Neo-mythologism in music : from Scriabin and Schoenberg to Schnittke and Crumb

This investigation aims to demonstrate how it is much more rewarding to view quintessential Western composers in a culturally non-purist and non-exclusive context, rather than insist on incongruity of independent cultural experiences. It has customarily been hard to overcome the divisions between the mind of a highly sophisticated art-musician and the mind of an aboriginal maker of music, myth, and ritual. Both neo-mythologism and neo-ritualism of the twentieth century clearly provide foundations for transcending the cultural borders. The role of mythification in compositional processes has remained outside the main focus of musicology. This book examines the different aspects of composers' thoughts from philosophical views and theoretical systems to operatic librettos and the musical fabric itself, including form, pitch organization, and instrumentation. (From the Introduction)