ULTIMATE REALIZATION OR REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM?

Chapter:

CHAPTER 3 The Apex

Source:

MUSIC IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

The issues at stake go right back to the origins of literate (i.e., notated) music. The “real-time” practices Benjamin invokes—improvisation, embellishment, creative play—are the practices, and reflect the values, of “oral” culture. Their eclipse marks the full ascendancy of literacy—an ascendancy a full millennium in the making. And indeed the values Babbitt's compositional practices maximize—extreme (approaching “total”) density, fixity, and consistency of texture, maintained over a long temporal (= “structural”) span—are precisely the ones associated with the “spatialization” of music that literacy made possible.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 3 The Apex." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 7 Sep. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-003015.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 3 The Apex. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 7 Sep. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-003015.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 3 The Apex." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Sep. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-003015.xml