The Post-Classical Predicament: Essays on Music and Society

by Joseph Horowitz

Joseph Horowitz's The Post-Classical Predicament explores the dilemma of classical music in America's changing society. Around the turn of the century, argues the author, classical music was integral to general intellectual discourse and to the contemporary moment. This integration of music and society began to break down during the interwar decades. A new, enlarged audience was tutored to disdain contemporary and American culture in favor of pedigreed Old World masters. In a period when jazz became America's most individual, most influential musical export, the music appreciation movement shunned popular music as a menace. To the schism between musical and intellectual life, between audience and composer, was added a schism between highbrow and low. After World War II classical music became increasingly marginalized - a form of popular culture masquerading as high culture. Ultimately, great music and great performers became captives of their own celebrity. In this sterling collection of essays, Joseph Horowitz ranges from the turn-of-the-century achievements of Dvorak, Seidl, and Ives to the distorted careers of Vladimir Horowitz and Leonard Bernstein a century later. His other topics include Glenn Gould, Amadeus, and Forest Lawn Cemetery - where classical music rests in peace as mortuary kitsch. The collection concludes with the author's reflections on his own experience as Executive Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra - whose recent weekend festivals aim for a revitalized "post-classical" music exploding the traditional formats and boundaries.

Genres: Music

215 pages, Hardcover

First published May 11, 1995

About the author

Joseph Horowitz is an American cultural historian whose seven books mainly deal with the institutional history of classical music in the United States. As a producer of concerts, he has played a pioneering role in promoting thematic programming and new concert formats.