In this category, little attempt has been made to differentiate among the various sub-groupings under which music of our century has been placed. There is left no compact definition of the contents of this list except to state that it is music written during the 20^th century which does not fit into the category of Romanticism purely for chronological reasons, but which, via either orchestral technique or mode of expression, is attempting to further broaden the horizons of music, though not to such an extent that it belongs to the modern era.

The operative principle for assigning composers to this list (instead of "Modern") was essentially one of style. Composers in the current category are closer in style and outlook to composers of the preceding lists than those in the Modern list are, though there are of course some who could have gone in either list. This category still includes a wide range of styles such as Neo-Classic, Neo-Romantic, Expressionist and Atonal. There is substantial chronological overlap between this list and the Modern one, but on average the compositions in this list tend to fall into the first half of the twentieth century chronologically.