Famous 20th Century Composers

Can you name these well-known classical music composers who were active during the 20th century?

Some of these composers were active before or after the 20th century as well. I attempted to choose composers associated with compositional styles that are mainly associated with the 20th century.

Some significant composers who were active during the century who continued to compose in a Romantic or Post-Romantic idiom were excluded. This should not be taken as a slight to these composers, it just wasn't what I was going for in this quiz.

Nationality is based on the modern day country of birth.

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Last updated: June 19, 2024

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First submitted	June 19, 2024
Times taken	11
Average score	46.9%
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Nationality	Birth	Death	Notable Work	Answer
French	1862	1925	La mer	Claude Debussy
British	1872	1958	The Lark Ascending	Ralph Vaughan Williams
Austrian	1874	1951	Pierrot lunaire	Arnold Schoenberg
American	1874	1954	Three Places in New England	Charles Ives
French	1875	1937	Bolero	Maurice Ravel
Hungarian	1881	1945	Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta	Béla Bartók
Russian	1882	1971	The Rite of Spring	Igor Stravinsky
Austrian	1883	1945	Passacaglia, op. 1	Anton Webern
French	1883	1965	Ionisation	Edgard Varèse
Austrian	1885	1935	Wozzeck	Alban Berg
Brazilian	1887	1959	Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1-9	Heitor Villa-Lobos
Russian	1891	1953	Peter and the Wolf	Sergei Prokofiev
American	1900	1990	Appalachian Spring	Aaron Copland
Spanish	1901	1999	Concierto de Aranjuez	Joaquin Rodrigo
Armenian	1903	1978	Gayane	Aram Khachaturian
Russian	1906	1975	Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District	Dmitri Shostakovich
French	1908	1992	Quartet for the End of Time	Olivier Messiaen
American	1910	1981	Adagio for Strings	Samuel Barber
American	1912	1992	Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano	John Cage
British	1913	1976	Peter Grimes	Benjamin Britten
Polish	1913	1994	Musique funebre	Witold Lutosławski
American	1918	1990	West Side Story	Leonard Bernstein
Greek	1922	2001	Metastaseis	Iannis Xenakis
Hungarian	1923	2006	Le Grand Macabre	György Ligeti
French	1925	2016	Le Marteau sans maitre	Pierre Boulez
German	1928	2007	Licht	Karlheinz Stockhausen
Japanese	1930	1996	From me flows what you call Time	Tōru Takemitsu
Russian/Tatar	1931		Offertorium for violin and orchestra	Sofia Gubaidulina
Polish	1933	2020	Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima	Krzysztof Penderecki
Russian	1934	1998	(K)ein Sommernachtstraum	Alfred Schnittke
Estonian	1935		Spiegel im Spiegel	Arvo Pärt
American	1936		Different Trains	Steve Reich

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