The sound of late Baroque and early Classical is so clean, most folks are bored with it and can't even listen to it, let alone appreciate it and be edified by it.  That is how corrupted we have become over the 'beat' and 'design' of modern music today.

Play audio clip of Mozart clarinet concerto excerpt to 'remind' us of the clean sound!

During this time in America, we have John Philip Sousa or early jazz / ragtime piano.
Piano has been wonderful in America's homes.
Band's have peaked in America - music has flourished with hymns, etc. in common areas.
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) was busy writing her hymns, etc.

We are talking about Europe for all this Japheth music direction and growth & fall.

This modern stuff sure does show the defiled and seared mind of the modern lost person.
It is no wonder that the music of Ham was so welcome to some folks during these days.
And this stuff takes an "education to understand" as well as constant listening to in order to have it 'grow' on you, they say.  Yes, like a wart!

• A huge change comes about.
• The major minor system what worked for centuries past is being questioned.
• This music movement parallels painting as it begins to be hazy instead of the clear, descriptive paintings of the past.

• This is the start of breaking away of tradition - the major-minor scale system.
• Composers think that music has been used to its fullest possibilities, so they begin to investigate older, Medieval sounds and the sounds of other cultures.
• Many dramatic changes in the basis of harmony, melody and rhythm.

• The major-minor system is based on the pull to the tonic note. This was being rejected during Impressionism as too obvious.
• In this period, you rarely hear the resolution from dominant to tonic announced triumphantly at the end of the music. Instead they used more subtle harmony with more emphasis on dissonance as an essential part of their music instead of as a brief moment of tension.
• The whole tone scale, built entirely on whole tones, is prominent in Impressionist music.
• Parallel chords, such as parallel 5th and 8ths, were forbidden in Classical music but were used commonly during this period.
• Romantic music used full, lush tones to express emotions, whereas Impressionism depended on floating colors and blending tones.
• Impressionist rhythm do away with the regular beat of Classical rhythm, and instead used floating rhythms that has no regular beat.
• Small forms such as preludes and nocturnes prevail.

There were two important composers of this era: Debussy and Ravel.

Debussy (1862-1918) was born near Paris.
He studied at the Paris Conservatory when he was 11.

He always shocked his professors with unusual harmonies that defied the rules. His music was first attacked as lacking melody, form, and substance. But later its intensity and subtlety of nuance made it and Debussy famous. The beginning of war in 1914 drained him of all his enthusiasm in music, and he died 4 years later of cancer. He is celebrated as one of the more distinguished representatives of French music.

Debussy created his own style in writing for the piano. He used widely spaced chords in parallel movement, contrast of low and high registers, blending of sounds with the pedal, and clash of overtones. One can see the influence of non-Western elements in many of his works.

Ravel (1875-1937) was born in Ciboure, France.
He showed a lot of artistic talents in his youth. He entered the conservatory at the age of 14 and stayed for 16 years.

Ravel's music was criticized by audiences and critics at first, but eventually it attained acceptance and made him famous.

Near the end of his life, Ravel was plagued with a rare brain disease that slowly drained him away. He decided to undertake a dangerous operation in 1937 and died from it.

Like Debussy, Ravel was fascinated by the impressionist painter's images. He was attracted to foreign and Medieval music. Unlike Debussy, his rhythms are more incisive, with more sense of key, dissonant harmony, and broader melodies.

Can it get worse?  Yup!
(again, in their own words)

• The most obvious trend in Twentieth century music is the break away of tonality. It is rooted in the reaction against Romanticism, trying to capture the freedom associated with primitive life.
• Later twentieth-century composers turned towards internationalism, aleatoric music, experimentation, and technology as a source of their art.
• The music of the twentieth century is innovative, unusual, and increasingly unfamiliar to our ears. Many new elements appeared in the new music that are unthinkable by tradition.

• Rhythm, for example, went from the regular, symmetric rhythm of the past to the irregular rhythm patterns based on 5, 7, 11, or 13 beats to a bar that is constantly changing.
• Polyrhythm, or the use of more than one rhythmic pattern at the same time, came into being.

• Melody changed from the vocal tunes of the past to having wide leaps and odd intervals that have no relation to the voice.

• Harmony went from the triads (3 notes) and 4 note chords to the complex 6 or 7 notes of modern music, adding increasing tension that's never heard before
• The chromatic harmony of the last 19th century led to the use of all twelve tones around a center.

• Polytonality, or the use of two keys simultaneously, was used by such composers as Stravinsky.
• Atonality, the total break away from tonality, considers all twelve tones within a scale to be of equal value.
• This is most associated with the composer Schoenberg, who took it a step further to create Serialism, or arranging the twelve tones into a tone row that serves as the structural basis for the composition.

• Traditionally, consonance is considered as the element of rest and dissonance as the momentary tension.
• In twentieth-century music, however, dissonance becomes normal and can even be used as the final cadence as long as the chord before is more dissonant than the final chord. Listeners are taught to accept those new sounds as they never did before.

There are many composers of the twentieth-century that are worth mentioning: Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Prokofiev, Lutoslawski, Cage, etc. Many of them contributed significantly to piano music.

The style of twentieth-century piano music is diverse.

(Horrible advice)
The listener is encouraged to listen to many examples and become familiar with the different styles. Occasionally, pick up a "new age" composition, practice it and perform it, as a good way to expand your musical knowledge. Twentieth-century music is an acquired taste: you may not favour it the first time you hear it, but the more you listen to it, the more you will understand the subtleties of music that goes beyond melodies, simple harmonies, and regular rhythms.