Exploring Twentieth-Century Music: Tradition And Innovation

Description:
In this wide-ranging book, Arnold Whittall considers a group of important composers of the twentieth century, including Debussy, Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Janacek, Britten, Carter, Birtwistle, Andriessen and Adams. He moves skilfully between the cultural and the technical, the general and the particular, to explore the various contexts and critical perspectives which illuminate certain works by these composers. Considering the extent to which place and nationality contribute to the definition of musical character, he investigates the relevance of such images as mirroring and symmetry, the function of genre and the way types of identity may be suggested by such labels as classical, modernist, secular, sacred radical, traditional. These categories are considered as flexible and interactive and they generate a wide-ranging series of narratives delineating some of the most fundamental forces which affected composers and their works within the complex and challenging world of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. The work in the world; 2. Reflections, reactions; 3. Rites of renewal and remembrance; 4. Transcending the secular; 5. Overlapping opposites: Schoenberg observed; 6. The subject of Britten; 7. Engagement or alienation?; 8. Rites of transformation; 9. Modernism, lyricism; 10. Experiment and orthodoxy; 11. Modernism in retreat?; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Author Biography:
Arnold Whittall is Professor Emeritus of Music Theory and Analysis at King's College London and he has written widely on twentieth-century music. His recent publications include The Music of Britten and Tippett (1990) and Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century (1999).