Revisiting the Historiography of Postwar Avant-Garde Music

Abstract

This review discusses Revisiting the Historiography of Postwar Avant-Garde Music (2023), edited by Anne-Sylvie Barthel-Calvet and Christopher Brent Murray. The volume reassesses the European musical avant-garde after 1945 not by offering external cultural critique, but by revisiting archival sources to shed light on the networks, influences, and contexts that shaped composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Kagel, Berio, Messiaen, and Xenakis. Contributions range from analyses of self-historicizing narratives and economic structures to explorations of the technical and aesthetic conditions of composition. Framed by essays from Martin Kaltenecker and Pascal Decroupet, the collection advocates for a historiography based on constellations of themes and proposes a ‘sonal’ history that focuses on the ‘inner life of sounds.’