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Revised Edition
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SUBJECTS
Music » Reference
Reference » Music
Music » Classical
Music » Biographies
Music » Music (General)
REVIEWS
"[Joan Peyser's] smoothly flowing prose encapsulates the history of the whole era of modern music. Among many valuable insights, Ms. Peyser remarks that Boulez's performances of Mahler perhaps more than of any other composer, identify his own qualities, rigor, precision, intellect, by omitting the Weltschmerz. (She says that Boulez still regards Mahler as a stepping-stone to Berg, which is consistent with his view when I first met him forty years ago.)"
—Robert Craft, conductor and writer on music
DESCRIPTION
Joan Peyser offers a history of twentieth century music through the lives and works of its greatest composers in To Boulez and Beyond. Peyser provides historical context and suggests psychological insight for these masters, including Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern of the Second Viennese School; their immediate ancestors Wagner and Mahler; Rimsky-Korsakov and his pupil Stravinsky; and Hindemith, Bartók, Cowell, and Varèse. Discussing proponents of serialism and twelve-tone technique, as well as those who worked against these styles, the book also considers Berio, Stockhausen, Shostakovich, Babbitt, Copland, Wuorinen, and Cage, among others, describing how and why music moved throughout the 20th century. The largest section of the book is devoted to the life and works of Pierre Boulez. A new preface and a bibliography help to round out this revised and updated edition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joan Peyser wrote regularly for the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday New York Times from the late 1960s to the early 1980s and is the author of several books, including The Orchestra: Origins and Transformations; Bernstein: A Biography; The Memory of All That: The Life of George Gershwin; and Twentieth Century Music: The Sense Behind the Sound.