Neue musik

Neue Musik (English: new music, French: musique nouvelle) is the collective term for a vast number of different currents of composed, Central European influenced music from about 1910 to the present. Its focus is on compositions of 20th century music. It is characterized in particular by – sometimes radical – extensions of the tonal, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic means and forms. New music embraces the search for new sounds, new forms or novel combinations of old styles, partly through the continuation of existing traditions, partly through deliberate break with tradition and appears either as progress or as renewal (neo- or post-styles). Roughly speaking, new music is divided into two periods: the first from about 1910 to the Second World War, often referred to as modern times, and the second, perceived as a "radical" reorientation after the Second World War – usually apostrophized as avant-garde, up to the present. The latter period is sometimes subdivided into the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with the last three decades not being further differentiated (the overall term postmodernism has not prevailed). In order to designate the music of the present in the narrower sense, the term contemporary music is used, without any fixed periodization being addressed. The term Neue Musik was coined by music journalist Paul Bekker in his 1919 lecture of the same title.