The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music

This book, first published in 2004, is an appraisal of the development of music in the twentieth century from the vantage-point of the twenty-first.

Nicholas Cook (Edited by), Anthony Pople (Edited by)

9780521662567, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 August 2004

838 pages, 4 b/w illus. 1 music example
23.6 x 15.8 x 5.7 cm, 1.28 kg

'There is no doubt that this hefty single-volume history of music in the twentieth century is a brave and ambitious undertaking … fascinating … authoritative … compelling critical reappraisal … passionate … thought-provoking and challenging in their reassessment of the concept of the mainstream in twentieth-century music histories, and in their rethinking of how to tell selected aspects of those histories.' Twentieth-Century Music

The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, first published in 2004, is an appraisal of the development of music in the twentieth century from the vantage-point of the twenty-first. This wide-ranging and eclectic book traces the progressive fragmentation of the European 'art' tradition, and its relocation as one tradition among many at the century's end. While the focus is on Western traditions, both 'art' and popular, these are situated within the context of world music, including a case study of the interaction of 'art' and traditional musics in post-colonial Africa. An international authorship brings a wide variety of approaches to music history, but the aim throughout is to set musical developments in the context of social, ideological, and technological change, and to understand reception and consumption as integral to the history of music.

Introduction: trajectories of twentieth-century music Nicholas Cook with Anthony Pople
1. Peripheries and interfaces: the Western impact on other music Jonathan Stock
2. Music of a century: museum culture and the politics of subsidy Leon Botstein
3. Innovation and the avant-garde, 1900–20 Christopher Butler
4. Music, text and stage: the tradition of bourgeois tonality to the Second World War Stephen Banfield
5. Classic jazz to 1945 James Lincoln Collier
6. Flirting with the vernacular: America in Europe, 1900–1945 Susan C. Cook
7. Between the wars: traditions, modernisms, and the 'little people from the suburbs' Peter Franklin
8. Brave new worlds: experimentalism between the wars David Nicholls
9. Proclaiming a mainstream: Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern Joseph Auner
10. Rewriting the past: classicisms of the inter-war period Hermann Danuser
11. Music of seriousness and commitment: the 1930s and beyond Michael Walter
12. Other mainstreams: light music and easy listening, 1920–70 Derek B. Scott
13. New beginnings: the international avant-garde, 1945–62 David Osmond-Smith
14. Individualism and accessibility: the moderate mainstream, 1945–75 Arnold Whittall
15. After swing: modern jazz and its impact Mervyn Cooke
16. Music of the youth revolution: rock through the 1960s Robynn Stilwell
17. Expanding horizons: the international avant-garde, 1962–75 Richard Toop
18. To the millennium: music as twentieth-century commodity Andrew Blake
19. Ageing of the new: the museum of musical modernism Alastair Williams
20. (Post-)minimalisms, 1975–2000: the search for a new mainstream Robert Fink
21. History and class consciousness: pop music towards 2000 Dai Griffiths
22. 'Art' music in a cross-cultural context: the case of Africa Martin Scherzinger
Appendix 1. Personalia Peter Elsdon with Björn Heile
Appendix 2. Chronology Peter Elsdon and Peter Jones.

Subject Areas: 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Music reviews & criticism [AVC], Music [AV]