“Late Modernism” in the Music of the Late 20th and Early 21st Century: Some Observations

Abstract

The main issue of the article is the analysis of different attitudes towards the possibility of stylistic periodization of musical art in the 20th and 21st century. While some authors see the development of music as a linear process fixed in such designations as “modernism —  postmodernism —  metamodernism”, the others offer non-linear interpretation as “modernism — postmodernism —  second (or late) modernism” (Mahnkopf). The key point of this polemic becomes the reflection of processes in the art “after postmodernism”. 
It is argued that many composers of the beginning of the 21st century (Rebecca Saunders, Harrison Birtwistle and others) turn to specific artistic ideas rooted in styles of the earlier period of modernism (expressionism).

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