Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918-1933

2017 | History & Politics

This book challenges commonplace conceptions of musical conservatism during Germany's Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Its primary goal is to offer scrutiny of uncritical links often made by musicologists and historians between musical conservatism and political conservatism of the era. It does so through a critical and nuanced application of the term 'conservative revolution', as used throughout the Weimar era and popularised in its historiography after 1945. After an opening discussion of the time-honoured notion of 'Weimar Culture' and its tendency to obscure parts of the contemporary cultural landscape (and their relation to modernity and modernism), the book presents four contrasting studies, each focused on a particular 'conservative' musical figure or movement, and informed by readings of a complex discourse drawn together from contemporary journals, speeches, letters, scores, and archival sources. The first two studies address Thomas Mann and his relationship with Hans Pfitzner in the afterma

Nicholas Attfield (Author)