'collage' of the title). In 17 essays that examine major movements
and figures, he draws on music, art, literature, sociology, and
cultural history...Much is provocative.
book...keeps the crucial questions alive, and nourishes them in an
attractively personal and provocative way.
detective, adept at ferreting out the obscure lineage of an
idea...[An] ambitious and impressive book.
equally valuable to the reader is the exhilarating fun of
discovering new details among the familiar.
ÝWatkins's¨ argument is that, just as I. M. Pei's glass pyramids at
the Louvre pluralistically resonate against the Napoleon III
architecture which provides a backdrop, so the cultural experience
of twentieth-century music owes much to the special concern of
composers with varieties of collage--with 'cut and paste'
methodologies that bring the Orient into alignment with the
Occident, the primitive with the sophisticated, the organic with
the clockwork. Watkins...brings his infectious cultural curiosity
to bear on what we might define, borrowing one of his own phrases
about the cinema, as a concern with 'promoting the
comprehensibility of fracture'...This book...keeps the crucial
questions alive, and nourishes them in an attractively personal and
provocative way. -- Arnold Whittall "Music & Letters"
An ambitious attempt to understand our inherited Western musical
culture...An entertaining and clearly written chronicle, no little
part of which is new insights and previously slighted historical
accounts. And equally valuable to the reader is the exhilarating
fun of discovering new details among the familiar. -- Alan Andres
"Boston Book Review"
Impressive....Utilizing an immense store of knowledge, Watkins
explores the unusual juxtapositions of our century--exotic and
indigenous, old and new, black and white, high and low, cerebral
and instinctive (the 'collage' of the title). In 17 essays that
examine major movements and figures, he draws on music, art,
literature, sociology, and cultural history...Much is
provocative.
The real value of the book lies in the intricate network of
cross-fertilisations and syntheses it reveals between things we're
used to thinking of in isolation. Watkins is an assiduous and
enthusiastic cultural detective, adept at ferreting out the obscure
lineage of an idea...ÝAn¨ ambitious and impressive book. -- Ivan
Hewett "Musical Times"
[Watkins's] argument is that, just as I. M. Pei's glass pyramids at
the Louvre pluralistically resonate against the Napoleon III
architecture which provides a backdrop, so the cultural experience
of twentieth-century music owes much to the special concern of
composers with varieties of collage--with 'cut and paste'
methodologies that bring the Orient into alignment with the
Occident, the primitive with the sophisticated, the organic with
the clockwork. Watkins...brings his infectious cultural curiosity
to bear on what we might define, borrowing one of his own phrases
about the cinema, as a concern with 'promoting the
comprehensibility of fracture'...This book...keeps the crucial
questions alive, and nourishes them in an attractively personal and
provocative way.
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