Notas sobre modernidade e nacionalismo

Abstract

The current notion of musical modernity is typically informed by cosmopolitan values and attitudes (in part as a result of the rationalist orientation of the post-World War II avant-garde). However, at the root of modernist music lies a central, and largely overlooked, concern with questions of national identity. The present paper explores some such connections, focusing in particular on Wagner, Nietzsche and Debussy (marginally also on Schönberg and Boulez), in order to attempt to show how the modernist movement could be read in part as a fight for the appropriation of origins.