Reflections of an American Composer

Reflections of an American Composer PDF Author: Arthur Berger
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520232518
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A book of memoirs and essays by notable composer, critic and teacher Arthur Berger. The author writes vividly about the music scenes in New York, Paris, and Boston, and of his work with notable colleagues such as Stravinsky, Copeland, and Virgil Thompson.

Reflections of an American Composer

Reflections of an American Composer PDF Author: Arthur Berger
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520232518
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
A book of memoirs and essays by notable composer, critic and teacher Arthur Berger. The author writes vividly about the music scenes in New York, Paris, and Boston, and of his work with notable colleagues such as Stravinsky, Copeland, and Virgil Thompson.

Reflections of an American Composer

Reflections of an American Composer PDF Author: Arthur Berger
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520928213
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In this engrossing collection of essays, distinguished composer, theorist, journalist, and educator Arthur Berger invites us into the vibrant and ever-changing American music scene that has been his home for most of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and always entertaining, Berger describes the music scene in New York and Boston since the 1930s, discussing the heady days when he was a member of a tight-knit circle of avant-garde young composers mentored by Aaron Copland as well as his participation in a group at Harvard University dedicated to Stravinsky. As Virgil Thomson's associate on the New York Herald Tribune and founding editor of the prestigious Perspectives of New Music, Berger became one of the preeminent observers and critics of American music. His reflections on the role of music in contemporary life, his journalism career, and how changes in academia influence the composition and teaching of music offer a unique perspective informed by Berger's abundant intelligence and experience.

Recollections and Reflections of an American Composer

Recollections and Reflections of an American Composer PDF Author: Eleanor Everest Freer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description


Reflections on Composing

Reflections on Composing PDF Author: Frederick Koch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Charles Ives in the Mirror

Charles Ives in the Mirror PDF Author: David C Paul
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094697
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) has gone from being a virtual unknown to become one of the most respected and lauded composers in American music. In this sweeping survey of intellectual and musical history, David C. Paul tells the new story of how Ives's music was shaped by shifting conceptions of American identity within and outside of musical culture, charting the changes in the reception of Ives across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Paul focuses on the critics, composers, performers, and scholars whose contributions were most influential in shaping the critical discourse on Ives, many of them marquee names of American musical culture themselves, including Henry Cowell, Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, and Leonard Bernstein. Paul explores both how Ives positioned his music amid changing philosophical and aesthetic currents and how others interpreted his contributions to American music. Although Ives's initial efforts to find a public in the early twenties attracted a few devotees, the resurgence of interest in the American literary past during the thirties made a concert staple of his "Concord" Sonata, a work dedicated to nineteenth-century transcendentalist writers. Paul shows how Ives was subsequently deployed as an icon of American freedom during the early Cold War period and how he came to be instigated at the head of a line of "American maverick" composers. Paul also examines why a recent cadre of scholars has beset the composer with Gilded Age social anxieties. By embedding Ives' reception within the changing developments of a wide range of fields including intellectual history, American studies, literature, musicology, and American politics and society in general, Charles Ives in the Mirror: American Histories of an Iconic Composer greatly advances our understanding of Ives and his influence on nearly a century of American culture.

The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste

The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste PDF Author: Bálint András Varga
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1580465935
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Bálint András Varga is perhaps the world's most respected interviewer of living composers. For The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste: Reflections on New Music, Varga has confronted thirty-three composers with quotations carefully chosen to elicit their thoughts about an issue that is crucial for any serious creative artist: How can one find courage to deal with the sometimes tyrannical expectations of the outside world? The result is an imaginary roundtable at which we encounter fresh, revealing, previously unpublished statements from such world-renowned composers as John Adams, Friedrich Cerha, George Crumb, Sofia Gubaïdulina, Georg Friedrich Haas, Giya Kancheli, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Libby Larsen, Robert Morris, and Wolfgang Rihm. Also represented are composers who are becoming more prominent with the passing years -- Chaya Czernowin, Pascal Dusapin, and Rebecca Saunders -- as well as conductor-composer Michael Gielen, festival director Nicholas Kenyon, and music critics Paul Griffiths and Arnold Whittall. In The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste, composers and other insightful individuals comment on choices made, traps avoided, unforeseen consequences, proud accomplishments, occasional regrets: the whole range of experiences central to artistic creativity. Bálint András Varga isthe acclaimed author of György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages; Three Questions for 65 Composers; and From Boulanger to Stockhausen: Interviews and a Memoir (all available from University of Rochester Press).

Irving Fine

Irving Fine PDF Author: Phillip Ramey
Publisher: Pendragon Press
ISBN: 9781576471166
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Ramey, a composer and pianist, discusses Fine's brief teaching career in the 1940s at his alma mater, Harvard University - shadowed, Fine was convinced, by a malign tradition of tacit anti-Semitism - and his subsequent years at the newly opened Brandeis University, where he flourished, founding the music department and introducing a landmark performing arts festival."

Leading Tones

Leading Tones PDF Author: Leonard Slatkin
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1540004910
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
(Amadeus). Leading Tones is a glimpse into several aspects of the musical world. There are portions devoted to Leonard Slatkin's life as a musician and conductor, portraits of some of the outstanding artists with whom he has worked, as well as anecdotes and stories both personal and professional. Much of the book discusses elements of the industry that are troubling and difficult during this first part of the 21st century. Auditions, critics, fiscal concerns, and labor negotiations are all matters that today's conductors must be aware of, and this book provides helpful suggested solutions. Leading Tones is intended not only for musicians, but also for the music lover who wishes to know more about what goes into being a conductor.

Aaron Copland and His World

Aaron Copland and His World PDF Author: Carol J. Oja
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691186154
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Aaron Copland and His World reassesses the legacy of one of America's best-loved composers at a pivotal moment--as his life and work shift from the realm of personal memory to that of history. This collection of seventeen essays by distinguished scholars of American music explores the stages of cultural change on which Copland's long life (1900 to 1990) unfolded: from the modernist experiments of the 1920s, through the progressive populism of the Great Depression and the urgencies of World War II, to postwar political backlash and the rise of serialism in the 1950s and the cultural turbulence of the 1960s. Continually responding to an ever-changing political and cultural panorama, Copland kept a firm focus on both his private muse and the public he served. No self-absorbed recluse, he was very much a public figure who devoted his career to building support systems to help composers function productively in America. This book critiques Copland's work in these shifting contexts. The topics include Copland's role in shaping an American school of modern dance; his relationship with Leonard Bernstein; his homosexuality, especially as influenced by the writings of André Gide; and explorations of cultural nationalism. Copland's rich correspondence with the composer and critic Arthur Berger, who helped set the parameters of Copland's reception, is published here in its entirety, edited by Wayne Shirley. The contributors include Emily Abrams, Paul Anderson, Elliott Antokoletz, Leon Botstein, Martin Brody, Elizabeth Crist, Morris Dickstein, Lynn Garafola, Melissa de Graaf, Neil Lerner, Gail Levin, Beth Levy, Vivian Perlis, Howard Pollack, and Larry Starr.

Upbeat

Upbeat PDF Author: David Amram
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317249712
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
David Amram-composer, jazz artist, conductor, and world music pioneer-has been described by the Boston Globe as "the Renaissance man of American music." From early collaborations with Kerouac and Sinatra, chosen by Leonard Bernstein as the New York Philharmonic's first composer in residence, Amram's artistry has taken him from concerts with Willie Nelson to jamming with the Massai tribe of Kenya. In Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat, Amram recounts his extraordinary adventures in the many worlds of music he calls home, all told in a rollicking anecdotal style that makes you feel that you are at home around the world. He writes, "Everywhere I have been in the world, music transcends politics. As musicians, we were able to go beyond all that and just be fellow human beings." Threading through Amram's tale of music, hard work, respect, and friendship are unforgettable stories of fellow great artists-Dizzie Gillespie, Hunter S. Thompson, Janet Gaynor, George Plimpton, Lyle Lovett, Zoe Caldwell, Willie Nelson, and many more.