|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
In 1983, French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered in
Paris at the age of thirty-four. Based on unrestricted access to
Vivier's personal archives, this book is the first to tell his
story. Claude Vivier's haunting and expressive music has captivated
audiences around the world. But the French-Canadian composer is
remembered also because of the dramatic circumstances of his death:
he was found murdered in his Paris apartment at the age of
thirty-four. Given unrestricted access to Vivier's archives and
interviews with Vivier's family, teachers, friends, and colleagues,
musicologist and biographer Bob Gilmore tells here the full story
of Vivier's fascinating life, from his abandonment as a child in a
Montreal orphanage to his posthumous acclaim as one of the leading
composers of his generation. Expelled from a religious school at
seventeen for "lack of maturity," Vivier gave up his ambition to
join the priesthood to study composition. Between 1976 and 1983
Vivier wrote the works on which his reputation rests, including
Lonely Child, Bouchara, and the operas Kopernikus and Marco Polo.
He was also an outspoken presence in the Montreal arts world and
gay scene. Vivier left Quebec for Paris in 1982 to work on a new
opera, the composition of which was interrupted by his murder. On
his desk wasthe manuscript of his last work, uncannily entitled "Do
You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul." Vivier's is a tragic
but life-affirming story, intimately connected to his passionate
music. Bob Gilmore was a notedmusicologist and performer who taught
at Brunel University in London. He wrote or edited five previous
books, including Harry Partch: A Biography.
Visionary composer, theorist, and creator of musical instruments,
Harry Partch (1901-1974) was a leading figure in the development of
an indigenously American contemporary music. A pioneer in his
explorations of new instruments and new tunings, Partch created
multimedia theater works that combine sight and sound in a
compelling synthesis. He is acknowledged as a major inspiration to
postwar experimental composers as diverse as Gyoergy Ligeti, Lou
Harrison, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson, and his book Genesis
of a Music, first published in 1949, is now considered a classic.
This book is the first to tell the complete story of Partch's life
and work. Drawing on interviews with many of Partch's associates
and on the complete archives of the Harry Partch Estate, Bob
Gilmore provides a full and sympathetic portrait of this
extraordinary creative artist. He describes Partch's complicated
relationships with friends, patrons, the musical establishment, and
the world at large. He traces Partch's upbringing in the remote
desert towns of the Southwest, his explosive encounter with formal
music education in Los Angeles, and his revolutionary course as a
composer that began with an interest in the musicality of speech
patterns. After immersing himself in hobo subculture during the
Depression, Partch came to occupy a lonely and uncompromising
position as a cultural outsider. Richly fascinating in themselves,
Partch's compositions, writings, and life also have much to reveal
about American society and the creative impulses of the artistic
avant-garde.
Described by New York Times critic John Rockwell as "one of the
best non-famous composers this country has to offer," Ben Johnston
reconceives familiar idioms--ranging from neoclassicism and
serialism to jazz and southern hymnody--using just intonation.
Johnston studied with Darius Milhaud, Harry Partch, and John Cage,
and is best known for his String Quartet No. 4, a complex series of
variations on Amazing Grace. This collection spans forty years and
brings together forty-one of Johnston's most important writings,
including many rare and several previously unpublished selections.
They include position papers, theoretical treatises, program notes,
historical reflections, lectures, excerpts from interviews, and
letters, and they cover a broad spectrum of concerns--from the
technical exegesis of microtonality to the personal and the broadly
humanistic. A discography of commercially available recordings of
Johnston's music closes out the collection.
Described by New York Times critic John Rockwell as "one of the
best non-famous composers this country has to offer," Ben Johnston
reconceives familiar idioms--ranging from neoclassicism and
serialism to jazz and southern hymnody--using just intonation.
Johnston studied with Darius Milhaud, Harry Partch, and John Cage,
and is best known for his String Quartet No. 4, a complex series of
variations on Amazing Grace. This collection spans forty years and
brings together forty-one of Johnston's most important writings,
including many rare and several previously unpublished selections.
They include position papers, theoretical treatises, program notes,
historical reflections, lectures, excerpts from interviews, and
letters, and they cover a broad spectrum of concerns--from the
technical exegesis of microtonality to the personal and the broadly
humanistic. A discography of commercially available recordings of
Johnston's music closes out the collection.
|
|