Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening

Description

Kramer was one of the most visionary musical thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. In his The Time of Music, he approached the idea of the many different ways that time itself is articulated musically. This book has become influential among composers, theorists, and aestheticians. Now, in his almost completed text written before his untimely death in 2004, he examines the concept of postmodernism in music. Kramer created a series of markers by which we can identify postmodern works. He suggests that the postmodern project actually creates a radically different relationship between the composer and listener. Written with wit, precision, and at times playfully subverting traditional tropes to make a very serious point about this difference, Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening leads us to a strongly grounded intellectual basis for stylistic description and an intuitive sensibility of what postmodernism in music entails. Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening is an examination of how musical postmodernism is not just a style or movement, but a fundamental shift in the relationship between composer and listener. The result is a multifaceted and provocative look at a critical turning point in music history, one whose implications we are only just beginning to understand.

Robert Carl is chair of Composition at the Hartt School, University of Hartford. His music is performed worldwide. His first teacher was Jonathan Kramer.

The value and importance of the book is properly expressed in the conclusion of the preface by Jann Pasler ... Indeed a deep reading of this book will provoke an objective critical relationship towards postmodernism even among those (like myself) who cautiously use this term - if they use it at all. * International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music * Jonathan Kramer's Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening reflects his voracious mind and offers the reader a highly original tour through the philosophy, aesthetics, and analysis of musical postmodernism. The book is both accessible and authoritative, and it fills an important gap in the musical literature. * Fred Lerdahl, Professor of Music, Columbia University, USA * A brilliant "both/and," inclusive thinker, Jonathan Kramer has always been accessible and engaging, eclectic and learned. As a consummate writer, teacher and composer, he has astutely theorized postmodernism-that slippery, contentious beast-from the evidence of contemporary music itself and from the social values of its listeners, as well as creators. In this multi-layered, innovative study of music in our world of "social saturation", the postmodern is neither a category nor an era: it is a way of hearing, a musical attitude shared by composers and listeners alike. This captivating book will make you rethink modernism, anti-modernism, and of course postmodernism. * Linda Hutcheon, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada * For years Jonathan Kramer has been the leading thinker on the vexed subject of postmodernism in music through his articles and lectures. Now his long-awaited book on the topic is finally posthumously out, and the subtlety and nuance with which he draws a consistent and reasonable argument from so much disparate and seemingly contradictory data is breathtaking. This is likely to be the standard work on musical postmodernism for a long time, and will vastly increase the depth of the discussion. * Kyle Gann, Hawver Professor of Music, Bard College, USA *