CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC

Contemporary classical music can be Understood as belonging to the period

thatstarted in the mid- 1970s with the

retreat ofmodernism. However, the term may

also beemployed in a broader sense to refer

to allpost-1945 modern musical forms.

Generally "contemporary classical music" amounts to:

The modern forms of art music• The post-1945 modern forms of post-

tonal music(including serial music, electroacoustic music, musique concrète, experimental music, atonal music, minimalist music, etc.)

• the post-1975 forms of this music(including post-modern music, Spectral music, post-minimalism, sound art, etc.)

Movements

Modernismrefers generally to the significant departures in

musical language that occurred at or around the beginning of the 20th century, creating new understandings of harmonic, melodic, sonic, and rhythmic aspects of music.

Computer musicis a term that was originally used within academia to

describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition. 

Polystylism (eclecticism)is the use of multiple styles or techniques in

literature, art, film, or, especially, music, and is a postmodern characteristic.

• New Simplicity

was a stylistic tendency amongst some of the younger generation of German composers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, reacting against not only the European avant garde of the 1950s and 1960s, but also against the broader tendency toward objectivity found from the beginning of the twentieth century.

• New Complexity

 is a term dating from the 1980s, principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material

• Post-minimalism

is a movement in painting and sculpture that began in the late 1960s.

Developments by medium

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers andmusicians perform a dramatic work

combiningtext (called a libretto) and musical score,

usually in a theatrical setting.

Chamber

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments

which traditionally could be accommodated in a

palace chamber.

ChoralChoral music refers to music which is sung by a choir. Each musical part is sung by two or morevoices.

Concert band

A concert is a live performance (typically of music) before an audience. The

performancemay be by a single musician, sometimes

then called a recital.