Chamber music

Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)	Anton Bruckner (1824- 1896)

It is sometimes difficult to draw a line between different styles of instrumental music in the 20th century. The types of composition and groupings of instruments are reflected in the many different styles of music. As a reaction to the vast orchestras of Bruckner and Mahler, composers often wrote on a much smaller scale simply for economic reasons: it was cheaper to employ a smaller group of musicians. As a result, not only do we have chamber music but chamber orchestras as well which performed 20th century music and the music of the Baroque and Classical periods with the size of orchestra that would have performed these works at that time in history.

String music

(left) Bela Bartok 1881 - 1945

String music continued to be written in all the different styles of the century. Listen to this example from ‘Verklärte Nacht’, ‘Transfigured Night’, by Arnold Schoenberg, a piece of programme music based on a romantic poem and the last piece of romantic music he wrote before turning in the new direction of serialism. This work was originally written for a string sextet but is performed in this excerpt, as this work often is, in the composer’s version for a string chamber orchestra. Listen to this rich and intense sound which led to Schoenberg rethinking his entire outlook on music.

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. The string quartet remained a popular form but the sound was often far removed from the beautiful romantic melodies of the 19th century. Listen to this excerpt from Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1 and notice the dissonant harmonies over the repeated notes, the wide leaps of unusual intervals in the melody and the absence of a ‘key’.

Stravinsky wrote music in three different styles in his life. Listen to this rather dissonant movement built over a pedal and inverted pedal of slightly out of tune harmonics.

The impressionist composer Ravel wrote music of all kinds. Listen to an excerpt from his Piano Trio in A minor.

Wind music

The 20th century was noted for the increasing popularity of compositions for various combinations of wind instruments, the wind quintet being the most popular with a normal instrumentation of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn. Listen to this short movement by Jacques Ibert (1890–1962) and notice the five instruments which can be clearly heard as individuals in a movement which seems to combine interesting melody, dissonant harmony at times, jazz influence and many of the concepts that would be expected in this style of composition, sequence, repetition, rubato, contrasting dynamics, con sordino on the horn near the beginning, ornaments and many others.

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Now listen to an excerpt from a sextet for wind instruments and piano, basically a wind quintet with an added piano. This music is at times quite lyrical, rhythmic and dynamic with instruments often used at the extremes of their range. The instruments can be quite clearly heard as individuals and, as in the previous excerpt, a whole range of concepts is used.

The Piano

(left) Claude Debussy 1862 - 1918

By the 20th century the piano was a very sophisticated instrument and composers enjoyed the dynamic possibilities of the instrument. The impressionist composer Debussy used the instrument to great effect to produce music reflecting his use of the whole tone and pentatonic scales. Listen to this excerpt from his piano prelude, ‘Voiles’, in which the whole tone scale is clearly heard throughout the excerpt as the music is built over a pedal creating a rather mystical, dreamy effect.

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Many of his other preludes are very famous for their beauty. Listen to ‘The girl with the flaxen hair’ and the music will speak for itself.

Other composers were influenced in different ways. Listen to Stravinsky’s ‘Piano-Rag-Music’, and notice how the composer has used elements of Joplin rag in his music, syncopation and vamp being quite evident.

An example of piano music in the 12-tone style of Anton Webern can be heard and seen on Learning and Teaching Scotland’s DVD/CD ‘Music works’.

All that this page can do is give a brief overview of chamber music in the 20th century and it would be necessary, where practically possible, to participate in group music of whatever kind interests the student to expand on this knowledge and to experience the music live.