The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age [Hardcover]

Mark Prendergast (Author), Brian Eno (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2001

A comprehensive and absorbing look at the music of the twentieth century, with an introduction by Brian Eno.

The 20th Century saw two revolutionary changes in music. First music was deconstructed from its previously strict form, moving from formal constraints to more accessible melodies. Second, the way in which music was generated radically changed as new electronic equipment inspired experiments with sound divorced from traditional acoustic instruments.

More and more, innovative musical ideas became intertwined with technological change. Multi-track recording, editing, and improved microphones allowed for quieter, experimental elements to gain prominence. And with the advent of digital synthesizers, new music could be made by anyone and sound like almost anything.

The Ambient Century is the definitive chronicle of a century of musical change. It reveals the drift from composers to non-musicians, from the single note to the sample. Encyclopedic, yet with a strong narrative, The Ambient Century covers hundreds of artists, including such diverse artists as Gustav Mahler (the pioneer of modern music), Phillip Glass, New Order, and Moby. Lively, compelling, and authoritative-and boasting an unmatched discography. The Ambient Century is a treat for music lovers of all kinds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Just as anything evolves when its setting changes, 20th-century music mutated as it moved beyond the confines of concert halls and into listeners' everyday environs. Thanks to car stereos, headphones, even computers, people now move within their own soundtracks. In this chronology of compositional innovations, Prendergast, an internationally published music writer, details the widening of sonic possibilities with advancements in recording, amplification and electronic instruments, and with the creative talents of hundreds of bold, brilliant composers. He credits Mahler with first evoking the hypnotic "ambient experience of landscape and emotion," kicking off the century of "repetitive conceptual music." Prendergast describes how, after a four-day fast, the sound of a single piano tone proved revelatory for Karlheinz Stockhausen; how sitarist Ravi Shankar influenced everyone from minimalist Philip Glass to the Beatles; how Donna Summer "merged Germanicity with black music's long history"; and how scores of house and techno artists have "moved the focus of the music away from its creators towards the listener." Organized by artist, the book provides suggested "Listenings" for each one, as well as a list of the "Essential 100 Recordings," which recommends ambient guru John Cage's "In a Landscape," megastar Bowie's absorbing "Low" and Goldie's "Timeless," a debut that brought ambient jungle/drum and bass into the mainstream. Talking Heads' producer Brian Eno, a maverick whose own music heavily influenced New Age and ambient house music, gives the book his stamp of approval in his foreword. B&w photos. Agent, Simon Trewin of Drury House, London.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Here, Irish music critic Prendergast makes an admirable and largely successful attempt to build bridges between the worlds of contemporary classical and rock music. But as the author never clearly defines or describes the term ambient, the reader is left to infer the connections among composers and genres. Prendergast divides his subject into four large sections: "The Electronic Landscape," "Minimalism, Brian Eno, and the New Simplicity," "Ambience in the Rock Era," and "House, Techno, and Twenty-First Century Ambience." The first is the most problematic section, as many of the observations here are simplistic and the listening lists too quirky and subjective to be useful. Prendergast is on much surer footing in the three subsequent sections, however. The text is packed with a wealth of detailed information and cogent observations on minimalist composers, rock personalities, technological innovations, and movers and shakers in the various worlds of contemporary music. Prendergast has an astonishing grasp of the global scene in popular music and writes with authority and conviction. Despite its flaws, this is an important addition to libraries with holdings in cultural and popular studies.DLarry Lipkis, Moravian Coll. Bethlehem, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 498 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (January 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582341346
• ISBN-13: 978-1582341347
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Mahler

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars an eclectic encyclopedia, not a coherent analysis, March 27, 2001

By 

R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age (Hardcover)

Your evaluation of THE AMBIENT CENTURY will depend on what you're looking for. I expected serious analysis, and by that criteria would give it 1 star. If what you're interested in, though, is an eclectic encyclopedia of interesting 20th century musicians, loosely grouped by the theme of "ambience," which is never defined, then you might think this is great. (I can't comment on the fact-checking criticism, but to me it's a secondary point.) Prendergast moves from "high art" composers including Debussy and Stockhausen, to "minimalism," to rock, broken into categories such as psychedelic, krautrock and synthesizer music, to the '90s techno/house/drum&bass/ambient trend.

However, his definition of "ambient" involves "music being deconstructed" by Mahler and Debussy (sounds really "postmodern," but what does it mean?), and developments in technology/electronics, along with an "interest in pure sound." He pronounces: "[T]he bleeding heart of electronic progress had by its very nature rendered all recorded music, by definition, Ambient." (4) Given this sort of cosmic perspective Prendergast could have included all music, and what he does include seems to be more or less "cool stuff that I like." Harsh, I know, but does Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door," by any stretch of the conceptual imagination, belong on a list of the Essential 100 Recordings of 20th Century Ambient Music? If so, our author fails to offer any explanation. How about Led Zeppelin IV (ie, ZOSO)? I'm at a loss.

If the book was appropriately titled, I would have much less to criticize. But when you title a book "The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age," you lead the reader to expect some sort of theoretical analysis -- what sort of evolution? In what direction? What mechanisms are involved? But there is "no there there" if what is happening is just technological progress, and "an interest in pure sound" may characterize Cage's famous *4'33"* (the silent composition), but there is not even an attempt here to argue that it is the direction of 20th century music. If Prendergast really means to emphasize the use of music as background, where is his discussion of Muzak, and music in advertising? He doesn't develop his embryonic theme(s), but rather rushes headlong into profiles of musicians, which are strung together with little connecting analysis.

Caveat emptor -- if you're looking for serious analysis, look elsewhere, but if you want a breezy journalistic encyclopedia of non-mainstream music (that is seen as cool by The Wire magazine) you might find this a useful reference work. (For a model of analysis of cutting edge music, check out Nyman's EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC. It also has a foreward by Brian Eno!)

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ambient soup, August 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age (Hardcover)

The title alone ought to be enough to suggest the daunting scope of Mark Prendergast's exploration of sound in the 20th Century. Prendergast argues that an "Ambient" tendency links together most of the musical output of the century, from Debussy to Derrick May and beyond. Rather than a single narrative, The Ambient Century is pieced together out of biographical segments and overviews of genres. And he squeezes it all in, beginning with the electronic pioneers (Theremin, Stockhausen, Subotnick) moving through Minimalism, "Ambience in the Rock Era" (encompassing the Beach Boys and the Stones but also the Dead, Krautrock, New Wave and even Enya), and ending with 100 pages on house, techno, and the broader scope of popular electronic music.

While the earlier chapters may provide interesting background for readers interested in the 20th Century avant garde, the book ultimately proves a disappointment. For anyone immersed in house, techno, drum'n'bass, or any other form of contemporary electronic music - commercial or experimental - the reading seems cursory at best. Prendergast sticks to the big names - in drum'n'bass, for instance, he dwells on Goldie and LTJ Bukem, ignoring less famous originators and more recent developments. To devote a page to DJ Rap at the expense of more influential producers seems short-sighted at best. House and techno are both treated as dead genres, barely breaking out of the historical contexts (early 90s Chicago and Detroit) with which they're associated, and with little insight into the subsequent fragmentation of genres and subgenres. (His earlier chapters, while more informed, suffer from similar flaws - Subotnick's entry barely hints at the philosophy behind the composer's music; La Monte Young's follows the official Youngian party line in casting Tony Conrad as bit player).

Ultimately, even greater methodological flaws mar Prendergast's account. His valorization of individual auteurs ignores the labels which often did as much, if not more, to further the development of particular sounds. He suffers from a lack of fact-checking. His historicism is simplistic at best - his treatment of the Compact Disc seems cribbed straight from a Philips corporate backgrounder, emphasizing the format's alleged superiority with little heed for its drawbacks, ignoring the corporate strongarm strategies (like price-fixing) that led to its dominance, and falling back on utopian pronouncements akin to a kind of digital "end-of-history." Sure, after the advent of the CD "there was just more music around for everybody," but how much is this due to the medium - and how much to the majors' aggressive marketing and enforced obsolescence of vinyl? Where Simon Reynolds has developed a complex (if controversial) linkage between drug consumption and music production, Prendergast - without citing him - falls back on a simplistic determinism, resulting in statements like "Trip-Hop was the product of post-club marijuana consumption." And he suffers from the habit of capitalizing neologized non-genres like "Trip Jazz," as if to grant them legitimacy.

Finally, Prendergast's very thesis is barely spelled out. Presumably, his concept of the Ambient refers to the ascendancy of sound-for-sound's-sake in the 20th Century. He probably has something in this, but without a more rigorous examination of the technological, sociological, economic and above all formal aspects linking, say, John Cage, the Beach Boys, King Tubby, and Aphex Twin, his book remains a collection of half-developed snapshots.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Encyclopedic array of info; needs another editing, January 22, 2001

By 

Sarah M. Wilkes (Massachusetts, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age (Hardcover)

For sheer volume of information about Minimalism, Ambient, and the key 20th-century composers and performers thereof, this book is invaluable. Almost every experimental composer I could think of had an in-depth listing in here. If you have any interest at all in this kind of music--a broad genre including Satie, Debussey, Cage, Riley, Carlos, Oldfield, Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Air, Miles Davis...and on--I highly recommend checking this book out.

That said, there are faults with this book. One reviewer has already pointed out factual errors--I've found one too: John Cage was a professor at Wesleyan University in the '60s and '70s (I don't know the dates off the top of my head), and not, as Pendergrast states, at the University of Connecticut. There are also numerous typos and grammatical errors, all of which suggest that this book could use a copy editor and a couple of fact checkers. Let us hope for future editions.