The Schenker Project

Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-974429-9
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 559 g

Today we think of Heinrich Schenker, who lived in Vienna from 1884 until his death in 1935, as the most influential music theorist of the twentieth century. But he saw his theoretical writings as part of a comprehensive project for the reform of musical composition, performance, criticism, and education-and beyond that, as addressing fundamental cultural, social, and political problems of the deeply troubled age in which he lived. This book aims at an understanding
of Schenker's project through reading his key works within a series of period contexts. These include music criticism, the field in which Schenker first made his name; Viennese modernism, particularly the debate over architectural ornamentation; German cultural conservatism, which is the source of
many of Schenker's most deeply entrenched values; and Schenker's own position as a Galician Jew who came to Vienna just as traditional anti-semitism was becoming fully racialized. As well as presenting an unfamiliar perspective on the cultural and political ferment of fin-de-siècle Vienna, this approach reveals how deeply the social and political were thought into Schenker's theory. It also raises issues concerning the meaning and value of music theory, and the extent to which today's
music-theoretical agenda unwittingly reflects the values and concerns of a very different world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cook, Nicholas

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre

Über Autor(innen)

Nicholas Cook is Professor of Music at Cambridge University. He was Professorial Research Fellow in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he directs the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He is the author of articles and books on a wide variety of musicological and theoretical subjects (his Music: A Very Short Introduction has been translated into ten languages). He was elected Fellow
of the British Academy in 2001.