ABSTRACT
In 1509, at the outset of a profoundly transformative century on the European continent, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote his Moriae Encomium (Praise of Folly), where in a discussion of the arts he observes that it is “Folly to whom you owe so many of life's major blessings, and the nicest thing of all is that you have someone else's madness to thank for your enjoyment.” 1 Today, we live with the rough-and-tumble twentieth century in our collective rearview mirror even as it continues to resonate in our lives. With respect to the music of the time, we might well speak with Erasmus that we have inherited the fruits of the past century's madness—its breathtaking and breathless change on every front of human existence, its rancorous politics, its wars of unprecedented scope and dehumanization, its social movements, its enormous strides in the sciences and technology, its intellectual vigor—in which we have seen the very best and the very worst of what humans have ever wrought upon each other and the planet.
