Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century (California Studies in 19th-Century Music)

California Studies in 19th-Century Music

by Carl Dahlhaus, Mary Whittall (Translator)

Carl Dahlhaus here treats Nietzsche's youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine (and, more generally, in romantic musical aesthetics); the question of periodicization in romantic and neo-romantic music; the underlying kinship between Brahms's and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and the true significance of musical nationalism. Included in this volume is Walter Kauffman's translation of the previously unpublished fragment, "On Music and Words," by the young Nietzsche.

Genres: Music

136 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1980

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good but selective history of the in-between period of late Romanticism and early Modernism. Selective in focus (talks almost exclusively about Wagner & Brahms, leaving out truly transitional figures like Strauss and Mahler). Views period as stylistically unified, and this is compellingly argued, but also runs the risk of ignoring the crucial differences that establish the style of individual composers.