Neoclassicism
Interwar music that borrowed Baroque and Classical forms — fugue, concerto grosso, dance suite — and re-tuned them with 20th-century harmonies.
What it sounds like
Neoclassical works keep tonal centers (major and minor are still legible) but strip away the orchestral excess and emotional pressure of late Romanticism. Instead, composers borrow 18th-century scaffolding — fugues, concerto grosso textures, dance suites — and slip in displaced harmonies, dry ironic rhythms and lean ensembles. Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' (1920) reworks 18th-century material (long attributed to Pergolesi, partly by others) with strings that sound period-appropriate until a chord lands a half-step off. Ravel's 'Le tombeau de Couperin' (1917) uses Baroque dance titles to mourn friends killed in the First World War.
How it came about
After 1918 the surviving European avant-garde turned against the gigantism of late Romanticism. In Paris, Jean Cocteau's 1918 pamphlet 'Le Coq et l'Arlequin' called for music to step away from Wagner; Erik Satie's spare style was the model, and Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' (a Diaghilev commission with sets by Picasso) became the public face of the new manner. Through the 1920s and 1930s composers across Europe and the United States — Hindemith, early Copland, Prokofiev, Poulenc, Martinu, Falla in his second period — used 'a return to the past' as a tool for modern clarity.
What to listen for
In the overture of Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' the strings briefly sound exactly like an 18th-century court piece, and then a single chord lands a half-step off — that moment of dissonant slippage is the neoclassical signature. In Ravel's 'Toccata' from 'Le tombeau de Couperin' the piano runs in even semiquavers with Bach-like discipline, but the harmonic colors belong to the 20th century.
If you only hear one thing
Ravel's 'Le tombeau de Couperin' in the piano version is the easiest way in — read the title, listen for what feels Baroque and what doesn't. Recordings by Samson Francois or Alexandre Tharaud are accessible. Follow with Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' Suite.
Trivia
When 'Pulcinella' premiered, the source material was credited entirely to Pergolesi; later research showed Stravinsky had been working from a mixed bag including pieces by Domenico Gallo and Carlo Ignazio Monza. Stravinsky later said he had not been particularly interested in the question of authorship.