A sample sentence from its "analysis" of Debussy's "Steps in the Snow" piano prelude replete with mixed and overextended metaphor: "Treading on thin ice, the lamenting traveller seems on the edge of an abyss, having progressed into a new, wholly unstable predicament, uncentred symmetry replacing rooted hierarchy (p.26)."

Then there are its grammatical solecisms: "It is in these works... that Xenakis's music... engages with archetypal dramatic themes.... (p.294)." "Engages" is a TRANSITIVE verb; it requires an object.

After five pages of vague, slippery, equivocal, and evasive (non-)description of Ligeti's music, we are finally treated to a musical example taking up an entire page: ten instruments playing an Ab above middle C in unison and nothing else (p.298). Anyone familiar with 2001: A Space Odyssey knows that Ligeti has written complex, fascinating, and moving music. It is an understatement to point out that Ligeti deserves better.

I could go on.

9 of 17 found the following review helpful:


No  Jan 05, 2001
"Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century" is comically oblivious to the meanings of the words it uses. On its page 335 it tells us that "[John Adams] is attracted to politically correct subject matter, not only in moving vocal settings like `The Word Dresser' (1989) but also in a pair of operas `Nixon in China' (1987) and `The Death of Klinghoffer' (1991), which are exemplary demonstrations of how real characters and events can be presented in imaginative and non-exploitative ways." The term "politically correct" is PEJORATIVE and means the OPPOSITE of "imaginative". A politically correct person is by definition a person afraid to think for himself.

Well for that matter I suppose, a politically correct BOOK is a book much like this one, a book that wishes to ally itself with the bold and brazen but is itself halting and timid, a book that drops the names of other writers gratuitously and quotes them excessively and out of context.

8 of 16 found the following review helpful:


verbiage  Jan 17, 2001
According to the back cover blurb, "the focus" of this book "is on matters of compositional technique, with sections of detailed analytical comment". In fact there is much more and much more detailed analytical comment in Leon Plantiga's "Romantic Music", for example, which doesn't purport to be anything other than a music history textbook--and the first chapter of "Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century" says, "It will, I hope, be obvious that a text conceived in the way I have described [this one] cannot be regarded as a history of twentieth-century music." Yes, it is quite obvious that it is missing biographical and historical context. It is also obvious that the bulk of it is devoted to composers who were rarely performed in the twentieth century--in contradistinction to twentieth-century composers it ignores such as Paul Creston, Vincent Persichetti, Walter Piston, Gian Carlo Menotti, Joaquin Rodrigo, and William Schuman. But in place of history we don't really have "compositional technique"; we have "criticism" in the popular sense of the term (think Siskel and Ebert): works are subjectively judged good or bad, "progressive" or "conservative". We also have verbiage--empty verbiage--lots of it.

1 of 6 found the following review helpful:


Great musicological book  Nov 26, 2005 By H. R. Barrionuevo "H.R.B."
Great source of musicological criticism. Comprehensive. Whittall not only treats the "avant-garde," but also, great 20th century composers (like Puccini) that people actually listen to.

3 of 10 found the following review helpful:


Lacks detail and is rather more than what the contemporary fan needs  Nov 17, 2005 By Christopher Culver
MUSICAL COMPOSITION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is Arnold Whittal's attempt to chart the developments of art-music writing in the 1900s. He covers everyone, so if you are a fan of contemporary repertoire who thinks anyone before (or outside the influence) of Schoenberg et al. merits no attention, than this book will take a while to pick up speed.

Whitall adopts a somewhat encyclopedic approach, grouping composers together under shared developments. In the first chapter, "Taking Steps", he gives brief descriptions of the oeuvres of a number of early 20th century figures such as Faure, Elgar, Ravel, and Mahler and briefly mentions the Second Viennese School. Writers of mainly symphonic music--e.g. Shostakovich and Prokofiev--get their own chapter, as do opera composers. For some reason, the author considers Bartok and Stravinsky so important that they each get their own chapters.

The work finally gets interesting when Whittall dedicates one chapter each to those titans of musical progress, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Following that, various chapters group later composers based mainly on how they responded to the breakthroughs of the Second Viennese School. Unfortunately, there are some inexcusable omissions--no Norgard, Gubaidulina, or Saariaho. However, he deserves credit for attention to Lindberg. Score samples abound. I was thrilled, for example, to see an extract from Xenakis' "ST/4" showing maximum possible variation.

If you are a fan of contemporary repertoire, I'd suggest going to Griffith's MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER: Directions Since 1945, which doesn't waste space on tonal bores like Puccini. Still, if you are curious for ever more information on a modern composer, this may be worth flipping through.