Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora

Cohen traces a history of modernism in migration through the composer Stefan Wolpe, from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain College.

Brigid Cohen (Author)

9781316641163, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 February 2017

342 pages, 10 b/w illus. 14 music examples
24.4 x 16.9 x 1.8 cm, 0.6 kg

"The importance of this well-researched book on German-born composer Stefan Wolpe lies as much in descriptions of milieux as in its treatment of Wolpe and his music … The book compares favorably with extant Wolpe scholarship … It will be required reading for scholars of twentieth-century music."
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The German-Jewish émigré composer Stefan Wolpe was a vital figure in the history of modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop and the kibbutz movement to bebop, Abstract Expressionism and Black Mountain College. This is the first full-length study of this often overlooked composer, launched from the standpoint of the mass migrations that have defined recent times. Drawing on over 2000 pages of unpublished documents, Cohen explores how avant-garde communities across three continents adapted to situations of extreme cultural and physical dislocation. A conjurer of unexpected cultural connections, Wolpe serves as an entry-point to the utopian art worlds of Weimar-era Germany, pacifist movements in 1930s Palestine and vibrant art and music scenes in early Cold War America. The book takes advantage of Wolpe's role as a mediator, bringing together perspectives from music scholarship, art history, comparative literature, postcolonial studies and recent theories of cosmopolitanism and diaspora.

Introduction
1. Wolpe's self-revelatory poetics and critical reflections, circa 1951
2. Weimar-era montage and avant-garde community
3. 'Amalgamated' musics and national visions in 1930s Palestine
4. The mid-century poetics and politics of experimental community
Epilogue: the witnessing memory
Select bibliography.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Music reviews & criticism [AVC]