After the Second World War, there emerged a new generation of composers, who sought to stretch the boundaries of music history, and find new and exciting styles and forms. Browse our sheet music and scores, take a look at our Modern Classical Music, and explore the wide world of contemporary music with Stretta Music today!
Dodecaphony or Serialism is the use of the twelve semi-tones as the harmonic and structural basis, rather than the traditional harmonic key structure which governed classical music until the turn of the twentieth century. Arnold Schoenberg was the father of twelve-tone composition in the 1930s. Moving into the post-war era, all dodecaphonic or serial musical parameters, including note lengths, dynamics and even timbres were set in rows. After 1948, the Darmstadt “holiday courses” became the centre of Dodecaphony or Serialism for almost a decade. Despite the mathematical and logical basis, twelve-tone composition still produced many highly emotional works such as Luigi Nono’s Il Canto sospeso.
As the technical and electronic possibilities continued to grow and thrive after the war, the first studio solely dedicated to electronic music was founded in Cologne in 1951 by Herbert Eimert. Important electronic music composers were Edgar Varese, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ernst Krenek, Maurice Kagel, Luciano Berio and Iannis Xenakis, who was also an assistant to the architect Le Corbusier.
Aleatoric comes from the Latin “alea”, meaning dice. Aleatoric composition leaves elements of the music to chance. The American composer John Cage was the first to experiment with aleatoric music, and many others followed, in particular K. Stockhausen, P. Boulez, W. Lutosławski.
Soundscape composition plays with sense and emotion, it uses long drawn musical landscapes to give the listener time to recognise and experience the music in a whole new way. The most important compositions include Atmosphères and Lontano by György Ligeti. Other works of this type were created by Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Iannis Xenakis.
Minimalism also came to Europe from the USA. Minimalism uses repetitive, wide blocks of sound, without strong contrasts or dramatic changes. It is in the repetition, with gradual, small changes, that the minimalist effect is achieved. The pioneers of minimalism in the 1960s were American composers Philip Glass, John Adams, Le Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. They were followed in Europe by Henryk Górecki and Arvo Pärt.
Study score
Item no.: 1542699
for: Mixed ensemble
Score
Item no.: 776845
for: Soloists, mixed choir, orchestra
Lyric book
Item no.: 776639
for: Vocal and Piano Reduction
Piano reduction
Item no.: 643600
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 482717
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 1548182
for: Soloists, mixed choir, orchestra
Score
Item no.: 775747
for: 4 Saxophones [SATBar]
Study score
Item no.: 256820
Study score
Item no.: 1542517
Item no.: 306214
for: Mand, Gitarre, Harfe [alle dritteltönig], Studienpartitur A5
Study score
Item no.: 1542596
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 264965
for: Accordion
Item no.: 210879
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1548071
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 259458
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 1207077
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 1547923
for: Guitar
Score
Item no.: 412780
for: Violin
Sheet music
Item no.: 921016
for: TRP SCHLAGZ KLAV
Score, Parts
Item no.: 306669
for: Vocal and Piano Reduction
Piano reduction
Item no.: 1548170
for: Violin, piano
Score
Item no.: 854336
for: Symphonic orchestra
Buch
Item no.: 264729
for: Choir a Cappella
Score
Item no.: 259161
for: Accordion
Item no.: 274758
for: Mixed Ensemble
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 862292
for: 2 TRP POS TUBA HRN
Stimmen-Set
Item no.: 342042
for: Accordion
Set of parts
Item no.: 227930
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score
Item no.: 164774
for: Diatonic accordion
Item no.: 418952
for: Str, Partitur
Buch
Item no.: 264911
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 264895
for: Flute
Score
Item no.: 260558
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score
Item no.: 259089
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score
Item no.: 259732
for: Orchestra and Piano
Score
Item no.: 259524
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 259065
Buch
Item no.: 163241
for: String Orchestra and opt.Violin or Viola and Piano
Score, Parts
Item no.: 916905
for: Accordion orchestra
Set of parts
Item no.: 219504
for: Accordion orchestra
Set of parts
Item no.: 219325
for: Mixed ensemble
Score
Item no.: 776334
for: Voice, ensemble
Score
Item no.: 778820