Late/Post Romanticism

Introduction

The period immediately following High Romanticism is termed Late Romanticism, yet an important distinction must be made between the two different categories of musical thinking that occurred during this time:

Late Romantic works are those during this period that extended the language of Romanticism while still falling, for the most part, under the boundaries of Romanticism. Composers that wrote major Late Romantic works include Isaac Albéniz, Arnold Bax, Ernő Dohnányi, Manuel de Falla, Edward Elgar, Enrique Granados, Leoš Janáček, Fritz Kreisler, Nikolai Medtner, Moritz Moszkowski, Giacomo Puccini, Ottorino Respighi, Xaver Scharwenka, Francisco Tárrega, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, and the Boston Six (John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, and Horatio Parker).

Post-Romantic works are those during this period that are either veering away or abandoning Romanticism completely and driving the development of music towards new directions (e.g. Impressionism, Expressionism, Neoclassicism). While written during the time when music was still dominated by the Romantic pathos, these works cannot be considered stylistically Romantic. Composers that wrote major Post-Romantic works include Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek, Carl Nielsen, Sergei Prokofiev, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, the Second Viennese School (Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern) and Les Six (Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre).

There are also a number of composers who wrote major works in both categories, such as Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Alexander Scriabin.

Essentially, this division can be seen as the widening of the schism between the High Romantic progressives and conservatives. The progressives, in the line of Wagner and Liszt, believed that Romanticism as an expressive tool had become limited or outlived its potential. This schism, along with the developments in art/literature leading up to the turn of the century (including Parnassianism, Symbolism, Impressionism, Decadence, Surrealism, and Expressionism) led to a similar series of interrelated movements concerning the future of music. These included:

• Impressionism: With origins in the late works of Franz Liszt and the innovations of Richard Wagner,

Impressionism was among the leading movements in French music around the turn of the century. The composers who are most associated with impressionism (Debussy and Ravel) eschewed the term, yet it has remained an indelible descriptor of many works in their oeuvre. Impressionism is generally used to describe music where the primary purpose is conveying mood and atmosphere; it avoids a focus on formal thematic material and traditionally woven development. Harmonically, Impressionism is notable for lacking traditional resolutions of dissonance, instead establishing that dissonance was not a tool for tension but one of timbre. A focus on color, the use of “exotic” scales and modes (such as the pentatonic and whole-tone scale), and ambivalent tonality are all hallmarks of Impressionism. Other composers who wrote works associated with Impressionism include Lili Boulanger, Paul Dukas, Frederick Delius, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Alexander Scriabin. 

• Neoclassicism: Neoclassicism was the revival of musical ideas from pre-Romanticism such as the Baroque and Classical eras. Marked by a return to classical forms, a focus on absolute music, emotional restraint, balance, and economy of forces, Neoclassicism was a response to the excesses seen in High Romanticism. Composers who wrote works associated with Neoclassicism include George Enescu, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Germaine Tailleferre.

• Expressionism: Put simply, the movement of Expressionism ignored or distorted the realities of the natural world in order to express emotion or ideas. In music, this concerned the new methods of conveying expression outside of the traditional conceptions of beauty. At first deemed shocking and chaotic, Expressionism was perhaps the gateway to what we now consider to be “modern” music, as it changed the perception of what was acceptable and what kind of evocations could be considered art. Important Expressionist composers include Béla Bartók, Alban Berg, Ernst Krenek, Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern.

• Serialism: Serialism, a movement that developed under Expressionism, concerned the “emancipation of the dissonance” and the freedom from a tonal center. While serialism as a broad technique was being used by many of the most experimental Post-Romantic composers (e.g. Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Leo Ornstein), it was the Second Viennese School that introduced a formal system for writing within serialism. Known as the twelve-tone method (or alternatively, dodecaphonism), Arnold Schoenberg devised a method of composing using sets of twelve-note tone rows, employing all twelve notes of a chromatic scale with equal weight. 

• Microtonality: Microtonality is the compositional technique of using notes in between those that have been established by the twelve-tone equal temperament system. Microtonality in art music was pioneered not by a unified movement, but by relatively isolated composers working on their own experiments. Early proponents of microtality include Julián Carrillo, Charles Ives, and Ivan Wyschnegradsky.

Defining works of Late and Post-Romanticism

(as well as links to their recordings, because listening to a piece will explain it better than any description can)

Claude Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) 

...A unique miracle in all of music.

—Maurice Ravel

Debussy’s first orchestral masterpiece also definitively opened the door to Post-Romanticism. From its famous tonally ambivalent flute solo in the very first measures, the Prélude defied tradition and expectation. Its freedom of expression, amorphous form, radical orchestration, and unprecedented use of color led many to mark it the first major example of Impressionism in music, although Debussy himself disagreed with the use of the term. 

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Antonin Dvořák - Cello Concerto (1894)

If I had known that it was possible to compose such a concerto for the cello, I would have tried it myself! —Johannes Brahms

Still retaining many High Romantic elements in terms of style, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto still deserves mention as one of the finest works ever written for the instrument. Its technical brilliance, balance between solo instrument and orchestra, and addictive tunefulness (characteristic of his American phase, as he soaked up the melodies of African-American and Native American tradition) cemented it instantly as a favorite among cellists and audiences. 

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Gabriel Fauré - La bonne chanson (1894)

By this point in Fauré’s middle period, he had already made a number of major contributions to the French mélodie, including the cyclical song cycle Cinq mélodies “de Venise”. With La bonne chanson, Fauré pushed the mélodie into Post-Romanticism, using the same cyclical technique as well as new harmonies that were said to have disturbed Saint-Saëns.s

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Johannes Brahms - Clarinet Sonata No.1, No.2 (1894)

In 1890, Brahms had vowed to retire from composition. However, this vow was short-lived and the period from 1890 up to his death in 1897 saw the production of some of his most intimate and radical works. These include a number of Late Romantic works featuring the clarinet, an instrument he was inspired to write for after attending a festival in which clarinet works by von Weber and Mozart were performed. The last of these clarinet works are his two clarinet sonatas, one in F minor and Eb major, both of which represent cornerstones of the clarinet repertoire.

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Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.2 “Resurrection” (1894)

A symphony must be like the world, it must embrace everything. 

—Gustav Mahler

Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony was his first completed large-scale orchestral work (his First Symphony premiered in 1889 but saw major revisions and only achieved its final form in 1896). Vying in complexity and scope with the symphonies of Bruckner (his friend) and the dramas of Wagner (his idol), Mahler’s Second Symphony was a foundational point in the Post-Romantic development of the symphony. Unlike Bruckner’s symphonies, which were largely non-programmatic in nature, Mahler’s symphonies contain programmatic elements of which the meaning of are still hotly debated to this day. His Second Symphony in particular asks questions about death and life after death. 

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Giacomo Puccini - La bohème (1896)

Puccini’s first opera of his middle period also brought the opera into Late Romanticism and cemented Puccini’s reputation as Verdi’s worthy successor. Known for its verismo style (focusing on realism and humanity rather than great kings or mythology), this sweetly written opera centers around the “bohemian” lifestyle of a poor seamstress and her friends. It shies away from the grandness and complexity of Wagner, instead choosing to envelop a more universal style filled with memorable themes and balanced spectacle. 

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Anton Bruckner - Symphony No.9 (1896)

Like his successor Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner created worlds of sound in his massive symphonies and looked forwards towards a new age in music. His final unfinished masterpiece was also his most innovative and can be considered Post-Romantic; increasingly complex harmony, use of negative sound (silence), weakening of tonality, and waves of climax and decay are all pioneering traits of later developments. 

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Ernest Chausson - Poème (1896)

Chausson’s Poème is one of his best known works and one of the most highly-regarded Post-Romantic compositions for the violin. It was written for the brilliant violinist-composer Eugène Ysaÿe, who asked Chausson for a violin concerto; Chausson buckled at the undertaking, instead writing a single-movement violin work in the form of a fantasy. Rhapsodic, melancholic, and harmonically advanced (Chausson was an admirer of Wagner), this work has entered the repertoire as a uniquely French and phantasmagorically beautiful concertante work.

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Sergei Rachmaninov - Symphony No.1 (1896)

If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students were to compose a programme symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell.

—Cesar Cui 

Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.1 was both his first great masterpiece and also his first great failure. Hampered by a dispassionate and (allegedly) drunk Alexander Glazunov at the conductor’s helm, Rachmaninov’s First Symphony was disparaged by the conservative Russian critics for its “vagueness of form”, “broken rhythms”, lack of “strong” themes, and harmonic modernity—although in fact the work was relatively conservative compared to Debussy’s Prélude which premiered two years earlier. Such criticism, along with Glazunov’s disinterested interpretation, sent Rachmaninov into a deep depression of which he took four years to recover from. Sadly, he would not live to see its revival, a great success in which the symphony entered the concert repertoire as an important step towards the Late Romantic idiom.

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Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra (1896)

While Mahler pursued Wagner’s legacy in the form of giant worlds of sound, Richard Strauss chose the tone poem as his preferred medium. Post-Romantic in its chromaticism and orchestral effects, Also sprach Zarathustra is a work of incredible color and brightness that almost cheerily tackles the metaphysical questions asked in Nietzsche’s novel of the same name. 

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Paul Dukas - The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)

The descriptively programmatic tone poem based on a poem by Goethe has captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, especially after its use in the Disney film Fantasia (1940). Dukas used advanced harmonies, cleverly placed leitmotifs, and charming instrumentation (including the major use of the glockenspiel) to convey humor and an almost psychedelic experience.

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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Sadko (1897)

Sadko has its origins as a tone poem, telling the story of a merchant-musician’s travels. It evolved into one of the most celebrated operas of Russian Late Romanticism, displaying an evolution in Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical powers and aesthetic language. Superb orchestration with its color and folk idioms adds a fairytale enchantment over the entire work. 

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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (1898)

Much impressed by the lad's genius. He is a composer, not a music-maker. The music is fresh and original - he has melody and harmony in abundance, and his scoring is brilliant and full of colour - at times luscious, rich and sensual.

—Sir Arthur Sullivan

The English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of the first non-white composers to receive great international recognition. The cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, part of a trilogy of works known as The Song of Hiawatha, was one of the works that propelled Coleridge-Taylor to stardom. However, he was never properly compensated for it, and his family received no royalties for performance of the work after his death (a travesty which led to the creation of the Performing Right Society.

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Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande (1898)

The composer has in fact simply felt and expressed the human feelings and human sufferings in human terms, despite the outward appearance the characters present of living in a dream.

—Claude Debussy

Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande was a masterwork of Symbolist drama that inspired a number of composers during this period to write music concerning its plot. Amongst them were Fauré, Schoenberg, Sibelius—and Debussy, who wrote a full five act opera based on the play. With Pelléas, Debussy aimed to carve out a distinctly French soundscape which veered away from the influence of the Wagner school, which threatened to dominate the progression of new music at this time. The way the libretto is sung is modelled after French Baroque opera (e.g. Lully or Rameau) rather than the Germanic style of Wagner, and the orchestration is often shimmering and subtle rather than always being forward and assertive.

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Arnold Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht (1899)

While still containing the last vestiges of Late Romanticism, Schoenberg’s tone poem for String Sextet was an important precursor in the development of Expressionism. Schoenberg pushes the musical language established by Wagner, with long stretches of chromaticism and modulation beyond the home key of D minor. A particular source of controversy was the use of the inverted ninth chord, which was not yet documented and thus “did not exist” in the minds of Vienna Music Society. 

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Edward Elgar - Enigma Variations (1899)

Elgar sought to create a distinctly English musical idiom during the Victorian and Edwardian era after a long stretch of relatively few major English orchestral works. His early inspirations included Schumann and Brahms, and the Enigma Variations were the first of his works to bring Elgar international renown. Not unlike Schumann’s Carnaval, the Enigma Variations contained musical riddles, as well as a series of sketches that portrayed various figures in Elgar’s life. The work can be seen as England’s first major foray into Late Romanticism.

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Gustave Charpentier - Louise (1900)

Charpentier’s opera Louise was the first French example of naturalism in opera, with its very human subject matter shying away from the myths and gods of Wagner. The opposite of expressionism or surrealism, naturalism sought to portray the world as close to its reality as possible, focusing on elements of science, determinism, and objectivism. Charpentier called this work a “musical novel” because it focused more on its musical form rather than the contents of the plot.

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Jean Sibelius - Finlandia (1900)

In 1809, the Russian Empire annexed Finland. Like many other Finns, Jean Sibelius longed for independence from Russia. Written as a covert protest against the censorship of the Russian Empire and a symbol of Finnish independence, Sibelius’ tone poem Finlandia became a symbol of Finland and a powerful tool of nationalist sentiment. Many incorrectly assume that its iconic hymnlike theme was based on a Finnish folk or religious tune, but in fact it is wholly Sibelius’ creation.

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Maurice Ravel - Jeux d'eau (1901)

...The beginning of all of the pianistic innovations which have been noted in my work. 

—Maurice Ravel

From the beginning, Ravel loathed conformity. He helped found the radical artistic group Les Apaches in 1900, and set out to write music that would change the world. Building off the harmonic and textural innovations in Liszt’s Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este (1877), Ravel lays the groundwork of Impressionism in piano. Its use of tensionless dissonance, whole tone harmonies, and brilliant arpeggiations all became standard fare of Impressionistic writing. 

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Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.2 (1901)

You will begin to write your concerto…you will work with great facility…the concerto will be of an excellent quality.

—Nikolai Dahl, Rachmaninov's hypnotist. 

After the poor reception of his first Symphony sent him into a dark depression, Sergei Rachmaninov underwent hypnotic therapy to ease his mind and get rid of his writer’s block. The first product out of his four year hiatus was his second Piano Concerto, now perhaps the most popular piano concerto of Late Romanticism. Filled to the brim with a melancholic romanticism, memorable themes, and lush writing, the concerto brought Rachmaninov back from his artistic death and brought his reputation back to prominence. 

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Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.2 (1902)

There is something about this music—at least for us—that leads us to ecstasy; almost like a shaman with his magic drum.

—Sulho Ranta, Finnish composer

All seven of Sibelius’ symphonies are major works of Late-Romanticism (with the Fourth touching upon Post-Romanticism), but the individuality and “Finnish” language in his symphonic writing all began with his Second Symphony. In this work, Sibelius strives for the ideals of Beethoven; amply displayed in its twofold pastoral beauty and triumphant heroism (which Finns interpreted as a celebration of nationalism). 

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Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.5 (1902)

...You forget that time has passed. A great performance of the Fifth is a transforming experience. The fantastic finale almost forces you to hold your breath.

—Herbert von Karajan

This massive work was Mahler's attempt in fulfilling Beethoven's own legacy in his  Fifth Symphony. It opens with the same stark rhythm as Beethoven's Fifth, which similarly becomes a recurring motif throughout the work. Each movement is its own soundscape and world, from the grim funeral march in the first to the painfully tender Adagietto in the fourth.

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Max Reger - Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme (1903)

I consider him a genius. 

—Arnold Schoenberg

Max Reger believed himself next in the line of Bach, Schumann, and Brahms. However, his musical style takes on an extraordinarily dark, chromatic turn that none of his predecessors ever conceived of. While he wrote prolifically for a large variety of instruments (including a massive Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto), it was perhaps at the organ where his music made the most impact. His Op.73 Variations for the Organ are the perfect representation of Reger’s Post-Romantic style—inordinately dark, unrelentingly chromatic, gloomy and massive like a Gothic cathedral, and filled to the brim with counterpoint of the thickest variety. 

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Maurice Ravel - String Quartet (1903)

In the name of the gods of music, and in mine, do not change a single note of what you have written. 

—Claude Debussy

Like other classical forms (such as the Symphony and the Sonata), the string quartet underwent major transformations leading up to the 20th century. Ravel’s first and only string quartet was the culmination of many of these transformations. Ravel sticks to the traditional four-movement form of the string quartet, but introduces cyclical themes and advanced tonality. The nocturnal third movement stands out for its rhapsodic nature and defiance of traditional harmonies with its use of parallel fifths, and the finale was seen by Fauré as a failure due to its awkward 5/8 time signature and strange balance, but time has deemed this string quartet a landmark in Post-Romantic chamber music repertoire. 

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Alexander Scriabin - Sonata No.4 (1903)

In his early years, Scriabin’s compositions could be described as a late Romantic extension of Chopin. However, Alexander Scriabin’s visionary Post-Romantic began to develop with the composition of his fourth sonata, where tonal ambiguities met his newfound language of “mystic” tonalities. This brief work challenged the conception of the sonata, with only two short movements centered around a single theme, and ending with a Wagnerian climax of ecstasy. After his Fourth Sonata, Scriabin’s compositions only grew more harmonically advanced and tonally abstract. 

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Ferruccio Busoni - Piano Concerto (1904)

The great pianist Ferruccio Busoni considered himself the successor of figures such as Liszt and Brahms, and as such he set out to write his concertante masterpiece, a piano concerto of Wagnerian scale. Containing the culmination of all piano writing that came before it, Busoni’s gargantuan concerto was the most ambitious work ever proposed for the piano. It contains a grand opening, nationalist Italian elements, vast meditative stretches, and a reverent finale containing the first use of chorus in a concerto work. Receiving hostility at its premiere, the work is still rarely performed today due to its sheer size and monstrous difficulty.

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Claude Debussy - La Mer (1905)

Debussy’s three tone poems concerning the sea blurred formal lines with its symbolic orchestral language. It also had the essence of exoticism; the use of the pentatonic scale may have reflected the influence of the gamelan or perhaps Debussy’s exposure to Japonisme. While the work was not an initial success, its ever-shifting shapes and mysterious depths have cemented it as an Impressionistic masterpiece of Post-Romanticism. 

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Jean Sibelius - Violin Concerto (1905)

In the easier and looser concerto forms invented by Mendelssohn and Schumann I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius violin concerto. 

—Donald Tovey

Sibelius completed the first version of this concerto in 1904, but its extreme difficulties and short preparation time before the premiere led to a disaster. He would revamp the concerto the next year, easing some of the difficulties (although it was still considerably virtuosic) and it was in this configuration where it eventually roused international acclaim. Several critics noted its distinctly Nordic landscape; beautiful, yet also stark and cold in its Late Romantic language. 

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Richard Strauss - Salome (1905)

I was never revolutionary. The only revolutionary in our time was Strauss!

—Arnold Schoenberg. 

Strauss’ iconic Post-Romantic opera stunned its audiences with its heady chromaticism and sensual and sordid depiction of the Jewish princess who requested for John the Baptist to be decapitated. It became the source of a succès de scandale, being banned in many areas but also selling out the venues in which it was not banned. Among its harmonic innovations include the use of a massive bitonal chord for sickening dramatic effect during the scene where Salome kisses the bloody head of the man she had beheaded. 

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Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No.1 (1905)

I have conducted the most difficult scores of Wagner; I have written complicated music myself in scores of up to thirty staves and more; yet here is a score of not more than four staves, and I am unable to read them.

—Gustav Mahler

I owe very, very much to Mozart; and if one studies, for instance, the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart. And I am proud of it!

—Arnold Schoenberg

Schoenberg’s development of his radical Post-Romantic language saw an important stepping stone in his First String Quartet, which was the bridge between his tonal early efforts and his serialistic compositions. Of strange structure (a single 45 minute movement) and containing highly advanced, complex, and chromatic writing, this work demonstrated Schoenberg’s technical mastery as well as his willingness to break boundaries in the pursuit of Expressionism. 

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Charles Ives - Central Park in the Dark (1906)

Ives’ tone poem for chamber orchestra broke new ground from its very first chord. Polytonal, at times ambient, and made up of complex layers, many have described the work as the first example of sound collage. Although virtually unknown in the European music scene when it was first composed, Central Park in the Dark remains an important example of American Post-Romanticism and a big step towards modernism.

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Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly (1907)

Japan entered the world stage in 1858 when it was forced to open itself to foreign trade, and a period of preoccupation with the Japanese aesthetic (known as Japonisme) swept through Europe. Works like Sullivan’s Mikado (1885) and Sidney Jones’ The Geisha (1896) started a trend of Japonisme in opera. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly was perhaps the apotheosis of operatic Japonisme, with its music being carefully orchestrated and researched (even with a trip to Nagasaki) in order to stay authentic to Puccini’s verismo style of realism. The opera was not well received at its 1904 premiere, but subsequent revisions saw its final iteration (1907) see great international success.

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Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question (1908)

This music says it all, better than a thousand words…

—Leonard Bernstein

This highly experimental and programmatic tone poem queries its listeners about the “Perennial Question of Existence”. Subtitled “A Cosmic Landscape”, this was one of the most forward-thinking works of Post-Romanticism, utilizing an ethereal blend of tonality and atonality in order to replicate cosmic chaos and the eternal unknown. 

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Alexander Scriabin - Le Poème de l'extase (1908)

By this orchestral tone poem’s conception, Scriabin had already written 3 symphonies—this work was intended to be his fourth but he felt that its structure did not match that of a symphony. This is a work of incredible creative prowess, utilizing ever changing harmonic centers which reflect the influence of Wagner but also the various “mystic” tonalities that Scriabin invented. It is obsessive in its intensity, cosmically ethereal, and contains one of the most glorious climaxes in all of Post-Romanticism. 

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Arnold Schoenberg - Drei Klavierstücke (1909)

The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting. 

—Wassily Kandinsky

With these three miniatures for the piano, Schoenberg abandoned the last vestiges of tonal writing. Rather than having the sterility that was commonly associated with serialism, these pieces are highly lyrical in nature and contain many textural gestures reminiscent of the piano music of Brahms. They are quintessentially Expressionist in their ability to convey new emotions; one hears angst, melancholy, suspense, and a haunting beauty that seemingly cannot be conveyed within traditional tonality.

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Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.3 (1909) 

I wrote it for elephants.

—Vladimir Horowitz

Sergei Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 was the pinnacle of Late Romantic pianism. Containing a veritable flood of technical difficulties, Rachmaninov's Third Concerto is one of the standard works for aspiring virtuosos to display not only their physical prowess, but their ability to convey musicality and structural integrity throughout 45 minutes. 

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Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.9 (1909)

It expresses an extraordinary love of the earth, for Nature. The longing to live on it in peace, to enjoy it completely, to the very heart of one's being, before death comes, as irresistibly it does. 

—Alban Berg 

Mahler’s last (and some say greatest) symphony was the culmination of a legendary symphonic career. Programmatic as usual for a Mahler symphony, it is speculated that its themes include dying, predestination, and death, for his tragically daughter died in 1907 and Mahler himself was to die in 1911. Despite concocting an immense musical world in its 90 minute span, it ends on gradual pianississimos and a deafening silence—perhaps Mahler’s way of saying farewell. 

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Isaac Albéniz - Iberia (1909)

Iberia is the wonder for the piano; it is perhaps on the highest place among the more brilliant pieces for the king of instruments. 

—Olivier Messiaen

When Isaac Albéniz wrote Iberia, Spanish piano music did not have particular credence in European art music. With this ninety minute pianistic tour de force, Albéniz changed international perception of Spanish music and brought Spanish music into Impressionistic territory. It is comprised of four books (Cuaderno I, Cuaderno II, Cuaderno III, Cuaderno IV), each one containing evocations of the many attractions in Spain. 

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Ferruccio Busoni - Fantasia Contrappuntistica (1910)

This sprawling "contrapuntal fantasy" was Busoni's stamp on completing Bach's unfinished "Art of Fugue." The work brings Bach into the modern period, with massive piano textures and chromatic dissonances that Bach would never have dreamed of. It contains four fugues, including a triple fugue and a sprawling quadruple fugue, mostly based on subjects from The Art of Fugue.

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Alban Berg - Piano Sonata (1910)

This brief, one-movement piano work was Alban Berg’s auspicious debut. It is vaguely centered around the key of B minor, but reflects many of Schoenberg’s harmonic developments—developing variation, tonal instability, and the use of chromaticism as a tool of lyricism rather than dissonance. The work anticipates Berg’s future reputation as the most overtly Romantic of the Second Viennese School. 

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Ralph Vaughan-Williams - A Sea Symphony (1910)

Along with Elgar, Vaughan-Williams helped restore the state of English classical music to that of international renown. His first symphony, over an hour in length, was a work of massive ambition and considerable innovation. This symphony established Vaughan-Williams’ propensity for painting large-scale landscapes with orchestra, which would become his trademark style. While symphonies before his had made use of chorus (most prominently in Beethoven’s Ninth), Vaughan-Williams was the first composer to integrate the chorus with the orchestra from the beginning to the end, a configuration that would influence later symphonists such as Shostakovich. Vaughan-Williams also featured prominently the folk music of England, unlike his colleague Edward Elgar who developed his idiom from the German musical tradition.

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Sergei Rachmaninov - Preludes Op.23, Op.32 (1910)

Rachmaninov wished to continue the legacy of Chopin in Russian Late Romanticism. Writing his first set of preludes in 1903, his second set in 1910 completed the circle of 24 major and minor keys, the same cycle that Chopin had accomplished in 1839 and Bach in 1722. These works show the hand of a virtuoso pianist and a master of mood, texture, and emotional range.

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Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird (1910)

Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia! 

—Sergei Rachmaninov

This ballet (and later orchestral suite) pushed Igor Stravinsky onto the international stage with a veritable explosion. The Firebird was distinctly Russian, but also forward-looking in its use of chromaticism and harmony. Its brilliant orchestration and remarkable color made it clear that Igor Stravinsky was the foremost figure in the Russian Post-Romantic movement. 

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Edward Elgar - Violin Concerto (1910)

If you want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without hesitation Elgar. 

—Fritz Kreisler

Written for the great violinist Fritz Kreisler, Elgar’s Violin Concerto accompanies Sibelius’ Violin Concerto as one of the great Late Romantic concertos for the instrument. It is a concerto of massive scale and difficulty, and even for the oftimes sentimental Elgar, an exceptionally Romantic work in temperament. 

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Igor Stravinsky - Petrushka (1911)

My music is best understood by children and animals. 

—Igor Stravinsky 

After the success of The Firebird, Stravinsky’s ballet director Sergei Diaghilev approached him for a new work. The result was Petrushka, a distinctly Russian tale of three puppets. Stravinsky by this point was already known for his colorful and inventive orchestration, but he reaches even newer kaleidoscopic heights in Petrushka. The work is also noted for its use of pandiatonicism and bitonality.

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Enrique Granados - Goyescas (1911)

Following in Albéniz’s footsteps, the Spanish composer Enrique Granados wished to compose his own authoritative contribution to Spanish pianism. In writing this work, Granados was inspired by the folk music of Spain as well as the paintings of the legendary Francisco Goya. Goyescas is, at times, more sentimental and overtly Romantic than Iberia, but no less effective in its ability to create evocations of Spanish imagery. 

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Nikolai Medtner - Piano Sonata Op.25 No.2 “Night Wind” (1911)

Nikolai Medtner, along with figures such as Sergei Rachmaninov and Alexander Scriabin, did the most to contribute to Russian piano music. His Op.25 No.2 is a one movement sonata of massive size and remarkable ambition that is only matched by its spiritual predecessor, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. Containing over half an hour of almost unrelenting darkness and, at times, long stretches of violent fury, this work is one of the standout examples of Russian piano music under Late Romanticism. 

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Leoš Janáček - On an Overgrown Path (1911)

At first intended for the harmonium, this suite of fifteen works marked the first major large-scale piano work by a Czech composer. Smetana and Dvořák both wrote a number of piano pieces, but it was Janáček’s work which elevated the genre. On an Overgrown Path builds off of Czech folk music to create distant reminiscences of Janáček’s youth.

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Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé (1912): 

Daphnis et Chloé is, for practical purposes, a ballet, but Ravel gave it the label of symphonie chorégraphique to reflect its focus on the musical content and its musically ambitious nature. Indeed, Ravel wrote a work that called for unusually large forces for a ballet, including a massive percussion ensemble, two harps, a wind machine, and a wordless choir. This is an impressionistic work of incredible scope and craftsmanship, cementing Ravel as one of the greatest orchestrators of all time.

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Arnold Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire (1912)

Shoot him, shoot him! 

—Audience member at the premiere 

This song cycle, written for a vocalist and a small ensemble, is one of the most celebrated examples of Schoenberg’s work under free atonality. Provoking jeering and threats at its premiere, this Expressionist work contains notable use of the sprechstimme (“spoken voice”) vocal style that brings a certain frivolity and life to the poem’s text. 

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Manuel Ponce - 2 Canciones mexicanas (1912)

It gave me great joy to learn that in that distant part of my continent there was another artist who was arming himself with the resources of the folklore of his people in the struggle for the future musical independence of his country. 

—Heitor Villa-Lobos 

Mexican art music was a virtually unknown phenomenon until this set of original art songs gained international recognition. Manuel Ponce’s blend of his European-styled education and use of indigenous folk styles jump started the rise of musically independent Mexican classical works. The second of this set, Estrellita, is among the most famous works by a Mexican classical composer and has been adapted to countless instruments. Ponce would go on to write major indigenous Mexican works, including a violin concerto and a guitar concerto.

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Claude Debussy - Préludes (1913)

Debussy’s Préludes are almost superhuman in their sheer variety of moods, textures, and emotive possibilities. In this cycle of 24 miniatures, Debussy plucks out almost every pianistic effect possible, ranging from the vast stillness of La cathédrale engloutie (“The Sunken Cathedral”) to the eccentric humor of Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C. to the maniacal violence of Feux d'artifice (“Fireworks”). Unlike Bach, Chopin, and Rachmaninov, Debussy’s preludes do not revolve around the 24 major and minor keys. 

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Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (1913)

Everything available was tossed in our direction, but we continued to play on. 

—Pierre Monteux, premiere conductor 

What can be said about the impact of Rite of Spring that has not been said before? Igor Stravinsky’s seminal ballet hit the Parisian public like a missile, causing a riot and threatened to crumble Stravinsky’s reputation. Its experimental rhythms, percussive timbres, ambiguous tonality, pagan elements and radical choreography divided opinion and shocked conservatives. But time tempers palettes and loosens boundaries; by the following decades it had become one of the most popular classical works in the repertoire. 

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Claude Debussy - Syrinx (1913)

This miniature flute piece was the first significant solo work for flute since the Galant period. It depicts the flute of Pan during his pursuit of the water nymph Syrinx, who eventually turns herself into water reeds to avoid capture. Syrinx quickly became a standard work of the flute repertoire, as well as the repertoire of other woodwind instruments through transcription. 

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Sergei Rachmaninov - The Bells (1913)

Rachmaninov’s four-movement choral symphony was his favorite work of his own hand. Rachmaninov conceived the idea behind this work when he received an anonymous letter containing Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Bells translated into Russian. True to its inspirations, its Late Romantic language is filled with darkness and apocalyptic premonitions, including various transformations of Dies Irae. 

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Jean Sibelius - The Oceanides (1914)

In the years of 1913-1914, Sibelius stepped back from painting his Nordic landscapes in the pursuit of a tone poem concerning the ocean. Narratively, the music builds from placid waves to a brewing storm and finally, a furious tempest. While stylistically Late-Romantic, some critics believe that The Oceanides was Sibelius’ closest foray into Impressionism. Its gradually swelling beauty and its evocative portrayal of the sea’s vast expanse led it to become a musical phenomenon upon its premiere.

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Claude Debussy - Études (1915)

...A warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands. 

—Claude Debussy

Because previous sets of etudes were mainly concerned with Romantic piano technique, Debussy sought to bring the etude into the 20th century. This set of 12 studies concern a wide variety of techniques, including the study of thirds, fourths, sixths, octaves, and the highly impressionistic studies on “opposing sonorities” and “composite arpeggios”.

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Richard Strauss - Eine Alpensinfonie (1915)

One of Strauss’ greatest orchestral tone poems, “An Alpine Symphony” tells the story of ascending an Alpine mountain. Strauss intended the work to uphold Nietzsche’s philosophy of virtue and purification through man’s own strength rather than religious moralizing. This soaring fifty-minute work depicting man versus nature was the last major work of its type, with World War I largely ending the tone poem as a prominent genre. 

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Max Reger - Hebbel Requiem (1915)

This Requiem, set to a poem by Christian Friedrich Hebbel, was a memoriam to those who were killed in the early stages of World War I. Amongst the multitude of overgrown monstrosities that Reger wrote, the Hebbel Requiem is petite by comparison at only fifteen minutes in length. Its succinctness and gorgeous writing allow it to stand out as one of Reger’s best works and perhaps an early condemnation of the horrors of war. 

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Charles Ives - Piano Sonata No.2 “Concord” (1915)

Stand up and take your dissonance like a man. 

—Charles Ives

Inspired by the major figures of American Transcendentalism, Ives’ second Piano Sonata firmly brought the genre into the modern world. It is massive (over forty-five minutes) and remarkably experimental; much of the work lacks time signatures and is written in Ives’ unique language which blends serialism and a hymnlike tonality. The use of tone clusters, prosaic concept of rhythm, and early extended techniques (such as a 14 ¾ inch wooden board) , all redefined the possibilities of what a piano sonata could be, marking it as the 20th-century’s edition of the Hammerklavier (of which the Concord references numerous times). 

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Zoltán Kodály - Sonata for Solo Cello (1915）

...The most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit. 

—Béla Bartók

Zoltán Kodály’s seminal Sonata for Solo Cello is one of the most important Hungarian instrumental works and the most important work for solo cello since Bach’s Cello Suites (1723). Utilizing a unique Post-Romantic tonal language influenced by Hungarian folk music and the harmonic developments of Bartók, Kodály’s solo cello sonata soon became a staple of the virtuoso repertoire. 

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Heitor Villa-Lobos - Amazonas (1916)

Heitor Villa-Lobos was Brazil’s greatest composer and the first composer to bring Brazilian music to international recognition. Educated under European traditional counterpoint and harmony, Villa-Lobos’ early compositional years were defined by a struggle between his European mind and Brazilian spirit. His symphonic tone poem Amazonas marked an early beginning of his departure from European Romantic influence and his gravitation towards Brazilian folk material. While it still shows the influence of figures such as Stravinsky, the work displays many folk elements in its rhythm and melodic contours. 

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Karol Szymanowski  - Violin Concerto No.1 (1916)

Despite being a virtuoso pianist, one of Szymanowski's most significant contributions to music was his first Violin Concerto. The work is emblematic of Szymanowski's mature style, being tonally ambivalent, dissonant, yet also highly lyrical and richly orchestrated. Many consider this the first modern Violin Concerto, bringing the genre firmly into Post-Romanticism.

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Sergei Rachmaninov - Études-Tableaux (1917)

Although I love listening to it I avoid playing such music as it makes me feel completely naked emotionally. 

—Sviatoslav Richter

This collection of etudes, comprising a set of 8 (Op.33) and a set of 9 (Op.39), is the last great expression of the piano-study in Late-Romanticism. The addition of the word tableaux (pictures) suggests an evocative aspect, although Rachmaninov never disclosed what exactly inspired each work. These virtuosic works range widely in emotion, although the majority of them are written in minor keys and contain an element of darkness.

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Béla Bartók - Bluebeard’s Castle (1917)

Considered Bartók’s operatic masterpiece, Bluebeard’s Castle tells the story of a woman’s stay at the castle of a nobleman that is not all that it seems. Instead of traditional methods of conveying horror, Bartók approaches the story with a mixture of Symbolism and Expressionism. The result is a thoroughly Post-Romantic opera which brings an old story into a modern world. 

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Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony No.1 “Classical” (1917)

Sergei Prokofiev’s first symphony was perhaps the start of Neoclassicism as a major genre, although Prokofiev himself denied his connection to the movement. The influence of Haydn and Mozart is readily apparent from its first few measures, where its lightly orchestrated excitement instantly delineates itself from the excesses of Romanticism. 

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Sergei Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No.1 (1917)

Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto is a stylistic bridge between Romanticism and modernism, containing many Romantic and even Classic idioms (George Auric believed the work was "Mendelssohnian") while also displaying many of the dissonant and rhythmic tendencies that are central to Prokofiev's signature style. When premiered in 1923 in musically radical Paris, the work by this point seen as "too conservative", whereas perhaps five years earlier it would have became a cause célèbre.

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Maurice Ravel - Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917)

This work was written in the memory of several friends who had lost their lives in World War I. Rather than being sombre or tragic, this is a work of lightness and reflection, with Ravel stating that “the dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence”. Notably, Ravel departs from the Impressionistic style that he had established in Jeux d’eau and instead writes in a highly ornamented, contrapuntal style that can be associated with Neoclassicism. 

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Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No.4 (1917)

...intimately chamber in character, concealing riches which are not immediately obvious to the eye. 

—Sviatoslav Richter

Prokofiev’s greatest sonatas are defined by two world wars: 3 and 4 were completed during the Great War, while 6, 7, and 8 were famously written during World War II. Highly chromatic and somewhat Neoclassical in its approach to texture and counterpoint, this is one of Prokofiev’s most inward and austere works for the piano. It was dedicated to his friend Maximilian Schmidthof, who had committed suicide in 1913.

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Gustav Holst - The Planets (1918)

Like Vaughan-Williams, Gustav Holst was an English composer dedicated to the revival of English folk music. However, his most celebrated work centers more upon Holst’s inventive powers rather than the influence of folksong. Holst left an indelible mark upon music, particularly film music, through his distinct characterisation of planets and their supposed astrological attributes. Critical opinion was at first mixed, but soon many were in agreement of its innovation and sheer listenability.

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Igor Stravinsky - Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet (1918)

One can say that for European music the innovation of Stravinsky was revolutionary because again, Stravinsky and that whole group of European composers who introduced African tone into European music. 

—Maya Angelou 

This set of clarinet pieces was conceived as a thank you gift to the philanthropist Werner Reinhart who funded many of his projects. Despite being rather brief, it remains one of the most important works for solo clarinet, displaying Stravinsky’s eclectic Post-Romantic style ranging from Russian folk music to jazz. 

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Lili Boulanger - Pie Jesu (1918)

The immature death of the prodigious Lili Boulanger remains one of the greatest tragedies in music history. Months before her death, and suffering from tuberculosis, she dictated the notes of this vocal work to her sister Nadia (who would become one of the great pedagogues of the 20th century). Pie Jesu is a somber religious work of unusual instrumentation, being written for soprano, string quartet, harp, and organ. It is an excellent example of Boulanger’s unique harmonic sensibilities, which were influenced by Debussy and display the signs of a creative genius. 

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Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto (1919)

The iconic Late Romantic cello concerto was not a success on its premiere. Elgar had been given insufficient time to rehearse, and critics derided the work as being rambling and derivative. However, a recording made by Jacqueline du Pré in 1965 skyrocketed the work’s popularity. Its elegiac writing, influence of English folk themes, and introspective nature make it a fitting ending to Elgar’s career as a Late Romantic master.   

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Erwin Schulhoff - Symphonia Germanica (1919)

Erwin Schulhoff was educated in the Late Romantic style, but by the 1910s his music had taken a very different term. During this “Dadaist” phase, the random, the erotic, and the absurd were all molded into one in Schulhoff’s revolutionary works. Symphonia Germanica in particular satirized the nationalism that led to World War I, using drunkenly sung clips of anthems overlaying a soundscape of chaos. While Symphonia Germanica was never published nor publicly performed during his lifetime, it remains a striking example of the disillusioned post-war sentiment that led to the death of Romanticism.

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George Enescu - String Quartet No.1 (1920)

He will remain for me the absoluteness through which I judge others. 

—Yehudi Menuhin

Hailed as one of the greatest musicians of the early 20th century, George Enescu was, besides a violinist, also one of the greatest Romanian composers. His First String Quartet was a work of immense ambition, being harmonically and texturally complex and more than forty minutes in length. It displayed many of Enescu’s inventive processes in rhythm, structural, and motivic development, as well as the reflection of Romanian folk music. 

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Igor Stravinsky - Pulcinella (1920)

Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too.

—Igor Stravinsky

The music for this one-act ballet was adapted from various works by the Late Baroque composer Giovanni Pergolesi, as well as similar composers from the time period. It is a unique blend of Baroque music and Stravinsky’s personal touches that marked the start of Igor Stravinsky’s Neoclassical phase. 

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Maurice Ravel - La valse (1920)

It doesn't have anything to do with the present situation in Vienna, and it also doesn't have any symbolic meaning in that regard. 

—Maurice Ravel

The “choreographic poem for orchestra” La valse was Ravel’s waltz to end all waltzes. While Ravel himself did not attach any significant social meaning to the work, many commentators believe that La valse is an ironic deliberation on the old-fashioned form in a post-war society. Indeed, the waltz had gone out of fashion by the start of the Great War, and Ravel’s application of the form is kaleidoscopic and extreme—almost as if it was the death throes of a genre, or perhaps an entire cultural attitude. 

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Camille Saint-Saëns - Woodwind Sonatas (1921)

At the moment I am concentrating my last reserves on giving rarely considered instruments the chance to be heard. 

—Camille Saint-Saëns

This set of three sonatas—one for oboe, one for clarinet, and one for bassoon—was the last significant work by Saint-Saëns before his death. Reflecting their composer’s conservative High Romantic style, these sonatas do not display much of the musical developments of the 20th Century. However, their tunefulness, technical refinement, and elegance have placed them into the woodwind repertory.

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Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.3 (1921)

At times Neoclassical, and at others vigorously modern, Prokofiev’s Third Concerto is perhaps the greatest representation of his skill in writing for the piano. Containing a remarkable balance of refinement, wit, sarcasm, and lyricism, this work bridges the gap between Post-Romanticism and Modernism.

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Charles Ives - 114 Songs (1922)

There is a great Man living in this country — a composer. He has solved the problem of how to preserve one's self and to learn. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives. 

—Arnold Schoenberg

This incredible song cycle encapsulates the American experience during the early 20th century. Its extraordinary span of styles sees the African-American spiritual, American shape note, New England hymnal, European art song, and serialist experimentation combined under one roof. The final songs were finished in 1922 but it spans the on-and-off compositional efforts of over twenty years. 

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Carl Nielsen - Symphony No.5 (1922)

By 1922, Carl Nielsen had single handedly shaped the perception of Danish art music. His early efforts can be considered Late Romantic but as his style matured, it took on a highly original and increasingly modern tonal language. His highly-lauded Fifth Symphony was the culmination of many of those modern leanings, especially concerning structure—the work is fragmented rather than unified, highly unpredictable in character, and hybridized in form.

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Carl Nielsen - Wind Quintet (1922)

The wind quintet was a genre that saw fairly little movement during the Romantic era. Nielsen, despite being a violinist, saw particular affinity for wind instruments and produced one of the greatest Wind Quintets ever written. Nielsen attempted to portray the unique character of each instrument, as well as the individuality of the original player (this work was written for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet). Due to a dearth in the genre (and Nielsen’s excellent writing), the Wind Quintet was performed often during his lifetime. 

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Eugene Ysaÿe - Six Sonatas for solo violin (1923)

I have played everything from Bach to Debussy, for real art should be international. 

—Eugene Ysaÿe 

The great violinist Eugene Ysaÿe was inspired by Bach’s solo violin works to write his own sonatas for the violin. Ysaÿe intended for them to reflect the musical gestures, techniques, and tonal language of his age, just as Bach did for his own age. As a result, these sonatas contain a remarkable variety of Romantic and Post-Romantic idioms, techniques, and expressions, making them symbolic of the violin’s evolution over two centuries.

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Igor Stravinsky - Octet (1923)

This chamber work written for the unusual concoction of flute, Bb clarinet, A clarinet, C trumpet, A trumpet, tenor trombone, and bass trombone, is a brilliant example of Stravinsky’s inability to stay rooted in one style for too long. The very literal Neoclassical style he had established in Pulcinella was gone, replaced by a very modern and tonally advanced iteration of Neoclassicism that would go on to define the rest of his explorations in the genre.

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Alexander von Zemlinsky - Lyric Symphony (1923)

The one to whom I owe most of my knowledge of the technique and the problems of composing was Alexander von Zemlinsky. I have always thought and still believe that he was a great composer. 

—Arnold Schoenberg 

The highly influential German composer and pedagogue Alexander von Zemlinsky was a direct musical descendent of Bruckner and Mahler. While he was highly influential on the Second Viennese School, his own music never approached atonality, preferring a sensual and lyrical Late Romantic style. The Lyric Symphony (complete with soloists singing text of a poem by Rabindranath Tagore) is von Zemlinsky’s middle period masterpiece and inspired Alban Berg’s own Lyric Suite (1926). 

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Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.2 (1923)

The cats on the roof make better music!

—Angry reviewer

Prokofiev wrote the original version of this concerto in 1912, but the orchestral was destroyed in a fire. He rewrote the work in 1923 so thoroughly that, "it might as well have been Piano Concerto No.4". The result was one of the first truly modern piano concertos, a monstrous work that assaults its audience with almost catastrophic intensity; but also brilliant example of Prokofiev's ability to write for the piano. 

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Darius Milhaud - La création du monde (1923)

Fortunately, there are still lunatic asylums in France. 

—Camille Saint-Saëns on the works of Darius Milhaud 

This ballet in six movements is one of the best representations of the eclecticism embraced by Les Six. On a trip to New York, Darius Milhaud became fascinated by jazz harmonies and rhythms. In his Création, Milhaud takes jazz gestures and combines them with his personal style, writing for a jazz-influenced ensemble that included the piano and the alto saxophone. The work is significant for being an early proponent of a jazz craze that spread through France and eventually much of Europe, which was a major factor in ending the influence of Romanticism.

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Paul Hindemith - Das Marienleben (1923)

...The greatest of all song cycles.

—Glenn Gould

Hindemith’s tenderly Expressionist song cycle brought the German lieder firmly into the 20th century. Hindemith’s compositional style was in the same line of great German composers as Max Reger, but unlike Reger, Hindemith developed a distinct tonal language that focused on conciseness, economy of means, and the emphasis of structure over color or texture. 

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Arthur Honegger - Pacific 231 (1923)

I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.

—Arthur Honegger

Honegger's Pacific 231 is a symphonic movement that is meant to evoke the sounds and sensations of a steam engine, with the title referring to the locomotive type. This work is not the first musical depiction of a locomotive (that could be Alkan's Le chemin de fer) but it is one of the most significant. Despite its use of a variety of modern techniques, it was received warmly by audiences—a sign of the changing attitudes towards new music. 

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Henry Cowell - Aeolian Harp (1923)

Along with Charles Ives and Leo Ornstein, Henry Cowell was one of the preeminent "bad boys" of American experimentalism. His brief solo work Aeolian Harp was the first piece to be exclusively written for the strings inside the piano rather than the keys themselves. With these extended techniques, Henry Cowell (and Ives) expanded the piano's range of texture and timbre.

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Gabriel Fauré - String Quartet (1924)

Fauré composed this work when he was completely deaf and near death. Intensely elegiac, meditative, and somber, Fauré’s final work is a study in melancholic melody. Like many of Fauré’s later works, the String Quartet is harmonically explorative and highly original in its language. This work (and the death of Fauré) marked the end of French Romanticism which began with Hector Berlioz in 1830. 

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Giacomo Puccini - Turandot (1924)

Turandot was Puccini’s final masterpiece, left incomplete on his deathbed. Like Madama Butterfly before it, Turandot combined Asian exoticism with the gritty realism of the verismo style, to great effect. This work (and the death of Puccini) marked not only the end of Romantic opera but the end of a long tradition of Italian opera that began in 1607 with Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. 

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Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.7 (1924)

Sibelius’ last great masterpiece was also the last significant statement on the Romantic symphony and symphonic form in general. It is a radically structured work, with a single-minded purity and vision that is unprecedented among symphonists. Entirely organic in its continuous one-movement development, Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony accomplished one of the great ideals of Romanticism: complete and total unity. This work (and Sibelius’ relative silence afterwards) marked the end of the Romantic symphony.  

How and when it ended

Music historians agree that Romanticism as a cultural force fade away by 1918 with the brutal reality of the Great War (1914-1918). However, the last vestiges of major Romantic movements do not end until 1924 due to the following events: 

• The death of Puccini in 1924, leaving his last opera Turandot unfinished and ending the era of Romantic opera. 

• The completion of Sibelius’ last symphony in 1924, an apotheosis of Romanticism and the last great Romantic symphony, ending the era of the Romantic symphony. 

• The death of Gabriel Fauré in 1924, ending the era of French Romanticism.

• The debut of a multitude of radical works that can be labeled as the start of of a new musical era: 

  • George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (subtitled “An Experiment in Modern Music”), almost spontaneous in form and influenced more by jazz than by Romanticism. 

  • Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony, which fully embraced the chaos of modernity and can be considered the first truly modern symphony.

Other events around this time that signified the end of the old period and the start of a new period:

• The Art of Noises (1913): A manifesto written by Luigi Russolo concerning the evolution of music in the future; it argued that the Industrial Revolution accustomed the human ear to the noises of machines and the city, and therefore the sounds of music also had to evolve to match this. It is one of the most important texts concerning musical aesthetics and is considered the precursor to Dadaism and Modernism. 

• World War I (1914-1918): The horrific and “modern” nature of the Great War destroyed the optimism and, to some extent, the nationalism that had surrounded much of the Romantic period. Sentimentality and traditional forms of expression were no longer enough to convey the brutality and coldness of modern war. 

• The Waltz (the defining dance of Romanticism) went out of fashion with the introduction of the Foxtrot in the 1910s.

• A jazz-fueled craze swept America and Europe during the 1920s, unearthing Romanticism’s foothold as the primary artistic influence among composers.  

• The beginnings of the new generation of increasingly modern and experimental composers, including George Antheil, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Luigi Dallapiccola, George Gershwin, Paul Hindemith, Olivier Messiaen, Dmitri Shostakovich, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Edgard Varèse, William Walton, and Kurt Weill.

• By the 1920s, the public and media gradually became used to the experimental ideas that were so radical in the 1910s. A number of works that would have been scandalous in the 1910s no longer retain the same shock value or incomprehensibility, such as Arthur Honegger’s Pacific 231 (written in 1923 and premiered in 1924).

• The debut of Hindemith’s Das Marienleben in 1923, the first modern cycle of lieder. 

• The debut of Berg’s Wozzeck in 1925, marking the first truly modern opera. 

Other major works of this period

Antonín Dvořák - Humoresques (1894)

Alexander Scriabin - Études, Op.8 (1894)

Anton Arensky - Piano Trio No. 1 (1894)

Richard Strauss - Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1895)

Johannes Brahms - Vier ernste Gesänge (1896)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.1 "Titan" (1896)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.3 (1896)

Edward Macdowell - Woodland Sketches (1896)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Piano Concerto No. 5 "Egyptian" (1896)

Francisco Tárrega - Recuerdos de Alhambra (1896)

Alexander Scriabin - Piano Sonata No. 2 (1897)

Gabriel Fauré - Pelléas et Mélisande (1898)

Gabriel Fauré - Fantaisie (1898)

Moritz Moszkowski - Piano Concerto No.2 (1898)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Tsar's Bride (1899)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.1 (1899)

Amy Beach - Piano Concerto (1899)

Giacomo Puccini - Tosca (1899)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.4 (1900)

Edward Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius (1900)

Claude Debussy - Pour le piano (1901)

George Enescu - Romanian Rhapsody No.1 and No.2 (1901)

Richard Strauss - Symphonia Domestica (1901)

Alexander Scriabin - Symphony No.3 "Le Divin Poème" (1904)

Max Reger - Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Hiller (1904)

Max Reger - Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach (1904)

Gustav Mahler - Kindertotenlieder (1904)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.6 (1904)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.7 (1905)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.8 (1906)

Arnold Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No.1 (1906)

Carl Nielsen - String Quartet No. 4 (1906)

Josef Suk - Asrael Symphony (1906)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 3 (1907)

Alexander Scriabin - Sonata No.5 (1907)

Béla Bartók - Violin Concerto No.1 (1908)

Anton Webern - Passacaglia (1908)

Edward Elgar - Symphony No.1 (1908)

Claude Debussy - Children's Corner (1908)

Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde (1909)

Richard Strauss - Elektra (1909)

Arnold Schoenberg - Erwartung (1909)

Jean Sibelius - String Quartet "Voces intimae" (1909)

Anton Webern - Fünf Sätze für Streichquartett (1909)

Sergei Rachmaninov - Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (1910)

Ives - Symphony No.3 (1910)

Alexander Scriabin - Piano Sonata No.6, No.7 (1911)

Frank Bridge - The Sea (1911)

Arnold Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder (1911)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.4 (1911)

Alban Berg - Altenberg Lieder (1912)

Frederick Delius - On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912)

Ralph Vaughan-Williams - Symphony No.2 "London" (1913)

Ralph Vaughan-Williams - The Lark Ascending (1914)

Max Reger - Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914)

Leopold Godowsky - Studies on Chopin (1914)

Manuel de Falla - Noches en los Jardines de España (1915)

Sergei Prokofiev - Scythian Suite (1915)

Claude Debussy - Cello Sonata (1915)

Claude Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1915) 

Karol Szymanowski - Métopes (1915)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.5 (1915)

Nikolai Obukhov - Eternal Souvenir (1915)

Heitor Villa-Lobos - String Quartet No.3 "Quarteto de pipocas" (1916)

Claude Debussy - Violin Sonata (1916)

Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No.3 (1917)

Sergei Prokofiev - Visions fugitives (1917)

Lili Boulanger - Psalm 130 (1917)

Ivan Wyschnegradsky - Quatre fragments (1918)

Edward Elgar - Violin Sonata, String Quartet, Piano Quintet (1918)

Francis Poulenc - Mouvements perpétuels (1918)

Arnold Bax - Tintagel (1919)

Rebecca Clarke - Viola Sonata (1919)

Gabriel Fauré - Masques et Bergamasques (1919)

Carl Nielsen - Aladdin (1919)

Heitor Villa-Lobos - Symphony No.4 "A Vitória" (1919)

Joaquín Turina - Danzas fantásticas (1919)

Sergei Prokofiev - The Love for Three Oranges (1919)

Erich Korngold - Die tote Stadt (1920)

Max Bruch - Octet (1920)

Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies for Wind Instruments (1920)

Gabriel Fauré - Piano Quintet No. 2 (1921)

John Foulds - A World Requiem (1921)

Edgard Varèse - Amériques (1921)

Arthur Honegger - Le Roi David (1921)

Arthur Honegger - Danse de la chèvre (1921)

Nikolai Medtner - Forgotten Melodies Cycle I, Cycle II, Cycle III (1922)

William Walton - Façade (1922)

Jean Sibelius -Symphony No.6 (1923)

Leopold Godowsky - Java Suite (1924) 

Paul Hindemith - Sonata for Solo Violin (1924)

Aaron Copland - Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924)

William Grant Still - Darker America (1924)

Charles Ives - Three Quarter-Tone Pieces (1924)