Renowned today as a prominent African-American in Music Theater and the Arts community, composer, conductor, and violinist Will Marion Cook was a key figure in the development of American music from the 1890s to the 1920s. In this insightful biography, Marva Griffin Carter offers the first definitive look at this pivotal life's story, drawing on both Cook's unfinished autobiography and his wife Abbie's memoir. A violin virtuoso, Cook studied at Oberlin College (his parents' alma mater), Berlin's Hochschule fur Musik with Joseph Joachim, and New York's national Conservatory of Music with Antonin Dvorak. Cook wrote music for a now-lost production of Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and then devoted the majority of his career to black musical comedies due to limited opportunities available to him as a black composer. He was instrumental in showcasing his Southern Syncopated Orchestra in the prominent concert halls of the Unites States and Europe, even featuring New Orleans clarinetist Sidney Bechet, who later introduced European audiences to authentic blues. Once mentored by Frederick Douglas, Will Marion Cook went on to mentor Duke Ellington, paving the path for orchestral concert jazz. Through interpretive and musical analyses, Carter traces Cook's successful evolution from minstrelsy to musical theater. Written with his collaborator, the distinguished poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Cook's musicals infused American Musical Theater with African-American music, consequently altering the direction of American popular music. Cook's In Dahomey, hailed by Gerald Bordman as "one of the most important events in American Musical Theater history," was the first full-length Broadway musical to be written and performed by blacks. Alongside his accomplishments, Carter reveals Cook's contentious side- a man known for his aggressiveness, pride, and constant quarrels, who became his own worst enemy in regards to his career. Carter further sets Cook's life against the backdrop of the changing cultural and social milieu: the black theatrical tradition, white audiences' reaction to black performers, and the growing consciousness and sophistication of blacks in the arts, especially music.

The book comprises a selection of some 750 letters of the composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, selected from an extant corpus of about 3,300. The letters are arranged chronologically and have been chosen to provide a cumulative pen-picture of the composer in his own words. In general the letters reflect VW's major preoccupations: musical, personal and political. It was not VW's way to discuss his inner creative processes but he does discuss his music, once it had been written: for example there is much to illustrate the process of 'washing the face' of his major pieces before, and after, they had reached the concert platform. There is correspondence with collaborators such as Gilbert Murray, Harold Child and Evelyn Sharpe who provided texts; with his publishers (mainly OUP) about printing scores and parts; with conductors such as Adrian Boult and John Barbirolli about performances. He was in regular correspondence with fellow composers such as Gustav Holst, George Butterworth, Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Alan Bush and Rutland Boughton. There were his pupils: Elizabeth Maconchy and Cedric Thorpe Davie amongst others. A series of close personal friendships is well represented: his Cambridge contemporary and cousin Ralph Wedgwood, Edward Dent, and latterly Michael Kennedy. Above all there are insights on his lifelong devotion to his first wife, Adeline, and his growing friendship with Ursula Wood, who was to become his second wife.
In general the book paints a self-portrait of Vaughan Williams not only as a great composer but as a large-minded and public-spirited personality who towered over the British musical world for forty years.

In Off Key, Kay Dickinson offers a compelling study of how certain alliances of music and film are judged aesthetic failures. Based on a fascinating and wide-ranging body of film-music mismatches, and using contemporary reviews and histories of the turn to post-industrialization, the book expands the ways in which the union of the film and music businesses can be understood.
Moving beyond the typical understanding of film music that privileges the score, Off Key also incorporates analyses of rock 'n' roll movies, composer biopics, and pop singers crossing over into acting. By doing this, it provides a fuller picture of how two successful entertainment sectors have sought out synergistic strategies, ones whose alleged "failures" have much to tell about the labor practices of the creative industries, as well as our own relationship to them and to work itself. A provocative and politically-conscious look at music-image relations, Off Key will appeal to students and scholars of film music, cinema studies, media studies, cultural studies, and labor history.

Georgia's music history is diverse in that it covers gospel singer Thomas Dorsey, soul singer James Brown, opera singer Jessye Norman, country singer Alan Jackson, folk singer Hedy West and symphony and choral conductors Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi. They Heard Georgia Singing provides brief musical biographies of the men and women who have made major contributions to Georgia musical history either as natives or as personalities within the context of Georgia music.

The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture examines the powerful but often overlooked presence of the organ in synagogue music and the musical life of German-speaking Jewish communities. Tina Fruhauf expertly chronicles the history of the organ in Jewish culture from the earliest references in the Talmud through the 19th century, when it had established a firm and lasting presence in Jewish sacred and secular spaces in central Europe. Fruhauf demonstrates how the introduction of the organ into German synagogues was part of the significant changes which took place in Judaism after the Enlightenment, and posits the organ as a symbol of the division of the Jewish community into Orthodox and Reform congregations. Newly composed organ music for Jewish liturgy after this division became part of a cross-cultural music tradition in 19th and 20th century Germany, when a specific style of organ music developed which combined elements of Western and Jewish cultures. Concluding with a discussion of the organ in Jewish communities in Israel and the USA, the book presents in-depth case studies which illustrate how the organ has been utilized in the musical life of specific Jewish communities in the 20th century.
Based on extensive research in the archives of organ builders and Jewish musicians, The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture offers comprehensive and detailed descriptions of specific organs as well as fascinating portraits of Jewish organists and composers. With an extensive companion website featuring full color illustrations and over 200 organ dispositions, this book will be eagerly read by performers, students, and scholars of the organ, as well as students and scholarsin historical musicology and Jewish music.

The life and works of one of the most difficult yet rewarding composers of modern time. Jean Barraque is increasingly being recognized as one of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century. Though he left only seven works, his voice in each of them is unmistakeable, and powerful. He had no doubt of hisresponsibility, as a creator, to take his listeners on challenging adventures that could not but leave them changed. After the collapse of morality he had witnessed as a child growing up during the Second World War, and having taken notice of so much disarray in the culture around him, he set himself to make music that would, out of chaos, speak. Three others were crucial to him. One was Pierre Boulez, who, three years older, provided him with keysto a new musical language -- a language more dramatic, driving and passionate than Boulez's. Another was Michel Foucault, to whom he was close personally for a while, and with whom he had a dialogue that was determinative for bothof them. Finally, in the writings of Hermann Broch-and especially in the novel The Death of Virgil-he found the myth he needed to realize musically. He played for high stakes, and he took risks with himself as well as in hisart. Intemperate and difficult, even with his closest friends, he died in 1973 at the age of forty-five. Paul Griffiths was chief music critic for the London Times (1982-92) and The New Yorker (1992-96) and since 1996 has written regularly for the New York Times. He has written books on Boulez, Cage, Messiaen, Ligeti, Davies, Bartok and Stravinsky, as well as several librettos, among them The Jewel Box (Mozart, 1991), Marco Polo (Tan Dun, 1996) and What Next? (Elliott Carter, 1999).

Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum. Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing for the first time an illuminating portrait of the composer's life. With such titles as "The Aldridge-Grainger-Strom Saga," "Thunks," "Ere-I-Forget," "The Love-Life of Helen and Paris," and "Anecdotes," these manuscripts were intended as precursors to Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-Life, which he only commenced in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the editors have created a "self-portrait" along the lines that Grainger himself had intended.
The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents, friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches, Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey, Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors --Music for an Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of band pieces, his greatest "hit" Country Gardens, and his many settings of English folk-music.
Written in Grainger's own self-created "Nordic English" as well as translated from Danish, the language of his most intimate confessions, Self-Portrait of Percy Graingersheds light on some of the most revealing details of the composer's life. The sketches trace Grainger's changing self-perception, from the romantically tinged, even lustful, views of his forties and fifties, through a period of wistfulness in his sixties, to the bitterness and self-loathing of his old age. The volume also includes several of Grainger's own drawings as well as both public and private photographs. A fascinating and revealing collection of vignettes, this extraordinary book will appeal to instructors, students, and enthusiasts in musicology, music history, cultural studies, and Australian, British, and American history.

for SATB or upper voices, and orchestra or wind band The Future of Fire is a brief but powerful work. The vibrant scoring creates a feeling of explosive energy from beginning to end with intense bursts from a battery of percussion. The melodic material is taken from a popular and touching love song from Shannxi province in north-western China, which is coupled with rhythmic motives in both the orchestra/wind band and chorus. Folk melodies from this region use intervals of a minor seventh these angular leaps are suited to the dynamic spirit of this work. The chorus sings a vocalise based on repeated syllables that are found in Chinese folk songs, as well as many folk songs from around the world.

Known for his orchestral, operatic and choral works, James MacMillan (b. 1959) appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making. James MacMillan appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making and is particularly celebrated for his orchestral, operatic and choral pieces. This book, published in time to mark the composer's sixtieth birthday, is thefirst in-depth look at his life, work and aesthetic. From his beginnings in rural Ayrshire and his early work with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, through the international breakthrough success of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie,the continuing success of works such as the percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmaneul and his choral pieces, to his current position as one of the most prominent British composers of his generation, the book explores MacMillan's compositional influences over time. It looks closely at his most significant works and sets them in a wider context defined by contemporary composition, culture and the arts in general. The book also considers MacMillan's strong Catholic faith and how this has influenced his work, along with his politics and his on-going relationship with Scottish nationalism. With the support of the composer and his publisher and unprecedented access to interviews and previously unpublished materials, the book not only provides an appraisal of MacMillan's work but also insights into what it means to be a prominent composer and artist in the twenty-first century. PHILLIP A. COOKE is a Composer and Senior Lecturer and Head of Music at the University of Aberdeen. He has previously co-edited The Music of Herbert Howells for Boydell.

Under the dictatorships of the twentieth century, music never ceased to sound. Even when they did not impose aesthetic standards, these regimes tended to favour certain kinds of art music such as occasional works for commemorations or celebrations, symphonic poems, cantatas and choral settings. In the same way, composers who were more or less ideologically close to the regime wrote pieces of music on their own initiative, which amounted to a support of the political order. This book presents ten studies focusing on music inspired and promoted by regimes such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, France under Vichy, the USSR and its satellites, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Maoist China, and Latin-American dictatorships. By discussing the musical works themselves, whether they were conceived as ways to provide "music for the people", to personally honour the dictator, or to participate in State commemorations of glorious historical events, the book examines the relationship between the composers and the State. This important volume, therefore, addresses theoretical issues long neglected by both musicologists and historians: What is the relationship between art music and propaganda? How did composers participate in musical life under the control of an authoritarian State? What was specifically political in the works produced in these contexts? How did audiences react to them? Can we speak confidently about "State music"? In this way, Composing for the State: Music in Twentieth Century Dictatorships is an essential contribution to our understanding of musical cultures of the twentieth century, as well as the symbolic policies of dictatorial regimes.

Uniquely revealing interviews with one of the world's greatest living composers. Gyoergy Kurtag (b. 1926) is widely regarded as one of the foremost composers in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first. Born in Romania, he received crucial training in Paris from Olivier Messiaen and Marianne Stein. He was also shaped by his broadening contact there with the music of Webern and such challenging literary works as the plays of Samuel Beckett. After many years in Hungary, teaching at the Budapest Academy of Music,Kurtag settled near Bordeaux with his wife Marta. The two regularly perform duo-recitals of his music. In 2006, his . . . concertante . . . (2003, for violin, viola and orchestra) won the coveted Grawemeyer Award for MusicComposition. This unique set of interviews with Kurtag, alone or with his wife, gives a fascinating insight into the composer's personality, which is marked by shyness but also an unquenchable thirst for impressions of every kind [artistic, natural and human]. The two speak with disarming openness about their lives -- the background against which masterpieces like Messages of the Late Miss R. V. Troussova (1976-80, for soprano and chamber orchestra) or Stele (1994, for orchestra) were written. The analysis of certain of Kurtag's works, especially of . . . concertante . . ., shows the way that his mind works: no system, no dogma, no formulae -- rather, basic human emotions expressed through means that speak directly to the listener's innermost feelings. The Hungarian music publisher Balint Andras Varga has spent nearly forty years working for and with composers.He has published several books, including extensive interviews with Lutoslawski, Berio, and Xenakis.

Draws upon unpublished sources and interviews with those who knew him to give a full picture of Roger Quilter's artistic world and musical output. The songs of Roger Quilter are a staple of the English art song repertoire, yet little is known of his life, and his popularity suffered an eclipse in postwar years largely through changing musical fashions. Championed by the great English tenor Gervase Elwes, Quilter became famous for songs such as 'Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal', 'Love's Philosophy' and 'Go, Lovely Rose'. The BBC included A Children's Overture in their first broadcast concert, andthe success of his atmospheric music for the children's fairy play Where the Rainbow Ends ensured his immense popularity. Access to numerous sources worldwide, many of them unpublished, and extensive interviews with friends and family, have enabled Valerie Langfield to write a sympathetic and authoritative account of Quilter, the first full-length study. The first part focuses on Quilter's life: she examines his relationships with his friends, particularly Grainger and the de Glehn family, and how his wealth, ill-health, family and homosexuality affected him. Her researches testify to Quilter's quiet philanthropy: his many practical actions included his founder-membershipof the Musicians Benevolent Fund, generous and discreet assistance to young musicians, and help to Jewish friends fleeing Germany and Austria before the second world war. The second part of the book discusses and contextualises all his music: songs, chamber, orchestral and theatre music, and his light opera, Julia, performed at Covent Garden in 1936. The CD - which can be ordered separately bypurchasers of the book - contains recordings of Quilter himself, either playing or conducting. The 17 songs that Quilter recorded in 1934 with the baritone Mark Raphael are included, together with his own arrangement for piano quintet of the song cycle To Julia with Hubert Eisdell as the tenor soloist. Quilter also conducts a short selection of items of music from Where the Rainbow Ends. Also: Schedule of performances; Catalogue of works; Discography; Bibli

Vaughan Williams's famous romance for solo violin and orchestra is given new life in this beautiful arrangement. For the first time, violinists can perform the original solo line as part of a string quartet, while also joining the other players for the longer tutti sections. Perfect as a rehearsal tool in preparation for a larger-scale orchestral concert, the arrangement is also ideal for performance in a chamber recital.

In this engaging work Vaughan Williams takes advantage of the expressive possibilities of the cello, ranging from wistful and melancholic to lively and jovial. It was composed in 1929 and premiered the following year by its dedicatee, the legendary Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. The five folk songs on which the work is founded are 'Salisbury Plain', 'The Long Whip', 'Low down in the broom', 'Bristol Town', and 'I've been to France'. Materials for the orchestral accompaniment are available on hire.

The analytic-theoretical approach to Stravinsky’s music introduced in the opening four chapters of this volume became the standard in theoretical and musicological circles during the past several decades. The features of the approach were adopted and expanded upon by numerous scholars: see Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Period (1996); Jonathan Cross, The Stravinsky Legacy (1998); and Stephen Walsh. Working independently from an historical perspective, Richard Taruskin came to many of the same conclusions regarding Stravinsky’s musical language. Entirely unique is the discussion of the rhythmic emphasis of Stravinsky’s music, the metrical displacement of repeated themes and chords, and the disruptive effect of displacement on the listener. Brought into play is the evolutionary history of meter and its entrainment by the listener; the concept of "sensorimotor synchronization" as advanced by the psychologist Bruno Repp, and that in turn of the "contrametric" nature of Stravinsky’s music as introduced by David Huron. Explored is the relationship between African polyrhythm, as discussed by Kofi Agawu, David Locke, and Steve Reich, to the polyrhythmic stratifications in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Of major concern are the critical and aesthetic issues arising from the interpretation and performance of Stravinsky’s music. The aesthetic views not only of Stravinsky himself but also of critics such as Theodor Adorno, Richard Taruskin, and Robert Craft are discussed at length. Accompanying the essays are over 100 musical illustrations and analytical designs, set and processed with consummate skill by Andre Mount. The essays are prefaced by a newly composed Introduction and then concluded with a lengthy unpublished chapter on the individual work and its classification; "Reflections on the Post-War years of Babbitt, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky". Interactions between the three composers are discussed, as is the relocation, by the early 1940s, of the Paris-Vienna split between Stravinsky and Schoenberg to Los Angeles, California. Even in the twilight years of their respective careers, Stravinsky and Schoenberg remained at a distance from one another.

This book explores the transformation of ideas of the material in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century musical composition. New music of this era is argued to reflect a historical moment when the idea of materiality itself is in flux. Engaging with thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Sara Ahmed, Zygmunt Bauman, Rosi Braidotti, and Timothy Morton, the author considers music's relationship with changing material conditions, from the rise of neo-liberalisms and information technologies to new concepts of the natural world. Drawing on musicology, cultural theory, and philosophy, the author develops a critical understanding of musical bodies, objects, and the environments of their interaction. Music is grasped as something that both registers material changes in society whilst also enabling us to practice materiality differently.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Steve Reich was considered a fringe experimentalist. His work consisted largely of repeating, slowly changing patterns unlike either the serialism or the aleatory that predominated at that time. Today, however, Reich is one of the most prominent and celebrated contemporary composers, one about whom the scholarly and popular literature offers an assortment of critical, historical, and analytical perspectives. Author D.J. Hoek's bio-bibliography serves as an essential guide to this literature, comprehensively surveying Reich's life and work.

Included are details of all of Reich's compositions: dates, instrumentation, premiere performances, and publishers; a discography listing all commercial recordings of the composer's oeuvre; and an annotated bibliography of publications in English, French, German, and Italian. The Reich scholar or aficionado could not find a more thorough encapsulation of his brilliant career.

The 20th century, especially the latter decades, was a time of explosive growth and importance in hymnody, and yet published material about the hymnody of this period has been scattered and difficult to come by. The present volume catalogues and categorizes the available writings to guide students and scholars in their research. Furthermore, this reference does not depend primarily on the view of the author/compiler, but guides users toward a broad spectrum of viewpoints about 20th-century hymnody. Listing the principal writings on the repertory, language, practice, and people of hymnody during the last century, this annotated bibliography offers students and researchers alike a handy reference for a vast and varied field.

Beginning with a unique introduction to and summary of hymnody in the 20th century, Music arranges the entries by topic, dividing each chapter by helpful subject headings. The repertory of the twentieth century, and language issues are discussed. Practical elements of hymnody are covered, while the final chapter lists writings about individual hymn writers and other influential persons in the field. Music provides a brief annotation for each entry and uses numerous cross-references, guiding the reader to relevant material in other sections of the book. A comprehensive index concludes this essential reference.

This is a comprehensive biography of perhaps the first important American woman composer, Amy Marcy Beach. She enjoyed an international reputation in the early 20th century, especially for her symphonies. In recent years there has been a great revival of interest in her work, and many of her compositions have been performed and recorded.

The aftermath of World War II sent thousands of Estonian refugees into Europe. The years of Estonian independence (1917-1940) had given them a taste of freedom and so relocation to displaced person (DP) camps in post-war Germany was extremely painful. One way in which Estonians dealt with the chaos and trauma of WWII and its aftermath was through choral singing. Just as song festivals helped establish national identity in 1869, song festivals promoted cultural cohesiveness for Estonians in WWII displaced person camps. A key turning point in hope for the Estonian DPs was the 1947 Augsburg Song Festival, which is the center point of this book. As Estonian DPs dispersed to Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States these choirs and song festivals gave Estonians the resilience to retain their identity and to thrive in their new homes. This history of Estonian WWII DP camp choirs and song festivals is gathered from the stories of many courageous individuals and filled with the tenacious spirit of the Estonian singing culture. This work contributes to an understanding of immigration, identity, and resilience and is particularly important within the field of music regarding music and healing, music and identity, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and music and politics.

This book explores the effect of commercial and national institutions on the music of one of the foremost British composers of the twentieth century, Benjamin Britten. Radio, the recording industry, government subsidies for the arts, Covent Garden, the post-war establishment of music festivals, were all agents for dramatic changes in the art-music culture which Britten skilfully used to his advantage.

The Classics of Music assembles here for the first time all of Tovey's significant writings not previously available as a collection. For much of the twentieth century, Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940) has been Britain's most celebrated and influential writer on music, largely as a result of the considerable corpus of his work published by Oxford University Press in the 1930s and 1940s. However, as a prolific and popular lecturer, broadcaster, and essayist, Tovey left many writings unpublished at the time of his death. All the writings here are characteristically stimulating and stylish, making this essential collection available to a new generation of musicians.

Peter Kivy presents a selection of his new and recent writings on the philosophy of music, a subject to which he has for many years been one of the most eminent contributors. In his distinctively elegant and informal style, Kivy explores such topics as musicology and its history, the nature of musical works, and the role of emotion in music, in a way that will attract the interest of philosophical and musical readers alike.

Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism is the first book-length work to explore the interrelationships between contemporary female musicians and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art, music, and literature by women and men. The music and videos of contemporary musicians including Erykah Badu, Beyonce, The Carters, Helene Cixous, Missy Elliot, the Indigo Girls, Janet Jackson, Janis Joplin (and Big Brother and the Holding Company), Natalie Merchant, Joni Mitchell, Janelle Monae, Alanis Morrisette, Siouxsie Sioux, Patti Smith, St. Vincent (Annie Clark), and Alice Walker are explored through the lenses of pastoral and Afropresentism, Gothic, female Gothic, and the literature of William Blake, Beethoven, Arthur Schopenhauer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charlotte Dacre, Ralph Waldo Emerson, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Ann Radcliffe, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, Horace Walpole, Jane Williams, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William Wordsworth to explore how each sheds light on the other, and how women have appropriated, responded to, and been inspired by the work of authors from previous centuries.