Classical Music in America: A History.(Book review)

Classical Music in America: A History, by Joseph Horowitz. W. W. Norton (www. wwnorton, com/orders/welcome.htm; (800)233-4830), 2007. 618 pp. $19.95.

First published in 2005 as Classical Music in America--A History of its Rise and Fall, this new paperback edition is little changed, but includes a new afterword by the author. Two books each divide into two parts. Each part contains four chapters. The annotated table of contents provides an excellent guide to content and major themes and figures.

Eminently qualified to take the big-picture view he presents, Joseph Horowitz is a prolific writer on the social and cultural history of musical creation and performance, and artistic advisor to front-rank performance organizations and festivals. Though not a light read, Classical Music in America is deeply researched and thoroughly engaging; it enlightens and provokes. Against the historical backdrop of cultural trends, Horowitz illuminates connections between organizations and the individuals who shaped them.

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Horowitz traces American musical development as an insufficiently-rooted sacralization of European models prior to World War I, and a subsequent degeneration into a "Culture of Performance"--a creative dead end that estranged composers and performers, enshrined an increasingly irrelevant canon of over-played masterworks, and exploited both performers and public.

The final ...