- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.; New Ed edition (17 Mar 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0826476090
- ISBN-13: 978-0826476098
- Product Dimensions: 18.2 x 12.1 x 1.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,288,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
"I cannot think of a better and more stimulating guide to the myriad of issues that confrant the world of music today. Both serious and funny, unsensationalized and intelligent, this book may not offer all the answers, but it asks all the right questions." Nicholas Kenyon, Controller, BBC Proms "A virtuosic analysis...his conclusions are striking" The Guardian "Anyone with a serious interest in music...should find Music: Healing the Rift an inspiring and illuminating read" Classical Music Magazine"
Product Description
The word 'music' in the early 21st century means many things. It means Mozart in the elevator, 50s pop songs on TV adverts, Finnish folk songs on Nokia 'phones. It means inflammatory Serbian nationalist song, ancient Coptic Church chant, Berlin electronica, Wynton Marsalis. It means Bach cantatas performed in Japan, Algerian rai in Madison Square Garden, it means Gilbert and Sullivan performed in Texas, it means Mongolian rap. Given this bewildering abundance, how we can speak of a single thing called 'music'? This book will argue that we can. More than that, it will argue that a vast area of cultural practice is at risk of vanishing behind the deafening roar of all those dead simulations of music that fill the airwaves. This sounds like a paradox; how could 'music' be in danger, indeed actually disappear, while the world drowns in musical sounds? The reason is that music is not just 'out there' in the sounds - it is also in us. It is a relation between sounds and those who hear them - and also those who make them. What makes that relation so precious to us is that it lifts us into a different realm, even as it roots us firmly in the here and now. In this passionately argued and convincing book Ivan Hewett reclaims the unique place that music should have in our culture in its own right.
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A scatterbrained defence of classical music through modernism and beyond
14 April 2009
Ivan Hewett's 2003 book MUSIC: Healing the Rift is a collection of musings on the place of modern classical music in a marketplace which ignores it. Hewett has been involved in classical music in the UK for three decades, as a composer, festival organizer and recently a critic for the Daily Telegraph. While he has a vast knowledge of the repertoire and the personalities of new music, bringing some enjoyable trivia to the book, I found MUSIC: Healing the Rift to be disappointing.
The interesting proposition with which Hewett opens and closes the book is that new music is useful to the public because, far from being some elite art hermetically sealed off in academia, it proves a basis for discussion of popular music and has already went through many of the changes which popular genres have experienced. Even as popular artists criticize the art music tradition, their rhetoric is full of terminology derived from it. Far from perpetuating a divide between art music and popular music, we should see the two as a coherent whole.
Unfortunately, between the opening and closing chapters, Hewett basically writes whatever comes to mind. These observations are sometimes interesting, but all too often one feels that he isn't making any kind of clear point. I love all the modernist composers he brings up, but the book became tedious to read.
The interesting proposition with which Hewett opens and closes the book is that new music is useful to the public because, far from being some elite art hermetically sealed off in academia, it proves a basis for discussion of popular music and has already went through many of the changes which popular genres have experienced. Even as popular artists criticize the art music tradition, their rhetoric is full of terminology derived from it. Far from perpetuating a divide between art music and popular music, we should see the two as a coherent whole.
Unfortunately, between the opening and closing chapters, Hewett basically writes whatever comes to mind. These observations are sometimes interesting, but all too often one feels that he isn't making any kind of clear point. I love all the modernist composers he brings up, but the book became tedious to read.
An scatterbrained defence of classical music into the era of modernism and beyond
14 April 2009
Format:Paperback
Ivan Hewett's 2003 book MUSIC: Healing the Rift is a collection of musings on the place of modern classical music in a marketplace which ignores it. Hewett has been involved in classical music in the UK for three decades, as a composer, festival organizer and recently a critic for the Daily Telegraph. While he has a vast knowledge of the repertoire and the personalities of new music, bringing some enjoyable trivia to the book, I found MUSIC: Healing the Rift to be disappointing.
The interesting proposition with which Hewett opens and closes the book is that new music is useful to the public because, far from being some elite art hermetically sealed off in academia, it proves a basis for discussion of popular music and has already went through many of the changes which popular genres have experienced. Even as popular artists criticize the art music tradition, their rhetoric is full of terminology derived from it. Far from perpetuating a divide between art music and popular music, we should see the two as a coherent whole.
Unfortunately, between the opening and closing chapters, Hewett basically writes whatever comes to mind. These observations are sometimes interesting, but all too often one feels that he isn't making any kind of clear point. I love all the modernist composers he brings up, but the book became tedious to read.
The interesting proposition with which Hewett opens and closes the book is that new music is useful to the public because, far from being some elite art hermetically sealed off in academia, it proves a basis for discussion of popular music and has already went through many of the changes which popular genres have experienced. Even as popular artists criticize the art music tradition, their rhetoric is full of terminology derived from it. Far from perpetuating a divide between art music and popular music, we should see the two as a coherent whole.
Unfortunately, between the opening and closing chapters, Hewett basically writes whatever comes to mind. These observations are sometimes interesting, but all too often one feels that he isn't making any kind of clear point. I love all the modernist composers he brings up, but the book became tedious to read.
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