20th-century classical music
art movement
20th-century classical music is Western art music that was written between 1901 and 2000, inclusive. Musical style diverged during the 20th century as it never had previously, so this century was without a dominant style. Modernism, impressionism, and post-romanticism can all be traced to the decades before the turn of the 20th century, but can be included because they evolved beyond the musical boundaries of the 19th-century styles that were part of the earlier common practice period. Neoclassicism and expressionism came mostly after 1900. Minimalism started later in the century and can be seen as a change from the modern to postmodern era, although some date postmodernism from as early as about 1930. Aleatory, atonality, serialism, musique concrète, and electronic music were all developed during the century. Jazz and ethnic folk music became important influences on many composers during this century.
History
At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of post-Romantic symphonic writing. At the same time, the Impressionist movement, spearheaded by Claude Debussy, was being developed in France.
“20th-century classical music” enters the record as art movement. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what 20th-century, classical and music can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“20th-century classical music” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, 20th-century, classical and music provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1338153. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1901, 2000, 1900 and 1930.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “20th-century classical music” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.