Of all the different periods of Western Art, the Twentieth Century (1900-persent) was the one that caught my attention the most. The fact that the music of this time period doesn’t fit a single description is what I personally find exciting. If you were to ask multiple people to describe the music from this era, you would most likely get different answers from each person because of how much musical variation there is. The textbook categorizes the entire era into different groups: Impressionism (which focused on using “innovative tonalities and instrumental textures” (pg 11)), expressionism (“movement that sought to explore the dark reaches of the unconscious mind”(pg 11), and minimalism (“the use of harmonic consonance, steady pulse, and the slow, hypnotic transformations of musical phrases”(pg 11). These different categories show that this era was one full of experimentation and breaking away from the expected.
Experimentation of different sounds, instrument combinations, tonalities, and speed was highlighted, resulting in unique music compared to earlier periods. For example, expressionism was the catalyst for composers exploring atonality instead of the usual major-minor scale system (pg 11). The major changes in musical compositions suited this time period well, given that many major changes were occurring in society, technology, medicine, etc, (i.e sending the first man to the moon, the development of the internet, and multiple wars.)
The composer I chose was George Gershwin (1898-1937), and the piece I listened to was “Rhapsody in Blue.” This musical piece sounds exactly what I read about in the textbook. Throughout the song, the music’s speed fluctuates from slow and calm to fast and intense. There are multiple instruments that help to create variations of sound (for example, there are moments where there are wind instruments playing softly along with the piano, and then the next moment there are brass instruments playing loudly and intensely. Overall, there isn’t one rhythm or tone in this piece, it instead incorporates a little bit of both extremes.
I also found the Twentieth Century to be a very interesting period. Since there were changes in technology, they were able to create a lot of new instruments to create different sounds like the theremin and the synthesizer. So I agree when you say that if you were to ask people about music from that era you would get different answers because there are so many different types of music being created that people have different taste in what they listen to.
I did not choose the Twentieth Century, but the way you described it was very interesting. I agree it is an era of experimentation, it is great that people are willing to get out of their comfort zone and try something new and different.