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

The Oxford History of Western Music #4

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 Early Twentieth Century , the fourth volume in Richard Taruskin's history, looks at the first half of the twentieth century, from the beginnings of Modernism in the last decade of the nineteenth century right up to the end of World War II. Taruskin discusses modernism in Germany and France as reflected in the work of Mahler, Strauss, Satie, and Debussy, the modern ballets of Stravinsky, the use of twelve-tone technique in the years following World War I, the music of Charles Ives, the influence of peasant songs on Bela Bartok, Stravinsky's neo-classical phase and the real beginnings of 20th-century music, the vision of America as seen in the works of such composers as W.C. Handy, George Gershwin, and Virgil Thomson, and the impact of totalitarianism on the works of a range of musicians from Toscanini to Shostakovich

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

880 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 24, 2009

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taruskin's saga continues with the 20th century, with all the same pluses and minuses of his earlier volumes. By the 20th century, his ongoing excuse that women are not included as much because we don't know about them. But that simply isn't true in the 20th century. But women are still in short supply, as are most composers of color. The lack of integration between so-called classical and popular forms - a crucial aspect of 20th century musical production - is also a symptom here. I also take exception to his coining the term "maximal" - apparently as a counterbalance to the "minimal" music he will discuss in Vol. 5. I think the neologism allows him to lump together a variety of things that frankly ought better to be teased apart. When Taruskin is on his game, he can be insightful and even amusing at times. I just wish there weren't as many annoying gaps.

[Philip Koslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin (Volume 4 of 5). The Early 20th Century. 796 pages.

On the heels of the previous 3 volumes in this extraordinary series, volume 4 ushers in the unfolding history of western music as the early 20th century arrives. Albeit with some “serious” aesthetic baggage in tow. Not written for the faint of heart or the musically illiterate, Richard Taruskin continues to structure his narrative within a context embracing not only names and dates of selected composers, but will weave into the text the historical, social and political events of the receding Romantic and evolving Modern eras, thus moving music into a transition toward what is now understood as modernity.

Modernity defined on page 1: “Modernism is not just a condition but a commitment. It asserts the superiority of the present over the past (and by implication, of the future over the present), with all that that implies in terms of optimism and faith in progress.” Keep this in mind as you proceed while traversing the next 795 pages of detailed analysis more than thorough and expert than most history surveys provide.

As to the aesthetic “baggage” referenced earlier, it is termed in the early years of the new century as “maximalism” by the author invoking Mahler, Bruckner, Brahms and Strauss as composers of music with extended length (thank you Wagner), amplified volume (thank you Wagner) and complex texture (thank you Wagner). And add in the rather repeated trope of the period that tonal music had/did/was expiring as an overtly sentimental expressive element as the 19th century expired. Taruskin regards this notion as propaganda (thankfully) allowing for a clearer understanding of the responses to tonality that would find its way from Germany to France to Italy to America and to this volume’s conclusion as World War 2 ends.

“Transcendentalism” is represented in the musical visions of A. Scriabin (Occultism), C. Ives (nostalgia) and O. Messiaen (spiritual). The Russian/French response to the challenge of “refreshing” tonality in the early 20th century falls to C. Debussy, E. Satie, M. Ravel and I. Stravinsky. (Stravinsky gets a robust presence in this tome with an important chapter on the emergence of ballet in Paris in these early years of the century. Much deserved, indeed).

And German speakers get abundant analysis equally via the 2nd Viennese (so called) school through the emancipation of dissonance voiced by A. Schoenberg, A. Berg and A. Webern. The well known critical back and forth between Stravinsky and Schoenberg is highlighted along the way in a very much nonjudgmental way by the author.

B. Bartok (folk music and numerology), Z. Kodaly and L. Janacek likewise bring another valuable voice into the narrative and the somewhat neglected American voices of V. Thomson, H. Hanson and W. Piston are given more than a shout out. A. Copland gets accolades in abundance. As does the emerging music for cinema. The “Pastoral” school of English composers hardly get a shout out. Perhaps volume 5 will remedy this one exclusion.

This reviewer’s conclusion is that free atonality as well as the “serial” techniques adopted by Schoenberg and his ilk became a dead end for the casual concert attendee, thus only finding a home in universities and conservatory recitals. But the urge for tonal refreshment did embrace alternatives to the romantic major/minor modes of harmony. The pentatonic scale, octatonic scale, whole tone scales and even pantonality did keep our listening attention as the 20th century unfolded. Thus the begged question is…. will the general public accept the world of musical modernity or continue to rely on the 18th and 19th canon currently dominating orchestral, operatic and chamber music programs globally? Stay tuned for Volume 5, yet to be perused.

[Dan Graser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given the ambition of Taruskin's series (of which this is the fourth of five volumes), this 800+ page volume is the most ambitious of them all and likely the most important. Covering the first half of the 20th century, there are numerous challenging concepts introduced about the intersection of music with the emerging field of psychology as well as the idea of the composer as a public intellectual, begun in the more modern sense in the previous volume (regrettably in dilettante fashion) by Richard Wagner. The rising of musical nationalism, the development of rivalries especially that between Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the role of "peasant music vs. modern music" in the lives of Bartók, Kodaly, and Janáček, and the reaction of composers to the rise of totalitarian regimes in Italy, Germany, and the USSR are all issues that Taruskin tackles with great erudition and wit. As I've said about all other volumes in this series, this is not a book for those with no special musical training (as some volumes other Oxford History series are), however if you're a serious student of music there quite simply is nothing like this huge achievement.