ONTOGENY BECOMES PHYLOGENY

Chapter:

CHAPTER 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)

Source:

MUSIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

So compelling was the force of Schoenberg’s musical example, for a time, that it prompted a widespread revision of music history in which Schoenberg’s backward narrative bridge from himself to Brahms was not only “reversed into forward motion” but also generalized so that it became not the story of two composers or of a specific musical technique called developing variation, but the story of “Western music” itself. To recall high-school biology class, an “ontogeny,” the individual development of a single member or representative of a type or species (here, Schoenberg) had been generalized into a “phylogeny,” the historical development of the species itself.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Sep. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006022.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Sep. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006022.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Sep. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006022.xml