The twentieth century presents the listener with a tremendous variety of musical styles. It includes some of the greatest works ever written—and some of the worst. Names such as Strauss, Rachmaninov and Barber appear alongside Schoenberg, Boulez and Cage, creating contrasts unprecedented in music history.

This course presents an overview of twentieth-century art music—the good and the bad—and also looks at some of the broader philosophic ideas that influenced composers during the last one hundred years. No technical or theoretical knowledge is presupposed, although a brief review of the basic elements of music will be made in the first lecture.

The course closes with an examination of promising trends in music toward “neo-Romanticism,” and the increased interest by some recent composers in writing music that is accessible to general audiences of classical concerts.