Ernst Krenek has been described as a "one-man history of twentieth-century music." His vast compositional output encompasses many of its extremes and expresses many of its contradictions. Few have attempted, however, to contextualize Krenek's compositional output because our understanding of classical music in the first half of the twentieth century still largely remains focused on the music of a few canonical figures. Responding to renewed interest from performers in Krenek's work, particularly his operas, Peter Tregear's Ernst Krenek and the Politics of Musical Style addresses this gap in the scholarly literature and makes an important contribution to our comprehension of the ways in which his music reflected and informed broader social and political debates in Austria and Germany at the time. Focusing on Krenek's compositional path from the eclectic musical language of Jonny spielt auf to the austere twelve-tone technique of Karl V, Tregear provides an historical and critical context to this most historically significant period of Krenek's creative life. His study also enriches our understanding of many of Krenek's contemporaries, such as Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. This book should interest students, scholars and practitioners with an interest in modern opera, and contemporary classical music as well as early-20th-century German history more generally.

Tertiary music education is commonly understood as preparing students for a career as a performer. This, however, fails to address fundamental shifts in the ways most of us now typically encounter, and think about, music in our lives; nor does it acknowledge the diminishing funding base that supports traditional modes of teaching. It is time to rethink both how, and why, we teach music on campus. In addressing the issues the author draws upon his experience since being appointed in 2012 to lead the government-initiated takeover by Australian National University of the revered Canberra School of Music, a time of intense controversy.