This provocative book explores the cross-fertilization between music and the visual arts in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Reassessing the work of a wide range of composers and artists including Richard Wagner, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and John Cage, Simon Shaw-Miller demonstrates how the boundaries between art and music were permeable at this time, enabling each to enrich the other.

In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called Minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind.
Writings on Music documents the creative journey of this thoughtful, groundbreaking composer. These 64 short pieces include Reich's 1968 essay "Music as a Gradual Process," widely considered one of the most influential pieces of music theory in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent essays, articles, and interviews treat Reich's early work with tape and phase shifting, showing its development into more recent work with speech melody and instrumental music. Other essays recount his exposure to non-western music -- African drumming, Balinese gamelan, Hebrew cantillation -- and the influence of these musics as structures and not as sounds. The writings include Reich's reactions to and appreciations of the works of his contemporaries (John Cage, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti) and older influences (Kurt Weill, Schoenberg). Each major work of the composer's career is also explored through notes written for performances and recordings.
Paul Hillier, himself a respected figure in the early music and new music worlds, has revisited these texts, working with the author to clarify their central narrative: the aesthetic and intellectual development of an influential composer. For long-time listeners and young musicians recently introduced to his work, this book provides an opportunity to get to know Reich's music in greater depth and perspective.

"An extremely important and gracefully written book on a significant and controversial topic. It is the most thoroughgoing study of Ives's compositional procedures that has yet been attempted."-Larry Starr, author of A Union of Diversities: Style in the Music of Charles Ives "A unique in-depth study of Ives's works, the most panoramic view of the music ever written, based on a new and convincing perspective."-H. Wiley Hitchcock, City University of New York "A unique, pathbreaking, and utterly convincing study of Ives's music."-David Nicholls, BBC Music Magazine "A well-balanced view of Ives's music. . . . A] pathbreaking study."-David Nicholls, Times Literary Supplement "This book should be in the library of every scholar with a serious interest in Ives's music. . . . Burkholder's writing throughout . . . is refreshingly clear, and his ability to organize vast amounts of detail into coherent and logical sequences is one of the greatest strengths of the book, and particularly appropriate to its subject."-Kathryn Bumpass, Notes "The book is well stocked with music examples and tables, enabling it to be used as a reference work, and has almost 100 pages of notes and bibliography. It abundantly fulfils its promise 'to help us hear the music better' and enriches our experience of Ives in a way that is totally sympathetic to the man and his music."-Peter Dickinson, Music & Letters "Burkholder's remarkable book succeeds in creating a different composite portrait of the musical consciousness of a great composer."-Judith Tick, American Music Winner of the Choice 1996 Outstanding Academic Book Award

Central to the repertoire of Western art music since the 18th century, the symphony has come to be regarded as one of the ultimate compositional challenges. Surprisingly, heretofore there has been no truly extensive, broad-based treatment of the genre, and the best of the existing studies are now several decades old. In this five-volume series, A. Peter Brown explores the symphony from its 18th-century beginnings to the end of the 20th century. Synthesizing the enormous scholarly literature, Brown presents up-to-date overviews of the status of research, discusses any important former or remaining problems of attribution, illuminates the style of specific works and their contexts, and samples early writings on their reception. The Symphonic Repertoire provides an unmatched compendium of knowledge for the student, teacher, performer, and sophisticated amateur. The series is being launched with two volumes on the Viennese symphony.

Volume IV
The Second Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony
Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Mahler,
and Selected Contemporaries

Although during the mid-19th century the geographic center of the symphony in the Germanic territories moved west and north from Vienna to Leipzig, during the last third of the century it returned to the old Austrian lands with the works of Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, and Mahler. After nearly a half century in hibernation, the sleeping Viennese giant awoke to what some viewed as a reincarnation of Beethoven with the first hearing of Brahms s Symphony No. 1, which was premiered at Vienna in December 1876. Even though Bruckner had composed some gigantic symphonies prior to Brahms s first contribution, their full impact was not felt until the composer s complete texts became available after World War II. Although Dvorak was often viewed as a nationalist composer, in his symphonic writing his primary influences were Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. For both Bruckner and Mahler, the symphony constituted the heart of their output; for Brahms and Dvorak, it occupied a less central place. Yet for all of them, the key figure of the past remained Beethoven. The symphonies of these four composers, together with the works of Goldmark, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Smetana, Fibich, Janacek, and others are treated in Volume IV, The Second Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony, covering the period from roughly 1860 to 1930."

Deux Arabesques, Suite Bergamasque, Masques, 1st series of Images, etc. 9 others, in corrected editions.

American composer John Cage (1912-1992) was without doubt one of the most important and influential figures in twentieth-century music. He spent much of his career in pursuit of an unusual goal--"giving up control so that sounds can be sounds", as he put it. As well as composing around 300 works, he was also a prolific performer, writer, poet, and visual artist. This Companion celebrates the richness and diversity of Cage's achievements and provides readers with a fully rounded portrait of a fascinating figure.

French born New Yorker, Edgard Varese sound-tracked industrial society just as Debussy had more pastoral settings.

Frank Zappa's boyhood hero, inspiration to The Grateful Dead, Chicago and Laurie Anderson, revered by Stravinsky, Stockhausen, Cage and Charlie Parker, Varese saw music as an "art-science" in which machines, not instruments would extend the sonic vocabulary.

Ionization (1933), for percussion and sirens, Deserts (1954), Density 21.5 for platinum flute, The One All Alone, a science fiction opera, and Espace, written in aid of Spanish Civil War revolutionaries brought critical acclaim. Then followed 15 "wilderness years" which ended in 1958 when his symphony, Poeme Electronique was played through 400 revolving loudspeakers at the Brussels Exposition.

Displaying the broad erudition and intellectual agility that have informed a lifetime of scholarship, Wilfrid Mellers offers a set of diverse reflections on how western art music illuminates the shifting relationship between humankind and the natural world. Beginning with two turn-of-the-century operas--Frederick Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet and Claude Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande -- that present humankind as lost in a tangled wood that is at once internal and external, Mellers develops the theme of wilderness in sociological, psychological, ecological, and even geological terms. He discusses Leos Jana ek's Cunning Little Vixen ("the ultimate ecological opera") as a parable of redemption and explores the delicate yet dangerous equilibrium between civilization and the dark forest in works by Charles Koechlin and Darius Milhaud. Elements of wilderness and the city combine to infuse the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Carlos Chavez with a blend of primitivism and sophistication, while a creative tension between desert landscape and industrial mechanization inspires the works of Carl Ruggles, Harry Partch, Steve Reich, and Australia's Peter Sculthorpe. The volume culminates in a discussion of two American urban folk musicians, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. By suggesting how the "musicking" of ecological issues articulates twinned perspectives on music and our place in the world, Mellers raises intriguing questions about the links among tradition, talent, learning, and instinct. Brimming over with fresh ideas and unexpected cross-pollinations, Singing in the Wilderness is a stimulating addition to the oeuvre of a distinguished and inventive scholar.

The Hungarian Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923) is one of the most highly regarded and influential of living composers. Having survived persecution as a Jew during World War II, he fled to West Germany during the Hungarian Revolution, where his early musical development was shaped by his work in the Cologne electronic studios and by the influence of Stockhausen. Rather than becoming too closely identified with any single school or movement, Ligeti's music has drawn on a divers range of sources, from the folk music of his native Hungary to African and South American World music. In works such as his Requiem, used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has proved that contemporary classical music can be accessible to a wide audience. This stimulating biography discusses Ligeti within the context of the political and cultural history of postwar Europe, and places him firmly at the forefront of musical change and innovation over the past four decades.

The greatest and most popular German composer of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss (1864 -- 1949) remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. Though he is now accepted as one of the finest of all orchestral composers, and his operas are the most subtly characterized since Mozart's, his reputation remains dogged by charges of sensationalism, careerist opportunism and Nazi collaboration. This powerful study places Strauss's life in the context of German history, reveals the paradoxes that lay beneath his flamboyant public persona and discusses his work in the light of the influences -- personal, artistic, literary and political -- that shaped it.

In this vivid portrayal of a giant in American twentieth-century music and criticism, Anthony Tommasini recounts Thomson's experiences as a composer, critic, and gay man. Tommasini chronicles Thomson's upbringing in turn-of-the-century Kansas City, along with his struggle to accept his sexuality -- "I didn't want to be queer" -- as he searched for a place in the wider world through army service in World War I as well as at Harvard and in 1920s Paris. There Thomson studied with Nadia Boulanger and formed an artistic alliance with Gertrude Stein that would result in the pioneering opera Four Saints in Three Acts.

Thomson's fourteen-year tenure as chief music critic for the New York Herald Tribune showcased his talent for brilliant, biting commentary and established him as an influential writer on music and an arbiter of musical taste. The result of this involving narrative is a classic American biography of a classic American character.

Examination of Lutoslawski's life and work draws on wide-ranging and meticulous research including hours of recorded conversation with the composer himself. Third revised edition contains an additional chapter and many more photographs.

Arguably the most important American composer of the century, Elliott Carter often has been more highly regarded in Europe than in his native land. Interest in his work has grown rapidly in recent years, however, and the celebration of his ninetieth birthday in December, 1998, accompanied by numerous performances and new recordings, undoubtedly will increase the attention of his fellow citizens to this remarkable figure.

Authoritative and gracefully written, The Music of Elliott Carter engages composers, performers, and critics, and speaks to concert-goers, whether attuned to or alarmed by the formidable difficulty of Carter's music. David Schiff views the music from the perspective of the composer's development and relates his compositional techniques to those nonmusical arts -- contemporary American poetry in particular -- with which Carter has been deeply involved. The volume benefits from Schiff's extensive discussions of Carter's works with their most noted performers, including Heinz Holliger, Oliver Knussen, and Ursula Oppens, and from the generous cooperation of the composer himself.

This new edition, a thoroughly reorganized, revised, and updated version of the book published in 1983, accounts for the many new works written by Carter since 1980 and accommodates the burgeoning critical literature on his music. Its features include an eight-page insert of black-and-white photographs, many musical examples, and a selected discography. In addition to the new foreword, the composer has provided his listing of three-to-six note chords and a note on "Voyage".

Making New Music in Cold War Poland presents a social analysis of new music dissemination at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, one of the most important venues for East-West cultural contact during the Cold War. In this incisive study, Lisa Jakelski examines the festival's institutional organization, negotiations among its various actors, and its reception in Poland, while also considering the festival's worldwide ramifications, particularly the ways that it contributed to the cross-border movement of ideas, objects, and people (including composers, performers, official festival guests, and tourists). This book explores social interactions within institutional frameworks and how these interactions shaped the practices, values, and concepts associated with new music.

With this innovative analysis of the music of Charles Ives, Philip Lambert fills a significant gap in the literature on one of America's most important composers. Lambert offers the first large-scale theoretical study of Ives's repertoire, encompassing major works in all genres. He argues that systematic techniques governed Ives's compositional language and thinking about music, even in his unconventional and apparently unstructured pieces. He portrays Ives as a composer of great diversity and complexity who nevertheless held to a single artistic vision. Using modes of analysis for post-tonal music and approaches devised specifically for the study of Ives as well, the author explains the origin, evolution, and culmination of Ives's systematic methods. He discusses important aspects of the composer's early training, the relation between Ives's experimental and his concert music, Ives's fugal and canonic techniques as the basis for his systematic music, his paradigms of procedure and transformation, and pitch relations in Ives's music, particularly the unfinished Universe Symphony. Lambert refutes the popular image of Ives as a highly eccentric composer haphazardly casting about for arbitrarily regulated ways of generating musical material and instead portrays him as a keenly determined and resourceful artist who gradually discovered ever more powerful tools for creating remarkably original music.

From the Pavane pour une Infante defunte to Bolero, much of the music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is among the most accessible of any written during the last 100 years. The man himself, on the other hand, was notoriously difficult to get to know, partly because of his natural modesty and inherent reserve, but partly also because there were aspects of his character which he preferred to conceal even from his closest friends. It is Gerlad Larner's aim in this biography to trace the development of the composer's personality not only through events in his life and in the society around him, but also through his music, which is more revealing in this respect than is generally believed.

The consistent wit and charm of Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) has often led to an underestimation of its value, yet there is now a growing recognition of his stature to which this biography will add. Admired for his fine songs and relgious works, he is perhaps best known for his humorous, insouciant pieces. From the freshness of his ballet Les Biches, composed for Diaghilev in 1924, to his ambitious 1956 opera, Dialogues des Carmelites, the author discusses Poulenc's work in the context of his homosexuality and against the colourful background of Paris in the first half of the century. His friendships with such key figures of the time as Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinksy and Darius Milhaud were complex, but always artistically enriching. For 25 years he toured as an accompanist to the great French baritone, Pierre Barnac, for whom he wrote many of his works, and also performed as piano soloist in some of his own compositions.

This biography of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (b.1934) presents a fascinating portrait of a man whose musical output is inextricably linked to the strictures of life in the former Soviet Union. For most of his adult life in Russia Schnittke's music was powerfully shaped by the frustrations of the Soviet period and he reacted strongly against the ideology of the era. His symphonies lie arguably at the end of the Germanic symphonic tradition, yet each represents a new concept of the genre for the twentieth century. His works reveal the influence of Shostakovich among others, but remain strongly original. Each of his compositions can be understood primarily to offer a unique synthesis of many different influences and styles.The author gives a detailed discussion of Schnittke's music and theories, arguing that the various stylistic elements in his works - his polystylism - may be perceived as part of a new, more universal language.

This is the story of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), who bridged the worlds of serious music, operetta and film scores. The son of Vienna's most powerful turn-of-the-century music critic, he achieved legendary status as a child-prodigy composer with the operas Violanta and Die Tote Stadt. Pressures of adult life steered him into arranging the operettas of Johann Strauss, his contemporaries and then Hollywood. Korngold became a highly regarded composer of incidental music for films such as Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood. He ignored the changing tides of musical fashion, and continued to write in his own romantic idiom, creating scores which establish him - within the film-music genres - as one of this century's most influential composers. This study offers a reappraisal of his life and works.

Even the most accomplished musicians are often defeated by the demands of the modern repertory. Yet until now, no practical manual has addressed the performance problems specific to twentieth-century music. This concise, straightforward handbook by the renowned conductor and instrumentalist Arthur Weisberg will guide performers and conductors in negotiating the diverse paths taken by composers in this century. Most of the difficulties particular to modern music center around rhythm and counting. Performers must perfect the accurate, fluent reading of complex rhythms. Conductors must not only understand the rhythmic problems they encounter but also be able to teach the players how to perform them. Composers themselves need to know how best to notate their rhythmic ideas. Bearing these demands in mind, Weisberg clearly explains the new rhythmic complexities and provides exercises for mastering them. Weisberg demonstrates techniques--including "educated faking" and "the common sense rule"-for performing irregular meters, complex polyrhythms (such as seven against four), and metric modulations. He also discusses baton technique, score preparation, electronic aids for synchronized playing, and the tension between flow and accuracy. Weisberg's examples are drawn chiefly from works by Hindemith, Stravinsky, Webern, Ives, Carter, and Boulez, but he also uses examples from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to show how devices generally regarded as modern are in fact rooted in earlier practices.

Popular music may be viewed as primary documents of society, and "America's Musical Pulse" documents the American experience as recorded in popular sound. Whether jazz, blues, swing, country, or rock, the music, the impulse behind it, and the reaction to it reveal the attitudes of an era or generation. Always a major preoccupation of students, music is often ignored by teaching professionals, who might profitably channel this interest to further understandings of American social history and such diverse fields as sociology, political science, literature, communications, and business as well as music.

In this interdisciplinary collection, scholars, educators, and writers from a variety of fields and perspectives relate topics concerning twentieth-century popular music to issues of politics, class, economics, race, gender, and the social context. The focus throughout is to place music in societal perspective and encourage investigation of the complex issues behind the popular tunes, rhythms, and lyrics.

The most compelling art form to emerge from the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, rock & roll stands in an edgy relationship with its own mythology, its own musicological history and the broader culture in which it plays a part. In Present Tense, Anthony DeCurtis brings together writers from a wide variety of fields to explore how rock & roll is made, consumed, and experienced in our time.
In this collection, Greil Marcus creates a collage of words and pictures that evokes and explores Elvis Presley's grisly fate as an American cultural image, while Robert Palmer tells the gripping tale of the origins and meanings of the electric guitar. Rap music, MTV, and the issue of gender identity in the work of Bruce Springsteen all undergo thorough examination; rock & roll's complex relationship with the forces of censorship gets a remarkably fresh reading; and the mainstreaming of rock & roll in the 1980s is detailed and analyzed. And, in an interview with Laurie Anderson and an essay by Atlanta musician Jeff Calder, the artists speak for themselves.
Contributors. Jeff Calder, Anthony DeCurtis, Mark Dery, Paul Evans, Glenn Gass, Trent Hill, Michael Jarrett, Alan Light, Greil Marcus, Robert Palmer, Robert B. Ray, Dan Rubey, David R. Shumway, Martha Nell Smith, Paul Smith

Carl Nielsen is generally considered to be Denmark's greatest composer. His works cover the full range of musical genres: symphonies and operas, chamber music, pieces for piano, and songs. Whereas in Denmark Carl Nielsen is especially loved for his Danish songs and the opera Maskarade, internationally he is primarily known for his instrumental music. Collecting, cataloguing and organising the musical manuscripts of this composer has been carried out for the benefit of the Danish and international music community.