The Idea of Music

Why has modern music evolved as it has? Why is it that certain leading composers from the first half of this century are now considered insignificant, while the responsibility for the development of a musical language of modernism has been attributed to Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School? In this book the author seeks to re-examine Schoenberg's innovations through a reassessment of the nature of artistic expression and artistic truth. Starting from the premise that Austro-German music in the late nineteenth century was dominated by philosophical ideas, he has focused on writing by Schoenberg, Adorno and Thomas Mann, setting these alongside a discussion of the music of Pfitzner, Schreker, Mahler, Richard Strauss and Schoenberg himself, in a compelling argument for a review of the standard historical account of the period.