Musical Material Today

Time and again, new music has been described as a major process involving the expansion of musical material. Even though this material progress has always been criticized, it can be said that it has proven to be inevitable over long periods of time. Postmodernism, too, has expanded the concept of material, albeit unintentionally: three new areas have been opened up: the art music of the past, the popular music of the present, and the ethnic music of the peoples of the world.

Now that postmodernism itself has become "exhausted" and thus historical, the question arises as to how composers today deal with these expanded forms of material and integrate them into their musical work.

Contributions by Michael Beil, Dániel Péter Biró, Franklin Cox, Clemens Gadenstätter, Wieland Hoban, Johannes Kreidler, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Christopher Trebue Moore, Wolfram Schurig, Alexander Sigman, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, and Ming Tsao explore the space between immanent logic and concrete external references.

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