ABSTRACT
In the last few decades, established narratives of twentieth-century music—centred around Schoenberg and his disciples—have come under considerable fire: some have denounced the modernist canon itself as narrow and esoteric, while others have sought to add marginalized ‘minor’ composers to its hallowed halls. In my chapter, I revisit the mid-century process of canon formation in order to excavate a less divisive view of its history. Using Britten as a case study, I sketch a more ambivalent, reciprocal, and dialectical relationship between major and minor composers than has been suggested. After illuminating important tropes in Britten’s mid-century image, I examine how the composer and his critics fashioned his canonical minority and, in the process, helped to construct the ‘majority’ of his modernist counterparts. I argue that, far from marginalizing his oeuvre, Britten’s ambivalent, peripheral, and even diminutive relationship with the ‘major’ figures of musical modernism was central to his appeal and his enduring place in the canon. Ultimately, I suggest that attending to Britten’s complex and self-conscious canonical negotiations can teach us a lot not just about his own place in history, but also about the wider ways that twentieth-century canons are negotiated, transmitted, and performed.
