The Way we Listen Now and Other Writings on Music Book

Author's Preface vii

Editor's Preface xi

Notes on the Artists xv

Part 1 The Sense of Sound

1 The Music that Remains 3

2 Compose Yourself 6

3 The Way We Listen Now 10

4 The Time of Music 13

5 The Music of Time 17

6 'Could I But Express...' 22

7 The Expressionist Moment 26

8 Sight and Sound 29

9 'Fain Would I Change That Note' 32

10 New Notes for Old Instruments 37

11 Survival of the Soundest 41

12 But is it Mozart? (I) 45

Part 2 The Music of Words

1 Setting Words to Rights 51

2 Cross-talk 55

3 The Librettist's Lament 60

4 Notes on Auden 65

Part 3 Composing Mortals

1 After Bach 79

2 Haydn Alone 84

3 But is it Mozart? (II) 87

4 Wagner Takes the Stage 90

5 Brahms and Antipathy 95

6 Poulenc en collage 99

7 The Case of Ruth Crawford Seeger 104

8 In Search of Walton 108

9 The Once and Future Tippett 116

10 The Britten Aesthetic 121

11 Stravinsky's Britten 127

12 Carter's Relativity Rag 134

13 The 'Found Sounds' of Judith Weir 141

Part 4 The States of Music

1 Earlier Than Thou 147

2 Style or Idea? 150

3 Down with Classical Music 153

4 Behind Closed Doors 156

5 Hollywood and Bust 159

6 Blueprints for an Expanding Universe 163

7 Less Means Less 166

8 Reverberations of 1968 169

9 Fear and Loathing of Modern Music 173

10 Voices of the World, Unite! 176

11 Green and Prescient Land 179

12 Deteriorating Reception on the Third 182

13 It's a Cultural Revolution 185

14 Last Waltz? 188

Envoi: In Search of an Ending

1 In Search of an Ending 193

2 It Tolls for Thee 198

3 Echoes from Selborne 201

4 The Rest is Silence 204

Bibliographical Note 211

Index 215