Book Review
Dec. 14th, 2014 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariMusic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
by Joseph Auner
This is the last volume in the Norton Western Music in Context series, and it was just as good as the others. Auner does a excellent job of covering recent music history in all its dizzying diversity. I especially appreciated that he didn't over-emphasize serialism and atonality. I appreciated that he was more than willing to pay attention to the lesser known and more out there composers even more: Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, John Oswald, the Futurists, neo-romantics, etc. The treatment of the most recent developments was also terrific - Auner adopted a much wider scope and gave mention to many people working outside of academia and other typical structures.
The later parts of the book can get a little too kaleidoscopic as Auner attempts to cover the enormous range of what is going on in the concert music world of the last couple of decades. It can be a little disorienting, but on the other hand, it's great to see everything laid out, rather than have one or two specific aesthetics championed. No matter how diffuse it gets, Auner is always able to bring out what is valuable and interesting about even the most abstract, thorny, listener-unfriendly music.
by Joseph Auner
This is the last volume in the Norton Western Music in Context series, and it was just as good as the others. Auner does a excellent job of covering recent music history in all its dizzying diversity. I especially appreciated that he didn't over-emphasize serialism and atonality. I appreciated that he was more than willing to pay attention to the lesser known and more out there composers even more: Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, John Oswald, the Futurists, neo-romantics, etc. The treatment of the most recent developments was also terrific - Auner adopted a much wider scope and gave mention to many people working outside of academia and other typical structures.
The later parts of the book can get a little too kaleidoscopic as Auner attempts to cover the enormous range of what is going on in the concert music world of the last couple of decades. It can be a little disorienting, but on the other hand, it's great to see everything laid out, rather than have one or two specific aesthetics championed. No matter how diffuse it gets, Auner is always able to bring out what is valuable and interesting about even the most abstract, thorny, listener-unfriendly music.
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Date: 2014-12-15 05:13 pm (UTC)