Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920

by Jim Samson

Book Overview

The decades from 1900 to 1920 saw important changes in the very language of music. Traditional tonal organization gave way to new forms of musical expression and many of the foundations of modern music were laid. Samson first explores tonal expansion in the music of such nineteenth-centurycomposers as Liszt and Wagner and its reinterpretation in the music of Debussy, Busoni, Bartok, and Stravinsky. He then traces the atonal revolution, revealing the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393021939
• ISBN13: 9780393021936
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Analysis in depth

Jim Samson's analysis of the period between 1900 and 1920 would make an ideal textbook for a college course on this subject; to take full advantage of his sweeping analyses it would be necessary for the reader to drag out dozens of works from the period running through each in depth and then comparing one's own results with his results. Thus, a detriment to enjoying the book fully is the lack of actual musical scires. His analysis in streams of chords without the original score is less than fully satisfying. But obviously the book gives a magnificent overview of the period.