This new book builds on Whittall's
Music since the First World War
. It updates and reshapes the original text and places it in the wider context of twentieth-century serious music before 1918 and after 1975, surveying the immense variety of technical developments in twentieth-century music. Sections of detailed analysis, with particular emphasis on such major figures as Stravinsky, Bartók, Messiaen, Tippett, and Ligeti, are framed by more concise sketches of a range of twentieth-century composers from Fauré to Wolfgang Rihm. Extensive musical examples are employed throughout.