Revisiting the Historiography of Postwar Avant-Garde Music

<p>This collection of essays delves into the historiographical traditions that have dominated how the stories of European postwar avant-garde music are told seeking to approach commonplaces of that history writing from new perspectives. The contributors revisit subjects as varied as the impact of long-playing records on the emergence of open works Messiaen’s interest in non-European musical traditions Xenakis’s turn to information theory Kagel’s strategic invention of a new genre Berio’s dependence on funding from American foundations and the ways in which figures like Boulez Stockhausen Pousseur and Nono constructed their musical ancestries. Leading experts in their respective fields the volume’s authors have sought to rethink the historiography of European experimental music of the 1950s 1960s and 1970s in ways that resituate that small but influential milieu in broader historical and cultural contexts. In doing so they suggest new directions and insights for students and specialists of twentieth-century music and music historiography. </p>