Top 25 Classical Works of the 1950s
In the 1950s, classical music was a genre in transition. Ever since World War I, composers had been pushing toward avant-garde experimentation. They pushed in that direction even farther following WWII, with young vanguards like Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Iannis Xenakis leading the way toward a serialist future.
However, several elder statesmen kept traditional classical forms alive, with landmark compositions throughout the decade by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten.
Although classical music in the 1950s had taken a backseat to pop, jazz and rock, there was no denying that the genre was still producing some of the most artful and advanced music of the decade — dictating future trends that the world would soon adopt.
And so, without further ado, here are the Top 25 Classical Works of the 1950s.
