The Schenker Project Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-si}}cle Vienna [Hardcover]

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 to explain 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 fully racialized anti-semitism was developing there. As well as presenting an unfamiliar perspective on the cultural and political ferment offin-de-si?cleVienna, this book reveals how deeply Schenker's theory is permeated by the social and political. 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.

Cook...assembles yet another rich cultural study of this already well-researched time period but with the added benefit of illustrating the degree to which a field as seemingly abstract as music theory can be a site of political contestation...The Schenker Projectoffers a riveting account of how music comes to be 'imbued with worldly meaning' (318)--a process that was not without its dark side in the early decades of the twentieth century. --Austrian History Yearbook

Nicholas Cook has whipped up an intellectual feast for all those interested in Schenker, his theories, and the cultural melting pot of turn-of-the-celãM