Contemporary music (1945–2026)

Since 1945: serialism, electronic music, chance, minimalism… Art music explores every possible sound.

After the Second World War, a generation of composers wanted to start again from scratch. Around Boulez and Stockhausen, total serialism extended the idea of the row to every parameter: pitch, duration, dynamics, attack. Messiaen, their teacher, invented his own modes and rhythms and passionately notated birdsong.

Technology opened new worlds. In 1948 Pierre Schaeffer composed musique concrète at the radio from recorded noises; electronic music, and later the computer, made it possible to create sounds that exist in no instrument.

In the United States, John Cage gave a role to chance and silence; in 4′33″ (1952) the sounds of the room become the work. He also “prepared” the piano by slipping screws and rubber between the strings. In the 1960s minimalism (Riley, Reich, Glass) returned to a steady pulse and to the repetition of short, slowly changing patterns.

Today contemporary music is plural: some composers return to melody and tonality (Arvo Pärt), others mix with world music, electronics or film music. For pianists it offers new playgrounds: clusters, resonance, repetitive pieces, irregular metres.

What characterises it

  • Exploring timbre and noise as musical material
  • Electronics: tape, synthesizer, computer
  • Chance and open forms partly left to the performer
  • Minimalism: steady pulse, repeated patterns changing slowly
  • New playing techniques: prepared piano, playing inside the piano, clusters

Typical forms

  • Electroacoustic work
  • Minimalist piece
  • Open work
  • Contemporary opera
  • Piano étude

Instruments

  • Piano (including prepared)
  • Synthesizer and computer
  • Ensembles of soloists
  • Percussion

Composers

  • Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
  • John Cage (1912–1992)

Listen and play