Over three decades, Paul Griffiths's survey has remained the definitive study of music since the Second World War; this fully revised and updated edition re-establishes Modern Music and After as the preeminent introduction to the music of our time. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of
the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical reformation of compositional technique and in John Cage's development of zen music; in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies; in Karl Stockhausen's
development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of music as sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that haven't yet
stopped unfolding.
This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no singular history of music; Griffiths's study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how and why they converge and diverge. This new edition of Modern Music and After discusses not
only the music of the fifteen years that have passed since the previous edition, but also the recent explosion of scholarly interest in the latter half of the Twentieth Century. In particular, the book has been expanded to incorporate the variety of responses to the modernist impasse experienced by
composers of the 1980s and 1990s. Griffiths then moves the book into the twenty-first century as he examines highly influential composers like Philip Glass and Pierre Boulez as well as such topics as "Modernist Continuation" and "Music and the Internet."
For its breadth, wealth of
detail, and characteristic wit and clarity, the third edition of Modern Music and After is required reading for the student and the enquiring listener.
Prelude
1945
1. Rational and irrational: western Europe, 1945-50
Paris, 1945-8 - The young Boulez - Boulez's Second Piano Sonata - Other stories - Musique concrète - Variations: Nono
2. Silencing music: Cage, 1946-52
Rhythmic structuring - Towards silence - Around
Cage
3. Total organization: western Europe, 1949-54
The moment of total serialism 1: Darmstadt 1949 and Darmstadt 1951 - Interlude: the patrons of modernism - The moment of total serialism 2: Paris 1952 - The human voice 1: Nono - Electronic music - The human voice 2: Barraqué
4. Classic
modernism and other kinds: the United States, 1945-55
Schoenberg - Carter - Babbitt - Home-made music - Wolpe - After silence
5. The Cold War
6. Extension and development: western Europe, 1953-6
From points to groups - Systems of organization - Le Marteau sans maître - Sound and word
- ...how time passes... - Statistics
1956
7. Mobile form: 1956-61
Cage - Stockhausen and Boulez - Boulez and Berio - Barraqué - Exit from the labyrinth
8. Elder responses
Stravinsky - Messiaen - Varèse - Symphonists and others
9. Reappraisal and disintegration:
1959-64
Questioning voices: Ligeti, Bussotti, Kagel - Stumbling steps: Kurtág - Listening ears: Cage, Young, Babbitt - Exploiting the moment: Stockhausen - The last concert: Nono
1965
10. Of elsewhen and elsewhere
The distant past - (The imaginary past) - The distant or not so
distant east - Quotation - Meta-music
11. Music theatre
Opera and 'Opera' - Music theatre - Instrumental theatre
12. Politics
Cardew - Rzewski - The composer in the factory
13. Virtuosity and improvisation
The virtuoso - Virtuosity in question - The electric musician -
Improvisation
14. Orchestras or Computers
Ochestras - Computer Music
15. Minimalism and melody
New York minimalism - Minimalism in Europe - Melody
16. Ending
1975
17. Holy Minimalisms
Pärt - Tavener and Górecki - (Messiaen) - Ustvolskaya
18. New
Romanticisms
Rihm - Schnittke, and the hectic present - Gubaidulina, and the visionary future - Silvestrov, and the reverberating past - Symphony? - Feldman and loss - Lachenmann and regain
19. New Simplicities
Cage, or innocence - Denyer, or outsiderness - Kurtág, or immediacy -
Holliger, or extremity - Sciarrino, or intimacy
20. New Complexities
Ferneyhough - Finnissy - Charged solos
21. Old Complexities
Carter and the poets - Xenakis and the Arditti Quartet - Nono and listening - Stockhausen and Licht - Birtwistle and ritual - Berio and memory - IRCAM and
Boulez
22. Spectralisms
Radulescu and Tenney - Grisey - Vivier
23. (Unholy?) Minimalisms
Reich - Andriessen
24. Eclecticisms
Kagel et al. - Donatoni - Bolcom and Adams - Ligeti
1989
25. Towards mode/meme
Rootless routes: Ligeti - Memory's memorials: Berio
and Kurtág - Remade modes: Adams, Adès, Benjamin - Pesson's past and Pauset's - Traditions' tracks: around Zorn
26. Towards the strange self
Act I: Schneewittchen - Entr'acte: Kurtág's Beckett - Act II: Luci mie traditrici - Entr'acte: Birtwistle's Celan - Act III: Three Sisters - Entr'acte:
Kyburz's no-one - Act IV: Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern
27. Towards transcendence
Gubaidulina and Christ - Haas and darkness - Harvey and the Buddha - Grisey and rebirth
2001
28. Towards change?
Resources
Index
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
Paul Griffiths is an acclaimed writer on contemporary and classical music whose books include A Concise History of Western Music and The Penguin Companion to Classical Music. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and has written the libretto for Elliott Carter's What Next? as well as
three novels. In 2002, Griffiths was honored by the French government as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
