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 book has been expanded to incorporate the variety of responses to the modernist impasse experienced by composers of the 1980s and 1990s. Griffiths then moves the book into the twenty-first century as he 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.
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"Recommended for all libraries serving music programs at the undergraduate level or higher. There is a wealth of information here, and few write as knowledgeably and engagingly on new music as Griffiths." --Fontes Artis Musicae
"Griffiths has done an outstanding job of making this music at least intellectually accessible. It is our job as listeners, if we seriously care, to seek it out and try to encounter it on its own terms. Highly recommended for libraries with sections on new music, composition, music theory and contemporary aesthetics/philosophy." --Music Media Monthly
"Modern Music and After remains as close a definitive survey, study, guide and analysis to its field as there is; it can be recommended without reservation. The standards of scholarship and authorship are indeed high....Production standards, are of course, high; and the price is beyond reasonable -- that alone should convince you to buy this third edition, even if you've read the earlier one(s)...the updates and referencing are significant. For a comprehensive, readable, authoritative, entertaining, lively, open-minded and all round well-written book on the development of music in our time, there is no better." --Classical.net
Praise for the first edition:
"As impressive for its accuracy, as for the clarity, acumen, and wit of its writing." --Classical Music
"Griffiths is excellent about a whole host of composers he admires....Any reader, enthusiast or specialist, will find much to interest and provoke. This book is probably the best of its kind in English today."--Ian Pace, Tempo: Quarterly Review of Modern Music
"Griffiths is so fluent, so practiced a writer in this field that it is understandable if the closest he gets to sceptical disengagement is in suggesting that a composer leaves critics, and even musicologists, lost for words." --Arnold Whittall, The Musical Times
"[A] marvellously thought-provoking and engaging text."--The Musical Times
"A must for the student, and also for the general reader."--The Times
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Dizaner
Format:Paperback
This certainly is the book to get the low-down on contemporary music. However, here a few points of interest:
Firstly, I think the most glaring omission is Louis Andriessen, who not only co-wrote The Apollonian Clockwork, but has also composed some of the most important and exciting non-Webernian music around. What is especially important about Andriessen is that his own 'minimal' style is fully aware of the Modernist heritage at the same time as it critiques or refutes it, as oppoesed to others who just dismiss it outright and have no real understanding of post-Webernian serialism. Also, Andriessen's continuing political ideals make him an interesting study in current musico-poltical relations (now that most are dead: Nono, Cardew; or just write rubbish: Henze).
In fact, while I am no authority on comtemporary Dutch music, I certainly know no more about it through reading this book. Which brings me to my second point: the Anglo-West Europe-American-centricity.
Not only does he leave out the Netherlands, Finland, Scandinavia, South America, as well as the bizarre history of post-war Polish music, but also Australia and (South East) Asia. Now while I am no doubt partisan, his only mention of Australia is one line about the Elision Ensemble in relation to Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, and Finnissy. I think Australia has some of the best composers anywhere (Liza Lim, for instance), writing from a variety of perspectives and a fuller account of these
place-specific musics would have interesting, for instance examination of Australia's liminal position between Europe and Asia and how that affects attitudes to composition.
While his bit on Part is a witty piece of pomo gaming, he sometimes trips himself up in his pomo considerations (as other reviewers have pointed out): for instance, he says that the postmodern condition entails the loss (both through desire and circumstance) of the dominant-central figures crucial to the Modernist project (eg. Boulez) because there are now 'many streams' instead of a river, but he then later complains that no new 'Generals' have stood up to replace the these old ones in terms of central importance to the musical world. In this way, he doesn't really trace many new paths in his last section, but simply rings up his old mates (Boulez, Birtwistle, Berio, Stockhausen, Ligeti, etc) and asks them what they've been up to recently. But, then again, that is really what the book is for and it does it admirably.
And not only is his championing of Barraque timely, but Bill Hopkins too, whose music I was unaware of until reading his bit.
One hopes there will be a 3rd edition after most of the 'peace-time Generals' are gone and a final summation of the lasting effects of the immediate post-war project can take place. Until then this is the book to read if you want to know about the good-old music with no tunes that we all love.
Also the Strings and Knots is organised in reverse alphabetical (very postmodern!)
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.6 out of 5 stars
10 reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent on both the music and the social dynamics
May 24 2001
By Autonomeus
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER should really be kept in print, though the market may be small, as it is the best book on the subject. It serves, among other things, as the best record guide to the post-war avant-garde that I've found, although since '95 it has become somewhat outdated.
Griffiths imbues the story of the serialist avant-garde with high drama. The hero of his story is Pierre Boulez. Messiaen is the mentor, and Stockhausen the brother, a source of friendly but intense rivalry. Schoenberg is the father figure who Boulez "kills" even as he carries on his tradition, but of course crediting Webern. The history gives a palpable sense of the excitement of this avant-garde circle, which came together at Darmstadt. Cage and his zen anarchism presents a radical challenge to the integral serialist Project, and begins to explode it.
This takes us through the 1950s. The second part of the book is equally good, as the linear sense of progress unravels in the 1960s and '70s and fragmentation sets in. A fascinating development which Griffiths documents, but does not comment on, is the resurgence of sacred music as the secular avant-garde disintegrates. The Estonian composer Arvo Part is but one example of this trend, what might be called the reassertion of the pre-modern in the context of the post-modern. The third section is not as good, and resembles other similar books in being more an encyclopedia of entries on various composers and trends. There doesn't seem to be much alternative to this for now, but it's interesting to imagine how the present period may be reconstructed in light of future developments...
In his introduction Griffiths laments the loss of a sense of shared criteria for evaluating the diverse music of the moment. But of course books like this contribute to the construction of those criteria! Peter J. Martin's SOUNDS AND SOCIETY (see my review) is an excellent analysis of how music evaluation is socially constructed -- there are no objective, inherent qualities, and so something like writing a book or even posting reviews to a website serves to shape the reception of the art. An interesting topic to pursue would be the divergent paths of Boulez and Stockhausen, with the former becoming an esteemed conductor and not only championing the avant-garde, but also turning back to the once scorned romantic tradition, while Stockhausen followed an increasingly idiosyncratic path and became a revered figure for the 90s electronica movement, a "Father of Electronic Music"!
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER is indispensable for anyone trying to understand the rich complexities of contemporary composition. I recommend Morgan's TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC (see my review) for the pre-WWII period, and Gann's AMERICAN MUSIC IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (see my review) for greater detail on the postwar U.S.
Griffiths imbues the story of the serialist avant-garde with high drama. The hero of his story is Pierre Boulez. Messiaen is the mentor, and Stockhausen the brother, a source of friendly but intense rivalry. Schoenberg is the father figure who Boulez "kills" even as he carries on his tradition, but of course crediting Webern. The history gives a palpable sense of the excitement of this avant-garde circle, which came together at Darmstadt. Cage and his zen anarchism presents a radical challenge to the integral serialist Project, and begins to explode it.
This takes us through the 1950s. The second part of the book is equally good, as the linear sense of progress unravels in the 1960s and '70s and fragmentation sets in. A fascinating development which Griffiths documents, but does not comment on, is the resurgence of sacred music as the secular avant-garde disintegrates. The Estonian composer Arvo Part is but one example of this trend, what might be called the reassertion of the pre-modern in the context of the post-modern. The third section is not as good, and resembles other similar books in being more an encyclopedia of entries on various composers and trends. There doesn't seem to be much alternative to this for now, but it's interesting to imagine how the present period may be reconstructed in light of future developments...
In his introduction Griffiths laments the loss of a sense of shared criteria for evaluating the diverse music of the moment. But of course books like this contribute to the construction of those criteria! Peter J. Martin's SOUNDS AND SOCIETY (see my review) is an excellent analysis of how music evaluation is socially constructed -- there are no objective, inherent qualities, and so something like writing a book or even posting reviews to a website serves to shape the reception of the art. An interesting topic to pursue would be the divergent paths of Boulez and Stockhausen, with the former becoming an esteemed conductor and not only championing the avant-garde, but also turning back to the once scorned romantic tradition, while Stockhausen followed an increasingly idiosyncratic path and became a revered figure for the 90s electronica movement, a "Father of Electronic Music"!
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER is indispensable for anyone trying to understand the rich complexities of contemporary composition. I recommend Morgan's TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC (see my review) for the pre-WWII period, and Gann's AMERICAN MUSIC IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (see my review) for greater detail on the postwar U.S.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
great showcase of the concepts guiding new music content
Dec 26 1999
By scarecrow
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
My writer brethren here neglected to mention that Griffiths in this reissue,brings us up-to-date a way of completing the tale he began over 20 years ago. Since that time composers have either grown up or become more important, some have fallen from graces completly. Brian Ferneyhough has grown up and Griffiths here gives ample evidence although brief and outlines in form, you read it,and it points you toward a greater exploration of his music. Likewise Morton Feldman became fascinated with the set of problematics concerning longer lengths in music's construction. Likewise the late Luigi Nono, this is the first real description in English of his summary work Prometeo,and gives a good perspective on him.Likewise the late Cage is discussed. Griffiths now writes for the New York Times, and he breathes some new life there of a seasoned reviewer.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Defragmenting the Spheres
April 14 2002
By Dizaner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This certainly is the book to get the low-down on contemporary music. However, here a few points of interest:
Firstly, I think the most glaring omission is Louis Andriessen, who not only co-wrote The Apollonian Clockwork, but has also composed some of the most important and exciting non-Webernian music around. What is especially important about Andriessen is that his own 'minimal' style is fully aware of the Modernist heritage at the same time as it critiques or refutes it, as oppoesed to others who just dismiss it outright and have no real understanding of post-Webernian serialism. Also, Andriessen's continuing political ideals make him an interesting study in current musico-poltical relations (now that most are dead: Nono, Cardew; or just write rubbish: Henze).
In fact, while I am no authority on comtemporary Dutch music, I certainly know no more about it through reading this book. Which brings me to my second point: the Anglo-West Europe-American-centricity.
Not only does he leave out the Netherlands, Finland, Scandinavia, South America, as well as the bizarre history of post-war Polish music, but also Australia and (South East) Asia. Now while I am no doubt partisan, his only mention of Australia is one line about the Elision Ensemble in relation to Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, and Finnissy. I think Australia has some of the best composers anywhere (Liza Lim, for instance), writing from a variety of perspectives and a fuller account of these
place-specific musics would have interesting, for instance examination of Australia's liminal position between Europe and Asia and how that affects attitudes to composition.
While his bit on Part is a witty piece of pomo gaming, he sometimes trips himself up in his pomo considerations (as other reviewers have pointed out): for instance, he says that the postmodern condition entails the loss (both through desire and circumstance) of the dominant-central figures crucial to the Modernist project (eg. Boulez) because there are now 'many streams' instead of a river, but he then later complains that no new 'Generals' have stood up to replace the these old ones in terms of central importance to the musical world. In this way, he doesn't really trace many new paths in his last section, but simply rings up his old mates (Boulez, Birtwistle, Berio, Stockhausen, Ligeti, etc) and asks them what they've been up to recently. But, then again, that is really what the book is for and it does it admirably.
And not only is his championing of Barraque timely, but Bill Hopkins too, whose music I was unaware of until reading his bit.
One hopes there will be a 3rd edition after most of the 'peace-time Generals' are gone and a final summation of the lasting effects of the immediate post-war project can take place. Until then this is the book to read if you want to know about the good-old music with no tunes that we all love.
Also the Strings and Knots is organised in reverse alphabetical (very postmodern!)
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