Born in a small farm town in Germany in 1928, progressive composer Karlheinz Stockhausen found his greatest pleasure in listening to the radio with his mother and playing what he heard on the piano. He began piano lessons at the age of six. At eight, he was performing popular tunes for tips and food

20th-century music, Collage, Dense, Musique concrete

The harmonic foundations on which Western music had rested since the Renaissance got a strong shaking in the earthquake that was Romanticism. Dissonant notes were sounded -- and left unresolved. In time, the need for a tonal center was questioned, and by the turn of the century, atonal music had arri

20th-century music, Dissonant, Moody

The great Modernist composer Benjamin Britten was born in Suffolk in 1913. He studied privately with composer Frank Bridge and later went to school at the Royal College of Music in London. Although he picked up technique effortlessly and gleaned a great deal of knowledge by following the examples of

20th-century music, Eclectic, Epic, Monumental, Queer

Hungarian composer Bela Bartok's musical training began at the family piano, where his mother gave him lessons after realizing that the boy was a musical prodigy: he had perfect rhythm at the age of two, and could play dozens of folk tunes by heart at the age of four. As a young man, Bartok traveled

20th-century music, Anxiety, Bombast, Dissonant, Dramatic, Grand