Nation and Classical Music

A new book devoted to the serious study of national music might seem to be a late entry in a crowded field. Music critics and scholars have been writing about national music and nationalism in music for over a century and the literature in English has even accelerated in the past thirty years. The topic has been central to the work of Philip Bohlman, Jim Samson, Richard Taruskin, and a good many other prominent musicologists. Admittedly, much of the recent work has focused on music and identity in particular places and on nationalism in the works of individual composers, while few studies have taken a wider view of the subject. Drawing on existing literature and its authors’ extensive knowledge of the repertory, Nation and Classical Music: From Handel to Copland presents a detailed survey of the relationship between music and nationalism over a period of two and half centuries. The book sets out to explore two related issues: the impact of nationalism on classical music and how the musical works themselves helped to shape nations. Its material is culled from a period beginning in the early decades of the eighteenth century, when the rise of a middle class created a demand for public performances, and ending in the middle decades of the twentieth century, with the music of Copland and Shostakovich.

Art · Classical music · Literature · Musical · Diverse Musicological Studies · Musicology and Musical Analysis