Neoclassicism (music)

Musical Neoclassicism was a movement which swept European and American composers after the first world war. Disenchanted with Romanticism and perhaps suspecting its role in the senseless brutality of the war, composers returned to a craftsmanlike view of composition, emphasizing the Baroque value of counterpoint and the Classical values of proportion and emotional restraint. This does not imply, however, that the musical language became more conservative, and composers continued to write in dissonant and even atonal idoms.

Neoclassicism is perhaps best viewed as a zeitgeist that affected all living composers of the age, but some of the most typical examples of Neoclassicism can be found in Igor Stravinsky's work from the 1920s, and Paul Hindemith's work throughout his career.