From 1989, or European Music and the Modernist Unconscious (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520279360)

What happened to musical modernism? When did it end? Did it end? In this unorthodox Lacanian account of European New Music, Seth Brodsky focuses on the unlikely year 1989, when New Music hardly takes center stage. Instead one finds Rostropovich playing Bach at Checkpoint Charlie; or Bernstein changing "Joy" to "Freedom" in Beethoven's Ninth; or David Hasselhoff lip-synching "Looking for Freedom" to thousands on New Year's Eve. But if such spectacles claim to master their historical moment, New Music unconsciously takes the role of analyst. In so doing, it restages earlier scenes of modernism. As world politics witnesses a turning away from the possibility of revolution, musical modernism revolves in place, performing century-old tasks of losing, failing, and beginning again, in preparation for a revolution to come.

Author: Seth Brodsky
ISBN-10: 0520279360
ISBN-13: 9780520279360
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 01/24/2017
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.52lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.94d