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The War on Music: Reclaiming the Twentieth Century - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

The War on Music: Reclaiming the Twentieth Century

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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.

ISBN-13: 9780300233704

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Publication Date: 04-26-2022

Pages: 248

Product Dimensions: 9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

John Mauceri is a world-renowned conductor and musical scholar. He has conducted most of the world’s greatest orchestras and opera companies and served on the Yale University faculty for fifteen years, and is the former chancellor of the UNC School of the Arts.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 A View from 30,000 Feet 14

2 Brahms and Wagner: The Twilight of Two Gods 25

3 Stravinsky and Schoenberg: Overtures to the Great War 37

4 The Lure of Chaos 62

5 Hitler, Wagner, and the Poison from Within 73

6 Stalin and Mussolini Make Music 81

7 The Miracle of a Second Exodus 95

8 A New War, an Old Avant-Garde 114

9 A Cold War Defines Contemporary Music 128

10 Creating History and Erasing History 149

11 Of War and Loss 173

12 A Century Ends 180

Appendix: A Personal Diary 195

Notes 207

Acknowledgments 217

Index 219

Illustrations follow page 36