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A revised paperback edition of composer George Rochberg's landmark essays

"Rochberg presents the rare spectacle of a composer who has made his peace with tradition while maintaining a strikingly individual profile. . . . [H]e succeeds in transforming the sublime concepts of traditional music into contemporary language."
---Washington Post

"An indispensable book for anyone who wishes to understand the sad and curious fate of music in the twentieth century."
---Atlantic Monthly

"The writings of George Rochberg stand as a pinnacle from which our past and future can be viewed."
---Kansas City Star


As a composer, George Rochberg has played a leading role in bringing about a transformation of contemporary music through a reassessment of its relation to tonality, melody, and harmony. In The Aesthetics of Survival, the author addresses the legacy of modernism in music and its related effect on the cultural milieu, particularly its overemphasis on the abstract, rationalist thinking embraced by contemporary science, technology, and philosophy. Rochberg argues for the renewal of holistic values in order to ensure the survival of music as a humanly expressive art.

A renowned composer, thinker, and teacher, George Rochberg has been honored with innumerable awards, including, most recently, an Alfred I. du Pont Award for Outstanding Conductors and Composers, and an André and Clara Mertens Contemporary Composer Award. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

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  1. Contents
  2. p. xi
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  1. Preface to the Revised Edition
  2. pp. xiii-xvi
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  1. Introduction
  2. pp. xvii-xix
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  1. On the New Image of Music
  1. Indeterminacy in the New Music (1959)
  2. pp. 3-15
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  1. The New Image of Music (1963)
  2. pp. 16-26
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  1. On Schoenberg and Serialism
  1. My Dear Igor (An Imaginary Dialogue) (1957)
  2. pp. 29-35
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  1. Reflections on Schoenberg (1972)
  2. pp. 36-58
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  1. On Musical Time and Space
  1. Duration in Music (1960)
  2. pp. 61-67
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  1. The Concepts of Musical Time and Space (1963)
  2. pp. 68-126
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  1. On Music, Humanism, and Culture
  1. No Center (1969)
  2. pp. 129-134
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  1. Humanism versus Science (1970)
  2. pp. 135-144
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  1. Fiddlers and Fribbles or Is Art a Separate Reality? (1986)
  2. pp. 145-164
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  1. News of the Culture or News of the Universe? (1988)
  2. pp. 165-179
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  1. Talking to Luigi Russolo Eighty-Five Years Later (1998)
  2. pp. 180-184
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  1. On the Fantastic and the Logical
  1. Aural Fact or Fiction: Or, Composing at the Seashore (1965)
  2. pp. 187-198
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  1. The Fantastic and the Logical: Reflections on Science, Politics, and Art (1973)
  2. pp. 199-213
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  1. The Marvelous in Art (1982)
  2. pp. 214-222
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  1. On the Renewal of Music
  1. The Avant-Garde and the Aesthetics of Survival (1969)
  2. pp. 225-241
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  1. Guston and Me: Digression and Return (1992)
  2. pp. 242-245
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  1. Polarity in Music: Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Their Consequences (1995)
  2. pp. 246-252
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  1. L'Envoi (1998)
  2. pp. 253-254
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  1. Selected Bibliography
  2. pp. 255-256
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 257-262
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