Music in the Late Twentieth Century: The Oxford History of Western Music

The Oxford History of Western Music #5

by Richard Taruskin

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music.Music in the Late Twentieth Century is the final installment of the set, covering the years from the end of World War II to the present. In these pages, Taruskin illuminates the great compositions of recent times, offering insightful analyses of works by Aaron Copland, John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Benjamin Britten, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, among many others. He also looks at the impact of electronic music and computers, the rise of pop music and rock 'n' roll, the advent of postmodernism, and the contemporary music of Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, and John Adams. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

607 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 24, 2009

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like others, I read this 600 page volume first because I know (and have heard in person) the major composers, like Cage, Berio, Ligeti, Babbitt, Boulez, Reich, etc. It could be subtitled "The End of the Avant-garde and why." There's a sadness about it because the author connects music with society and personality and doesn't just analyze the works, but sees the end of the "literate" era and the start of the post literate stage in electronics and computers. More probing and blunt than Rockwell, Griffiths, and others I've read, especially about music that listeners cannot grasp. Though the analyses require effort and perhaps training, the book is well worth the time for anyone who appreciates 20th century musical explorations. Thank you for not forgetting Partch, but I would have liked more on Cowell, the Asians, and the microtonalists, and less on Britten and the serialists and minimalists. An excellent review of a study on why the human brain cannot follow or appreciate serial music or the music of Elliot Carter.

[Tom Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

End of a long reading project. 5 stars for the whole series, though the final volume is a bit depressing.

[Dan Graser · Rating 5 out of 5]

And thus ends this incredible journey from the earliest notated music to the end of the 20th century. Taruskin is not only an erudite and thorough guide, he is one capable of great wit and at times, stirring provocation. This being the music of our time, he will likely upset a large number of readers with his choices for emphasis in this volume, more so than in any of his previous volumes to be sure. I certainly have my opinions in this regard but they in no way detract from my appreciation of this incredible final work of a 5 volume, 4000+ page examination of western classical music. Great reading for serious students of music.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there have been numerous histories of the early 20th century, fewer historians have attempted to bring order to the second half of the century. Taruskin does his usual job of bringing both insight and opinion to the task. Music that he admires gets plenty of gushing analysis. Woe be it to the composer he's not as fond of, for Taruskin hates as passionately as he loves. For all of that, an interesting read.

[Juan-Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the last (fifth) volume of Taruskin's Music History, and the first one I read. I started by the last volume for two reasons. First, it's a close look at the postwar music up to the present. Most 20th century music books cover the whole century up the the 1990', and are as a consequence far less detailed in the postwar years. Second, I wanted to see to how the author's thesis applied exactly to our present time. To summarize his thesis; the literate tradition in music started approximately a thousand years ago, and Taruskin tell its history in this impressive 5 volume Oxford History. His claim is that this tradition is approaching to an end, i.e., we'll reach a "post-literate" era in music composition and making.

A few words on his writing style: detailed, engaging, precise, eloquent, un-complicated, funny at times. This is not your average scholar style, "difficult", hard to follow, and sometimes obscure. On the contrary, even though Taruskin writes with a very elegant English, his is a prose that always engages. He keeps the reader attention throughout the whole (long) book, with several interesting formulas, like announcing a "breakthrough" only to delay it and present first previous developments. My original plan was to read a few chapters at a time, but I couldn't stop until I finished. His writing is also incredibly precise an eloquent, just an example: "What this also represents, of course, is the fundamental irrelevance of arithmetical fictions like centuries to the march of events, and their capacity for clouding the minds of historians." [page 352]

The book traces the history of music after World War II. Its context is, of course, the Cold War and its aftermath. Taruskin puts the music in its global scenario, e.g., social, historical, scientific, political, and more. The polarization of the World and its symptoms in music are explained in great detail, for example, how this turned the avant-garde (in both sides of the political divide) into a real paradox: serial music becoming the "standard" at Darmstadt, and the same (adapted) serial music as political dissidence in the Soviet Bloc. The book focuses on the prominence of American music and explains (explicitly in the Preface) why this happen in the second half of the 20th century. How the European avant-garde (Darmstadt School) was created, financed, and in the beginning administered the by the Office of Military Government, United States is a telling example. The impact of Cage and Feldman and later the minimalists (Reich, Riley, Glass) in European and World music is another.

Richard Taruskin's prejudices (serial music, new complexity, etc) permeate, but are almost always accompanied by the other side of the argument; the most notorious exception is his over-simplistic presentation of Ferneyhough's music. That being said, his provoking presentation makes prejudices of our (my) own become evident with its resulting required re-evaluation. This is an invaluable asset, learning and re-learning known material in ways you never thought before, or with additional contextualization.

The closing thesis of the book explain how the "elevation" of pop music as a serious style and the new affordability of digital technology join forces with the post-literate trend, and how this may (or is) becoming the dominant one. The coverage of digital technology is superficial and not without conceptual errors (no Mr. Taruskin, digital audio doesn't give the "illusion" of continuous sound from discrete bits as movies do, what you hear is actually continuous (band-limited) analog sound [page 502]), but in the context of the book is more than enough. What's important is the technology impact, even if the book has virtually no coverage of actual computer music (the reader may refer to the suggested reading for further material on this). This is also attendant with Taruskin's stated objective: this book is not a survey (à la Grout), but an attempt at a True History.

Highly, highly recommend, and now I look forward to read the other four volumes.

[Philip Koslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin (Volume 5of5)
The Late Twentieth Century (528 Pages)

As in the previous 4 volumes of this much admired survey of Western music, the author has gathered an immense amount of musical information (names, dates and places) presented in context with the social, historical and aesthetic environment in which “classical” music existed post WW2. The author and this reviewer are of the same generation of “baby boomers” thus sharing a great deal of similar experiences as we grew into a clear understanding of the unfolding story of musical modernity as the digital age emerged. Names familiar to those of us learning to walk and then run through the 1960’s and into the 21st century will find the author’s list of composers predictable. Here is a modest one: John Cage, Ernest Krenek, Edgard Varese, Gyorgy Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Mario Davidosky, Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Milton Babbitt etc. And many more as you wade through this challenging tome. And the evolving styles (some driven by technologies) that defined an ever changing aesthetics protected more by academic institutions than by commercial interests. So, here is a modest list of the style changes that take up the lion’s share of pages in this final narrative by the author.

Musique Concrete, Extended Techniques, Electronic Music, Serial Music, Collage Music, Performance Art, Free Tonality, Computer Music, Set Theories, Numerology, Intervallic Inversion, Pure Self Referential Structures, Beauty as Elegant Mathematics, Logical Positivism (logical structure), 4’33” of Silence, Avant Gardeism, Ondes martenot, Theremin, Tape splicing, Conceptual Art, The Darmstadt School. Is your head (ear) spinning, yet? Let’s include Minimalism, Disco, Rock and Roll, Jazz, Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young et al.

So, what were these composers trying to accomplish and what may we learn (gain?) from the results of their procedures and products. Certainly, musical essence will preclude musical effect (unless a listener has become highly attuned to the modern aesthetic) and any notion of a teleologic purpose or goal eludes clarity unless the listener has grasped the 20th century democratization of all of the 12 pitches in the chromatic scale. As Schoenberg confessed a generation earlier, the emancipation of dissonance continues a destination embraced by modernity. Additionally, the “new” delivery systems (technology) seeks to do away with the middle man (read trained performer) coming between the creator and the listener. And maybe more important than resolving the so called collapse of tonality in the newly minted century now far in the historical mirror is the schism between art for art’s sake and art for society’s well being. All of these issues are addressed by the author with less of a final judgement being offered. Evidence in Volume 1 in this series presented concerns of a lost oral tradition in music as it surrendered to musical notation thus introducing musical literacy as a watershed moment in the “progression” of a shared knowledge of a canon of a revered creation. Ironically, volume 5 brings that discussion full circle as the late 20th and early 21st century technologies come to define what the author describes as a preliterate (oral)-literate (notated music)-post literate (quasy oral) construct soon to be become a mirror of how music was communicated before Guido invented standard notation almost one thousand years ago. Go figure. That’s one of the messages this author opines in the closing paragraphs in the final chapter. As he signs off as he begun 4,200 pages previously, the story is in medias res. Much to reflect upon and well worth your time if curiosity abides. Highly recommended. BTW-Volume 6 is comprised of a Chronology, Index and Bibliography. No review forthcoming.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taruskin is a giant of musicology. However you might think he lived through every century OTHER than the late twentieth century. The advantage of living through an era as a researcher, is that you have the privilege of so much inside knowledge. I understand he wanted to keep the book strictly academic in content and tone, however the inside knowledge of the significance of fringe acts is more relevant than ever in the late twentieth century, and this could have been discussed much more in content if not tone; it is a full change of perception in the value of music to people and thus how it is created. The change in the canon is only briefly discussed at the end with no depth of discussion, only addressing the change on the surface (Radiohead etc.). It's like if it's not worth analysing the score (of which there often isn't in music), Taruskin didn't want to analyse the piece. In a post-modern world with an explosion of different socio-musical circles, it is more important to talk about how music styles and movements come about than the harmonic progressions within the music, however a little more analysis would have been nice. Where's the discussion of Simon Reynolds 'Hyperstasis'? 2010 isn't too late a publication for these discussions. Whoever the traditionalist deny-er of the new (by new i mean the late 20th, so not really 'new') paradigms of music is, Taruskin or Oxford, they need to update themselves.

'CLASSICAL Music in the Late Twentieth Century' more like.

If this was the title of the book it would have received 5 stars.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't agree with Taruskin on some points, but that didn't stop me from being drawn into his entertaining and wonderfully erudite narrative of Late Twentieth Century (Western) music.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, Taruskin, where do I begin?