Claude Debussy 1862-1918
The revolution in classical music in the beginning of the 20th century mirrored the violent political and economic revolutions that were taking place across Europe in the lead up to the WW1. It centred on two cities, Paris and Vienna and marked the end of the period of German romanticism of Wagner and Brahms. The traditional (tonal) harmonic system had been stretched to its limits and composers were looking for new forms of expression. The turning point came on December 22nd 1894 with the first performance of Debussy’s symphonic poem ‘
Prelude to the afternoon of a faun‘. Only ten minutes long, it broke every rule in the book and freed composers to experiment with more fluid structures. It did for classical music what the impressionists had done for painting, heralded by Turner. To download the track,
click here. To find out more about the piece
click here.
Gustav Mahler 1860-1911
The revolution that took place in Vienna, heralded by Mahler, was more violent. Schoenberg and his pupils Berg and Webern broke down the concept of key in the so called ‘atonal’ works. This idea was taken up by Boulez, Stockhausen and Messiaen. Vienna was melting pot of ideas and wider artistic and cultural developments in painting, architecture, literature and the work of Sigmund Freud were having a powerful influence. Later, other musical styles such as Jazz influenced composers such as Gershwin, Milhaud, Ravel and Stravinsky. The music represents a freeing from formality and authoritarianism, the exploration of a subconscious world where things are never cut and dried.
Over the years I have collected pictures of my favourite composers and, out of curiosity, arranged them in birthday order. I then wondered what other great figures shared their year of birth. You can see the result here.
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