Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- A view from 30,000 feet -- Brahms and Wagner : the twilight of two gods -- Stravinsky and Schoenberg : overtures to the Great War -- The lure of chaos -- Hitler, Wagner, and the poison from within -- Stalin and Mussolini make music -- The miracle of a second exodus -- A new war, an old avant-garde -- A Cold War defines contemporary music -- Creating history and erasing history -- Of war and loss -- A century ends -- Appendix : A personal diary.

This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Probing why so few works have been added to the canon since 1930, Mauceri examines the trajectories of great composers who, following World War I, created voices that were unique and versatile, but superficially simpler. He contends that the fate of composers during World War II is inextricably linked to the political goals of their respective governments, resulting in the silencing of experimental music in Germany, Italy, and Russia; the exodus of composers to America; and the sudden return of experimental music-what he calls "the institutional avant-garde"-as the lingua franca of classical music in the West during the Cold War.

"In 2000, two Russian-American fellows - visual artist - at Berlin's American Academy became exasperated with me on the subject of contemporary music and said, "Why do you support music that needs no support?" -- p.18