MIT OpenCourseWare

Browse materialsMIT 21M.262 · Fall 2006

Modern Music: 1900-1960

Subjects: History · Music Theory

Art: G. Morazzoni, Scala3, 2013 · Public domain

Instructor: Prof. Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert
Term: Fall 2006
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 1 lecture note · 1 reading · 19 other files · 3 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

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Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 21M.262 Modern Music: 1900-1960, Fall 2006, Prof. Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert, 21M.262 Modern Music: 1900-1960, Fall 2006.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Fall 2006 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Modern Music: 1900-1960

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Assignments

Lecture Notes

Lecture 1: Introduction Antecedents and the State of Music, 1899. The “Long Nineteenth Century.” 1900-1960: The Big Questions.

Lecture 2: Stravinsky Throws Down the Gauntlet ( PDF )

Lecture 3: Bartok ( PDF )

Lecture 4: German Music between the Wars (And a Little Before and After…) ( PDF )

Lecture 5: The Second Viennese School: Tonality and Atonality ( PDF )

Lecture 6: The Second Viennese School: Twelve-Tone Tonality ( PDF )

Lecture 7: Neoclassicism and Stravinsky (ca. 1920-1952)

Lecture 8: Introduction; Antecedents

Lecture 9: Charles Ives

Lecture 10: Ruth Crawford Seeger and other American Modernists

Lecture 11: The “Art-Scientists”: Cowell, Antheil, Varese ( PDF )

Lecture 12: Still, Gershwin (And Bernstein)

Lecture 13: Aaron Copland (Guest Lecture)

Lecture 14: Virgil Thomson ( PDF )

Lecture 15: The Continued Tonal Tradition I: Britten and Barber ( PDF )

Lecture 16: The Continued Tonal Tradition II: Shostakovich ( PDF )

Lecture 17: Oliver Messiaen ( PDF )

Lecture 18: Total Serialism 1: Babbitt and Stockhausen ( PDF )

Lecture 19: Serialism 2: Nono and Stravinsky

Lecture 20: Boulez, Carter and the Legacy of Serial Aesthetic ( PDF )

Lecture 21: Electronic Music ( PDF )

Lecture 22: Cage and Aleatory ( PDF )

Lecture 23: Aleatory 2: Open Form, New York School and Fluxus ( PDF ) (Bring Instruments Today!)

Lecture 24: Nancarrow and Partch: Two American Originals ( PDF )