The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music

The Cambridge History of Music

by Nicholas Cook (Editor), Anthony Pople (Editor)

At the beginning of the twentieth century 'music' meant the 'art' tradition of Western Europe and North America; by the end of the century that was just one tradition among many. Written by a group of experts in the field, this book surveys what happened to the Western 'art' tradition alongside the development of jazz, popular music, and world music, linking the history of music with that of its social contexts.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Reference, History

Hardcover

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Nicholas Cook is a British musicologist and writer. In 2009 he became the 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Darwin College. Previously, he was professorial research fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he directed the Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He has also taught at the University of Hong Kong, University of Sydney, and University of Southampton, where he served as dean of arts.

He is a former editor of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001.

Reviews

[Ola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction to the central debates in 20th century music, covering a wide array of genres and styles, including "classical", jazz, popular music and world music. The quality of the articles are mostly very good - especially Leon Botstein's musing on the "museum culture" and cultural politics of music is a delightful read. The only drawback is an extremely badly written article on popular music towards the end of the millennium by Dai Griffiths (the under par author of the 33 1/3 book on OK computer) and the slightly half-hearted coverage of world music. The book requires some insight into the main canon of 20th century music, but should be a good step further for readers wanting to get more intimate with the scholarly debate on music in the previous century.