RADICAL CHIC
One of the ways one copes, of course, is to adapt. Since this book is a history of music in the literate or art tradition, “classical” adaptations and fusions with the popular will be the subject of a closer look in a separate chapter. They mainly originated in the English-speaking countries, the original breeding grounds of rock. But we can end this chapter with a look at a couple of continental European responses to the sixties and to its popular music. These took the form not of technical adaptation or stylistic appropriation, but of attitudinal conversion, the vaunted “revolution in the head.” One noteworthy response was Hans Werner Henze's. We last encountered Henze, in chapter 1, as a somewhat uneasy but obedient participant in the Darmstadt avant-garde. In despair over Germany's wartime descent into barbarism, and what he saw as the country's refusal to come to terms with the horrors of its past, Henze had emigrated in 1953 to Italy. There, without giving up commitment to his Schoenbergian technique (adopted as much in a spirit of political protest as of esthetic conviction), Henze strove for what his biographer Robert Henderson called “a fusion of the German and the Italian spirit, a projection of the north-German polyphonic temperament into the arioso south, with Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi appearing as important influences.”46 Not surprisingly, he became something of an opera specialist during this phase of his career, turning out six operas during his early Italian period.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 7 The Sixties." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-007008.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 7 The Sixties. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 7 Feb. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-007008.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 7 The Sixties." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Feb. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-007008.xml