This book examines the BBC's campaign to raise cultural awareness of British mass audiences in the early days of radio. As a specific case, it focuses on policies and plans behind transmissions of music by composers associated with Arnold Schoenberg's circle between 1922, when the BBC was founded, and spring 1936, when Edward Clark, a former Schoenberg pupil and central figure in BBC music, resigned from the Corporation. This study traces and analyses the BBC's attempts to manipulate critical and public responses to this repertory. The book investigates three interrelated aspects of early BBC history. Policy decisions relating to contemporary music transmissions are examined to determine why precious broadcast time was devoted to this repertory. Early personnel structures are reconstructed to investigate the responsibilities, attitudes and interests of those who influenced music broadcasting. Finally, broadcasts of Second Viennese School works are examined in detail.
By:
Jennifer Doctor (Britten-Pears Library Aldeburgh UK)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: 10
Dimensions:
Height: 244mm,
Width: 170mm,
Spine: 29mm
Weight: 1.030kg
ISBN: 9780521661171
ISBN 10: 052166117X
Series: Music in the Twentieth Century
Pages: 524
Publication Date: 27 March 2000
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of tables; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. The Emergence of BBC Music Programmes: 1. The British music industry and the BBC between the wars; 2. BBC personnel, policies and programmes in the 1920s; Part II. The Pitt Years, 1922–9: 3. The foundations of music programming, 1922–6; 4. The music programmes take shape, 1926–7; 5. The first wave of Second Viennese School broadcasts, 1927–8; 6. Refining the music programmes, 1928–9; 7. Pitt's final season, 1929–30; Part III. The Early Boult Years, 1930–6: 8. Boult's initial seasons, 1930–1, 1931–2; 9. Transition to the new régime, 1932–3, 1933–4; 10. Policies and politics, 1934–5, 1935–6; 11. Clark's legacy; Appendices; Notes; Selected bibliography; Index.
Reviews for The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922–1936: Shaping a Nation's Tastes
'Crammed with ... source material out of the BBC's capacious archives, this book offers a major contribution to the history of music in 20th-century Britain.' BBC Music Magazine '... [It] not only provides an indispensable addition to existing publications but fills a lacuna in British music history of the twentieth-century. This study will remain a valuable source for scholarly enquiry for many years to come.' Tempo 'It is the most compulsively un-put-downable book I have read for a very long time.' Gramophone
