The Pleasure of Modernist Music - (Eastman Studies in Music) by Arved Ashby (Paperback)

About the Book

An exploration of the meaning and reception of "modernist" music.

Book Synopsis

The debate over modernist music has continued for almost a century: from Strauss's Elektra and Webern's Symphony Op.21 to John Cage's renegotiation of musical control, the unusual musical practices of the Velvet Underground, and Stanley Kubrick's use of Ligeti's Lux Aeterna in the epic film 2001. The composers discussed in these pages -- including Bartók, Stockhausen, Bernard Herrmann, Steve Reich, and many others -- are modernists in that they are defined by their individualism, whether covert or overt, and share a basic urge toward redesigning musical discourse. The aim of this volume is to negotiate a varied and open middle ground between polemical extremes of reception. The contributors sketch out the possible significance of a repertory that in past discussions has been deemed either meaningless or beyond describable meaning. With an emphasis on recent aesthetics and contexts -- including film music, sexuality, metaphor, and ideas of a listening grammar -- they trace the meanings that such works and composers have held for listeners of different kinds. None of them takes up the usual mandate of "educated listening" to modernist works: the notion that a person can appreciate "difficult" music if given enough time and schooling. Instead the book defines novel but meaningful avenues of significance for modernist music, avenues beyond those deemed appropriate or acceptable by the academy. While some contributors offer new listening strategies, most interpret the listening premise more loosely: as a metaphor for any manner of personal and immediate connection with music. In addition to a previously untranslated article by Pierre Boulez, the volume contains articles (all but one previously unpublished) by twelve distinctive and prominent composers, music critics, and music theorists from America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa: Arved Ashby, Amy Bauer, William Bolcom, Jonathan Bernard, Judy Lochhead, Fred Maus, Andrew Mead, Greg Sandow, Martin Scherzinger, Jeremy Tambling, Richard Toop, and Lloyd Whitesell. Arved Ashby is associate professor of music at the Ohio State University.

Review Quotes

The Pleasure of Modernist Music presents the reader with a significant array of possible listening strategies for music otherwise dismissed as un-listenable. . . . Where these essays overlap is as fascinating as where they diverge in that the overlapping reveals the compositions, personalities, and ideologies most influential in a musical century that was conflicted at best. To the benefit of the present day listener, professional musician or otherwise, these essays represent a bold step forward in rescuing a body of music from that conflict, as well as from its own self-imposed alienation.-- "MLA NOTES, 2006"

Excellent collection. . . anyone with even the slightest concern for the topic should take the time to chew on what is in this book...an invaluable resource.-- "AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE"

There are few recent books on serious musical matters which ask more pressing questions and provide more thought-provoking -- even pleasurable -- answers than this one; few other books in which so many facets of modern culture. . . are brought together so productively. [Ashby's] introduction and opening chapter alone contain enough material for several books. . . I expect to be referring to the arguments and examples given here for some time to come.--Arnold Whittall "THE GRAMOPHONE"

A superb compilation of essays that will provoke discussion and thought on all sides. The writers are first and foremost music-lovers, and that standpoint informs all of the essays. Urgently recommended. --composer, from a review at amazon.com--David D. McIntire, composer, from a review at amazon.com