The idea of the avant-garde has been misinterpreted as the music of the atonalists and experimentalists. These styles of music actually became the standard of Western art music in the early twentieth century because of the support found in academia. The composers still writing in the tonal idiom and looking back to the past for support should be seen more as the avant-garde. These composers, such as Stravinsky, Copland, Prokofiev, Milhaud, and Bernstein were creating new music firmly founded in the tonal traditions of the 1700s and 1800s. The future of tonal music, although impossible to predict, may be rooted in assimilation and dissemination of non-Western music. Though composers like Chavez, Bartók, Villa-Lobos, and Messiaen have borrowed from non-Western music sources in their compositions, the total integration of other musical traditions has yet to be accomplished.

Works: Liebermann: Concerto for Jazzband and Orchestra (40); Stockhausen: Gruppen (41); Tippett: The Knot Garden (41); Stockhausen: Hymnen (41); Rochberg: String Quartet No. 3 (41); Bernstein: Mass (41); Berio: Sinfonia (41).

Sources: Mahler: Symphony No. 2, Resurrection (41).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Altizer