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 third section of the book, 1980-1990, is expanded to incorporate the variety of responses to the modernist impasse experienced by composers of the time. In addition, a new fourth part, "After Postmodernism: the 1990s and 2000s," 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.

About the Author
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.

Reviews
continues usefully to draw attention to a wide range of works and concepts * BBC Music Magazine *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199740505
Author Paul Griffiths
Format Paperback
Page Count 480
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 640g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 229mm * 33mm