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.
for: Cello
Music score
Item no.: 838032
for: Organ
Music score
Item no.: 839708
for: Mixed Choir [SATB] and Mixed Ensemble
Choir score
Item no.: 839565
for: Organ
Music score
Item no.: 837830
for: String orchestra
Set of parts
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for: Piano
Music score
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for: Piano
Music score
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for: Piano
Music score
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for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 838765
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 838239
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Set of parts
Item no.: 838133
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 837005
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 633536
for: Voice (baritone), piano
Buch
Item no.: 840559
for: Mezzo-Soprano Voice
Score
Item no.: 837847
for: English Horn, Violin and Cello
Buch
Item no.: 834718
for: Accordion orchestra
Score
Item no.: 261343
Score
Item no.: 114393
for: Mixed choir (SATB) a cappella
Score
Item no.: 156348
for: Voice (mezzo-soprano), piano
Score
Item no.: 666575
for: Mixed choir (SATB) a cappella
Score
Item no.: 654840
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score
Item no.: 420234
for: AKK PERC BRASS ENSEMBLE
Score
Item no.: 456210
for: Women's choir (SSSAAA) a cappella
Score
Item no.: 464580
for: Violin, cello, piano (piano trio)
Score
Item no.: 558839
for: KLAV STR PK SCHLAGZ
Score
Item no.: 554369
for: Accordion orchestra
Score
Item no.: 446533
for: FCH FL ORG (+ KB)
Score
Item no.: 367053
for: KLAR BASS-KLAR KLAV
Score
Item no.: 362071
for: Flexible ensemble
Score
Item no.: 380046
for: ORCH TAPE
Score
Item no.: 380045
for: Violin
Item no.: 630738
for: Harp
Music score
Item no.: 1589990
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Buch
Item no.: 1589977
for: Orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1589975
for: Orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1589959
for: Mixed ensemble
Buch
Item no.: 1589944
for: Violin, piano
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 240932
for: Harpsichord and String Orchestra
Score
Item no.: 239491
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 239371
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 239369