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: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 832990
for: Chamber ensemble
Score
Item no.: 832718
for: Strings
Score, Parts
Item no.: 832690
for: Flute
Music score
Item no.: 832631
for: Baritone Voice, Strings and Harp
Score
Item no.: 832564
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 965069
for: Flute and String Quartet
Set of parts
Item no.: 964978
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 318824
for: Cello, piano
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 316000
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 836995
for: Cello, piano
Piano reduction
Item no.: 840647
for: Mixed Choir [SSATB] a Cappella
Choir score
Item no.: 840560
for: Opera
Lyrics
Item no.: 840467
for: Violin, Electronics
Choir score
Item no.: 839409
for: Voice (tenor), piano
Book
Item no.: 906808
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score
Item no.: 884826
for: Violin, piano
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 878269
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score, Parts
Item no.: 870417
for: Mixed choir (SATB) a cappella
Piano reduction
Item no.: 839358
for: Accordion solo, orchestra
Score
Item no.: 425881
for: Viola
Music score
Item no.: 861908
for: Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 1542082
Buch
Item no.: 389312
Score
Item no.: 264854
for: Cello
Music score
Item no.: 858173
for: Soloists, mixed choir, orchestra
Piano reduction
Item no.: 774717
for: Mixed choir a cappella
Score
Item no.: 774304
for: 6 Stimmen und 2 Instrumente
Study score
Item no.: 1542857
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 1542647
for: Flexible ensemble
Set of parts
Item no.: 268218
for: Blockflöte
Book
Item no.: 992789
for: Chamber ensemble
Score
Item no.: 992960
for: Flute
Music score
Item no.: 1103931
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 964177
for: Women's choir (SSAA) a cappella
Choir score
Item no.: 318797
for: Voice (soprano/mezzo-soprano), piano
Music score
Item no.: 1103969
for: Fanfare
Score
Item no.: 878327
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 838359
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Set of parts
Item no.: 837903
for: Chamber ensemble
Buch
Item no.: 836132
for: Flute [Trio-]
Set of parts
Item no.: 836126
for: Brass Ensemble, Brass Instruments, SATB
Score
Item no.: 836111
for: Blockflötenquartett
Score
Item no.: 836077