Expressionism

Експресіонізм

Audio: Expressionism

Expressionism (1900–1930s) is the music of extreme inner states — anxiety, terror, ecstasy. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern — the “Second Viennese School” — abandoned tonality as the basis of musical language.

Expressionism responded to the crisis of European civilization in the early 20th century, Freudian theory, and later the First World War. Composers sought a way to express the unconscious, the irrational, the terrifying — and found it in an atonal language without a center of gravity.

Key works: Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg (1912) — a cycle for voice and instruments using Sprechstimme (speech-song); Wozzeck by Alban Berg (1925) — the opera that helped establish the viability of large-scale atonal drama; the miniatures of Anton Webern (Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10) — concentrated “pearls” of sound, where every note is an event. The Ukrainian imprint of Expressionism is heard in the early works of Borys Lyatoshynsky (Second Symphony) and Valentyn Silvestrov.

Cultural Versus

Expressionism

Sub-category:: classical

41%similarity

Electronic Music

Sub-category:: electronic

Electronic music is the broad term for all music created by electronic instruments and computers. From 1950s experiments to the modern pop scene and club dance genres.