The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922–1936
Shaping a Nation's Tastes

This book, first published in 2000, examines the BBC's attempts to manipulate critical and public responses to contemporary music between 1922 and 1936.

Jennifer Doctor (Author)

9780521661171, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 January 2000

524 pages, 25 tables
24.4 x 17 x 2.9 cm, 1.03 kg

'It is the most compulsively un-put-downable book I have read for a very long time.' Gramophone

This book, first published in 2000, examines the BBC's campaign to raise cultural awareness of British mass audiences in the early days of radio. As a specific case, it focuses on policies and plans behind transmissions of music by composers associated with Arnold Schoenberg's circle between 1922, when the BBC was founded, and spring 1936, when Edward Clark, a former Schoenberg pupil and central figure in BBC music, resigned from the Corporation. This study traces and analyses the BBC's attempts to manipulate critical and public responses to this repertory. The book investigates three interrelated aspects of early BBC history. Policy decisions relating to contemporary music transmissions are examined to determine why precious broadcast time was devoted to this repertory. Early personnel structures are reconstructed to investigate the responsibilities, attitudes and interests of those who influenced music broadcasting. Finally, broadcasts of Second Viennese School works are examined in detail.

List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. The Emergence of BBC Music Programmes: 1. The British music industry and the BBC between the wars
2. BBC personnel, policies and programmes in the 1920s
Part II. The Pitt Years, 1922–9: 3. The foundations of music programming, 1922–6
4. The music programmes take shape, 1926–7
5. The first wave of Second Viennese School broadcasts, 1927–8
6. Refining the music programmes, 1928–9
7. Pitt's final season, 1929–30
Part III. The Early Boult Years, 1930–6: 8. Boult's initial seasons, 1930–1, 1931–2
9. Transition to the new régime, 1932–3, 1933–4
10. Policies and politics, 1934–5, 1935–6
11. Clark's legacy
Appendices
Notes
Selected bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6]