Neoclassicism (music) facts for kids

Igor Stravinsky, a very important composer from the 1900s.

Neoclassicism in music was a style of music popular in the 1900s, especially between World War I and World War II. Composers wanted to go back to the ideas of "classicism" in music. This meant focusing on things like order, balance, clear sounds, keeping things simple, and not showing too much emotion.

This style was a reaction against the very emotional and sometimes messy music of the late Romantic period. It was also a way to bring back order after many new and experimental music styles appeared in the early 1900s. Neoclassical music often used smaller groups of instruments. It focused a lot on rhythm and on contrapuntal textures, where different melodies play at the same time. It also used updated tonal harmony (music based on keys) and focused on absolute music (music for its own sake) instead of program music (music that tells a story).

Neoclassical music often got its ideas from music of the 1700s. But it also looked back to the Baroque period (1600s-1750s) and even earlier times. Because of this, music inspired by the Baroque period is sometimes called neo-Baroque music. Neoclassicism developed in two main ways: a French style, influenced by Erik Satie and seen in the work of Igor Stravinsky, and a German style, linked to Ferruccio Busoni and shown by Paul Hindemith. Neoclassicism was more of a general idea than an organized group. Many composers who weren't strictly "neoclassicists" still used parts of this style.

Early Neoclassical Ideas in Music

Even though neoclassicism was a 1900s movement, some composers in the 1800s started using similar ideas. For example, in pieces like Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite (1884) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades (1890), composers used older music styles to create a feeling of the past.

Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 (1917) is sometimes seen as an early example of neoclassicism. Prokofiev thought his piece was just a temporary idea. But Igor Stravinsky's neoclassical style became a main part of his music in the 1920s. Richard Strauss also added neoclassical parts to his music, especially in his orchestral suite Le bourgeois gentilhomme, which he worked on between 1911 and 1917.

Ottorino Respighi was another early composer to use neoclassical ideas. His Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 1, from 1917, looked back to Italian music from the 1500s and 1600s. Respighi was also a music historian. His friend, Gian Francesco Malipiero, also studied old music. Malipiero wanted to bring back an older way of composing that would free composers from strict forms like the sonata.

Important Neoclassical Composers and Their Music

Igor Stravinsky started using this style around 1919-1920 with his ballet Pulcinella. He used old tunes he thought were by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. It turned out many weren't by Pergolesi, but by other composers from that time. One expert, Edward T. Cone, said that Stravinsky mixed the old style with his own modern sound, completely changing the older music.

Other famous neoclassical works by Stravinsky include:

• The Octet for winds
• The "Dumbarton Oaks" Concerto
• The Symphony of Psalms
• The opera Oedipus Rex
• The ballets Apollo and Orpheus, which had a very "classical Greek" feel.

Stravinsky's neoclassical style reached its peak with his opera The Rake's Progress. His music greatly influenced French composers like Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, and Germaine Tailleferre. It also influenced Bohuslav Martinů, who brought back the Baroque concerto grosso form in his works.

The ballet Pulcinella inspired many similar works that rearranged old Baroque pieces. These include:

• Alfredo Casella's Scarlattiana (1927)
• Poulenc's Suite Française
• Ottorino Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances and Gli uccelli
• Richard Strauss's Dance Suite from Keyboard Pieces by François Couperin

Around 1926, Béla Bartók's music also started showing more neoclassical features. A year or two later, he praised Stravinsky for creating new music by using old elements. He also mentioned his friend Zoltán Kodály as another Hungarian composer who used neoclassicism.

German Neoclassicism

A German style of neoclassicism was developed by Paul Hindemith. He wrote chamber music, orchestral pieces, and operas. His music often had many different melodies playing at once and used a lot of chromatic notes (notes outside the main key). A great example is his opera Mathis der Maler.

Roman Vlad compared Stravinsky's "classicism," which was about the outside forms of his music, with Busoni's "classicality," which was more about the composer's inner feelings towards the music. Busoni wrote that "Young Classicalism" meant mastering and using all the good ideas from past experiments and putting them into strong and beautiful forms.

Neoclassicism Around the World

Neoclassicism became popular in Europe and America. The famous teacher Nadia Boulanger helped spread these ideas, based on her understanding of Stravinsky's music. Boulanger taught and influenced many important composers, including:

• Aaron Copland
• Darius Milhaud
• Francis Poulenc
• Walter Piston

In Spain, Manuel de Falla's neoclassical Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, and Cello (1926) was seen as part of a modern, international style. In this concerto, Falla used parts of a 1400s song. He also used pieces from 1600s music when he first started using neoclassicism in his puppet show El retablo de maese Pedro (1919–23). Later neoclassical works by Falla include the cantata Psyché (1924). Other important Spanish neoclassical composers were part of the Generación del 27 group, like Julián Bautista and Fernando Remacha.

In Italy, Alfredo Casella helped promote a neoclassical style. He had studied in Paris and brought modern composers like Stravinsky to Italy. His neoclassical pieces include Scarlattiana (1926), which used tunes from Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas. Casella's friend Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco also wrote neoclassical works that looked back to early Italian music. For example, his Concerto italiano (1924) for violin and orchestra used themes like those of Antonio Vivaldi. His Guitar Concerto No. 1 (1939) followed the style of Mozart's concertos.

In South America, neoclassicism was very important in Argentina. It was different from the European style because it didn't need to fix recent musical changes, as those changes hadn't really happened in Latin America. Argentine composers who used neoclassicism include Jacobo Ficher and Luis Gianneo. The famous Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera also moved from nationalistic music to neoclassical forms in the 1950s, like his Piano Sonata No. 1.

The well-known Bachianas Brasileiras by Heitor Villa-Lobos (written between 1930 and 1947) are like Baroque suites. They often start with a prelude and end with a fugue. They use neoclassical ideas like repeated musical patterns. However, Villa-Lobos didn't just copy Bach. He freely adapted Baroque harmony and counterpoint to create music in a Brazilian style. Later Brazilian composers like Radamés Gnattali and Camargo Guarnieri also used neoclassical traits in their music.

The Chilean composer Domingo Santa Cruz Wilson was so influenced by the German style of neoclassicism that people called him the "Chilean Hindemith." In Cuba, José Ardévol started a neoclassical school, though he later moved to a more modern national style.

Neoclassicism in Atonal Music

Even composers who wrote atonal music (music without a clear key), like Arnold Schoenberg, showed neoclassical influences. After his early emotional style and his atonal period, Schoenberg's works after 1920 started to be "openly neoclassical." He tried to combine his new ideas with the traditions of the 1700s and 1800s. Schoenberg wanted to give listeners familiar musical structures.

Schoenberg's student Alban Berg actually used neoclassicism before his teacher. In his opera Wozzeck, he used older forms like suites and rondos to organize each scene. Anton Webern also achieved a kind of neoclassical style by focusing intensely on small musical ideas (motifs).

Other Neoclassical Composers

Some of these composers wrote music in a neoclassical style for only part of their careers.

Images for kids

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  Igor Stravinsky, a very important composer from the 1900s.

See also

• Neoromanticism
• Neotonality