Area of Study 4: Western Classical Tradition since 1910
What's covered
Key facts
Atonal music has no tonal centre or home key; Schoenberg's early atonal works (from around 1908) treat all twelve chromatic notes as equal.
Experimental 20th-century music explores atonality, dissonance and unusual timbres.
Minimalism uses repeated short patterns (cells) that change gradually over time.
Minimalist techniques include phasing, layering and additive rhythm.
Steve Reich and Philip Glass are leading minimalist composers.
AQA Area of Study 4 covers the Western Classical Tradition since 1910: modern art music, minimalism and experimental styles.
Serialism (twelve-tone technique), developed by Schoenberg in the 1920s, arranges all twelve chromatic pitches into a fixed order (a tone row) that generates the music.
Music technology (electronic and sampled sound) is central to much music since 1910.
Sample questions
A taste of the 13 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
Experimental 20th-century art music often explores?
- ✓Atonality, dissonance and unusual timbres
- •Only Classical-period minuets
- •Only major-key folk dance tunes
- •Only standard 12-bar blues forms
AQA's Area of Study 4 covers art music from which period?
- •Only medieval times
- •Only the 1800s
- •Only the Baroque era
- ✓Since 1910
Much music since 1910 makes central use of?
- ✓Music technology and electronic sound
- •Only a cappella voices
- •Only acoustic harpsichords
- •Only natural brass instruments
Minimalist music is built mainly from?
- •A single long melody never repeated
- •One sustained chord throughout
- •Random unrelated noises only
- ✓Short repeated patterns that change gradually
What is atonal music?
- •Music built strictly around one major key
- •Music that repeats one short pattern throughout
- •Music using only the notes of a folk scale
- ✓Music with no tonal centre or home key
Which technique is characteristic of minimalism?
- •A 12-bar blues only
- •A Baroque ground bass only
- •Classical sonata form only
- ✓Phasing and additive rhythm
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