ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses one aspect of the way in which modernism is being received by some musicologists and critics. The readings of modernism are prone to identify the term instinctively with one particular phase of the atonal years. The reception of musical modernism is heavily influenced by the situation, and a subtle deflection thus occurs, in which criticism is really targeting a particular post-war configuration – 'high' modernism. Brian Hyer in his consideration of the matter in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians article on tonality, the theory of modernism that centres itself on atonality tends to project an organicist model of history based on the 'development' of tonality. Proponents of such readings establish what might be termed a 'moment of plenitude' – a period when tonality reached its historical completion and perfection – from which point onwards it decays or declines before reaching atonality.
