Table of Contents

List of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction: issues and perspectives; 1. Back to the future: Nabokov's selection criteria for L'Oeuvre du XXe siècle; 2. Nabokov, Shostakovich and the view from the bridge; 3. Articles of war: the Prague Manifesto and the Progressistes; 4. Creative freedom or political obligation? Serialism and Stalinism in France; 5. Culture and confrontation at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; 6. Neither you nor they: the avant-garde and neutralité; 7. Music and Sartrean commitment; 8. René Leibowitz and the musician's conscience; 9. A forlorn hope: Sartre's 'virtual' audience; 10. Serialism, scientism and the post-war world view; Epilogue: the aftermath of L'Oeuvre du XXe siècle; Appendix: the musical programme L'Oeuvre du XXe siècle; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

Places the radicalization of art music in early post-war France in its broader socio-cultural and political context.

About the Author

Mark Carroll is Lecturer in Music at the Australian National University, Canberra.

Reviews

'It is an intelligently written ... study which assembles a great deal of contemporary thinking on the issue of modernism in the early 1950s ... Carroll's own reflections are well-considered and helpful not only to a fuller understanding of the issues, but in clarifying the thinking of some of those he cites.' Musical Times ' ... this is a valuable and closely argued study ...' Journal of American Studies '... Mark Carroll's [book] ... is an important contribution to the history of the cultural cold war ... with its considerations of the politics of serialism and existentialism and the complex relationships between musical and political schools of thought in this period, it makes for interesting reading.' Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory