The War on Music

The War on Music by John Mauceri is a thought-provoking exploration by a prominent conductor that uncovers how aesthetic criteria were often employed to mask the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century.

This book presents a significant reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. Mauceri argues that the history of music during this period was profoundly shaped by three major wars: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

Probing why so few works have been added to the canon since 1930, Mauceri examines the trajectories of great composers who, following World War I, developed voices that were both unique and versatile, albeit superficially simpler. He contends that the fate of composers during World War II was closely tied to the political objectives of their respective governments. This resulted in the silencing of experimental music in Germany, Italy, and Russia; the exodus of composers to America; and the sudden resurgence of experimental music—what he refers to as “the institutional avant-garde”—as the lingua franca of classical music in the West during the Cold War.