A Time Without Music
The Musical Revolutions are Coming!!
I first discovered the work of Stuart Isacoff through his book Temperament, How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization. It turns out that a lot of suffering went into the attempts to make tuning in music a standard. Who knew? We take for granted that we can play together or even in different keys. What would we do if we could not have Mahler Symphony №5 in C-Sharp Minor? And the celebration that took place in Bach writing the Well Tempered Clavier in all 24 keys!
There was so much that had to happen to make that possible, and Isacoff lays it all out in Temperament. Not unlike today, science may have the answers but humanity isn’t ready or willing to hear it. And in the case of tuning, it took centuries, so the difficult part is watching how slowly the clear cool lens of objectivity is visible to the eyes of the world as we go towards our technological future.
Since that first book, there have been two more, including A Natural History of the Piano — The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians — from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between, and When the World Stopped to Listen—Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph, and its Aftermath, all of which are published by Alfred A. Knopf.
Now comes the much anticipated fourth book, due out in June of 2022. Stuart has kindly allowed me to publish a preview of the introduction, and you don’t have to be a musicologist to read it!
The Genesis of Musical Revolutions
By Stuart Isacoff
There are many paths to an exploration of music history: examining trends by era, for example, exploring national styles, or noting technological innovations and their impact on a culture. Each of these is potentially limiting in depth, compared to the understanding that arises when the web of connections between them is fully considered. In my new book, Musical Revolutions, which will be published in June by Alfred A. Knopf, the focus is on disruptions to the status quo: moments in music history when things dramatically changed, with an eye to their precedents and aftermaths.
Some were bold leaps with a gloriously expansive effect, like the invention of music notation in the eleventh century; the birth of opera in the sixteenth; the time in the early twentieth when American jazz spread its wings and moved to Paris. Others were seriously unsettling, like the tumultuous decision by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg and his students to erase the distinction between “consonance” and “dissonance,” thereby overthrowing the very pillars of Western harmony; or the determination by John Cage and his followers to craft their music from the indeterminacy of a coin toss. Each one ushered in a new direction — often unexpected, like a planet following an invisible orrery, discernible only after the fact. At times these spurred convulsive reactions (as in the swing, during J. S. Bach’s lifetime, from clotted complexity to elegant simplicity — a change Bach himself transcended, as his music embodied both).
Still, these changes usually didn’t arise in a flash, like an unforeseen volcanic eruption, but instead unfolded as an arc: preceded by earlier hints and models, and encompassing long-term after-effects. The pattern reflects the definition of “revolution” as suggested by Nicolaus Copernicus in his groundbreaking On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, in 1543. “Revolution,” in his view, implies cyclic return, as in the elliptical orbits of the planets as they revolve around the sun; or in periodic repetition, per Galileo’s explanation of the ocean’s tides, based on Copernican theory. The term “revolution,” though it conjures images of storming the barricades, is frequently less a cannon shot than a great pendulum swing. And, as J. Bernard Cohen pointed out in Revolution in Science (1985), it implies depth, a cumulative impact, a web of contexts.
Even with the disruptive shock of the new, a discernible symmetry can be found within revolutionary change. As Mark Twain pointed out,
history may not exactly repeat, but it rhymes: the universe unfolds as a great narrative poem, outlining an endless series of connections.
In describing the arc of a particular musical phenomenon, however, the question arises of how far back one should search for its origins.
The pursuit could be endless, because there never was a time without music.
Archaeologists have found a flute, at least thirty-five thousand years old, in a cave in southwestern Germany, made from a hollow bone of a griffon vulture, in a curated setting, surrounded by cave paintings and carved figures. A conch-shell horn from the Paleolithic period, eighteen thousand years ago, has turned up in southern France; it had been deliberately chipped and punctured to create a musical instrument. Clearly, music and art have always been essential aspects of living.
The list of events in this book is, of course, somewhat arbitrary. No attempt has been made for completeness, since the subject is inexhaustible, and others might well come up with alternate versions — including perspectives more inclusive of world music. There is a great big universe beyond the Western canon, and my focus was simply a result of who I am, and what I have focused on and experienced for most of my life.
In fact, I felt compelled to skip even some important facets of Western music, like rock — the stylistic juggernaut that emerged in the 1950s, animated by teenage angst and overheated libidos. It arose from the simmering turmoil at the center of a growing generation gap, with the aim of disrupting the status quo. Like everything else covered in these pages, rock constantly evolved. In the beginning, its transgressions were relatively tame: Elvis Presley stunned a public unaccustomed to artists whose style transcended the Black/White racial divide, and easily sent teen girls into a frenzy with the mere twitch of his hips.
As the years wore on, the festering nihilism at the music’s center erupted into outright brutality: pianist Jerry Lee Lewis (“Great Balls of Fire”) literally set his instrument ablaze; the Who’s Pete Townshend smashed guitars on stage, as the music metaphorically demolished social guardrails. Rock musicians increasingly assumed the role of outcasts and outlaws, though the Beatles, among other groups leading the “British Invasion,” brought charm to the mix. The movement’s trajectory changed again through increasing levels of sophistication, while diverse currents, from folk-rock and grunge to electronics and hip-hop, influenced the genre in unpredictable ways. If rock is to be written about, it deserves a more knowledgeable observer than myself.
So the scope of my book is limited. Yet the benchmarks I cite, aspects of a continuing tradition, stand out as moments of remarkable creativity and daring, though it is unusual to find them compiled into a single volume. I believe deeply that they are worth remarking upon, and celebrating.
Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed - Mozart's List
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