Frank Denyer: "After the Rain", explores non-Western instrumentation and pulsing, natural
processes
Murail: "Désintégrations", for tape and 17 players (begun 1982)

Stockhausen's 2nd opera, "Samstag aus LICHT"/"Saturday from Light" is premiered.

Babbitt: "Sheer Pluck", for guitar, complex and jagged, unlike the other "original Complexity"
composers (Stockhausen, Boulez, etc...), Babbit continues writing enigmatic, difficult music
James Dillon: "Sgothan", flute, jagged, charged New Complexity work
Sciarrino: "Hermes" for flute, explores flute harmonics in wide dynamic ranges (as well as other
extended techniques)
Rădulescu: "Das Andere" for viola, explores solo string harmonics in just intonation
Penderecki: "A Polish Requiem" (begun 1980, updated 1993), vocal soloists, choir, orchestra, a
Requiem Mass using a return to avant-garde techniques
Rodion Shchedrin: "Self-Portrait, variations for symphony orchestra", episodes of various
1984 degrees of dissonance, portrays 20th-century Russian strife under the earlier oppressive
regime
John Zorn: "Cobra", combines his previous "game piece" explorations in free improvisation
group dynamics (begun in the late 1970's with "Lacrosse", "Hockey", "Pool", "Archery", etc...)
and gives the performers advanced abilities to form and direct subgroups of improvising
ensembles within the larger ensemble. His next work, "Xu Feng" would begin to add musical
directives to the free improvisation structures (dynamics, tempo, styles, etc...).
Grisey: "Les Chants de l'amour" (begun 1982), for 12 (or 14) voices and tape, tape uses both
processed and synthesized voices, vocals include text in 22 languages
Tenney: "Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow" (begun 1982), for player piano, 24
harmonics pulsing at their frequency ratios
 Ligeti: "Études pour piano", Book 1, six etudes exploring polyrhythms, partly inspired by music
from sub-Saharan Africa
Carter: "Penthode", for orchestra, 20 players in 5 disparate subgroups, with a melody which
winds itself through the orchestra, (also String Quartet 4, with a similar design)
Ferneyhough: "Etudes transcendantales" (begun 1982), song cycle for mezzo-soprano and
chamber ensemble of 4, a modern, New Complexity answer to Schoenberg's classic, "Pierrot
1985 Lunaire"
Ellen Fullman: "The Long String Instrument"
Nono: "Prometeo" (begun 1981) opera with multiple orchestras and live sound manipulation
Magnus Lindberg: "Kraft" (begun 1983), for orchestra, electronics and mobile "junk"
percussionists (Toimii Ensemble), a meeting between industrial rock and modern avant-garde
textures

Stockhausen: "Xi", explores microtonal scale timbres for wind soloist

György Kurtág: "Kafka-Fragmente" (begun 1985) for soprano and violin, 40 short movements
inspired by the stark miniatures of Webern (chromatic but not 12-tone). Kurtág addresses the
music of the past with the extreme sonorities of the present.
Birtwistle: "Earth Dances", for orchestra
Birtwistle: "The Mask of Orpheus", opera, uses multiple layers of action (multiple stages) in
non-linear narrative
Dench: "sulle scale della Fenice", for flute, New Complexity but has some repeated melodic
elements
Gubaidulina: "Stimmen Verstummen", symphony in 12 movements, features a silent
1986 "conductor's solo". Gubaidulina uses exotic and unusual instrumental groupings in her work in
a kind of spiritual chromaticism.
Gubaidulina: "Offertorium" (1st version 1980), violin and orchestra
Grisey: "Talea", for 5 instruments, Grisey begins applying spectral music techniques to faster
structures
Dumitrescu: "Harryphonies (alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon)", chamber ensembles, uses
Dumitrescu's invented contact mike and percussion instrument the "Harryphono"
Heinz Holliger: "Übungen zu Scardanelli", choir, ensemble and tape, settings of Hölderlin's
"mad" poetry, using extended vocal techniques (microtones, breath, etc...) organized in
Barogue forms
Harvey: "Madonna of Winter and Spring", for orchestra, synthesizers and electronics

Cage begins writing his "Number Pieces" which use indeterminate time notation ("time
brackets")
Cage: "Europeras", operas where both music and stage design (sets, costumes, etc...) are
derived from indeterminacy
Philip Glass: "Violin Concerto No. 1"
Adams: "Nixon in China", opera
Nancarrow, String Quartet 3, Nancarrow begins writing multi-tempo canons for live performers
(instead of player pianos)
Rădulescu: String Quartet Nr. 4, Opus 33: "Infinite to be cannot be infinite, infinite anti-be could
be infinite" (begun 1976), 9 string quartets, making 128 + 4 strings, create a spectral "viola de
1987 gamba"
Dillon: "helle Nacht" (begun 1986), for orchestra, New Complexity informed by Xenakis
and "Rite of Spring"
Nono: "Post-Prae-ludium No.1 (per Donau)", for tuba & live electronics, the notated
score is basically "an example" of what the performer should play, the electronics create
delay loops of the tuba sound
George Benjamin: "Antares" (begun 1985) for chamber orchestra and electronics
Zorn: "Spillane", uses "file-card" system to organize "sound scenes" based on a literary theme,
uses studio overdubbing and jazz improvisation elements
Tod Machover: "VALIS", an electronic opera using "hyperinstruments" (motion-controlled
effects), based on Philip K. Dick's book.

Stockhausen's 3rd opera, "Montag aus LICHT"/"Monday from Light" is premiered.

Ligeti: "Piano Concerto" (begun 1985), draws on jazz-blues, Bartok and Nancarrow
Zorn: "Cat O'Nine Tails (Tex Avery Meets the Marquis de Sade)", string quartet with cartoon
music elements
Finnissy: "Red Earth" (begun 1987), for orchestra, ritualistic/impressionistic, influenced by
1988
Australian aborigine culture, includes didgeridoo
Peter Sculthorpe: "Kakadu", for orchestra, influenced by Northern Australian Aboriginal music
Oliveros forms her "Deep Listening Band" after descending 14 feet into an underground cistern
to make a recording. Deep Listening is based on improvisational interaction with the
environment.

Nono: "La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura" (begun 1988), violin solo with 8 tapes of pre-
recorded and processed violin, adjusted by the sound mixer
Richard Barrett, "Tract I", for piano, rhythmically interesting New Complexity
Tan Dun: "Nine Songs", sung in both Classical Chinese and contemporary English alongside
1989 Western and Chinese instruments (including 50 invented instruments)
Nancarrow: "Concerto for Player Piano and Orchestra", an orchestration of movements 1 and 3
of Study No. 49
Rihm: String Quartet No. 8, thorny, noisy, players appear to revise the score during
performance
 Gubaidulina: "Alleluia", boy vocal, choir, orchestra, color organ
Benjamin: "Upon Silence", for Mezzo-soprano and string ensemble of 7 players
1990
Xenakis: "Tetora" for string quartet, dissonant blocks, somewhat canonic
Peter Schat: The Heavens", employs his post-Romantic "Tone Clock" technique

Stockhausen: "Oktophonie", 8-channel tape, uses a 3-dimensional "cube" sound space to

simulate a "war" environment
Chris Dench: "Severance", for guitar, New Complexity, a sweeping, percussive, sparkling work
Messiaen: "Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà" (begun 1987), for orchestra
1991
Berio: "Continuo", for orchestra
Kurtág: "Samuel Beckett: What is the Word" (begun 1990), voices and ensemble
Michael Finnissy: "Seven Sacred Motets", for vocal group
Zorn: "Carny", for piano

Stockhausen: "Paare vom Freitag" (from "Freitag aus Licht"), vocoder-processed concrete
sounds with voice
Kaija Saariaho: "Amers", cello concerto
1992 Osvaldo Golijov: "Yiddishbbuk", string quartet
Gerald Barry: "Piano Quintet", blends Celtic themes with machine-age rhythms
Lachenmann: "... Zwei Gefühle ..." (extract from The Little Match Girl, begun 1991), for 2
speakers & small orchestra

Stockhausen: "Helikopter-Streichquartett", tremolo glissandi with the sounds of helicopter rotor

blades (violinists are flown around and video projected to the hall)
Ligeti: "Violin Concerto (begun 1989), has polyrhythms, folk elements and just intonation
Berio: "Notturno", string quartet
Schnittke: "Gesualdo", opera
1993
Gubaidulina: Fourth String Quartet
Gubaidulina: "Now always Snow", for voices and orchestra
Benjamin: "Sudden Time" (begun 1989), for orchestra
Dumitrescu: "Galaxy" acousmatic and spectral music for 3 harryphonos, 3 percussionists and
computer

Grisey: "L'Icône paradoxale" (begun 1992), for female vocal soloists and orchestra
Kurtág: "Stele", for orchestra
Hanspeter Kyburz: "Cells", for saxophone and ensemble
Saariaho: "Graal théâtre", violin concerto
Golijov: "The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind", clarinet quintet
1994
Ades: "Arcadiana", string quartet
Zorn: "Aporias", for piano and orchestra
Birtwistle: "The Second Mrs Kong" (begun 1993), opera
Ed Chang: "Picture Show", various instrumentation, aleatory compositions based on cued
layers of musical "behavior" formulas

Berio: "Sequenza XIII", for accordion

Gerard Pesson: "Mes Beatitudes", piano quartet
Harvey: "Missa brevis", for choir
Dench: "Beyond Status Geometry", 4 percussionists, dense, near-unplayable New Complexity
music
Steve Martland: "Beat the Retreat", chamber ensemble, blends Henry Purcell, minimalism
1995
Harvey: "Soleil noir/Chitra", for chamber group and electronics
Paul Keenan: "Palimpsest", for soprano, ensemble and electronics (begun 1992), based on
analysis of trombone multiphonics
Saariaho: "L'Amour de loin", opera
Alexander Goehr: "Arianna", contemporary setting of 1608 opera by Monteverdi, including
contrabassoon, saxophone, Akai sampler and electric guitar

Berio: "Ekphrasis", for orchestra

Berio: "Outis", opera (begun 1995)
Xenakis: "Ittidra", for string sextet, abrasive, industrial sonorities
Grisey: "Vortex Temporum" (begun 1994), piano ensemble, jagged shapes and dark textures in
different combinations
Murail: "Bois flotté", chamber quintet with live electronics, based on spectral analysis of sea
sounds
1996 Brice Pauset: "M", for 2 sopranos, contralto and 2 ensemble
Mark-Anthony Turnage: "Blood on the Floor" for electric jazz group and orchestra blending
scored notation and jazz/fusion improvisation
Birtwistle: "Pulse Shadows" (begun 1989), opera
Lachenmann: "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern"/"The Little Match Girl" (begun 1990),
opera
Georg Freidrich Haas: "Nacht", opera
 Haas: String Quartet 1
Kurtág: "Hölderlin Gesänge" (begun 1993), for Baritone
Benjamin: "Viola, Viola", for 2 violas
Zorn: "Shibboleth", for clavichord, three muted strings and percussion
Thomas Adès: "Asyla", for orchestra, 3rd movement inspired by techno-music
Judith Weir: "Piano Concerto", for piano and strings, consonant and light but includes synthetic
scales
Tan Dun: "Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind)", cello, orchestra, children's orchestra, and
1997 ancient Chinese instruments including Bianzhong chime bells, celebrating the return of Hong
Kong to China, premiered with Yo-Yo Ma, includes field recording tape of traditional Hong Kong
street opera ("Peking Opera")
Tavener: "Fall and Resurrection", cantata, inspired by Byzantine chant, includes saxophone as
well as ancient instruments
Olga Neuwirth: "...?risonanze!...", for viola d'amore, spectral music for solo strings
Brett Dean: "Carlo", for strings with sampler and tape
Lindberg: "Related Rocks", for two pianos, two percussionists and electronics, percussive
sounds are gradually transformed into other textures using "diphône technique" developed at
IRCAM
Peter Schat: "Arch Music for St. Louis", inspired by Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch

Grisey: "Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil" (begun 1996), for soprano and ensemble
Kurtág: "...pas a pas-Null part…" (begun 1993), baritone, string trio w perc.
Rolf Riehm: "Hawking", for spatially separated chamber ensemble
Pauset: "Huit Canons", period oboe concerto
1998
Gubaidulina: "In the Shadow of the Tree", for koto, bass koto, Chinese zheng and orchestra
Holliger: "Schneewittchen", opera, based on Snow White
Sciarrino: "Luci mie traditrici" (Oh My Betraying Eyes) (begun 1996), opera based on Gesualdo
Péter Eötvös: "Three Sisters", opera

Gubaidulina: "Two Paths", for 2 Viola soloists and orchestra, chromatic and impressionistic
Lachenmann: "Nun", double concerto for flute and trombone with 8 male voices and orchestra,
includes indeterminate elements and form
Harvey: "White as Jasmine", song cycle, orchestra and electronics
Berio: "La cronaca del luogo" (begun 1998), opera
1999
Ed Chang and Motoko Shimizu: "Spin-17", for 2 players, electroacoustic improvisations,
impressions and re-arrangements of 20th century repertoire
Ed Chang: "Ring steppers" (w John Dieterich, David Forlano, Sean O'Donnell), electronics, 4
independently-realized electronic tapes are re-assembled/re-processed in 4 successive
iterations, with a final re-processing by the original composer as the last iteration ​and final work

Gubaidulina: "Johannes-Passion" (begun 1999), choir and orchestra

Haas: "in vain", chamber ensemble
Pesson: "Forever Valley"(begun 1999), opera
Pauset: "Kontra-Sonate, for piano (to be played with Schubert's Sonata in A minor, D.845)", for
2000 piano
Poul Ruders: "Paganini Variations - Guitar Concerto No. 2", variations using modern harmony
Golijov: "La Pasión según San Marcos (St. Mark Passion)", voices and orchestra, originally an
homage to Bach's "St Matthew Passion", it uses several Latin and Afro-Cuban musical styles
and uses ethnic instrumentation (guitar, accordion, many percussion instruments)

Ligeti: Piano Etudes Book 3 (begun 1995)

2001 Haas: String Quartet 3: "In iij Noct"
Peter Ablinger: "Orte", various ensembles in 3 environments

Ligeti: "Hamburg Concerto"(begun 1998), for solo horn and chamber ensemble, layers mixed
tuning systems
Toshio Hosokawa: "Deep Silence/Gagaku", duets for shō (bamboo mouth organ), and
2002 accordion in the traditional Japanese "Gagaku style"
Heiner Goebbels: "Landscape with Distant Relatives"/"Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten",
opera
Neuwirth: "Lost Highway", opera, based on the David Lynch film

Stockhausen: "Sonntags-Abschied" for 5 synthesizers (or tape), the final scene of the 29-hour
LICHT opera cycle is completed.
Kurtág: "…concertante…" (begun 2002), for violin, viola and orchestra
Steven Stucky: "Second Concerto for Orchestra"
2003
Jörg Widmann: "Third String Quartet (Hunting Quartet)"/"'3. Streichquartett - Jagdquartett", a
dissonant traversal of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Widmann draws from the Romantic
composers as well as Xenakis and Lachenmann.
Lucier: "Ever Present", for flute, saxophone and piano with electronics

Stockhausen: "Himmelfahrt" for organ, Stockhausen begins KLANG cycle of chamber works
2004
Ferneyhough: "Shadowtime" (begun 1999), opera

Lachenmann: "Concertini" (begun 2004), for orchestra

 Beat Furrer: "FAMA" (begun 2004), chamber group
Pesson: "Wunderblock (Nebenstucke II)", accordion and orchestra
2005
Mark Andre: "durch", for soprano saxophone, piano & percussion
Donacha Dennehy: "Elastic Harmonic", violin concerto
Haas: "Sieben Klangraume, accompanying the unfinished fragments of Mozart's Requiem", for
choir and orchestra,

Boulez: "Derive 2" (begun 1988), orchestra

Haas: "Hyperion", concerto for light and orchestra (4 groups), uses light cues to "conduct"
aleatoric elements
2006
Rebecca Saunders: "Stirrings Still", for five players: alto flute, oboe, clarinet in A, piano and
crotales
Pierluigi Billone: "1 + 1 = 1" for 2 bass clarinets

Stockhausen: "Cosmic Pulses", 24 polytemporal-spatial electronic layers

Gubaidulina: "In tempus praesens", for violin and orchestra
2007 Ferneyhough: "Dum transisset I-IV for string quartet"
Furrer: Piano Concerto (frenetic/noirish piano sonorities are reflected and magnified in the
orchestral parts)

Kurtág: Colinda-Balada (begun 2006), for Chamber Ensemble and Choir

Ferneyhough: "Chronos-Aion" (begun 2007), for orchestra
2008 Hans Abrahamsen: "Schnee" (begun 2006), for two pianos and percussion with trios of
woodwinds and strings
Birtwistle: "The Corridor", opera

Ablinger: "DEUS CANTANDO (God, singing)", for computer-controlled piano and screened text
(with voice recordings)
2009 Ablinger: "Landschaftsoper Ulrichsberg", a "happening" in 14 locations
Neuwirth: "No more", ensemble with laptop and collage samples, summarizes 20th-century
music (and culture) with samples

2010 Ferneyhough: Sixth String Quartet

Links
Modern Music A Concise History (Paul Griffiths)
Modern Music and After, 3rd Edition (Paul Griffiths)
A History of Electronic Music Pioneers (Dunn)
Summary of Western Classical Music History (Marlon Feld)
Music, Instruments and Innovations During the 20th Century (Espie Estrella)
Music history online : Music of the 20th century (Brian Blood)
Music since 1960 (The Rambler blog, Tim Rutherford-Johnson)
A guide to contemporary classical music (Tom Service, The Guardian)
A Brief History of Developments in 20th Century Classical Music, related to the compositional style of Frank Zappa (Chris Sansom)
20th Century Style
MICROCOSMS: A Simplified Approach to Musical Styles of the Twentieth Century (Phillip Magnuson)
Classical Music: 1600-2000: A Chronology (Jon Paxman)
20th century composers: making the connections
A Guide to Modern Music (www.scaruffi.com)
The Apres-garde: A History of Avantgarde Music

Ed Chang

These blogs function not so much as "web diaries" but more like "online books" I've written (or am writing), with each post being
analogous to a book "chapter". The blog projects I work on are typically histories, song breakdowns, synopses, and/or analyses. I've learned a
lot while creating these things, and I hope you enjoy them.

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