6.4. The new avant-garde

As the 20th century advanced, important social and political changes took place, especially with the after the end of World War II. New and important technological and scientific developments brought a new vision of the world, also affected by World Wars I and II.

Composers found new ways to create music thanks to new technologies and devices. The whole concept of music broadened.

The development of media was another important factor that helped spread the new trends, allowing a faster influence between composers and creators.

We are going to see some of the most important avant-garde movements in music during the second half of the 20th century:

6.4.1. New music without performers

Stockhausen in 1994

The new technical developments made it possible to get by without performers. The use of tape recorders and other devices that recorded and reproduced sound brought new movements like:

• Musique concrète: connected with Futurism, used tape-recorded noises taken from reality. The work of the composer is finished and shown in a recording.  Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1955) is one of its main representatives.

• Electronic music: sounds are created and processed in a laboratory. Then they are recorded electronically. There is no need for performers or scores. The most representative composer was Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007).

• Electroacoustic music: is a mix of music concrète with electronic music (recorded sounds mixed with electronically generated sounds). The first work of electroacoustic music was Sounds of the Youths by Stockhausen.

Below you can watch a short video about musique concrete:

6.4.2. Music with performers

Of course, there were new avant-garde movements that counted on performers to play the music that was composed. Some of the most relevant were:

• Serialism (or Integral Serialism): based on the concept of series introduced by Dodecaphonism, but applying it to all parameters of sound besides the pitch of notes (dynamics, structure, timbre, duration...). Oliver Messiaen (1908-1922) and Pierre Boulez (1925) were the most important composers.

• Live electronics: electronic music (recorded in the lab) is combined with live music performed by musicians. An example of this trend is the composition by  Luciano Berio (1925-2003) Differences, for chamber ensemble and tape.

John Cage

• Aleatoric music: this music depends on chance and the freedom of the performer. Here the music is not finished; instead, it depends on the creativity and independence of the performer making each performance a unique piece. As tools to foster that creativity, aleatoric music uses alternative graphic notation or texts that invite to create or improvise. John Cage (1912-1992) was the main precursor of this kind of music with inventions like the prepared piano, in which the sound of the piano is modified by placing objects between its strings, creating unpredictable sounds. 

• Another important contribution of Cage was the use of silence as an essential element in his compositions, like in his piece 4'33 to which you can listen below:
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