The New Music

For this second edition of his guide to the more adventurous evolutions of music since 1945, Reginald Smith Brindle has added a new chapter reviewing developments in the decade since the book first appeared. He discusses the decline of experimentalism and the reaction against increasing cerebralism and complexity as variously illustrated by the more recent works of Stockhausen, the 'minimalist' works of Reich and Glass, and the partial return to romanticism. He alsoreviews the technological revolution which has taken place in computer music, and concludes that the future of music will for the time being be most closely associated with technological change and development, rather than with radical change in compositional techniques.