Routledge The Modernist Legacy: Essays on New Music

This collection of essays offers a historical reappraisal of what musical modernism was, and what its potential for the present and future could be. It thus moves away from the binary oppositions that have beset twentieth-century music studies in the past, such as those between modernism and postmodernism, between conceptions of musical autonomy and of cultural contingency and between formalist-analytical and cultural-historical approaches. Focussing particularly on music from the 1970s to the 1990s, the volume assembles approaches from different perspectives to new music with a particular emphasis on a critical reassessment of the meaning and function of the legacy of musical modernism. The authors include scholars, musicologists and composers who combine culturally, socially, historically and aesthetically oriented approaches with analytical methods in imaginative ways. Review ’This collection present[s] ways in which we might (and must) reconsider modernism, enlarging our understanding of its breadth, depth and reach, and projecting a happier future for its reception. It does this through the sharpness of its arguments for the expressive, technical and social achievements of musical modernism. ... this is a collection of top-drawer contributions, intelligently compiled and thoroughly polished for publication.’ Tempo About the Author Björn Heile is Lecturer in Music and Head of Department at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of The Music of Mauricio Kagel as well as numerous other publications, mostly on new music and experimental music theatre.