I was surprised to see Ross, in a late chapter, permit himself to say that 'uptown' (Lincoln Center) audiences enjoyed some of Hitler's favorite works. They actively discouraged performances of the still-living Richard Strauss. At first this was an attempt by American occupation forces to change German musical taste they encouraged jazz and works forbidden by the Nazis, notably Mendelssohn at first. 'Uncompromising' standards were framed in terms of Western freedom of expression versus Stalinist socialist realism. In the U.S., the end of the New Deal support for the arts was followed by official encouragement for Darmstadt atonality. Ross relates that both denazification and Cold War politics included financial assistance to atonal composers, initially at Darmstadt, and later, through funds covertly provided by the CIA, even for such commissions as the one Stravinsky received for Threni. Less well known than these events, and news to me, is that there was a significant connection among these matters. In mid-20 th century, when the Cold War was beginning and Germany was widely in ruins, some thought that musical tonality was largely destroyed as well. Orff's School Work project, Ross says, 'probably touched more lives than any music described in this book.'įor me, the most interesting chapters come in the middle of the book. Strauss comes off rather badly in his account Orff rather better: Carmina Burana was dismissed with an offensively racist epithet by a Nazi reviewer when it first appeared, though when it became popular the Nazi aesthetic was modified to accommodate that fact.

He says quite a lot about Strauss, Schoenberg, Messiaen and the minimalists, little about Ravel, nothing about William Schuman, a bare mention of Rochberg, a line about Shapero (his early interest in jazz, not his symphony). To be sure, it would be impossible to do justice to all the significant composers of the past century, even in such a lengthy book. He tends to focus on representative figures from various times and places, whom he makes vivid and real, rather than give balanced accounts of other composers. To this end he devotes chapters to Berlin in the 20s, music in Stalin's Russia, FDR's U.S. His stated aim is to give an account of the 'cultural predicament of the composer in the twentieth century,' and thus the social and political conditions in which composers lived. Beginning with a performance of Salome, in Graz, the attendees of which included Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Puccini, and perhaps Hitler, he brings his historical account up to John Adams. Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker, presents a highly researched and documented history of 20 th century classical music.

Alex ross the rest is noise review