Chronology
of Modern Music, Art and World Events
by
Larry J Solomon, © 2002, 2004
notes about this chart
- 1827, Nicéphore Niépce, invention
of photography
- 1835, James Bowmann (Scotland), first electric
light
- 1837, Georg Büchner, Wozzeck
- 1841, Paris (France), first electric street lamps
at Le Quai Conti and La Place de la Concorde
- 1859, Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde (extended
tonality)
- 1860, Joseph Swan (England) patents first electric
light bulb
- Philipp Reis (Germany), first telephone publicly
demonstrated
- 1865, George Mendel, Laws of genetics
- James C Maxwell (Scotland) first describes
radio waves
- 1866, Mahon Loomis (USA) makes first radio (telegraphic)
transmission
- 1872, Mahon Loomis patents first wireless transmitter
- 1874, Modest Mussorgsky,Boris Goudonov, Pictures
at an Exhibition
- 1877,Thomas Edison (America), first phonograph
recording
Claude Monet, Gare Saint-Lazare (early impressionism)
- 1881, Franz Liszt, Nuages gris (suspended
tonality)
- 1883, Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra
- 1883, Erik Satie, Vexations (proto-minimalism,
18.6 hours of repetition of a short passage of mostly diminished chords)
- 1884, Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the
Grande Jatte, pointillism
- 1886, Charles Ives, first tone clusters, used as
percussion to accompany father's band
- Augustin Le Prince (France), patents first
motion picture camera
- 1885, Benz (Germany), first automobile
- 1887, Satie, Sarabandes (unresolved consecutive
ninth and seventh chords, modal)
- 1888, Nikola Tesla AC dynamo makes long-distance
electric power possible
- Satie, Gymnopedies (parallel fifths and
sevenths, modal)
- Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers
- 1889, Paris World Exposition opens
- Van Gogh, Starry Night, Landscape with Cypress,
proto-expressionism
- 1890, Satie, 6 Gnossienne, unmeasured
music
- 1891, Satie, Le Fils des Etoiles, first
use of atonality, planed, complex quartal chords and polychords
- 1892, Telephone service from NYC to Chicago
- Henry Ford's first car
- Claude Debussy, Prélude à après-midi
d'un Faune (impressionism, parallel planing of fifths and sevenths)
- 1893, Oscar Wilde, Salome
- Edward Munch, The Scream (early expressionism)
- Peter Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6; one
of last Romantic symphonies)
- 1895, Roentgen, x-rays discovered
- Lumiere, first public movie show
- Sigmund Freud, Studies in Hysteria
- Niagara Falls first commercial electric power
- Richard Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
- 1896, Marconi, first wireless transmission
- Ives, Greek Fugue in Four Keys [earliest
polytonality]
- 1898, H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
- Rimsky-Korsakov, Sadko
- Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben
- 1899, Boer War
- Maurice Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte
- Arnold Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht [extended
tonality]
- Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag (Ragtime
Jazz)
- 1900, Paris Exposition of world cultures affects
artists and composers
- Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
- Max Planck develops quantum theory
- Zeppelin, first dirigible
- 1901, Ravel, Jeux d'eau (use of parallel
fifths, seconds, sevenths, and ninths, "Petrushka" chord)
- Schoenberg, Gurrelieder (1901-13) [extended
tonality]
- Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2
- 1902, Ives, Country Band March (earliest polyrhythms
and polymeters; polytonal)
- 1903, Wright brothers first successful airplane
flight
- 1904, Russo-Japanese war
- Madame Curie discovers radium
- Giacomo Puccini, Madame Butterfly [late
romantic]
- 1905, Albert Einstein, Special Relativity Theory
- Carl Jung, Psychology of Dementia
- Henri Matisse and Les Fauves Paris exhibition
- Ives, Three Page Sonata (first pantonal music;
first mixed-interval non-tertian chords)
- Debussy, La Mer (impressionist sea)
- Ravel, Miroirs
- Strauss, Salome (extended tonality)
- 1906, Victrola gramophone; Caruso recorded
- Ives, Scherzo, Over the Pavements (earliest
notated tone clusters; first use of piano as percussion; polyrhythms, extensive
asymmetric meters, multimeters; )
- Ives, Central Park in the Dark (polytonality)
- Schoenberg,Chamber Symphony, op. 9 (expanded
tonality)
- De Forest triode makes radio possible; first
radio broadcast
- 1907, Paris cubist exhibition
- Boris Rosing (Russia), first primitive television
broadcast
- Ives, Studies and "Take Offs" for piano
(complex pantonal counterpoint and harmony, polyrhythms)
- Scriabin, Poem of Ecstacy
- Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
- 1908, Ives, Songs (1904-21) (eclecticism,
ametrical pantonality [The Cage, 1906])
- Schoenberg, Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11
(first European pantonal music)
- Ravel, Rhapsodie Espagnole
- Rilke, New Poems
- 1909, DNA and RNA discovered
- First plastic, bakelite
- Schoenberg, Five Pieces for Orchestra,
Op 16 (Premonition, Colors, etc.) (first klangfarbenmelodie)
- Filipo Tommaso Marinetti's first Futurist manifesto
- Emil Nolde, Wildly Dancing Children; (expressionism)
- Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House
- 1910, Discovery of electron and proton
- China abolishes slavery
- Ives, Symphony No. 4 (first use of an
electronic instrument "Ether Organ"; first use of quarter tones)
- Ravel, Daphnis et Chloè (modal
ballet)
- Bartok, Allegro Barbaro (piano as percussion)
- Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka, ballet (polychords)
- Anton Webern, Six Pieces for Orchestra,
Op. 6 [pantonal]
- Debussy, Preludes, Book 1 (parallel fifths,
octaves, sevenths, and ninths)
- Wassily Kandinsky, first abstract paintings
- Emil Nolde, Dancing Around the Golden Calf
(expressionism)
- 1911, Ernst Rutherford, nuclear model of atom
- Charles Ives, Three Places in New England
(1903-1914)
- Bela Bartok, Bluebeard's Castle, opera
- Alexander Scriabin, Prometheus/Poem of Fire
(music and colored light, complex non-tertian chords)
- Schoenberg, Self Portraits
- Georgio de Chirico, La Nostalgia de l'infiniti
- Marc Chagall, I and the Village
- 1912, Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire (expressionist
pantonal melodrama)
- Ives, Concord Sonata (Sonata No. 2 for
piano) (large tone clusters)
- Henry Cowell, piano pieces (1912-25) (first exploration
of extended piano techniques)
- Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase
- Kandinsky, Improvisation
- Gino Severini, Self Portrait with Monocle
- 1913, Stravinsky, La Sacre du Printemps (polymeter,
polyrhythms, multimeter, orchestra as percussion)
- Ives, Chromotimelodtune (first 12-tone
row, serial composition)
- Scriabin, Sonata No. 9
- Satie, Descriptions automatiques
- Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
- Franz Marc, Fate of the Animals
- Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Visions
- New York City Armory show
- 1914, First World War breaks out, Panama canal
opened
- D.W. Griffith movie, Birth of a Nation
- Scriabin, Vers la Flamme, Op. 72, Preludes,
Op. 74 (octatonic scales, complex chords)
- Oscar Kokoshka, The Tempest (Bride of
the Wind)
- Paul Klee, The Creator
- 1915, Scriabin dies
- Bartok, Rumanian Folk Dances (modal folklorist)
- Ferdinand Morton, Jelly Roll Blues
- Ernst Kirchner, Self Portrait as a Soldier
- Duchamp, Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
Only
- W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
- Ku Klux Klan founded
- 1916, Einstein, General Theory of Relativity
- Dada begins in Zurich
- First IQ tests
- Giorgio de Chirico, The Disquieting Muse
- Georges Roualt, The Old King
- Henri Matisse, Piano Lesson
- 1917, Russian Bolshevik Revolution
- USA enters WWI
- Surrealism begins (Appolonaire)
- De Stil founded by Piet Mondrian
- Willem de Stiller, theory of expanding universe
(Big Bang)
- Stravinsky, Les Noces (modes, polymeter,
multimeter, circular motives, polymodality)
- George Grosz, Explosion
- Georges Roualt, Three Clowns
- 1918, Debussy dies
- Stravinsky, L'Histoire du Soldat
- Max Beckmann, The Night
- 1919, Treaty of Versailles, end of WWI
- George Grosz, To Oscar Panizza, Blood is the
Best Sauce
- Picasso, Pierrot & Harlequin
- 1920, First radio broadcasting station, KDKA Pittsburgh
- Theremin invents Aetherophone (later known as
simply the Theremin)
- Satie, Musique d'ameublement, Socrate
- Otto Dix, War Cripples, The Match Vendor
- 1921, Picasso, Three Musicians
- Piet Mondrian, Painting No. 1
- Grosz, Gray Day
- Charlie Chaplin, The Kid (movie)
- 1922, Fascist Revolution in Italy
- Schoenberg discovers serial composition
- Schoenberg, Suite, for piano, Op.
25 (12-tone series)
- James Joyce, Ulysses
- T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
- Rilke, The Duino Elegies
- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
- Grosz, Dusk
- Dix, Murder
- 1923, Hitler-Ludendorff Putcsh in Munich
- Vladimir Zworkin (Russia) patents cathode-ray
television transmission and (1924) receiving tubes
- Grosz, Hitler, The Savior
- Stravinsky, Octet
- Ives, Three Quarter Tone Pieces (microtones)
- Arthur Honegger, Pacific 231
- Paul Klee, At the Mountain of the Bull
- Max Beckmann, The Trapeze
- 1924, Stalin becomes dictator of Russia; Lenin
dead
- Franz Kafka, The Trial
- Schoenberg, Serenade (12-tone series)
- Giacomo Puccini, Turandot
- George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, jazz-classical
merger
- Juan Miro, Catalan Landscape
- 1925, Hitler, Mein Kampf
- George Antheil, Ballet Mechanique (first
percussion masterwork)
- Alban Berg, Wozzeck (expressionist pantonal
opera)
- Henry Cowell, The Banshee (extended piano)
- Dix, Three Whores on the Street
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- 1926, Schoenberg, Septet (Suite), Op. 29
- Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 1
- Bartok, Cantata Profana, Miraculous Mandarin,
Mikrokosmos (modes and polytonality)
- Grosz, Eclipse of the Sun, Pillars of Society
- Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
- First sound movies
- 1927, Grosz, Warning [warning against rising
Nazi menace and moral decay in Germany]
- Charles Lindbergh, first trans-Atlantic flight
- First television transmission
- Transatlantic telephone service
- Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum physics
- Duke Ellington, "Black and Tan Fantasy",
"Creole Love Song"
- Eugene O'Neill, Strange Interlude
- Rene Magritte, Man with Newspaper
- 1928, Alban Berg, Lulu (opera) (1928-34)
- Schoenberg, Variations for Orchestra,
Op. 31
- Webern, Symphony, Op. 21 (12-tone serial
symphony)
- Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch experiment with
electronically generated sounds
- Ravel, Bolero (etude in instrumental colors)
- Kurt Weill, Three Penny Opera
- Aldous Huxley, Point Counterpoint
- Kurt Stille (Germany) builds first magnetic
tape recorder
- 1929, New York stock market crashes, world-wide
depression
- Edwin Hubble discovers galaxies and red shift,
confirming expanding-universe theory
- Grosz, The Agitator (Hitler)
- Mies Van der Rohe, German Pavilion
- Kasimir Malevich, Black Square [extreme
abstraction]
- William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
- 1930, Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms
- Grant Wood, American Gothic
- Piet Mondrian, Fox Trot
- Cowell, New Musical Resources
- Aaron Copland, Piano Variations
- 1931, Japan invades Manchuria
- Edgard Varese, Ionization (percussion
masterwork)
- Eugene O'Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra
- Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory
- 1932, Franklin Roosevelt, president of USA
- Discovery of the neutron
- Bartok, String Quartet No. 4 (extended
string techniques)
- Schoenberg, Moses and Aron, opera
- Ravel, two piano concerti
- Dix, The War (series)
- Klee, Barbarian Captain
- 1933, Hitler declares himself Chancellor of Germany
- Goering and Goebbels appointed
- First German concentration camps built, Jews
boycotted
- Schoenberg flees from Germany to USA
- Massive emigration of artists and scientists
to USA (1933-40)
- Modern art suppressed in Germany
- Paul Hindemith, Mathis der Maler, opera
- Juan Miro, Composition
- Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History
- Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- 1934, Hitler begins blood bath in Germany, meets
Mussolini
- Josef Stalin purges begin in Russia
- Japan renounces USA treaties
- Dix, The Triumph of Death
- Webern, Concerto, Op. 24 (highly concentrated
motivic serialism)
- 1935, Italy invades Ethiopia
- Hitler renounces Versailles treaty
- Berg, Violin Concerto, Berg dies
- George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess
- Dali, Giraffe on Fire
- Adolf Rickenbacher, first electric guitar
- 1936, German troops occupy Rhineland, build Siegfried
line
- Hitler & Mussolini proclaim Rome-Berlin Axis
- Spanish Civil War
- Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion, and
Celeste
- Webern, Variations for Piano, Op. 27 [nearly
total serialization]
- Frank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water House
- Dali, Premonition of Civil War
- Dix, Flanders
- 1937, Japan invades China
- Hitler's Degenerate Art & Music Exhibits,
Munich (included Jazz, Schoenberg, Debussy, Hindemith, Berg)
- Kokoschka, Self Portrait as a Degenerate Artist
- Picasso, Guernica
- John Cage, "The Future of Music, Credo"
(essay predicting the electronic future)
- Filipo Tommaso Marinetti, "Radiophonic
Theater" (futurist)
- Carlos Chavez, "Toward a New Music"
- Carl Orff, Carmina Burana
- Ravel and Gershwin die
- 1938, Hitler declares himself War Minister; pogroms
in Germany
- Germany seizes Austria and Czechoslovakia (Sudentenland)
- Italy invades Albania
- War economy begins in USA
- Bartok, Violin Concerto No. 2
- Juan Miro, Head of a Woman
- Discovery of nuclear fission; Bethe, Energy Production
in Stars
- 1939, Hitler invades Poland, WWII begins, USSR
invades Poland
- Einstein submits incorrect field theory
- Schoenberg, Kol Nidrei
- Bartok, Sixth String Quartet
- Cage, Imaginary Landscape No.1 (first
recorded electronic music used in a musical composition)
- Cage, First Construction in Metal (early
percussion masterwork)
- Dix, Lot and His Daughters
- Klee, Twittering Machine
- James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
- John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
- Aaron Copland, Billy the Kid
- 1940, Germany invades and seizes France, Norway,
and Denmark
- Battle of Britain; Churchill, prime minister
of Britain
- Stalin assassinates Trotsky in Mexico
- USA receives many artists, composers, and scientists
fleeing Europe, including Bartok and Hindemith
- Cage, Bacchanale (first prepared piano piece)
- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Charley Chaplin, The Great Dictator (Hitler)
- First commercial electron microscope
- Radar invented
- 1941, Germany invades Russia, Crete, North Africa
- Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, USA enters war
- Japan invades Phillipines
- John Cage and Lou Harrison, Double Music
(first collaborative musical composition)
- Shostakovich, Symphony No. 7 (about Nazi
invasion of Russia)
- 1942, United Nations formed
- Japan captures Singapore, Java, Rangoon
- Nazi death camps exterminate millions
- German troops reach Stalingrad where they are
repulsed
- Tide of war begins to turn
- Stravinsky, Symphony in 3 Movements (WWII
theme)
- Cage, Credo in US (first electronic/live
collage), Imaginary Landscapes Nos. 2-3 (percussion)
- Picasso, The Musicians
- Dix, Self Portrait as a Prisoner of War
- Enrico Fermi splits atom
- first electronic computer in USA
- 1943, Russian troops destroy German army near Stalingrad
- German army in retreat; Hitler orders "scorched
earth"
- Berlin bombed
- Allies defeat Mussolini; Italy declares war on
Germany
- Schoenberg, Ode to Napolean
- Cage, The Perilous Night, prepared piano
- Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie
- Chagall, Crucifixion
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
- 1944, D-Day, USA invades Normandy
- German V1 bombs London
- German army suffers devastating losses, in retreat
- Japanese retreat in Pacific
- Duchamp, Étant Donnés
(1944-66)
- Hindemith, Ludus Tonalis (studies in modern
counterpoint)
- Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra
- Copland, Applachian Spring (folklorism)
- 1945, Harry Truman, president of USA
- WWII ends; Germany surrenders; Hitler dead
- Mussolini killed by Italian partisans
- Atom bomb dropped on Japan; Japan surrenders
- Frank Lloyd Wright designs Guggenheim Museum
- Bartok, Piano Concerto No. 3
- Bartok and Webern die (Webern shot by an American
soldier for violation of a curfew)
- Hermann Hesse, The Bead Game
- 1946, Nuremberg trials end; German war criminals
executed
- Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion House
- Copland, Symphony No. 3
- Dylan Thomas, Deaths and Entrances
- 1947, Independence of India
- Transistor invented
- Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw (about
concentration camps)
- Milton Babbitt, Three Compositions for Piano
(first totally serialized music)
- Serge Prokofiev, War and Peace
- Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus (about Schoenberg)
- 1948, Mahatma Gandhi assassinated
- Walter Piston, Third Symphony
- Stravinsky, Mass
- Cage, Sonatas & Interludes, prepared
piano
- Pierre Schaeffer broadcasts a "Concert of
Noise" over French Radio, first music made on magnetic tape
- 1949, Samuel Barber, Knoxville, Summer of 1915
- George Orwell, 1984
- Chagall, Red Sun
- 1950, Cage, Lecture on Nothing (Zen)
- Hydrogen bomb
- Korean War
- China seizes Tibet
- First concert of musique concrète
at Ecole Normale de Musique
- Elliott Carter, Eight Etudes and a Fantasy
(woodwind quintet)
- 1951, NATO Alliance
- Schoenberg dies
- Cage, Lecture on Something
- Cage, Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12
radios
- Cage, Music of Changes (first systematic
use of chance)
- Feldman, Projections 1-2, Intersection 1
(first indeterminant scores)
- Robert Rauschenberg, White Paintings
- Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress, opera
- 1952, Cage, 4'33" ("silent"
piece, environmental)
- Cage, Imaginary Landscape No. 5 (January,
1952; first electronic tape music in America)
- Cage, Williams Mix (electronic tape collage)
- De Kooning, Woman
- Electric guitars mass produced
(Les Paul/Gibson)
- 1953, Churchill, History of the Second World
War
- Columbia/Princeton and Cologne electronic music
studios founded
- Karlheinz Stockhausen, Electronic Studie I,
Klavierstucke, Kontrapunkte
- Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics
- Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot
- 1954, Sen. Jos. MacCarthy communist witch-hunt
hearings
- USA Supreme Court outlaws school segregation
- Varese, Deserts (electronic + live instruments)
- Max Ernst, Lonely
- Nabokov, Lolita
- E.E. Cummings, Poems
- 1955, Pierre Boulez, Le Marteau sans maitre
- W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles
- 1956, Elvis Presley popular in USA
- Stockhausen, Gesang der Junglinge (electronic
+ voices)
- Bergman, The Seventh Seal (movie)
- Stravinsky, Canticum Sacrum
- 1957, Sputnik Earth satellite launched
- Little Rock, Arkansas race riots
- Babbitt, All Set for Jazz Ensemble (12-tone
serial jazz)
- Bernstein, West Side Story (Broadway musical)
- 1958, USA Race conflicts to desegregate schools
- Varese, Poem Electronique (for World Fair,
Philips Pavilion, in collaboration with architect, Le Corbusier)
- Cage, Fontana Mix (electronic tape), Variations
I
- Stravinsky, Threni
- 1959, First moon rockets
- Carl Orff, Oedipus der Tyann
- Miro, UNESCO murals
- Chagall, Le Champ de Mars
- 1960, John F Kennedy elected president of USA
- Vance Packard, The Waste Makers
- William Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third
Reich
- Cage, Cartridge Music (live, indeterminant
electronics)
- Boulez, Pli selon pli
- Gyorgy Ligeti, Atmospheres (tone mass)
- Iannis Xenakis, Orient-Occident (electronic)
- Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York (self-destructing
sculpture)
- 1961, Cage, Music for Carillon 4
- Luciano Berio, Visage (extended vocal
techniques and electronics)
- Pauline Oliveros, Sound Patterns (extended
vocal techniques)
- Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims
of Hiroshima (52 strings)
- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
- Claes Oldenburg, Store
- 1962, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
- Benjamin Britten, War Requiem
- Stravinsky, A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer
- Eero Saarinen, TWA building
- Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- 1963, USA president Kennedy assassinated
- Civil Rights marches led by M.L.King Jr.
- Vietnam war escalates
- Feldman, Christian Wolff in Cambridge (obscured
structure)
- Cage, Variations IV (electronic collage
for an art exhibit opening)
- 1964, Harry Partch, And on the Seventh Day Petals
Fell in Petaluma (new instruments and intonation)
- Stravinsky, Elegy for JFK
- Terry Riley, In C (first minimal music)
- La Monte Young, The Well-Tuned Piano
(just intuned piano, minimal)
- first Moog synthesizer
- 1965, Watts Race riots
- Autobiography of Malcolm X
- Cage, Rozart Mix (electronic collage)
- Gyorgy Ligeti, Requiem (tone mass micropolyphony)
- Steve Reich, Come Out (phase minimalism)
- Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination
of Marat Sade
- 1966, Harold Pinter, The Homecoming (theater)
- 1967 ,USA race riots and war protests
- Discovery of quasars
- Ligeti, Lontano, large orchestra
- Stockhausen, Hymnen (electronic collage)
- Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's
Club Band (influential recording)
- 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate
Robert Kennedy assassinated
- Massive anti-war protests in USA; Chicago democratic
convention riots
- USSR invades Czechoslovakia
- Feldman, False Relationships and the Extended
Ending
- Berio, Sinfonia (collage)
- Britten, The Prodigal Son
- 1969, Kent State Univ students protesting war killed
by police
- ARPAnet, first Internet precursor, esatblished
by US Department of Defense
- First men on the moon
- Cage & Lajaren Hiller, HPSCD (interactive
music)
- Feldman, Between Categories
- 1970, Feldman, The Viola in My Life I-II
- Alvin Toffler, Future Shock
- 1971, Indo-Pakistan war
- Stravinsky dies
- Feldman, Rothko Chapel (static blocks
of sound, analogues of Rothko's paintings)
- 1972, Nixon's Watergate
- 1974, Nixon resigns under threat of impeachment
- 1975, John Zorn, Archery (improvisational
composition, game theory)
- Philp Glass, Einstein on the Beach (redefines
"opera")
- 1976, Reich, Music for 18 Musicians
(complex minimalism)
- 1977, Feldman, Spring of Chosroes
- Arvo Part, Tabula Rasa, Fratres
- 1978, Feldman, Why Patterns? (breaking down
syntax)
- 1979, William Duckworth, Time Curve Preludes
(minimal piano)
- 1981, Feldman, Patterns in a Chromatic Field
(pantonal minimalism)
- 1982, Feldman, For John Cage, violin &
piano
- 1983, Philip Glass, Koyanisqatsi (minimal
music for movie about environment)
- Feldman, Crippled Symmetry (breaking with
syntax)
- 1985, Reich, Sextet
- 1986, USA-Soviet nuclear arms reduction
- 1987, Feldman dies
- 1988, John Adams, Nixon in China, opera
- Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective.
screenplay
- 1990, Berlin Wall falls; Germany reunites
- USSR crumbles
- John Cage, "number pieces"
- 1991, Internet World-Wide-Web becomes public
through CERN
- 1992, John Cage dies
- John Adams, Chamber Symphony No. 1
Notes
This chart is restricted to composers, writers,
painters, etc., i.e., the original creators of the art. It does not include
performers, conductors, improvisors, and generally those who did not notate
their music, with few exceptions. Inevitably, a personal filter is involved
in the selection. There is no claim for objectivity. Innovation is an important
consideration.
