postmodernism

In music, a style of composition in which the composer draws on the influence of a variety of musical periods and styles. The term is used specifically to describe the music of certain 20th-century composers. Igor Stravinsky was the first great postmodernist, working in neoclassical and serial styles, as well as a more traditional, yet progressive Russian style. Postmodernism began to blossom after the period of integral serialism in the 1950s, when composers reacted against the rigid restrictions imposed by that technique (of fixing the parameters of every compositional component: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, duration, and so on). Contemporary postmodernist composers include Peter Maxwell Davies, who writes in a wide range of styles, influenced by elements of music from the 16th-century masters right through to the modern techniques of the twelve-tone system.