Book section : Chapter
Resisting middlebrow mediation: Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge” in interwar Britain
- Abstract:
- This chapter traces the British reception of Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge” op. 133 through the interwar period, considering the role recordings and live performances by the Léner and Kolisch Quartets, among others, had on interpretations of the piece. The transformation in attitude toward Beethoven’s “posthumous” works went hand in hand with new, attentive, and informed ways of listening. Yet proponents of the “Grosse Fuge” resisted its incorporation into the middlebrow canon of masterworks. Instead, it was presented as a work that could stand next to modernist pieces by Bela Bartók and Alban Berg. The interwar reception of Beethoven’s op. 133 illustrates the tensions between middlebrow and modernist historical narratives and serves as a test case for media technologies’ oft-touted potential to “democratize” access to Western classical music.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197523933.013.13
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Host title:
- The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Middlebrow
- Pages:
- C13P1–C13N69
- Series:
- Oxford Handbooks
- Publication date:
- 2022-03-22
- Edition:
- 1
- DOI:
- EISBN:
- 9780197523964
- ISBN-10:
- 019752396X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780197523933
Terms of use
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the chapter. The final version is available online from Oxford University Press at https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197523933.013.13
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