The Twentieth-century Composer Speaks PDF Download

Author: Mari Nishimura
Publisher: Fallen Leaf Reference Books in
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This index cites over one thousand interviews with composers of the 20th century. Each entry lists the name and life-spans of the composer interviewed, the date and place of the interview, the name of the interviewer, topics discussed, and a full citation of the sources of the interview. Indexed by interviewers' names and by subjects.

Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429932880
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

Author: Gilbert Chase
Publisher: [Baton Rouge] : Louisiana State University Press
ISBN:
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"During the past 175 years American music has undergone notable changes--from the simple singing school strains of the 1770's to the dissonant, avant-garde electronic sounds of the 1960's. In spite of these changes the American composer remains remote and indistinct in the national consciousness. In this anthology Professor Chase brings together essays by thirty men who helped make musical history. Arranged chronologically, the essays represent a wide cross-section of musical thought from colonial times to the present. The collection is designed to answer the questions: Who is the American composer? What are his theories of music and artistic creation? What are the problems the composer faces in our society? The composer emerges as a man independent, always inventive, and often instructive to his fellow artists. Among the thirty composers included are William Billings and Francis Hopkinson of the colonial and early national period; William Henry Fry, Stephen Foster, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and Edward MacDowell of the nineteenth century; and Charles Ives, Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, 'Jelly Roll' Morton, John Cage, and Earle Brown of the twentieth century. A brief biographical sketch precedes each composer's essay. From Hopkinson, who in 1770 pleads against a slavish obedience to rules and for individuality in composition, to Virgil Partch, who in the late 1940's sees the musical situation as a manifestation of the 'general paralysis of individuality' in American life, to John Cage, who in the 1950's says, 'One need not fear about the future of music,' the composer remains the most incisive critic of American music. Here that criticism is placed in clear historical perspective. In his introduction Professor Chase examines the role of the composer in the national culture of the United States. He evaluates aesthetic principles, new directions and musical achievements in America."--Dust jacket.

Author: Eduardo de la Fuente
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136927433
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In the first decade of the twentieth-century, many composers rejected the principles of tonality and regular beat. This signaled a dramatic challenge to the rationalist and linear conceptions of music that had existed in the West since the Renaissance. The ‘break with tonality’, Neo-Classicism, serialism, chance, minimalism and the return of the ‘sacred’ in music, are explored in this book for what they tell us about the condition of modernity. Modernity is here treated as a complex social and cultural formation, in which mythology, narrative, and the desire for ‘re-enchantment’ have not completely disappeared. Through an analysis of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and Cage, 'the author shows that the twentieth century composer often adopted an artistic personality akin to Max Weber’s religious types of the prophet and priest, ascetic and mystic. Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity advances a cultural sociology of modernity and shows that twentieth century musical culture often involved the adoption of ‘apocalyptic’ temporal narratives, a commitment to ‘musical revolution’, a desire to explore the limits of noise and sound, and, finally, redemption through the rediscovery of tonality. This book is essential reading for those interested in cultural sociology, sociological theory, music history, and modernity/modernism studies.

Author: Jill Halstead
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351539442
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Unlike previous anthologizing examinations of women and musical composition, this book concentrates on the reasons why there have been, and continue to be, so few women composers. Jill Halstead focuses on the experiences of nine composers born in the twentieth century (Avril Coleridge Taylor, Grace Williams, Elizabeth Maconchy, Minna Keal, Ruth Gipps, Antoinette Kirkwood, Enid Luff, Judith Bailey and Bryony Jagger) to explore the physiological, social and political factors that have inhibited women from pursuing careers as composers. Is there a biological argument for inferior female creativity? Do social structures, such as marriage, serve to restrict potential women composers? Is the gender of a composer reflected in the music they write? If so, how would this manifest itself? The conclusions that are reached are as complex and challenging as the questions that are raised. This powerful and provocative book aims to open up debate on these issues, which have all too often be avoided by critics and musicologists whose writings have perpetuated arguments that denigrate women's ability to compose. By confronting these arguments, this study will hopefully begin a reassessment of attitudes towards women and music, so that women composers are less of a rarity by the end of the next century.

Author: Catherine Roma
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 1461706505
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
The book presents an in depth analysis of the choral compositions of Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy, and Thea Musgrave, complete with musical examples and texts. The introductory chapter gives historical perspective and places Lutyens, Maconchy and Musgrave in the context of twentieth-century British musical culture.

Author: Rhiannon Mathias
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317102991
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-1983), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) and Grace Williams (1906-1977) were contemporaries at the Royal College of Music. The three composers' careers were launched with performances in the Macnaghten-Lemare Concerts in the 1930s - a time when, in Britain, as Williams noted, a woman composer was considered 'very odd indeed'. Even so, by the early 1940s all three had made remarkable advances in their work: Lutyens had become the first British composer to use 12-note technique, in her Chamber Concerto No. 1 (1939-40); Maconchy had composed four string quartets of outstanding quality and was busy rethinking the genre; and Williams had won recognition as a composer with great flair for orchestral writing with her Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (1940) and Sea Sketches (1944). In the following years, Lutyens, Maconchy and Williams went on to compose music of striking quality and to attain prominent positions within the British music scene. Their respective achievements broke through the 'sound ceiling', challenging many of the traditional assumptions which accompanied music by female composers. Rhiannon Mathias traces the development of these three important composers through analysis of selected works. The book draws upon previously unexplored material as well as radio and television interviews with the composers themselves and with their contemporaries. The musical analysis and contextual material lead to a re-evaluation of the composers' positions in the context of twentieth-century British music history.

Author: K. Gary Adams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313388091
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
William Howard Schuman, a celebrated figure in 20th-century music, was a composer and a copious writer on music and music education. Early on, as a composer, he received the attention of several musicians and writers such as Nathan Broder, Elliott Carter, and Leonard Bernstein. He was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the New York Music Critics Circle Award. After teaching at Sarah Lawrence College from 1935 to 1945 and serving as president of the Juilliard School from 1945 to 1962, Schuman assumed the presidency of Lincoln Center, where he successfully implemented that institution's artistic programs. Schuman, who composed in several genres, is perhaps best known for his orchestral compositions and choral music. This reference work provides a biography and a thorough catalog and guide to Schuman's writings and compositions and to the current research available on this gifted and multi-talented musician. An invaluable resource to music scholars interested in William Schuman's career, five sections provide accessible detailed information: a biography, works and performances, discography, bibliography, and bibliography of writings by Schuman. The biography traces Schuman's life and career with an emphasis on illustrating his compositional activity. The bibliography includes books, dissertations, articles, and reviews that chronicle Schuman's activities from his days as a young composer to his death in 1992. An author index, index of compositions, and general index complete this in-depth reference on William Schuman.

Author: Sharon Mabry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195349610
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The vocal repertoire of the twentieth century--including works by Schoenberg, Boulez, Berio, Larsen, and Vercoe--presents exciting opportunities for singers to stretch their talents and demonstrate their vocal flexibility. Contemporary composers can be very demanding of vocalists, requiring them to recite, trill, and whisper, or to read non-traditional scores. For singers just beginning to explore the novelties of the contemporary repertoire, Exploring Twentieth-Century Vocal Music is an ideal guide. Drawing on over thirty years of experience teaching and performing the twentieth century repertoire, Sharon Mabry has written a cogent and insightful book for singers and voice teachers who are just discovering the innovative music of the twentieth century. The book familiarizes readers with the new and unusual notation systems employed by some contemporary composers. It suggests rehearsal techniques and vocal exercises that help singers prepare to tackle the repertoire. And the book offers a list of the most important and interesting works to emerge in the twentieth century, along with suggested recital programs that will introduce audiences as well as singers to this under-explored body of music.

Author: Richard Taruskin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199796009
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music. Music in the Late Twentieth Century is the final installment of the set, covering the years from the end of World War II to the present. In these pages, Taruskin illuminates the great compositions of recent times, offering insightful analyses of works by Aaron Copland, John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Benjamin Britten, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, among many others. He also looks at the impact of electronic music and computers, the rise of pop music and rock 'n' roll, the advent of postmodernism, and the contemporary music of Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, and John Adams. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.