Abstract
Examing the intersections between musical culture and a British project of reconstruction from the 1940s to the early 1960s, this study asks how gestures to the past negotiated issues of recovery and renewal. In the wake of the Second World War, music became a privileged site for re-enchanting notions of history and communty, but musical recourse to the past also raised issues of mourning and loss. How was sound figured as a historical object and as a locus of memory and magic? This question is addressed through a wide range of sources, from planning documents to journalism, public ceremonial and literature, and through a set of works by Britten that engaged both with the distant musical past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, including the Festival of Britain, the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Cambridge |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Number of pages | 250 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-0521194679 |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |