MODERNISM(S) Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism. By Daniel M. Grimley. Wood - bridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 2010. [xix, 314 p. ISBN 9781843835813. $90.] Music examples, illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index. A recurrent theme in the burgeoning new Carl Nielsen scholarship is the positioning of research on and reassessment of this composer to coincide with larger reassessments of twentieth-century historiography. The pattern itself is hardly unique, as recent work on Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and other earlyand mid-twentieth-century composers demonstrates. At stake is establishing more complete picture of how in the Western classical tradition developed during those pivotal years-one that moves beyond, as David Fanning writes in his Nielsen entry in Grove Music Online, a view of history culminating in the Second Viennese School and the postwar avant garde (accessed 3 August 2011). It would be inaccurate, however, to label Daniel M. Grimley's new volume on Nielsen (or Fanning's words for that matter) as petty revisionism that seeks to exalt one composer the posthumous expense of others. Rather, Grimley's Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism argues that Nielsen, too long considered peripheral artist both personally and geographically, belongs instead at the forefront of historical and analytical accounts of twentieth-century music (p. ix). What follows is an impressive study that convincingly presents Nielsen as the practitioner of distinctly personal brand of musical modernism-one that intertwines deep connection to his musical and national heritage with full awareness of the social issues of his time and place (both Denmark and Europe large). Grimley's cultural and musical analyses of Nielsen's go long way toward strengthening the notion of him as bold and dynamic participant within the broader twentiethcentury scene. Taking into account available scholarship and primary sources, they further situate Nielsen as composer with fresh and unique contributions to the development of harmony, counterpoint, and large-scale form. For these reasons, Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism promises to be an important new text not only for studies on Nielsen, but also as landmark in our ongoing study of how developed during the twentieth century. Grimley begins by taking up the delicate task of establishing parameters for the modernism, both as it is widely understood with regard to twentieth-century and as he intends to apply it to Nielsen. From the start, and even in his title, Grimley is understandably careful to avoid dubbing Nielsen without qualification. He admits that Nielsen likely would have resisted the term to describe himself and his (p. xii). Grimley is correct here, and he could have invoked the occasion when Bartok asked Nielsen if he thought that one of the former's compositions (the Second String Quartet) was sufficiently modern; Nielsen responded that he did not think modernity sufficient measure of quality. However, Grimley's definition of modernism (or modernist) for Nielsen does not depend upon the term's widely-recognized associations. These often amount to, in the author's words, a deceptive veneer of innovation, progressiveness and aesthetic autonomy (p. 6). Rather, Grimley proposes brand of modernism for Nielsen that, borrowing from the models of Fredric Jameson and the Danish biographer Jorgen Jensen, casts the composer as double man whose character and musical outlook incorporates multiple dichotomies. Among these are tradition versus innovation, rural versus urban spheres of life, and musical simplicity versus musical complexity. Pro - ceeding from these tensions, Grimley identifies Nielsen as singular kind of modernist. He claims that the music's modernist quality . . . often lies more in its tone of voice or mode of utterance as much as in the perceived progressiveness (or not) of its musical materials (p. …