This era reflected on late Romantic period ideas as well as provided different cultures and realism to music. Composer Giacomo Puccini composed the opera Madame Butterfly which provided a Japanese style to the piece. The Impressionist period was characterized by dissonance and provided ninth chords to music. Dubussy’s: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” is an Impressionist period symphonic poem that uses chords with lower thirds, and a loose A-B-A’ structure. More Impressionist period music includes spirituals like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and marches by John Phillip Sousa. The last era of music that contributes to the change of Western music is the Modern Era.
The Modern era takes place between 1900-present day. In the early modern era music had a new rhythmic complexity, melody and harmony. These changes include changing meters within a song or measure and polyrhythm patterns in music. Composer Arnold Schoenburg’s Pierrot lunaire consists of very fast sounds, with harsh dissonant harmonies. Another Modern
era composition is Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring which has a complex polyphony form and Russian folk-song melodies. This is the last period of Western music