Music in the Late Twentieth Century The Oxford History of Western Music

by Taruskin, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780199842186
• ISBN10: 0199842183
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music. Music in the Late Twentieth Century is the final installment of the set, covering the years from the end of World War II to the present. In these pages, Taruskin illuminates the great compositions of recent times, offering insightful analyses of works by Aaron Copland, John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Benjamin Britten, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, among many others. He also looks at the impact of electronic music and computers, the rise of pop music and rock 'n' roll, the advent of postmodernism, and the contemporary music of Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, and John Adams. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.

Author Biography

Richard Taruskin is Professor of Music at the University of California Berkeley Taruskin is also the author of such books as Music in the Western World: A History in Documents (2nd ed,2007) Text and Act (Oup, 1995) and Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions (1996) He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times New Republic and other publications.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. IX
Preface	p. xix
Starting from Scratch	p. 1
Music in the Aftermath of World War II; Zhdanovshchina, Darmstadt
A new age
Cold war
Denunciation and contrition
Breaking ranks
Zero hour
Polarization
Darmstadt
Fixations
"Total serialism"
Disquieting questions
Disquieting answers
Solace in ritual
Poster boy
Indeterminacy	p. 55
Cage and the "New York School"
Means and ends
Whose liberation?
Neplus ultra (going as far as you can go)
Purification and its discontents
Permission
Music and politics revisited
Internalized conflict
Conflicts denied
New notations
Preserving the sacrosanct
The Apex	p. 103
Babbitt and Cold War Serialism
Conversions
"Mainstream" dodecaphony
The grand prize
The path to the new/old music
Requiem for a heavyweight
Academicism, American style
An integrated musical time/space
Full realization
Another cold war
Logical positivism
The new patronage and its fruits
Elites and their discontents
Life within the enclave
But can you hear it?
Ultimate realization or reductio ad absurdum?
The Third Revolution	p. 175
Music and Electronic Media; Varese's Career
Tape
An old dream come true
Generating synthetic sounds
A maximalist out of season
"Real" vs. "pure"
The new technology spreads
The big science phase
A happy ending
Big questions reopened
Reciprocity
Renaissance or co-option?
Standoff (I)	p. 221
Music in Society: Britten
History or society?
Some facts and figures
A modern hero
Social themes and leitmotives
Allegory (but of what?)
Exotic/erotic
To serve by challenging
Standoff (II)	p. 261
Music in History: Carter
Explain nothing
From populism to problem-solving: An American career
Theory: The Time Screen
Practice: The First Quartet
Reception
A wholly disinterested art?
At the pinnacle
The Sixties	p. 307
Changing Patterns of Consumption and the Challenge of Pop
What were they?
The music of youth
The British "invasion"
Defection oRock'n'roll becomes rock
Fusion
Integration without prejudice?
Radical chic
A Harmonious Avant-Garde?	p. 351
Minimalism: Young, Riley, Reich, Glass; Their European Emulators
New sites of innovation
Legendary beginnings
Music as spiritual discipline
A contradiction in terms?
"Classical" minimalism
Secrets of structure
"All music is folk music"
A postmodernist masterwork?
"Crossover"; Who's on top?
Disco at the Met
Americanization
Closing the spiritual circle
After Everything	p. 411
Postmodernism: Rochberg, Crumb, Lerdahl, Schnittke
Postmodernism?
Its beginnings for music
A parenthesis on collage
Collage as theater
Apostasy
Esthetics of pastiche
Accessibility
Cognitive constraints?
Where to go from here?
One proposal
The end of Soviet music
Polystylistics
Millennium's End	p. 473
The Advent of Postliteracy: Partch, Monk, Anderson, Zorn; New Patterns of Patronage
Grand old men
Terminal complexity
"Big science" eclipsed
Twentieth-century "orality"
Hobo origins
Imaginary folklore
A feminine redoubt
Music and computers
The elite phase
Spectralism
"Then along came Midi!"
First fruits
Modernists in postmodernist clothing?
A glimpse of the future?
Back to nature
Paying the piper, calling the tune
A new topicality
A new spirituality
Notes	p. 529
Art Credits	p. 555
Further Reading	p. 559
Index	p. 569
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