Fin de Siècle & Early Modernism
1900 – 1920 ADThe old order's last flowering and first fractures. Mahler stretched the symphony to its breaking point, Proust dissolved narrative into memory, and the Viennese avant-garde dismantled inherited forms. The Great War would sever the thread — but the works produced in these two decades remain among the most intense in the tradition.
Literature & Philosophy
Visual Arts & Architecture
Music & Performing Arts
1900–1920
MusicMahler1860 – 19119 symphonies, Das Lied von der ErdeMusicRichard Strauss1864 – 1949Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, tone poemsMusicDebussy1862 – 1918Pelléas et Mélisande, PréludeMusicPuccini1858 – 1924Tosca, La bohème, Madama ButterflyLiteratureProust1871 – 1922In Search of Lost TimeLiteratureThomas Mann1875 – 1955Buddenbrooks, Death in VeniceLiteratureRilke1875 – 1926Duino Elegies, Sonnets to OrpheusVisualKlimt1862 – 1918The Kiss, Vienna SecessionMusicStravinsky1882 – 1971The Rite of SpringLiteratureHenry James1843 – 1916Portrait of a Lady, The AmbassadorsVisualMatisse1869 – 1954Fauvism, The DanceMusicJean Sibelius1865 – 1957Finlandia, 7 symphonies — voice of FinlandMusicErik Satie1866 – 1925Gymnopedies — eccentric minimalistMusicSergei Rachmaninoff1873 – 1943Piano Concerto No. 2, VespersMusicArnold Schoenberg1874 – 1951Twelve-tone method — destroyed and rebuilt musicMusicMaurice Ravel1875 – 1937Bolero, Daphnis et Chloe — Swiss watchmakerMusicBela Bartok1881 – 1945Concerto for Orchestra, string quartetsMusicAnton Webern1883 – 1945Radical miniaturist — Second Viennese SchoolMusicAlban Berg1885 – 1935Wozzeck, Violin ConcertoMusicSergei Prokofiev1891 – 1953Romeo and Juliet, War and PeaceMusicFrancis Poulenc1899 – 1963Dialogues of the Carmelites — sacred and profaneMusicDmitri Shostakovich1906 – 197515 symphonies, 15 string quartetsMusicOlivier Messiaen1908 – 1992Quartet for the End of Time — birdsong mysticMusicBenjamin Britten1913 – 1976Peter Grimes, War RequiemLiteratureFranz Kafka1883 – 1924The Trial, The Metamorphosis — the KafkaesqueLiteratureW.B. Yeats1865 – 1939The Tower, Easter 1916 — Ireland's national poetLiteratureJoseph Conrad1857 – 1924Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, NostromoVisualEdvard Munch1863 – 1944The Scream — anxiety made visible