Contents

Music in the Late Twentieth Century

AMERICANIZATION

Chapter:
CHAPTER 8 A Harmonious Avant-Garde?
Source:
MUSIC IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Author(s):
Richard Taruskin

Whether or not the means employed by minimalist composers were insidious, they were surely the (inevitable?) product of the society in which all of the composers considered in this chapter had grown up. Reich has not only recognized but celebrated this fact, justifying his rejection of European modernist styles by remarking that whereas “Stockhausen, Berio and Boulez were portraying in very honest terms what it was like to pick up the pieces of a bombed-out continent after World War II,” the American experience had been different, and demanded a different medium of expression. “For some Americans in 1948 or 1958 or 1968—in the real context of tail-fins, [the rock ‘n’ roll singer] Chuck Berry and millions of burgers sold—to pretend that instead we're really going to have the dark-brown angst of Vienna is a lie, a musical lie.”63

Citation (MLA):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 A Harmonious Avant-Garde?." 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-div1-008012.xml>.
Citation (APA):
Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 8 A Harmonious Avant-Garde?. 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-div1-008012.xml
Citation (Chicago):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 A Harmonious Avant-Garde?." 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-div1-008012.xml
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. Please, subscribe or login to access all content.