following overview provides only a keyword-like orientation about the corresponding periods, outstanding composers, rough style characteristics and masterpieces. Corresponding in-depth information is then reserved for the main articles. Any periodisation is a shortening. In many cases, the sometimes seemingly contradictory styles not only took place simultaneously, but many composers also composed in several styles – sometimes even in one and the same work. Even if one composer appears to be outstanding for a style or period, there has always been a multitude of composers who have also written exemplary works in a sometimes very independent manner. The following applies: every successful work deserves its own consideration and classification – regardless of the framework in which it is usually placed for stylistic reasons. Basically, the dictum of Rudolf Stephan applies to the classification of works into styles: "If, however, stylistic criteria [...] are presupposed, then [...] such [works] by numerous other, mostly younger composers [...] can also be counted [...] But in the case of works [...] (which can certainly be named in this context), boundaries then become perceptible which perhaps cannot be fixed exactly, but which are nevertheless (to speak with Maurice Merleau-Ponty) quickly noticed as having already been crossed. " A fixed stylistic or epochal scheme does not exist and is in principle impossible. All attributions of similarities or differences are interpretations that require precise explanation. The fact that works are classified partly according to stylistic terms (for example "expressionism") and partly according to compositional criteria (e.g. "atonality") inevitably leads to multiple overlaps. The turn from the 19th to the 20th century The traditional compositional means of the classical period were only able to cope with these increasing tendencies to a certain extent. Towards the end of the 19th century, the musical development began to take shape in which Paul Bekker then retrospectively recognised "New Music" (as a term it was only later written with a capital "N"). His attention had initially been particularly focused on Gustav Mahler, Franz Schreker, Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schönberg. Overall, the turn of the century had come to be understood as fin de siècle. In any case, it was under the auspices of modernity, as the radicalisation of which the "new music" can be regarded and whose manifold consequences influenced the entire 20th century. The qualitative difference of this epochal transition from the earlier ones is essentially that now some composers saw their