Article: Atonality and beyond: the century when composers and audiences parted company.(Book review)

THE REST IS NOISE Listening to the Twentieth Century By Alex Ross Farrar, Straus and Giroux | $30

In 1958, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin commissioned a solo sonata from the American composer Ross Lee Finney and decided to include the work--written in the thorny 12-tone style pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg--in a recital he was giving in London. A week before the performance, however, ticket sales were dismal. So Menuhin announced a change: the Finney would be replaced by Beethoven's ever-popular Kreutzer sonata. Not surprisingly, the concert sold out at once. But Menuhin, who had championed contemporary works by such composers as Bela Bartok and Frank Martin, was ...

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