The rest is noise : listening to the twentieth century

The author gives a riveting tour of the wild landscape of 20th century classical music: portraits of individuals, cultures and nations reveal the predicament of the composer in a noisy, chaotic century;Alex Ross's sweeping history of twentieth-century classical music, winner of the Guardian First Book Award, is a gripping account of a musical revolution. The landscape of twentieth-century classical music is a wild one: this was a period in which music fragmented into apparently divergent strands, each influenced by its own composers, performers and musical innovations. In this comprehensive tour, Alex Ross, music critic for the 'New Yorker', explores the people and places that shaped musical development: Adams to Zweig, Brahms to Bjork, pre-First World War Vienna to 'Nixon in China'. Above all, this unique portrait of an exceptional era weaves together art, politics and cultural history to show how twentieth-century classical music was both a symptom and a source of immense social change. This edition includes a definitive list of the greatest recordings of twentieth-century music The inspiration behind the South Bank Centre's year-long festival of 20th century music, Alex Ross's masterpiece is a sweeping musical history from pre-war Vienna to the Velvet Underground. The landscape of twentieth-century classical music is a wild one: this was a period in which music fragmented into apparently divergent strands, each influenced by its own composers, performers and musical innovations. In this comprehensive tour, Alex Ross, music critic for the 'New Yorker', explores the people and places that shaped musical development: Adams to Zweig, Brahms to Björk, pre-First World War Vienna to 'Nixon in China'. Winner of the Guardian First Book Award, this unique portrait of an exceptional era weaves together art, politics and cultural history to show how twentieth-century classical music was both a symptom and a source of immense social change. Alex Ross's sweeping history of twentieth-century classical music, winner of the Guardian First Book Award, is a gripping account of a musical revolution. The landscape of twentieth-century classical music is a wild one: this was a period in which music fragmented into apparently divergent strands, each influenced by its own composers, performers and musical innovations. In this comprehensive tour, Alex Ross, music critic for the 'New Yorker', explores the people and places that shaped musical development: Adams to Zweig, Brahms to Björk, pre-First World War Vienna to 'Nixon in China'. Above all, this unique portrait of an exceptional era weaves together art, politics and cultural history to show how twentieth-century classical music was both a symptom and a source of immense social change. Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, takes us on a whirlwind tour of the wild landscape of twentieth-century classic music A sweeping musical history that goes from the salons of pre-war Vienna to Velvet Underground shows in the sixties