Problems of Modern Music: The Princeton Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies (Norton Library (Paperback)) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393001156 ISBN 13: 9780393001150

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1962

Synopsis

Excerpt from Problems of Modern Music: The Princeton Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies

At first Impressionism seemed to be the only durable movement, the only style capable of preserving European traditions, because in essence neither Debussy nor his disciples and imitators broke the old frames, they merely loosened them. They did find many new colors and made the orchestra even more dazzling, the result being that Ravel, Dukas, Delius, Falla, even the American Griffes, are still welcome to subscription audi ences as modern composers. As a matter of fact, some of our justly admired brilliant and slick orchestras were built to cope with this very style. But this is a hothouse art that needs artificial heating, and by the time Ravel died the school was so destitute of substance that the much admired composer of Daphnis et Chloe' was reduced to orchestrating Mussorgsky. All of them sought exotic subjects and themes, for they felt that Europe's Impressionistic pomp needed colonies to replenish its color resources. Delius turned to the Appalachians, Roussel and Holst to Indian lore, and so forth. Others rediscovered folksong, and English, Irish, Jewish, and American folk tunes invaded their music. But gradu ally musicians became satiated with the winter garden of Impressionism and began to rebel. It is characteristic that the leaders of the anti Impressionist movement came from its very core: Satie, Milhaud, Honegger, Stravinsky. All of them began as Impressionists, it was only later that they struck out in other directions. It was obvious that the Impressionism of the early century had to be outgrown, very much as had the Rococo of the mid-18th century.

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About the Author

The late Paul Henry Lang ranks among the century's most eminent musicologists. A longtime faculty member at Columbia University, he also served as editor of the Musical Quarterly and as music critic for the New York Herald Tribune.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1962
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393001156
• ISBN 13: 9780393001150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 126
• Editor: Lang Paul Henry