Music, pervading the Time Hermann Scherchen, Luigi Nono and the Italian Dodecaphony-Scene

The article discusses Hermann Scherchen's arguments and positions concerning the "First International Congress of Twelve-Tone-Music" in Milano 1949. A topic of the congress was the conflict between Western dodecaphonic music and the theory of socialist realism in music which was propagated by the Russian official Andrej Shdanow in 1948. The conductor criticizes that the participants had failed to discuss these aesthetical problems. He argues that modern music can't be a mouthpiece of Soviet policy. On the other side he emphasizes that avantgarde music - that means for Scherchen not only dodecaphonic music - is defined by different movements which are critical, socially connected, and open-minded. In other words: Scherchen proclaims a type of contemporary music which is not dominatad by official handbooks of composing in East or West.