The Anti-Romantics

But there has also been a strong reaction against romanticism in the twentieth century.  Stravinsky (1882-) led the way.  A Russian, and a pupil and friend of Rimsky Korsakov, his first triumphs were in Paris, where he was invited by the great master of ballet, Diaghilev, to write music for his new kind of ballet, in which music, dancing and decor were equally important.  'The Fire Bird', 'Petrouchka' and 'The Rite of Spring' followed each other, each more original, more anti-romantic, more cacophonous than the last.  'The Rite of Spring', produced in 1913, caused uproar in the theatre; and even today its astringent harmonies and contrapuntal clashes, and its primitive, yet complex, rhythms repel many people.  But it placed him as the leader of a new style of music, and he had many imitators.

After this, Stravinsky began to write for smaller, though often unusual, combinations, and he adopted a severe, anti-emotional style: abstract, formal and impersonal ' He became a "neo-classicist", taking the abstractions of eighteenth-century music as his model.  This style, too, had its followers, composers who were going " back to Bach ", though it left the general public bewildered and hostile.  His 'Symphonies of Wind Instruments', his 'Concerto for Piano and Wind', and his 'Symphony of Psalms', which uses voices, but no violins, violas or clarinets, belongs to this period.

Stravinsky settled in America in 1940, and his work took on a new vitality.  He wrote two symphonies and Ms opera 'The Rake's Progress' dates from 1951.  But his music still continues to be controversial, and it arouses emotions in the hearer similar to those produced by Picasso in art.

The German, Hindemith (1895-) is another anti-romanticist and neo-classicist, who delights in line drawing rather than in harmony, and in letting the lines clash.  He, too, settled in America.  He is a violist, and his viola concerto is one of his best-known works.  But he has written concertos for a number of instruments, as well as an opera, several symphonies and much chamber music.  

The music. of the Frenchman, Honegger (1892-1955) is rather similar.  His concert opera 'King David', and his 'Pacific 231', an orchestral description of a steam engine, are two of his best-known works.  

Bartok (1881-1945) went through a neoclassical phase, and Prokofiev delighted in writing rhythmically exhilarating, unromantic music, until ordered by the Soviet authorities to write in a more popular, lyrical style.  In England Walton went through a similar phase in youth, but developed a warmer, more romantic style in later life.  Goossens (1893-) is another anti-romantic and neoclassical English composer.