The War on Music: Reclaiming the Twentieth Century

Description

A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century   “[Mauceri’s] writing is more exhilarating than any helicopter ride we have been on.”—Air Mail   “Fluently written and often cogent.”—Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal   This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.   Probing why so few works have been added to the canon since 1930, Mauceri examines the trajectories of great composers who, following World War I, created voices that were unique and versatile, but superficially simpler. He contends that the fate of composers during World War II is inextricably linked to the political goals of their respective governments, resulting in the silencing of experimental music in Germany, Italy, and Russia; the exodus of composers to America; and the sudden return of experimental music—what he calls “the institutional avant-garde”—as the lingua franca of classical music in the West during the Cold War. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction 1 A View from 30,000 Feet 2 Brahms and Wagner: The Twilight of Two Gods 3 Stravinsky and Schoenberg: Overtures to the Great War 4 The Lure of Chaos 5 Hitler, Wagner, and the Poison from Within 6 Stalin and Mussolini Make Music 7 The Miracle of a Second Exodus 8 A New War, an Old Avant-Garde 9 A Cold War Defines Contemporary Music 10 Creating History and Erasing History 11 Of War and Loss 12 A Century Ends Appendix: A Personal Diary Notes Acknowledgments Index A B C D E F G H I J J L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Illustrations follow page