Max Neuhaus

2007
2007 - “Writing the Music of Ruth Crawford into Mainstream Music History. In Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Tradition and Innovation in Twentieth-Century American Music, edited by Ray Allen and Ellie M. Hisama, 11–32. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

In the chapter "Writing the Music of Ruth Crawford into Mainstream Music History" (2007), Judith Tick discusses the legacy of Ruth Crawford Seeger within the broader context of American experimentalism.
While the primary focus is Crawford’s innovative serialism and folk transcriptions, the connection to Max Neuhaus in this volume (and similar musicological critiques) usually centers on the "Ultra-Modernist" lineage:
The text explores how Crawford’s 1930s dissonant counterpoint laid the groundwork for the later American avant-garde. Neuhaus is often cited in these academic contexts as a successor to this "tradition of innovation," moving Crawford's abstract structural rigor into the realm of physical space and site-specific sound.
Breaking the "Mainstream" Narrative: Tick argues for a music history that includes non-traditional structures. Just as Crawford challenged the harmonic norms of her time, Neuhaus later challenged the very definition of "music" by removing the performer and the concert hall, fulfilling the ultra-modernist dream of sound as a pure, autonomous object.