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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles > 20th century music
Where is the academic study of music today, and what paths should it take into the future? Should we be looking at how music relates to society and constructs meaning through it, rather than how it transcends the social? Can we 'remix' our discipline and attempt to address all musics on an equal basis, without splitting ourselves in advance into subgroups of 'musicologists', 'theorists', and 'ethnomusicologists'? These are some of the crucial issues that Nicholas Cook has raised since he emerged in the 1990s as one of the UK's leading and most widely read voices in critical musicology. In this book, collaborators and former students of Cook pursue these questions and others raised by his work-from notation, historiography, and performance to the place of music in multimedia forms such as virtual reality and video games, analysing both how it can bring people together and the ways in which it has failed to do so.
This first book in English on the French composer Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) investigates his music, life and influence. A pupil of Varese and colleague of Messiaen in La Jeune France, Jolivet is a major figure in French music of the twentieth century. His music combines innovative language with spirituality, summarised in his self-declared axiom to 'restore music's ancient original meaning when it was the magic and incantatory expression of the sacred in human communities'. The book's contextual introduction is followed by contributions, edited by Caroline Rae, from leading international scholars including the composer's daughter Christine Jolivet-Erlih. These assess Jolivet's output and activities from the 1920s through to his last works, exploring creative process, aesthetic, his relationship with the exotic and influences from literature. They also examine, for the first time, the significance of Jolivet's involvement with the visual arts and his activities as conductor, teacher and critic. A chronology of Jolivet's life and works with details of first performances provides valuable overview and reference. This fascinating and comprehensive volume is an indispensable source for research into French music and culture of the twentieth century.
Concepts of Time in Post-War European Music gives a historical and philosophical account of the discussions of the nature of time and music during the mid-twentieth century. The nature of time was a persistent topic among composers in Paris and Darmstadt in the decades after World War II, one which influenced their musical practice and historical relevance. Based on the author's specialized knowledge of the relevant philosophical discourses, this volume offers a balanced critique of these composers' attempts at philosophizing about time. Touching on familiar topics such as Adorno's philosophy of music, the writings of Boulez and Stockhausen, and Messiaen's theology, this volume uncovers specific relationships among varied intellectual traditions that have not previously been described. Each chapter provides a philosophical explanation of specific problems that are relevant for interpreting the composer's own essays or lectures, followed by a musical analysis of a piece of music which illustrates central theoretical concepts. This is a valuable study for scholars and researchers of music theory, music history, and the philosophy of music.
Singing the Body Electric explores the relationship between the human voice and technology, offering startling insights into the ways in which technological mediation affects our understanding of the voice, and more generally, the human body. From the phonautograph to magnetic tape and now to digital sampling, Miriama Young visits particular musical and literary works that define a century-and-a-half of recorded sound. She discusses the way in which the human voice is captured, transformed or synthesised through technology. This includes the sampled voice, the mechanical voice, the technologically modified voice, the pliable voice of the digital era, and the phenomenon by which humans mimic the sounding traits of the machine. The book draws from key electro-vocal works spanning a range of genres - from Luciano Berio's Thema: Omaggio a Joyce to Radiohead, from Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room, to Bjoerk, and from Pierre Henry's Variations on a Door and a Sigh to Christian Marclay's Maria Callas. In essence, this book transcends time and musical style to reflect on the way in which the machine transforms our experience of the voice. The chapters are interpolated by conversations with five composers who work creatively with the voice and technology: Trevor Wishart, Katharine Norman, Paul Lansky, Eduardo Miranda and Bora Yoon. This book is an interdisciplinary enterprise that combines music aesthetics and musical analysis with literature and philosophy.
Unaccountably, Percy Grainger has remained on the margins of both American music history and twentieth-century modernism. This volume reveals the well-known composer of popular gems to be a self-described 'hyper-modernist' who composed works of uncompromising dissonance, challenged the conventions of folk song collection and adaptation, re-visioned the modern orchestra, experimented with 'ego-less' composition and designed electronic machines intended to supersede human application. Grainger was far from being a self-sufficient maverick working in isolation. Through contact with innovators such as Ferrucio Busoni, Leon Theremin and Henry Cowell; promotion of the music of modern French and Spanish schools; appreciation of vernacular, jazz and folk musics; as well as with the study and transcription of non-Western music; he contested received ideas and proposed many radical new approaches. By reappraising Grainger's social and historical connectedness and exploring the variety of aspects of modernity seen in his activities in the British, American and Australian contexts, the authors create a profile of a composer, propagandist and visionary whose modernist aesthetic paralleled that of the most advanced composers of his day, and, in some cases, anticipated their practical experiments.
The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski is one of the most fascinating musical figures of the early twentieth century. His works included four symphonies, two violin concertos, the operas Hagith and King Roger, the ballet-pantomime Harnasie, the oratorio Stabat Mater, as well as numerous piano, violin, vocal and choral compositions. The profile and popularity of Szymanowski's music outside Poland has never been higher and continues to grow. The Szymanowski Companion constitutes the most significant and comprehensive reference source to the composer in English. Edited by two of the leading scholars in the field, Paul Cadrin and Stephen Downes, the collection consists of over 50 contributions from an international array of contributors, including recognized Polish experts. The Companion thus provides a systematic, authoritative and up-to-date compilation of information concerning the composer's life, thought and works.
The Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944) is commonly positioned in the history of twentieth-century music as a representative of Leos Janacek's compositional school and as one of the Jewish composers imprisoned by the Nazis in the concentration camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt). However, the nature of Janacek's influence remains largely unexplained and the focus on the context of the Holocaust tends to yield a one-sided view of Haas's oeuvre. The existing scholarship offers limited insight into Haas's compositional idiom and does not sufficiently explain the composer's position with respect to broader aesthetic trends and artistic networks in inter-war Czechoslovakia and beyond. This book is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive (albeit necessarily selective) discussion of Haas's music since the publication of Lubomir Peduzzi's 'life and work' monograph in 1993. It provides the reader with an enhanced understanding of Haas's music through analytical and hermeneutical interpretation as well as cultural and aesthetic contextualisation, and thus reveal the rich nuances of Haas's multi-faceted work which have not been sufficiently recognised so far.
This collection of essays offers a historical reappraisal of what musical modernism was, and what its potential for the present and future could be. It thus moves away from the binary oppositions that have beset twentieth-century music studies in the past, such as those between modernism and postmodernism, between conceptions of musical autonomy and of cultural contingency and between formalist-analytical and cultural-historical approaches. Focussing particularly on music from the 1970s to the 1990s, the volume assembles approaches from different perspectives to new music with a particular emphasis on a critical reassessment of the meaning and function of the legacy of musical modernism. The authors include scholars, musicologists and composers who combine culturally, socially, historically and aesthetically oriented approaches with analytical methods in imaginative ways.
This volume brings together analyses of works by thirteen Russian composers from across the twentieth century, showing how their approaches to tonality, modernism, and serialism forge forward-looking paths independent from their Western counterparts. Russian music of this era is widely performed, and much research has situated this repertoire in its historical and social context, yet few analytical studies have explored the technical aspects of these composers' styles. With a set of representative analyses by leading scholars in music theory and analysis, this book for the first time identifies large-scale compositional trends in Russian music since 1900. The chapters progress by compositional style through the century, and each addresses a single work by a different composer, covering pieces by Rachmaninoff, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mansurian, Roslavets, Mosolov, Lourie, Tcherepnin, Ustvolskaya, Denisov, Gubaidulina, and Schnittke. Musicians, scholars, and students will find here a starting point for research and analysis of these composers' works and gain a richer understanding of how to listen to and interpret their music.
Discussion concerning the 'musicality' of Samuel Beckett's writing now constitutes a familiar critical trope in Beckett Studies, one that continues to be informed by the still-emerging evidence of Beckett's engagement with music throughout his personal and literary life, and by the ongoing interest of musicians in Beckett's work. In Beckett's drama and prose writings, the relationship with music plays out in implicit and explicit ways. Several of his works incorporate canonical music by composers such as Schubert and Beethoven. Other works integrate music as a compositional element, in dialogue or tension with text and image, while others adopt rhythm, repetition and pause to the extent that the texts themselves appear to be 'scored'. But what, precisely, does it mean to say that a piece of prose or writing for theatre, radio or screen, is 'musical'? The essays included in this book explore a number of ways in which Beckett's writings engage with and are engaged by musicality, discussing familiar and less familiar works by Beckett in detail. Ranging from the scholarly to the personal in their respective modes of response, and informed by approaches from performance and musicology, literary studies, philosophy, musical composition and creative practice, these essays provide a critical examination of the ways we might comprehend musicality as a definitive and often overlooked attribute throughout Beckett's work.
This book studies recent music in the western classical tradition, offering a critique of current analytical/theoretical approaches and proposing alternatives. The critique addresses the present fringe status of recent music sometimes described as crossover, postmodern, post-classical, post-minimalist, etc. and demonstrates that existing descriptive languages and analytical approaches do not provide adequate tools to address this music in positive and productive terms. Existing tools and concepts were developed primarily in the mid-20th century in tandem with the high modernist compositional aesthetic, and they have changed little since then. The aesthetics of music composition, on the other hand, have been in constant transformation. Lochhead proposes new ways to conceive musical works, their structurings of musical experience and time, and the procedures and goals of analytic close reading. These tools define investigative procedures that engage the multiple perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners, and that generate conceptual modes unique to each work. In action, they rebuild a conceptual, methodological, and experiential place for recent music. These new approaches are demonstrated in analyses of four pieces: Kaija Saariaho's Lonh (1996), Sofia Gubaidulina's Second String Quartet (1987), Stacy Garrop's String Quartet no.2, Demons and Angels (2004-05), and Anna Clyne's "Choke" (2004). This book defies the prediction of classical music's death, and will be of interest to scholars and musicians of classical music, and those interested in music theory, musicology, and aural culture.
Following Stalin's death in 1953, during the period now known as
the Thaw, Nikita Khrushchev opened up greater freedoms in cultural
and intellectual life. A broad group of intellectuals and artists
in Soviet Russia were able to take advantage of this, and in no
realm of the arts was this perhaps more true than in music.
Students at Soviet conservatories were at last able to use various
channels--many of questionable legality--to acquire and hear music
that had previously been forbidden, and visiting performers and
composers brought young Soviets new sounds and new compositions. In
the 1960s, composers such as Andrey Volkonsky, Edison Denisov,
Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Part, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Valentin
Silvestrov experimented with a wide variety of then new and
unfamiliar techniques ranging from serialism to aleatory devices,
and audiences eager to escape the music of predictable sameness
typical to socialist realism were attracted to performances of
their new and unfamiliar creations.
The study of music within multimedia contexts has become an increasingly active area of scholarly research. However, the application of such studies to musical genres outside the 'classical' film canon, or in television and other media remains largely unexplored in any detail. Tristian Evans demonstrates how postminimal music interacts with other media forms, focusing on the film music by Philip Glass, but also taking into account works by other composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams and others inspired by minimalist and postminimal practices. Additionally, Evans develops innovative ways of analysing this music, based on an interdisciplinary approach, and draws on research from areas that include philosophy, linguistics and film theory. The book offers one of the first in-depth studies of Philip Glass's music for film, considering The Hours and Dracula, Naqoyqatsi, Notes on a Scandal and Watchmen, while examining re-applications of the music in new cinematic and televisual contexts. The book will appeal to musicologists but also to those working in the fields of film music, cultural studies, media studies and multimedia.
John Antill (1904-1986) was one of the foremost composers of Australia's post-colonial period. Although a relatively prolific and much esteemed composer in Australia, Antill's wider reputation is sustained chiefly by his famous ballet Corroboree - a work which was perceived to bring an authentic Australian musical style before both a national and international audience for the first time. Through Sir Eugene Goossens' championship, the work was heard by enthusiastic audiences in Australia, Britain, Europe and the USA, and was, for many years, the best-known work of any Australian-born and resident composer. Indeed it has remained, for both Australian and overseas audiences, an Australian musical icon. David Symons traces Antill's development as a composer from his early, pre-Corroboree works, which display a late Romantic to post-impressionist style, through an analysis of the virile, dissonant, primitivist idiom of his magnum opus, to an examination of his later output of theatrical, orchestral and vocal/choral works. The book provides comprehensive and valuable insight into Antill's musical output, at the same time focussing on more detailed analyses of his major works which have reached public performances and/or recordings. In this way the book not only presents a developmental picture of Antill's works, but also demonstrates why they have made him one of Australia's most prominent musical creators of the post-colonial period.
Sir Andrzej Panufnik was born in Warsaw and studied in the newly independent Poland in the 1930s, as well as in Vienna and Paris just before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the German occupation he formed a piano duo with his friend and fellow composer Witold LutosA'awski, and they performed in cafes around Warsaw. After the war, Panufnik quickly established himself as a leading Polish composer, and as a conductor he played a significant role in the re-establishment of first the KrakA(3)w and then the Warsaw Philharmonic. Although he was considered Poland's leading composer for some years after the war, Panufnik was subsequently put under intolerable pressure both musically and politically. Frustrated by the continuing rejection of his compositions and the unending political demands inflicted on him by the country's post-war Communist regime, he made a daring escape to England in 1954. He briefly became Principal Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a post he relinquished after two years to devote all his time to composition. His works were in demand by major figures such as Leopold Stokowski who conducted the first performances of Sinfonia Elegiaca, KatyA" Epitaph and Universal Prayer, Yehudi Menuhin who commissioned the Violin Concerto, Seiji Ozawa in Boston and Sir Georg Solti in Chicago who both commissioned symphonies for the centenaries of their famous orchestras; also Mstislav Rostropovich with the London Symphony Orchestra, who together commissioned the Cello Concerto. Beata BolesA'awska has written the first book on the life and artistic output of Panufnik, setting his significance alongside the political and cultural scene of twentieth-century Europe. The account of the composer's life is based on numerous archival documents, as well as the personal accounts contributed by his family and friends. Panufnik's compositional style and techniques are also analysed. This book will be of interest not only to those devoted
for SSATB and organ This attractive and uplifting anthem sets the text of the Eastertide Vidi aquam antiphon. Different parts of the text are treated to contrasting musical ideas, including extended melismatic upper-voice passages and mainly homophonic full-choir sections, and the undulating organ part represents the flowing water of the text. A welcome addition to a service or concert programme for all fans of Gabriel Jackson's music. Commissioned by the Friends of Lincoln Cathedral for their 75th anniversary and first performed by the Choir of Lincoln Cathedral with Charles Harrison (organ), directed by Aric Prentice, on 25 June 2011.
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.
Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. This book provides a global view of his music, integrating a number of resonant themes in the composer's work while covering a representative cross-section of his vast output - his work list encompasses nearly 550 compositions in every established genre. Each chapter focuses on specific major works and offers generaldiscussion of other selected works connected to the main themes. These themes include compositional technique and process; genre; form and architecture; tonality and texture; allusion, quotation and musical critique; and place and landscape. Throughout, the book contends that Davies's works are not created in a vacuum but are intimately connected to, and are a reflection of, 'the past'. This deep engagement occurs on a number of levels, fluctuating and interacting with the composer's own predominantly modernist idiom and evoking a chain of historical resonances. Making sustained reference to Davies's own words, articles and programme notes as well as privileged access to primary source material from his estate, the book illuminates the composer's practices and approaches while shaping a discourse around his music.
American composer George Gershwin, an icon of the American Jazz Age, indelibly marked 20th-century music, with many of his works becoming standards in the popular and jazz music repertory, not to mention his world-famous classical works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Porgy and Bess (1935). This major bibliography includes a brief biography, which examines Gershwin's influence and situates him within the cultural context of his time, a complete cross-reference list of all his compositions, a discography of more than 1,150 items, and a descriptive filmography. The extensive bibliography includes writings by both George and his brother Ira, and more than 2,100 entries about George's compositions. As an exhaustive research tool, this up-to-date bibliographic reference compiles information on George Gershwin from numerous, disparate sources and should appeal to music and theater scholars, cultural historians, and Gershwin enthusiasts alike. The work is divided among seven sections that cross-reference one another. A separate appendix lists itineraries for the Paul Whiteman tours of 1924-1925, and the Leo Reisman tour of 1934, at which Gershwin's music figured prominently, and a comprehensive index completes the volume.
Alban Berg: A Research and Information Guide, Third Edition is an annotated bibliography highlighting both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources that deal with Berg, his compositions, and his influence as a composer. It is a reliable, complete, and useful resource and a starting point for anyone-performer, teacher, student, or scholar-wanting to learn about Berg's life, works, and cultural milieu. The third edition has 162 additional citations since the publication of the second edition, many arising after the expiration of copyright of Berg's musical and archival works 2005. Many important new, primary sources of information have appeared, most notably the letter exchanges with his wife, recently published in a three-volume critical edition (in German), as well as letter exchanges with Alma Mahler and Erich Kleiber, and later correspondences with Anton Webern. There has also been a notable increase in the availability of commercial video recordings of Berg's operas, Wozzeck and Lulu.
Hans Keller's text and Milein Cosman's vibrant illustrations combine to produce a unique and enlightening book on Stravinsky. Stravinsky the Music-Maker is the third incarnation of a book that has been greeted with superlatives on each previous appearance. Hans Keller and Milein Cosman collaborated down the decades of their married life, Keller'spen analysing music, Cosman's catching its makers at work. Stravinsky was a source of fascination for them both, and their Stravinsky at Rehearsal appeared in 1962, to be expanded, two decades later, as Stravinsky Seen and Heard. Stravinsky the Music-Maker offers the most generous compilation of their work yet: it includes Keller's complete articles on Stravinsky, written between 1954 and 1980, and augments Cosman's celebrated prints and drawings with a number not previously published. The introduction, by the composer Hugh Wood, sites the Keller-Cosman partnership in the framework of the British musical life they enriched. HANS KELLER (1919-85) fled Austria in1938 and became a commanding critical voice in British music journalism and on the BBC from the end of the war until his death. He is the author of numerous books, many illustrated by his wife Milein Cosman, including Criticism (Faber), The Great Haydn String Quartets (Dent), Essays on Music (CUP), Jerusalem Diary, Film Music and Beyond and Music and Psychology (all Plumbago). A critic of insight and integrity throughout his life, he remains a powerful influence to this day.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, as well as the first major Soviet composer. In the fourth edition of Dmitri Shostakovich Catalogue: The First Hundred Years and Beyond, Derek C. Hulme names and describes all known musical compositions of the Russian composer. More than 175 major works are annotated and discussed, including such comprehensive details as titles and subtitles, dates of composition, instrumentation, and duration; information on dedications and premieres; arrangements by the composer and others; publication details; notes on bibliographical references and the location of the autograph score; and comprehensive chronological lists of vinyl, compact disc, and visual recordings. The entries are presented chronologically and by opus number, while indexes of names and compositions provide full accessibility. Several appendixes supplement the volume, guiding readers to further information in published sources and providing information on the composer's film, radio, television, and theatre productions; his abandoned projects and obscure works; and his recordings, including box sets and special USSR recordings. An appendix also discusses the monogram DSCH, a musical motif based on his name that permeates his compositions. This new edition also includes a comprehensive chronological chart of Shostakovich's works and historical events and several plates of memorabilia.
From Music to Sound is an examination of the six musical histories whose convergence produces the emergence of sound, offering a plural, original history of new music and showing how music had begun a change of paradigm, moving from a culture centred on the note to a culture of sound. Each chapter follows a chronological progression and is illustrated with numerous musical examples. The chapters are composed of six parallel histories: timbre, which became a central category for musical composition; noise and the exploration of its musical potential; listening, the awareness of which opens to the generality of sound; deeper and deeper immersion in sound; the substitution of composing the sound for composing with sounds; and space, which is progressively viewed as composable. The book proposes a global overview, one of the first of its kind, since its ambition is to systematically delimit the emergence of sound. Both well-known and lesser-known works and composers are analysed in detail; from Debussy to contemporary music in the early twenty-first century; from rock to electronica; from the sound objects of the earliest musique concrete to current electroacoustic music; from the Poeme electronique of Le Corbusier-Varese-Xenakis to the most recent inter-arts attempts. Covering theory, analysis and aesthetics, From Music to Sound will be of great interest to scholars, professionals and students of Music, Musicology, Sound Studies and Sonic Arts. Supporting musical examples can be accessed via the online Routledge Music Research Portal.
Radiohead and the Journey Beyond Genre traces the uses and transgressions of genre in the music of Radiohead and studies the band's varied reception in online and offline media. Radiohead's work combines traditional rock sounds with a unique and experimental approach towards genre that sets the band apart from the contemporary mainstream. A play with diverse styles and audience expectations has shaped Radiohead's musical output and opened up debates about genre amongst critics, fans, and academics alike. Interpretations speak of a music that is referential of the past but also alludes to the future. Applying both music- and discourse-analytical methods, the book discusses how genre manifests in Radiohead's work and how it is interpreted amongst different audience groups. It explores how genre and generic flexibility affect the listeners' search for musical meaning and ways of discussion. This results in the development of a theoretical framework for the study of genre in individual popular music oeuvres that explores the equal validity of widely differing forms of reception as a multidimensional network of meaning. While Radiohead's music is the product of an eclectic mixture of musical influences and styles, the book also shows how the band's experimental stance has increasingly fostered debates about Radiohead's generic novelty and independence. It asks what remains of genre in light of its past or imminent transgression. Offering new perspectives on popular music genre, transgression, and the music and reception of Radiohead, the book will appeal to academics, students, and those interested in Radiohead and matters of genre. It contributes to scholarship in musicology, popular music, media, and cultural studies. |
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