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: 2 flutes (duet)
Music score
Item no.: 268202
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1031186
for: Accordion solo, orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1031068
for: Choir, orchestra
Score
Item no.: 778717
for: Voice, ensemble
Score
Item no.: 776720
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 1548529
for: Voice (soprano), instruments
Score
Item no.: 779201
for: Voice (soprano), orchestra
Score
Item no.: 778523
for: Voice [choir]
Score
Item no.: 778253
for: Voice, instruments
Score
Item no.: 776849
for: Voice (alto), 8 instruments (octet)
Score
Item no.: 776648
for: Chamber ensemble
Score
Item no.: 776337
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 613147
for: Cello
Score
Item no.: 264368
for: Percussion instruments
Score
Item no.: 264351
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 264349
for: Flute
Score
Item no.: 259788
for: Clarinet
Score
Item no.: 259746
for: Trio
Score
Item no.: 259623
for: Quintet
Score, Parts
Item no.: 259563
for: Vocal and Piano Reduction
Piano reduction
Item no.: 259342
for: Violin and Chamber Orchestra
Score
Item no.: 259258
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 259187
for: Symphonic orchestra
Set of parts
Item no.: 260370
for: Mixed Ensemble
Score
Item no.: 260013
for: Trio
Score, Parts
Item no.: 186408
for: Cello or 2 Celli and Piano
Score
Item no.: 139867
for: Chamber orchestra
Score
Item no.: 1548010
for: Flute, harp
Score
Item no.: 1317393
for: Soloists, mixed choir, orchestra
Piano reduction
Item no.: 779055
for: 4 voices, violin, cello
Score, Parts
Item no.: 778500
for: Voice (soprano), 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score, Parts
Item no.: 778470
for: 4 Instruments [Bassoon, Trumpet, Contrabass and Piano]
Score, Parts
Item no.: 647415
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Set of parts
Item no.: 1542407
for: Sprecher, Klavier
Buch
Item no.: 264888
for: Symphonic orchestra
Buch
Item no.: 264797
for: Sopran und 5 Instrumente, Studienpartitur
Study score
Item no.: 264743
for: Violin
Music score
Item no.: 264674
Score
Item no.: 1542779
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 1542578
for: Violin, viola, cello (string trio)
Buch
Item no.: 1542562
Study score
Item no.: 1542554
for: Mezzosopran und Ensemble, Partitur
Score
Item no.: 1542498
for: Accordion
Study score
Item no.: 1542496