The following files all contain music. 

"Modernism in art, literature, and music flourished especially from around 1890 to 1918, the end of World War I. It was . . . a sharp reaction to late nineteenth-century culture, especially to the accepted rules of art within that culture . . ." (Kerman 289)

What caused such a reaction in the first few decades of the twentieth century? People in the nineteenth century were convinced that the progress in technology and science would lead to progress in human affairs. But the horrific weaponry created by technology and used in WW I (submarines, tanks, poison gas) caused many people to question the advances of science. "Groundwork for such loss in confidence had already been laid by science in other areas. Men and women were shaken in their most basic assumptions about life by puzzling advances in physics, biology, and psychology" (Kerman 290)

• Albert Einstein, theory of relativity: "The idea that things depend on the standpoint of the observer, and cannot be counted on according to the 'objective' rules of Newtonian physics, rocked people's sense of certainty" (Kerman 290).
• Charles Darwin, evolution: ". . . uncertainty simply deepened a crisis in religion that the Victorians had already experienced as a result of scientific theories of evolution. Were human beings created by God in God's image, as the Bible teaches, or were they descended by an impersonal process from animals?" (Kerman 290).
• Sigmund Freud, psychology : Freud's ideas "suggested that in spite of what people thought they were doing or feeling, they were in fact controlled by unconscious drives. [This idea contradicted the concept of free-will] The idea of men and women in the grip of irrational forces of their own (or their parents') making was a troubling one. At the same time, the prospect of working out one's 'problems' through psychology gave the new century its paradigm for personality change" (Kerman 290).

Debussy , Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Faune, 1894

Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, 1913

Prokofiev, Suite from the Love of Three Oranges, 1919

John Cage, c. 1950s

George Crumb, Dance Macabre, c. 1970s

Miles Davis, Boblicity

John Coltrane, Alabama

Works Cited

Kerman, Joseph. Listen. 3rd ed. New York: Worth , 1996.