GROUPS

Chapter:

CHAPTER 10 The Cult of the Commonplace

Source:

MUSIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Such music, claimed one of its most articulate devotees, was the only contemporary music that “can be enjoyed and appreciated without any knowledge of the history of music.”¹⁷ And, for that reason, its “aesthetic” (that is, the basis of its appeal) was “the only twentieth-century aesthetic in the Western world.” This was an ambitious and impressive claim indeed, proclaimed on behalf of a music that seemed to forswear ambition and eschew impressiveness, and offered with the deliberately paradoxical conviction that “the only healthy thing music can do in our century is to stop trying to be impressive.”

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 The Cult of the Commonplace." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-010007.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 10 The Cult of the Commonplace. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 6 Dec. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-010007.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 The Cult of the Commonplace." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 6 Dec. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-010007.xml