The biography of a fascinating cultural hero, Rene Blum and the Ballets Russes uncovers the events in the life of the enigmatic and brilliant writer and producer who perished in the Holocaust. Brother of Leon Blum, the first socialist prime minister of France, Rene Blum was a passionate and prominent litterateur. He was the editor of the chic literary journal Gil Blas where he met such celebrated figures as Claude Debussy, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Andre Gide, and Paul Valery. As author Judith Chazin-Bennahum's research illustrates, Blum actually arranged for the publication of Proust's Swann's Way. But Blum's accomplishments and legacy do not end there: after enlisting in World War I, he won the Croix de Guerre and became a national hero. And Blum resurrected the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo after Diaghilev's death. Tragically, he was arrested in 1941 during a roundup of Jewish intellectuals and ultimately sent to Auschwitz.
Based on a treasure trove of previously undiscovered letters and documents, this thoroughly researched narrative not only tells the poignant story of Blum's life but also illustrates Blum's central role in the development of dance in the United States. Indeed, Blum's efforts to save his ballet company eventually helped to bring many of the world's greatest dancers and choreographers--among them Fokine, Balanchine, and Nijinska--to American ballet stages, shaping the path of dance in the United States for years to come."

The Harlem Renaissance, from 1910 to 1927, was the time when Harlem came alive with theater, drama, sports, dance, and politics. Looking at events as diverse as the prizefight between Jack Johnson and Jim “White Hope” Jeffries, the choreography of Aida Walker and Ethel Waters, the writing of Zora Neale Hurston and the musicals of the period, Krasner paints a vibrant portrait of those years. This was the time when the residents of northern Manhattan were leading their downtown counterparts at the vanguard of artistic ferment while at the same time playing a pivotal role in the evolution of Black Nationalism. This is a thrilling piece of work, a classic destined to become the standard work on the Harlem Renaissance for years to come.

Leslie Bassett is a 20th-century composer, lecturer, university professor, and winner of many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. He is unique among contemporary composers because he has written for many categories of music: brass, band and wind ensemble, chamber, choral, solo voice, instrumental solo, orchestra, organ, and piano. A favorite with students, he has also endeared himself as a guest composer at festivals and symposia in many states for over 30 years. This volume collects for the first time the widely scattered source materials on Bassett and thus documents his preeminence in the history and development of contemporary American music.

The biographical section of this volume first sketches Bassett's life and career and then gives an evaluative description of the progression of his musical compositions. To give a feeling for his music, illustrations of selected scores accompany some of the discussion. Next is a classified list of works arranged in alphabetical order and divided into 11 categories of performance, followed by a discography. The bibliography is annotated; there is a separate section for reviews of performances and concerts. Also included is an appendix that gives a chronological list of guest composer appearances, featuring festivals, symposia, and major educational events. Three other appendices round out the thorough coverage of source materials that have until now been difficult to see as a whole. Here they are readily accessible; thus, the book becomes a ready reference for the study of this acknowledged master of music.

Following the second World War, Olivier Messiaen, previously known primarily for his religious music, composed three works inspired by the medieval love story of Tristan and Iseult: "Harawi," "Turangal DEGREESD"la-symphonie," and "Cinq rechants." Though the song cycle, symphony, and choral work each consider their source story in a different way, the three compositions are tied closely together by theme and musical technique. This new study is the only full-length consideration of this most significant work, applying literary techniques of stylistic analysis and source study as well as musical analysis of Messiaen's aesthetics and form.

As Audrey Ekdahl Davidson shows, Messiaen's work was informed by more than just the mythic tale at its center. The twelve songs in "Harawi" are indebted to Peruvian melodies, and rhythmically they reveal the influence of the Hindu musical theory that the composer encountered at the Paris Conservatory. "Turangal DEGREESD"la-symphonie" continues and expands the use of these complex rhythmic structures to create a form that expresses elements of the Tristan story as filtered through Wagner's famous operatic depiction. And in "Cinq rechants," Messiaen produced a set of choral pieces that use surrealistic texts joined to music that is related structurally to the "rechants" of the sixteenth-century composer Claude le Jeune. Davidson's examination of these works reveals both their interrelatedness and their many layers of musical and textual meaning.

This volume covers the development of modern music from World War I to the present. Specific musical responses can be identified from the prevailing social, economic and political circumstances. Since World War II musical languages have tended to converge, with developments in technology and communications. Robert P. Morgan is the author of "Twentieth Century Music", and co-editor of "Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives".

Sound film captivated Sergey Prokofiev during the final two decades of his life: he considered composing for nearly two dozen pictures, eventually undertaking eight of them, all Soviet productions. Hollywood luminaries such as Gloria Swanson tempted him with commissions, and arguably more people heard his film music than his efforts in all other genres combined. Films for which Prokofiev composed, in particular those of Sergey Eisenstein, are now classics of world cinema. Drawing on newly available sources, Composing for the Red Screen examines-for the first time-the full extent of this prodigious cinematic career. Bartig examines how Prokofiev's film music derived from a self-imposed challenge: to compose "serious" music for a broad audience. The picture that emerges is of a composer seeking an individual film-music voice, shunning Hollywood models and objecting to his Soviet colleagues' ideologically expedient film songs. Looking at Prokofiev's film music as a whole-with well-known blockbusters like Alexander Nevsky considered alongside more obscure or aborted projects-reveals that there were multiple solutions to the challenge, each with varying degrees of success. Prokofiev carefully balanced his own populist agenda, the perceived aesthetic demands of the films themselves, and, later on, Soviet bureaucratic demands for accessibility.

This edited volume of case studies presents a selective history of French music and culture, but one with a dynamic difference. Eschewing a traditional chronological account, the book explores the nature of relationships between one main period, broadly the 'long' modernist era between 1860-1960, and its own historical 'others', referencing topics from the Romantic, classical, baroque, renaissance and medieval periods. It probes the emergent interplay, intertextualities and scope for reinterpretation across time and place. Notions of cultural meaning are paramount, especially those pertaining to French identity, national and individual. While founded on historical musicology, the approach benefits from interdisciplinary association with philosophy, political history, literature, fine art, film studies and criticism. Attention is paid to French composers' celebrations and remakings of their predecessors. Editions of and writings about earlier music are examined, together with the cultural reception of performances of past repertoire. Organized into two parts, each of the eleven chapters characterizes a specific cultural network or temporal interplay, which may result in synthesis, disjunction, or historical misreading. The interwar years and those surrounding the Second World War prove particularly rich sources of enquiry. This volume aims to attract a wide readership of musicologists and musicians, as well as cultural historians, other humanities scholars and concert-goers.

Composer, pianist, and critic Claude Debussy's musical aesthetic represents the single most powerful influence on international musical developments during the long fin de siecle period. The development of Debussy's musical language and style was affected by the international political pressures of his time, beginning with the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and the rise of the new Republic in France, and was also related to the contemporary philosophical conceptualization of what constituted art. The Debussy idiom exemplifies the ways in which various disciplines - musical, literary, artistic, philosophical, and psychological - can be incorporated into a single, highly-integrated artistic conception. Rethinking Debussy draws together separate areas of Debussy research into a lucid perspective that reveals the full significance of the composer's music and thought in relation to the broader cultural, intellectual, and artistic issues of the twentieth century. Ranging from new biographical information to detailed interpretations of Debussy's music, the volume offers significant multidisciplinary insight into Debussy's music and musical life, as well as the composer's influence on the artistic developments that followed. Chapters include: "Russian Imprints in Debussy's Piano Music"; "Music as Encoder of the Unconscious in Pelleas et Melisande"; "An Artist High and Low, or Debussy and Money"; "Debussy's Ideal Pelleas and the Limits of Authorial Intent"; "Debussy in Daleville: Toward Early Modernist Hearing in the United States"; and more. Rethinking Debussy will appeal to students and scholars of French music, opera, and modernism, and literary and French studies scholars, particularly concerned with Symbolism and theatre. General readers will be drawn to the book as well, particularly to chapters focusing on Debussy's finances, dramatic works, and reception.

Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide, Second Edition presents researchers with the most significant and helpful resources on Olivier Messiaen, one of the twentieth century's greatest composers. With multiple indices, this annotated bibliography will serve as an excellent tool for librarians, researchers, and scholars sorting through the massive amount of material in the field. The second edition has been fully revised and updated.

The American Wind Symphony Editions comprises the more than 150 works commissioned by Robert Austin Boudreau for the American Waterways Wind Orchestra and published by the C. F. Peters Corporation. They are here presented for the first time in a complete catalog with detailed descriptive data, biographical information on the composers or arrangers, and score facsimiles. The published music represents about half of the over 300 works commissioned by the orchestra since 1957 in the largest such project in wind instrument history. Presented in this catalog are the published works of 83 composers from 28 countries, including such notables as Alan Hovhaness, Toshiro Mayuzumi, Krzysztof Penderecki, Ned Rorem, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Genres include original concert and chamber music, incidental and occasional music, and theatrical and pop pieces, as well as arrangements of past masters. The compositional characteristics of each work are described, and data on number of performers, date of composition, duration, score accessibility, composer nationality and dates, and itemized instrumentation is listed. The catalog further provides appendixes classifying the music by composer nationality, duration of works, type of soloist, number of performers, programming category, and other fields. A selective discography is included, as are indexes of works by composer and title. Background history on the wind orchestra and music publisher is also provided.

This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg. One of the premises is that Schenker's and Schoenberg's inner musical lives are inseparable from their inner spiritual lives. Curiously, Schenker and Schoenberg start out in much the same musical-spiritual place, yet musically they split while spiritually they grow closer. The reception of Schenker's and Schoenberg's work has sidestepped this paradox of commonality and conflict, instead choosing to universalize and amplify their conflict. Bringing to light a trove of unpublished material, Arndt argues that Schenker's and Schoenberg's conflict is a reflection of tensions within their musical and spiritual ideas. They share a particular conception of the tone as an ideal sound realized in the spiritual eye of the genius. The tensions inherent in this largely psychological and material notion of the tone and this largely metaphysical notion of the genius shape both their musical divergence on the logical (technical) level in theory and composition, including their advocacy of the Ursatz versus twelvetone composition, and their spiritual convergence, including their embrace of Judaism. These findings shed new light on the musical and philosophical worlds of Schenker and Schoenberg and on the profound artistic and spiritual questions with which they grapple.

One of the momentous events in twentieth century music was the advent of atonality and serialism, and the consequent proliferation of such avant-garde genres as total serialism, electronic music, and aleatory music. This book examines serialism and its progeny, formulates criteria that are applicable both to serialism and to the traditional harmony from which it developed, and focuses on the failure of serialism to solve the problem of coherent harmonic progression. Rather than seeking to denounce serialism, the work attempts to restore a balance by questioning whether its esteem is justified.

In this work, Schoffman applies the criterion of the degree of indeterminacy of the chords to both traditional functional harmony and to serial and avant-garde music. Consequently, serialism and avant-garde music are placed in a historical perspective and evaluated in terms of their chordal behavior. The study is divided into four separate sections, examining the indeterminacy of progression, the indeterminacy of members of chords, chords in serial music, and destructive aspects of indeterminacy. Also included is an extensive list of musical examples, a guide to references, and a comprehensive index. With its correlations to literature, painting, and history, this volume will be an important addition to academic and public libraries, university music departments, and academies of music, as well as a valuable resource for courses in music theory and analysis, esthetics of music, and music history.

Howard Hanson details the career and works of a composer called by several critics "the most important figure in American music in the second quarter of the 20th century." Hanson's compositions elicited the broadest possible range of critical reaction. While early works from the 1920s were viewed as dissonant, avant-garde experimentations, within a decade his compositions in a similar style were viewed as solid, conservative works. Within this range, it was generally agreed that Hanson represented the best in solid compositional and orchestrational technique, and audiences greeted his new compositions with unquestioned approval throughout his 60-plus year career. As an important proponent of American music during his forty year tenure as Director of the Eastman School of Music, he conducted premieres of literally thousands of works by American composers and always encouraged young American composers.

John McCabe is a thoroughly documented bio-bibliography of one of Britain's leading composers. John McCabe has an international reputation, both as a composer and a pianist, whose compositions cover most of the established forms. The complete list of his works and performances have never before been presented in such detail. Articles and features by and about the composer contain annotations, often in the form of quotations from the material. National, academic, and public libraries, as well as specialized music libraries and archives, will find this work a valuable research tool. The work begins with a brief biography of John McCabe prepared with the composer's assistance and is followed by a complete list of works and performances classified by genre and arranged alphabetically by title of composition. Performance and publication information is provided for each work, including its first and other selected performances. A list of McCabe's publishers is followed by a discography of commercially produced sound recordings divided into sections on McCabe as a composer and as a performer. A bibliography of writings by and about McCabe includes gramaphone record reviews written by McCabe for the British journal Records and Recordings between 1967 and 1974. An alphabetical and a chronological list of compositions appear in appendices.

The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers is a landmark collection of non-idiomatic compositions from the sixteenth century to the present day, providing a comprehensive introduction to an area of choral music that has been historically under-represented. This unique anthology seeks both to improve representation in the historical canon and to showcase the music of some of the best names in choral music today.

for SSATB unaccompanied A Gaelic Blessing was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh, McDowall's alma mater, for performance by the Edinburgh University Singers conducted by Calum Robertson. This meditative, folk-style anthem is given a Scottish lilt through the use of Scotch snap rhythms and held drone-like vocal lines. The text is a traditional Scottish Gaelic blessing, translated by the Right Reverend Ian Paton, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane. McDowall chose this text for the 'warmth and simplicity' of the words that seem to 'resonate with the times in which we live'.

Barcelonian Gaspar Cassado (1897-1966) was one of the greatest cello virtuosi of the twentieth century and a notable composer and arranger, leaving a vast and heterogeneous legacy. In this book, Gabrielle Kaufman provides the first full-length scholarly work dedicated to Cassado, containing the results of seven years of research into his life and legacy, after following the cellist's steps through Spain, France, Italy and Japan. The study presents in-depth descriptions of the three main parts of Cassado's creative output: composition, transcription and performance, especially focusing on Cassado's plural and multi-facetted creativity, which is examined from both cultural and historical perspectives. Cassado's role within the evolution of twentieth-century cello performance is thoroughly examined, including a discussion regarding the musical and technical aspects of performing Cassado's works, aimed directly at performers. The study presents the first attempt at a comprehensive catalogue of Cassado's works, both original and transcribed, as well as his recordings, using a number of new archival sources and testimonies. In addition, the composer's significance within Spanish twentieth-century music is treated in detail through a number of case studies, sustained by examples from recovered score manuscripts. Illuminated by extraordinary source material Gaspar Cassado: Cellist, Composer and Transcriber expands and deepens our knowledge of this complex figure, and will be of crucial importance to students and scholars in the fields of Performance Practice and Spanish Music, as well as to professional cellists and advanced cello students.

for Oboe and Piano John Rutter creates a peaceful and contemplative atmosphere in this new arrangement of the traditional German carol, Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming.

for SSAATTBB unaccompanied A reflection on the plainchant antiphon 'Pulchra es et decora', this hauntingly beautiful piece was commissioned by ORA100 for Suzi Digby and ORA Singers. The original antiphon has been transcribed and included at the beginning, and may be used as an introduction. Porter's use of rich harmonies and rippling melismatic vocal lines make this an impassioned setting of a Marian text.

for SSA and piano Setting words by Chief Dan George, this optimistic work reminds us that there is still beauty to be found in times of trouble and that difficult days will not last forever. Quartel's sensitive setting uses triplets against duplets to give a sense of fluidity to the melodic phrasing. The balanced vocal lines will be enjoyed by youth and adult upper-voice choirs.

The Kalevala, or runic, songs is a tradition at least a few thousand years old. It was shared by Finns, Estonians and other speakers of smaller Baltic-Finnic languages inhabiting the eastern side of the Baltic Sea in North-Eastern Europe. This book offers a combined perspective of a musicologist and a linguist to the structure of the runic songs. Archival recordings of the songs originating mostly from the first half of the 20th century were used as source material for this study. The results reveal a complex interaction between three different processes participating in singing: speech prosody, metre, and musical rhythm.

The life of a great musician is always interesting, but the story of Hazel Harrison is exceptional. Her achievement was particularly impressive because she had been schooled entirely at home and was the first black pianist, male or female, to perform with a major European orchestra. Harrison's extraordinarily long and impressive performing career spanned more than half a century, from the days when Brahms was still alive and Stravinsky had not yet composed The Rite of Spring to the time of the civil rights struggle in the deep South.

for SATB unaccompanied 'Ya basta!' is a Spanish saying that roughly translates to 'Enough is enough!'. Regan has combined this with text from a poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. Ya Basta! has an exuberant and carefree energy, expressing the freedom to walk wherever you choose and to make your own path. The song easy to teach and learn; the score includes helpful tips on pronunciation and improvisation at the break section. Offprinted from Community Voiceworks, ed. Alison Burns and Gitika Partington.

for SA and piano In this beautiful setting of words by the composer, based on a quote by Brian Palmer, singers are encouraged to listen to the sounds and people around them in order to learn and grow: 'one act of love, I know, for sure, is to listen.' Listen is suitable for upper-voice or children's choirs, and its memorable melodies are accompanied by a simple and supportive rippling piano accompaniment.

In 1959, the Bolshoi Ballet arrived in New York for its first ever performances in the United States. The tour was part of the Soviet-American cultural exchange, arranged by the governments of the US and USSR as part of their Cold War strategies. This book explores the first tours of the exchange, by the Bolshoi in 1959 and 1962, by American Ballet Theatre in 1960, and by New York City Ballet in 1962. The tours opened up space for genuine appreciation of foreign ballet. American fans lined up overnight to buy tickets to the Bolshoi, and Soviet audiences packed massive theaters to see American companies. Political leaders, including Khrushchev and Kennedy, met with the dancers. The audience reaction, screaming and crying, was overwhelming. But the tours also began a series of deep misunderstandings. American and Soviet audiences did not view ballet in the same way. Each group experienced the other's ballet through the lens of their own aesthetics. Americans loved Soviet dancers but believed that Soviet ballets were old-fashioned and vulgar. Soviet audiences and critics likewise appreciated American technique and innovation but saw American choreography as empty and dry. Drawing on both Russian- and English-language archival sources, this book demonstrates that the separation between Soviet and American ballet lies less in how the ballets look and sound, and more in the ways that Soviet and American viewers were trained to see and hear. It suggests new ways to understand both Cold War cultural diplomacy and twentieth-century ballet.