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: Piano
Item no.: 282906
for: Mixed choir (SATB), organ
Organ score
Item no.: 162106
for: 4 saxophones (SATBar)
Score, Parts
Item no.: 306176
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Set of parts
Item no.: 303304
for: Voice, instruments
Score
Item no.: 778819
for: Guitar or Lute
Score
Item no.: 412835
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 1530516
for: Piano
Score
Item no.: 585265
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 1530599
for: Piccolo and Orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1548518
Choir score
Item no.: 1176737
for: Mixed choir (SATB), piano
Choir score
Item no.: 838338
for: Mixed choir (SATB), piano
Choir score
Item no.: 838081
Study score
Item no.: 1542749
for: Piano Quintet
Score
Item no.: 1548274
Item no.: 611116
for: Symphonic orchestra
Study score
Item no.: 476981
for: Cello, piano
Item no.: 365653
for: Bassoon
Item no.: 155178
for: Flute
Item no.: 145639
Choir score
Item no.: 1176330
Choir score
Item no.: 1175894
for: Viola, Klavier and Live-Elektronik
Study score
Item no.: 1542345
for: Klar u Baßklari. mit Glaskugeln, Blecheimern, Partitur
Buch
Item no.: 264902
for: Mixed choir (SATB), organ
Choir score
Item no.: 1171237
for: Accordion
Single part(n)
Item no.: 395325
for: Guitar
Item no.: 478971
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 839184
for: Voice, orchestra
Score
Item no.: 775770
for: 4 Guitars
Study score
Item no.: 1542706
for: Latin percussion
Music score
Item no.: 1542585
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1548437
for: Mixed ensemble
Score
Item no.: 774351
for: Chamber ensemble
Score, Parts
Item no.: 264868
Score
Item no.: 1542557
for: Symphonic orchestra
Study score
Item no.: 1542401
for: Mixed Choir a Cappella
Study score
Item no.: 1542334
for: Voice (soprano), orchestra
Score
Item no.: 778761
for: 6 Instruments
Score
Item no.: 583773
for: Accordion orchestra
Score
Item no.: 220439
for: 4 voices
Score
Item no.: 778270