Critical Composition Today

Critical composition is generally associated with compositional approaches that share a fundamentally left-wing political stance in relation to their own social position. This can lead to a decided political commitment and is based on the conviction that the approach to musical material must be "critical". These positions have now received astonishing recognition - a development that must now be problematized in view of the rapid social changes since the late 1980s and the "competing project" of postmodernism, which seemingly denies younger and middle generations access to a critical approach to composition.

In order to make the transition from a first to a second modernity comprehensible, essays by composers, musicologists, philosophers and sociologists were requested. The contributors to this volume are: Frank Cox, Gordon Downie, Ernst Helmuth Flammer, Harry Lehmann, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Günter Mayer, Dieter Mersch, Rainer Nonnenmann, Nicola Sani, Gerhard Stäbler and Ferdinand Zehentreiter.

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