| Contents |
Et in arcadia ego; or, I didn't know I was such a pessimist until I wrote this thing (a talk) -- Only time will cover the taint -- "Nationalism" : colonialism in disguise? -- Why do they all hate Horowitz? -- Optimism amid the rubble -- A survivor from the teutonic train wreck -- Does nature call the tune? -- Two stabs at the universe. Away with the Ives myth : the "universe" is here at last ; Out of hibernation : Ives's mythical beast -- In search of the "good" Hindemith legacy -- Six times six : a Bach suite selection -- A Beethoven season? -- Dispelling the contagious Wagnerian mist -- How talented composers become useless -- Making a stand against sterility -- A sturdy musical bridge to the twenty-first century -- Calling all pundits : no more predictions! -- In The Rake's progress, love conquers (almost) all -- Markevitch as Icarus -- Let's rescue poor Schumann from his rescuers -- Early music : truly old-fashioned at last? -- Bartók and Stravinsky : odd couple reunited? -- Wagner's antichrist crashes a pagan party -- A surrealist composer comes to the rescue of modernism -- Corraling a herd of musical mavericks -- Can we give poor Orff a pass at last? -- The danger of music and the case for control -- Ezra Pound : a slim sound claim to musical immortality -- Underneath the dissonance beat a Brahmsian heart -- Enter Boris Goudenow, just 295 years late -- The first modernist -- The dark side of the moon -- Of kings and divas -- The golden age of kitsch -- No ear for music : the scary purity of John Cage -- Sacred entertainments -- The poietic fallacy -- The musical mystique : defending classical music against its devotees -- Revising revision -- Back to whom? Neoclassicism as ideology -- She do the Ring in different voices -- Stravinsky and us -- Setting limits (a talk). |
| Abstract |
This work gathers two decades of Richard Taruskin's writing on the arts and politics ranging in approach from occasional pieces for major newspapers to full-scale critical essays. It considers contemporary composition and performance, the role of critics and historians in the life of the arts, and much more. |
| General note | Roth Family Foundation music in America imprint. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Other title |
New York times. |
| LCCN | 2007052244 |
| ISBN | 9780520249776 (cloth : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 0520249771 (cloth : alk. paper) |
