Neoclassicism

What it means

Neoclassicism designates a direction in music after the First World War that draws on the forms and textures of earlier periods — on the suite, the concerto grosso, the fugue, on the clear periodicity and transparent writing of the eighteenth century. This drawing on the past is no mere imitation: the old models are filled with the means of the composer's own time, with expanded harmony, sharp rhythm, and often with ironic distance.

Musical use

The movement understands itself as a counter-design to late Romanticism with its large apparatus and its claim to expression. In its place come smaller scorings, clear part-writing, objectivity, and a priority of construction over personal confession. Characteristic is the tension between familiar form and foreign content: a gavotte whose harmony does not resolve, a fugue with displaced accents. The term brings together very different composers and is, like all period terms, a retrospective ordering; the boundaries to other directions of the same period are fluid.

Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, the Classical of 1917, is sometimes cited as a precursor. Stravinsky became the model of the trend, first with the ballet Pulcinella (1919/20) on themes he believed to be by Pergolesi – many, as later emerged, are by his contemporaries – then with works such as the Octet for winds and the Symphony of Psalms. In France, Milhaud, Poulenc, Honegger, and Tailleferre of the Groupe des Six took up Stravinsky’s impulses; Hindemith developed a heavily contrapuntal, chromatically inflected style.

Performance practice

Play the old forms with their own means: dance characters, articulation, and periodicity apply here too, otherwise the reference back loses its point. At the same time the deviations must be hit precisely — displaced accents and foreign harmonies work only if the frame is clear. Keep the sound lean and avoid Romantic fullness. Watch for rhythmic precision, since it is the load-bearing element in this music. Use rubato sparingly.

Since the designation often describes only part of a composer’s output, use it as an aid to ordering and check whether it holds for a particular work.

Check, with arrangements of older music, what comes from the model and what was added, because the appeal lies precisely in this difference.