From Classicism to Modernism: Western Musical Culture and the Metaphysics of Order

This title was first published in 2001. The last century has witnessed the ascendancy of the avant-garde in music. From Schoenberg to Boulez to Stockhausen, the avant-garde has defined the modern conception of musical creativity. Contemporary serious music demands the "new" in terms of style, form and ways of listening and hearing. Implicit in this approach is the rejection of the "old", from the baroque to the music of the later 19th-century symphonists. Paradoxically, however, it is this "old" repertoire which contiues to dominate concert programmes. An exploration of this dichotomy lies at the heart of this book. Drawing on a wealth of European philosophical and musical texts, Brian Etter examines the origins of the avant-garde and its relation to modernity in tandem with the history of the tonal tradition. The aim is to understand the aesthetic issues that arise from the juxtaposition of these two approaches to music in the concert hall.