Middlebrow modernism : Brittens operas and the great divide At publication date a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos University of California Presss Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. This provocative study is situated at the intersection of the history historiography and aesthetics of twentieth century music. It uses Benjamin Brittens operas to illustrate the ways in which composers critics and audiences mediated the great divide between modernism and mass culture. Reviving midcentury discussions of the middlebrow  Christopher Chowrimootoo demonstrates how these works allowed audiences to have their modernist cake and eat it too: to revel in the pleasures of consonance lyricism and theatrical spectacle even while enjoying the prestige that came from rejecting them. By focusing on key moments when reigning aesthetic oppositions and hierarchies threatened to collapse Middlebrow Modernism offers a powerful model for recovering shades of gray in the previously black and white historiographies of twentieth century music Provided by publisher