Jean Cras (1879-1932) was a remarkable man by anyone's measure. Twice a decorated hero of the Great War, this Rear-Admiral of the French navy, scientist, inventor and moral philosopher, was also a highly esteemed composer during his lifetime, enjoying the same stature and celebrity as Faure, Debussy and Ravel. Since his death, however, both Cras and his music have been almost completely overlooked. In this, the first critical biography of Cras, Paul-Andre Bempechat situates Henri Duparc's protege as a missing link between the French post-Romantic generation of composers and the Impressionists. The book explores, both historically and analytically, the methodology by which Cras evolved his eclectic brand of Impressionism, striking the delicate balance between Celtic folk idioms and exoticisms inspired by his travels. Cras' creative legacy extends beyond the world of music to the world of science. His five patented inventions include the navigational gyrocompass, which bears his name, still in use to this day by the French navy, coast guard and boating afficionados. Bempechat draws special attention to the humanist Jean Cras and his distinguished military career - he is credited with saving the Serbian army from extinction - drawing on primary source material such as family correspondence and wartime diaries to reaffirm this composer as a true Renaissance man of the twentieth century.

Described by Maurice Ravel as one of the most considerable talents in French music of his generation, Darius Milhaud remains a largely neglected composer. This book reappraises his contribution, focusing on the emergence of the composer's style until his Jewish background forced his exile to the United States on the eve of the World War II. The period 1912-1939 spans the crucial years that mark the development of Milhaud's mature style. It was also during this time that he published his most important writings on contemporary music and its relationship to the past. Barbara Kelly discusses the extent to which Milhaud's complex views on the idea of a French national musical heritage relate to his own practice, and considers how his works reflect the balance between innovation and tradition. Drawing comparisons with contemporaries, such as Debussy, Satie, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Poulenc, the book argues that the rhythmic vitality of Milhaud's style and his modal approach within a polytonal context mark him out as an original and distinctive composer.

The year 1917 was unlike any other in American history, or in the history of American music. The United States entered World War I, jazz burst onto the national scene, and the German musicians who dominated classical music were forced from the stage. As the year progressed, New Orleans natives Nick LaRocca and Freddie Keppard popularized the new genre of jazz, a style that suited the frantic mood of the era. African-American bandleader James Reese Europe accepted the challenge of making the band of the Fifteenth New York Infantry into the best military band in the country. Orchestral conductors Walter Damrosch and Karl Muck met the public demand for classical music while also responding to new calls for patriotic music. Violinist Fritz Kreisler, pianist Olga Samaroff, and contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink gave American audiences the best of Old-World musical traditions while walking a tightrope of suspicion because of their German sympathies. Before the end of the year, the careers of these eight musicians would be upended, and music in America would never be the same. Making Music American recounts the musical events of this tumultuous year month by month from New Year's Eve 1916 to New Year's Day 1918. As the story unfolds, the lives of these eight musicians intersect in surprising ways, illuminating the transformation of American attitudes toward music both European and American. In this unsettled time, no one was safe from suspicion, but America's passion for music made the rewards high for those who could balance musical skill with diplomatic savvy.

Edward Elgar rose from obscurity to become the most popular English composer of his day. Elgar's music is known world-wide and works such as the 'Enigma Variations' and 'The Dream of Gerontius' together with the two symphonies and the two concertos have established him as one of the greatest British composers of all time. The Elgar Society was founded in 1951 to further the cause of Elgar's music and the present volume of essays has been compiled as an expression of gratitude for the work that it has done. These essays reflect the variety and richness of Elgar's music and the debate that this music continues to encourage. The book is not simply for academics however; lovers of music in general will find much to entertain them and it will add greatly to our appreciation of Elgar.

John Ireland (1879-1962) had a long and close friendship with Alan Bush (1900-1995) which lasted forty years, from 1922, when John Ireland was already fifty years old, until Ireland's death in 1962. It was the relationship of master and pupil and this was clearly reflected in their letters. The two men came to know each other well once Bush had left the Royal Academy of Music in 1922 and became a student of composition with Ireland until 1927. 160 letters are published here for the first time and they provide not only a compelling and engaging narrative, but also a unique insight into the musical and day-to-day lives of the two men. The letters were written during a most interesting and turbulent period in British history: the inter-war period of the 1920s and 30s, the situation during the Second World War and the post-war era. The volume will therefore appeal to those interested in wider aspects of British musical life and social and political history, as well as followers of Ireland and Bush.

Zeitmasse is one of a group of four acknowledged masterpieces composed between 1955 and 1957 that together established Karlheinz Stockhausen as the leading figure in the European avant-garde. Of the four works, it is the only one that has not been thoroughly analysed from the composer's sketches and, for this reason, remains the least-well understood. In this volume, Jerome Kohl provides a much-needed analysis of Zeitmasse, considering its standing in the group and in the wider context of Stockhausen's output. Using recently published correspondence and other documentation from the period, together with surviving sketch material, Kohl investigates the compositional procedures employed in Zeitmasse and their evolution. He discusses the wide range of influences discernible in the work, from that of both past generations of composers and contemporaries, to the impact of Stockhausen's studies in acoustics, phonetics and information theory on his music. The book closes with an examination of the reception of Zeitmasse and its associated concepts in the years following its composition, and shows how the key concepts utilized in the work are themselves a reflection of the properties seen in the very Zeitgeist that produced them.

French Music Since Berlioz explores key developments in French classical music during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume draws on the expertise of a range of French music scholars who provide their own perspectives on particular aspects of the subject. Deirdre Donnellon's introduction discusses important issues and debates in French classical music of the period, highlights key figures and institutions, and provides a context for the chapters that follow. The first two of these are concerned with opera in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, addressed by Thomas Cooper for the nineteenth century and Richard Langham Smith for the twentieth. Timothy Jones's chapter follows, which assesses the French contribution to those most Germanic of genres, nineteenth-century chamber music and symphonies. The quintessentially French tradition of the nineteenth-century salon is the subject of James Ross's chapter, while the more sacred setting of Paris's most musically significant churches and the contribution of their organists is the focus of Nigel Simeone's essay. The transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century is explored by Roy Howat through a detailed look at four leading figures of this time: Faure, Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel. Robert Orledge follows with a later group of composers, Satie & Les Six, and examines the role of the media in promoting French music. The 1930s, and in particular the composers associated with Jeune France, are discussed by Deborah Mawer, while Caroline Potter investigates Parisian musical life during the Second World War. The book closes with two chapters that bring us to the present day. Peter O'Hagan surveys the enormous contribution to French music of Pierre Boulez, and Caroline Potter examines trends since 1945. Aimed at teachers and students of French music history, as well as performers and the inquisitive concert- and opera-goer, French Music Since Berlioz is an essential companion for anyone interested in the culture of France.

Music is commonly felt to offer a valued experience, yet to put that experience into words is no easy task. Rather than view verbal representations of music as somehow secondary to the music itself, Literary Music argues that it is in such representations that our understanding of music and its meanings is constituted and explored. Focusing on recent fictional and theoretical texts, Stephen Benson proposes literature, narrative fiction in particular, as a singular form of musical performance. Literary Music concentrates not only on song and opera, those forms in which words and music overtly confront one another, but also on a small number of recurring ideas around which the literary and the musical interact, including voice, narrative, performance, and silence. The book considers a wide range of literary and theoretical texts, including those of Blanchot and Bakhtin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, David Malouf and J.M. Coetzee. The musical forms discussed range from opera to the string quartet, together with individual works by Elgar, Strauss and Michael Berkeley. As such, Literary Music offers an informed interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature and music that participates in the lively theoretical debate on the status of meaning in music.

The political control of music in the Third Reich has been analysed from several perspectives, and with ever increasing sophistication. However, music in Germany after 1945 has not received anything like the same treatment. Rather, there is an assumption that two separate musical cultures emerged in East and West alongside the division of Germany into two states with differing economic and political systems. There is a widely accepted view of music in West Germany as 'free', and in the East subject to party control. Toby Thacker challenges these assumptions, asking how and why music was controlled in Germany under Allied Occupation from 1945-1949, and in the early years of 'semi-sovereignty' between 1949 and 1955. The 're-education' of Germany after the Hitler years was a unique historical experiment and the place of music within this is explored here for the first time. While emphasizing political, economic and broader social structures that influenced the production and reception of different musical forms, the book is informed by a sense of human agency, and explores the role of salient individuals in the reconstruction of music in post-war Germany. The focus is not restricted to any one kind of music, but concentrates on those aspects of music, professional and amateur, live and recorded, which appeared to be the mostly highly charged politically to contemporaries. Particular attention is given to 'denazification' and to the introduction of international music. Thacker traces the development of a divide between Communist and liberal-democratic understandings of the place of music in society. The contested celebrations of the Bach Year in 1950 are used to highlight the role of music in the broader cultural confrontation between East and West. Thacker examines the ways in which central governments in East and West Germany sought to control and influence music through mechanisms of censorship and positive support. The book will therefore be of interest not only to musicologists, but also to specialists in German post-war history and cultural historians in general.

The story of Nicolas Nabokov's involvement with the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) is a story of the politics and sociology of culture; how music was used for political ends and how intellectual groups formed and functioned during the Cold War. The seemingly independent CCF, established to counteractA apparent Soviet successes in the fields of the arts and intellectual life, appointed Nabokov (a Russian emigre and minor composer) as its Secretary General in 1951.A Over the next ten years he gave music a high profile in theA work of the organisation, producing four international musical festivals, the first and most ambitious of which was 1952's L'Oeuvre du XXe Siecle in Paris, an event which showcased the work of no less than 62 composers. As Ian Wellens reveals, Nabokov'sA musical involvement with the CCF was in fact a struggle on two fronts.A Apparently aA defenceA ofA Western modernism against 'backward', 'provincial' Soviet music, Nabokov's writings show this to have meshed closely with theA domestic concernA - shared byA many intellectuals -A that high culture was being undermined by an increasingly culturally aware middle class. His attacks on Soviet cultural policy, and his unflattering assessments of Shostakovich, are seen to be not merely salvos in the cold war but part of a broader campaign aimed at securing the authority and prestige ofA intellectuals.

The 1990s work of six British composers forms the focus of this collection of essays, arising from a conference that took place at University of Surrey Roehampton in February 1999. The composers whose music is discussed are James Dillon, Thomas Ades, Harrison Birtwistle, Jonathan Harvey, Edwin Roxburgh and Sebastian Forbes. Reflecting the aims of the conference, this volume brings together composers and musicologists to discuss significant works from the last decade of the twentieth century, and also some of the wider issues surrounding British music. Arnold Whittall and Julian Johnson provide perspectives on the plurality of contemporary British music. Edwin Roxburgh offers a personal account of 'The Artists' Dilemma', whilst the essays that follow explore aspects of musical form and structure in a variety of works. The second half of the book comprises interviews with most of the composers whose music is discussed in Part I, adding a further dimension to our understanding of the preoccupations of British composition at the end of the twentieth century.

Technology revolutionised the ways that music was produced in the twentieth century. As that century drew to a close and a new century begins a new revolution in roles is underway. The separate categories of composer, performer, distributor and listener are being challenged, while the sounds of the world itself become available for musical use. All kinds of sounds are now brought into the remit of composition, enabling the music of others to be sampled (or plundered), including that of unwitting musicians from non-western cultures. This sound world may appear contradictory - stimulating and invigorating as well as exploitative and destructive. This book addresses some of the issues now posed by the brave new world of music produced with technology.

When Ruth Gipps died in 1999, her legacy was as one of Britain's most prolific female composers. Her creative output spanned some seventy years and includes symphonies, tone poems, concertos, string quartets and various large-scale choral and chamber works. Not content with her creative activities, her boundless energy fuelled her other roles as conductor, concert pianist, orchestral musician and pedagogue. Her many talents were acknowledged but not always respected and she was a figure often dogged by controversy. She gained a reputation for being uncompromising both personally and musically, a reputation that was ultimately to leave her isolated. In the first major review of her life and work the importance of Ruth Gipps is established in two ways: first, as a pioneering woman composer and conductor whose work challenged prevailing attitudes in the era directly after the war and second, as a composer whose musical philosophy was often at odds with mainstream thinking. Although she was branded a reactionary, her position reveals a number of important counter currents in English musical life in the twentieth century. The first section of the book documents her formative years, her life as child prodigy, the disruption and opportunities offered by war, the dramatic end of her career as a concert pianist and her subsequent entry into the world of conducting. The influence of key figures such as Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Malcolm Arnold and George Weldon is explored, as is Gipps's habitually thorny relationship with a range of musical institutions including the BBC and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the second part of the book her compositional output is reviewed. Works are explored via the guiding themes of her creative agenda; namely anti-modernism and Englishness. The book closes with an analysis of a group of works which all have gendered narratives or readings. As Gipps regularly used personal experience as the basis for such musical narratives, these works provide an intimate insight into this fascinating and complex woman.

The music of Shostakovich has been at the centre of interest of both the general public and dedicated scholars throughout the last twenty years. Most of the relevant literature, however, is of a biographical nature. The focus of this book is musical irony. It offers new methodologies for the semiotic analysis of music, and inspects the ironical messages in Shostakovich's music independently of political and biographical bias. Its approach to music is interdisciplinary, comparing musical devices with the artistic principles and literary analyses of satire, irony, parody and the grotesque. Each one of these is firstly inspected and defined as a separate subject, independent of music. The results of these inspections are subsequently applied to music, firstly music in general and then more specifically to the music of Shostakovich. The composer's cultural and historical milieux are taken into account and, where relevant, inspected and analysed separately before their application to the music.

Andrew Shenton's groundbreaking cross-disciplinary approach to Messiaen's music presents a systematic and detailed examination of the compositional techniques of one of the most significant musicians of the twentieth century as they relate to his desire to express profound truths about Catholicism. It is widely accepted that music can have mystical and transformative powers, but because 'pure' music has no programme, Messiaen sought to refine his compositions to speak more clearly about the truths of the Catholic faith by developing a sophisticated semiotic system in which aspects of music become direct signs for words and concepts. Using interdisciplinary methodologies drawing on linguistics, cognition studies, theological studies and semiotics, Shenton traces the development of Messiaen's sign system using examples from many of Messiaen's works and concentrating in particular on the Meditations sur le mystere de la Sainte Trinite for organ, a suite which contains the most sophisticated and developed use of a sign system and represents a profound exegesis of Messiaen's understanding of the Catholic triune God. By working on issues of interpretation, Shenton endeavours to bridge the traditional gap between scholars and performers and to help people listen to Messiaen's music with spirit and understanding.

Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a quirky, innovative and enigmatic composer whose impact has spread far beyond the musical world. As an artist active in several spheres - from cabaret to religion, from calligraphy to poetry and playwriting - and collaborator with some of the leading avant-garde figures of the day, including Cocteau, Picasso, Diaghilev and Rene Clair, he was one of few genuinely cross-disciplinary composers. His artistic activity, during a tumultuous time in the Parisian art world, situates him in an especially exciting period, and his friendships with Debussy, Stravinsky and others place him at the centre of French musical life. He was a unique figure whose art is immediately recognisable, whatever the medium he employed. Erik Satie: Music, Art and Literature explores many aspects of Satie's creativity to give a full picture of this most multifaceted of composers. The focus is on Satie's philosophy and psychology revealed through his music; Satie's interest in and participation in artistic media other than music, and Satie's collaborations with other artists. This book is therefore essential reading for anyone interested in the French musical and cultural scene of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The first study of the performance practice, repertoire and context of the modern 'brass ensemble' in the musical world. Whereas the British 'brass band' originated in the nineteenth century and rapidly developed into a nationwide working-class movement, the perceived modern 'brass ensemble' has a less clear foundation and identity. This book is the first to focus exclusively on the performance, practice, repertoire and context of the 'brass ensemble' in the musical world. Following World War II, the brass quintet and other orchestral groupings emerged in the United States and Europe, with musical customs established by professional players playing orchestral instruments. These groups initially played a combination of the music of Gabrieli and his contemporaries as well as newly commissioned works. By the late twentieth century, however, repertory spanned works by Elliott Carter, Maxwell Davies and Lutoslawski, together with music that integrated jazz, commercial elements, and landmark transcriptions. At the book's heart is the story of the London-based, internationally acclaimed, Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. But this is not a story of one ensemble, as the 'brass ensemble' can be defined in several forms. The Modern Brass Ensemble in Twentieth-Century Britain offers a comprehensive account by an author and performer who was involved in many of the key developments of the modern 'brass ensemble'.

Pierre Boulez's first piano pieces date from his youth, prior to his studies in Paris with Messiaen, and his subsequent meteoric rise to international acclaim as the leader of the musical avant-garde during the 1950s. His most recent published work is a solo piano piece, Une page d'ephemeride, written some sixty years after his first attempts at composition. The piano has remained central to Boulez's creative work throughout his career, and although his renown as a conductor has to some extent overshadowed his other achievements, it was as a performer of his own piano music that his practical gifts first found expression. Peter O'Hagan has given performances of various unpublished piano works by Boulez, including Antiphonie from the Third Sonata and Trois Psalmodies. In this study, he considers Boulez's writing for the piano in the context of the composer's stylistic evolution throughout the course of his development. Each of the principal works is considered in detail, not only on its own terms, but also as a stage in Boulez's ongoing quest to invent radical solutions to the renewal of musical language and to reinvigorate tradition. The volume includes reference to hitherto unpublished source material, which sheds light on his working methods and on the interrelationship between works.

Chou Wen-chung is one of the most influential musical figures of our time. His rich cultural background, his studies with Edgard Varese, and his interest in the genuine rapport between Eastern and Western musical traditions have been the major influences on his career. Although he is active in various artistic and cultural circles that include scholarship, education and cultural preservation, his major calling has always been composition. As a composer, Chou has created a group of works whose stylistic innovation and technical profundity are distinctive among composers of his generation. His music, which has received critical acclaim around the globe, documents his creative journey, especially in the realization of re-merger - the fusion of Eastern and Western music that has become a new mainstream in art music. Through extensive focus on sketch study, Eric Lai examines Chou's music to contribute to an understanding of his aesthetic orientation, his compositional technique, his role in the development of new music, and his influence upon the younger generation of composers.

Music as Dream: Essays on Giacinto Scelsi showcases recent scholarly criticism on the music and philosophy of the brilliantly original composer Giacinto Scelsi. In this collection, Franco Sciannameo and Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrini select and translate into English for the first time essays that reflect the evolution of recent scholarship on Scelsi's musical compositions. Music as Dream opens with "The Scelsi Case," which erupted shortly after Scelsi's death in 1988 when composer Vieri Tosatti claimed ownership of his works. This quarrel reached its zenith in the pages of PianoTime's March 1989 issue, where musicologist Guido Zaccagnini questioned a group of noted composers, writers, and arts managers about whether a composer can claim sole authorship for a work accomplished in collaboration with others. The essays are wide-ranging in scope. French musicologist Michelle Biget-Mainfroy, a specialist in "gestural" piano writing, offers an in-depth study of Scelsi's complex piano output; Gianmario Borio looks at Scelsi's "Sound as Compositional Process"; Alessandra Montali examines and details Scelsi's theoretical and literary writings; Luciano Martinis and Franco Sciannameo explore the lives and whereabouts of obscure composers Giacinto Sallustio, Walther Klein, and Richard Falk, who were Scelsi's collaborators until the early 1940s when Tosatti took sole charge; Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrini elaborates on Scelsi's most important composition of his first period, presenting a tour-de-force that pieces together its complex story through research at the newly organized Scelsi Archive at the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi in Rome; and Friedrich Jaecker's and Sandro Marrocu's essays also draw on research conducted at the archive of Fondazione. Finally, an updated bibliography and discography conclude the book

A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context is an integrated account of the genres and concepts of twentieth-century art music, organized topically according to aesthetic, stylistic, technical, and geographic categories, and set within the larger political, social, economic, and cultural framework. While the organization is topical, it is historical within that framework. Musical issues interwoven with political, cultural, and social conditions have had a significant impact on the course of twentieth-century musical tendencies and styles. The goal of this book is to provide a theoretic-analytical basis that will appeal to those instructors who want to incorporate into student learning an analysis of the musical works that have reflected cultural influences on the major musical phenomena of the twentieth century. Focusing on the wide variety of theoretical issues spawned by twentieth-century music, A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context reflects the theoretical/analytical essence of musical structure and design.

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) completed the vast opera Saint FranAois d'Assise in 1983, he was mentally and physically exhausted, and believed that this monumental work would be his final compositional statement. In fact, he completed seven further works, and these form the focus of the present study. Christopher Dingle suggests that, following the crisis provoked by the opera, Messiaen's music underwent a discernible change in style. He examines these seven works to identify characteristics of the composer's music, in particular an often overlooked aspect of his technique: harmony. Part I of the book begins with a brief historical survey before discussing Saint FranAois d'Assise as the work which defines everything that follows. Part II examines the series of miniatures that came after the opera and their links with A0/00clairs sur l'Au-DelA ..., his final masterpiece. A0/00clairs forms the subject of Part III of the book. Each movement is analysed in turn, before the work is considered as a whole and its hidden structure and motivic cohesion is revealed. Finally, Part IV considers the incomplete Concert A 4 and key stylistic features of the works of Messiaen's final years.

With its first public live performance in Paris on 11 February 1896, Oscar Wilde's Salome took on female embodied form that signalled the start of 'her' phenomenal journey through the history of the arts in the twentieth century. This volume explores Salome's appropriation and reincarnation across the arts - not just Wilde's heroine, nor Richard Strauss's - but Salome as a cultural icon in fin-de-siecle society, whose appeal for ever new interpretations of the biblical story still endures today. Using Salome as a common starting point, each chapter suggests new ways in which performing bodies reveal alternative stories, narratives and perspectives and offer a range and breadth of source material and theoretical approaches. The first chapter draws on the field of comparative literature to investigate the inter-artistic interpretations of Salome in a period that straddles the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the Modernist era. This chapter sets the tone for the rest of the volume, which develops specific case studies dealing with censorship, reception, authorial reputation, appropriation, embodiment and performance. As well as the Viennese premiere of Wilde's play, embodied performances of Salome from the period before the First World War are considered, offering insight into the role and agency of performers in the production and complex negotiation of meaning inherent in the role of Salome. By examining important productions of Strauss's Salome since 1945, and more recent film interpretations of Wilde's play, the last chapters explore performance as a cultural practice that reinscribes and continuously reinvents the ideas, icons, symbols and gestures that shape both the performance itself, its reception and its cultural meaning.

With many new photos and an updated introduction, The Day John Met Paul, a critically-acclaimed Beatles book, reappears in a visually stunning second edition. The book is an hour-by-hour account of the fateful day the two founding Beatles met in July 1957. But it is much more than that: it's a spellbinding story of how fate brought together two men who would radically change the face of popular music, from its look and feel to its sound. Jim O'Donnell, a veteran rock music writer, spent eight years researching The Day John Met Paul. Published in 1996 and translated into several languages, the book was widely praised for its blend of accurate reporting and colorful storytelling. Long out of print, but revered among Beatles fans, the new printing enlivens the text with many well-chosen photos of the Liverpool landmarks--from Strawberry Field to Penny Lane--that played a role in the Beatles' lives and works. The Day John Met Paul chronicles the first "Day in the Life" of the Beatles--a day that changed the musical world.