Dissertation Index
Author: Cannon-Brown, Lee Title: Ultramodernism in Global Musical Thought, 1900–1950 Institution: Harvard University Begun: September 2018 Completed: April 2025 Abstract: In this dissertation, I cast a new critical perspective on music theory’s pre-World War II avant-garde, revealing an integrated intellectual network spread across Russia, Central and Western Europe, North America, and Latin America. I show how, in the early twentieth century, teleological music theories divergent from that of Arnold Schoenberg proliferated in experimental and atonal music, only to be suppressed in later reception, largely because of Schoenberg’s perceived continuity with music’s “Great German Tradition.” I recover these alternative music theories through a mixture of global historiography and archival research: In the US, Henry Cowell forged an international coalition with his theories of dissonant counterpoint and acoustics; in Paris as a Russian émigré, Ivan Wyschnegradsky developed alternative axioms for atonal music; and in Mexico, Carlos Chávez and Julián Carrillo negotiated discourses surrounding modernism and Indigeneity, both with each other, and in dialogue with the dissertation’s other protagonists. By taking a transnational approach, I destabilize conceptions of the pre-war avant-garde’s intellectual locus in the Second Viennese School—conceptions ascendant at least since Theodor Adorno’s mid-century writings—in favor of a rich and heterogenous global network. Keywords: atonality, history of music theory, modernism, global intellectual history, Arnold Schoenberg, Second Viennese School, Henry Cowell, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Julián Carrillo, Carlos Chávez TOC: Preface 1. Introduction: Paths to New Music 2. Henry Cowell and the Impasse of Modern Music 3. Ivan Wyschnegradsky and the Enigma of Modern Music 4. Ultramodernism and Identity in Mexico 5. Conclusion: Recovering an Intellectual Landscape Contact: Lee Cannon-Brown lcannonbrown@gmail.com |