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A Voice For Modernism In Elsa Bienenfeld's Music Reviews, Kelsey Draper

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis discusses Elsa Bienenfeld’s role as a modern music critic and cultural journalist and shows how she defended modernism by encouraging her Viennese readers to embrace it. The purpose is not to create a mere biographical sketch, but to demonstrate how Bienenfeld shaped and influenced the public’s perceptions of the budding modern music movement in Vienna. Chapter 1 introduces the problem of modern music and provides the historical context for Elsa Bienenfeld’s life. Chapter 2 introduces modermism as a movement in the city and reviews the development of music out of the classical and romantic periods into modernism. Chapter …