Contemporary Composers On Contemporary Music (Da Capo Press music reprint series)

This anthology of essays, interviews, and autobiographical pieces provides an invaluable overview of the evolution of contemporary music—from chromaticism, serialism, and indeterminacy to jazz, vernacular, electronic, and non-Western influences. Featuring classic essays by Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and Reich, as well as writings by lesser-known but equally innovative composers such as Jack Beeson, Richard Maxfield, and T. J. Anderson, this collection covers a broad range of styles and approaches. Here you will find Busoni's influential "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music"; Partch's exploration of a new notation system; Babbitt's defense of advanced composition in his controversial "Who Cares If You Listen?"; and Pauline Oliveros's meditations on sound. Now updated with fifteen new composers including Michael Tippet, György Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, Ben Johnston, Sofia Gubaidulina, and William Bolcom, this important book gathers together forty-nine pieces—many out of print and some newly written for this volume—which serve as a documentary history of twentieth-century music, in theory and practice. Impassioned, provocative, and eloquent, these writings are as exciting and diverse as the music they discuss. I. European Music Before 1945. From Sketch Of A New Esthetic Of Music / Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924). From Monsieur Croche The Dilettante Hater / Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Three Brief Epigrams / Erik Satie (1866-1925). From Notes Without Music / Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). Man And Music / Ernest Bloch (1880-1959). From Dialogues And A Dairy / Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Why Is Schoenberg's Music So Hard To Understand? / Alban Berg (1885-1935). The Influence Of Peasant Music On Modern Music / Bela Bartok (1881-1945). From A Composer's World / Paul Hindemith (1895-1963). From Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences / Serge Prokofiev (1892-1953). Music And The Times / Dmitri Shostakovitch (1906-1975). From The Making Of Music / Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). On Winning The First Aspen Award / Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) --^ Ii. Experimental Music And American Developments. Postface To 114 Songs / Charles Ives (1874-1954). From New Musical Resources / Henry Cowell (1897-1965). The Creative Mind And The Interpretive Mind / Aaron Copland (1900-1990). Folksong -- American Big Business / Roy Harris (1898-1979). On Waiting For A Libretto / Samuel Barber (1910-1981). From The State Of Music / Virgil Thomson (1896-1989). The Musical Impulse / Roger Sessions (1896-1985). The Liberation Of Sound / Edgard Varese (1885-1964). Experiments In Notation / Harry Partch (1901-1974). Space As An Essential Aspect Of Musical Composition / Henry Brant (1913- ). Who Cares If You Listen? / Milton Babbitt (1916- ). Some Random Remarks About Electronic Music / Otto Luening (1900-1996). Shop Talk By An American Composer / Elliott Carter (1908- ). Thinking Twice / Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972). Towards A Re-merger In Music / Chou Wen-chung (1923- ). Grand And Not So Grand / Jack Beeson (1921- ). The Changing Composer --^ Performer Relationship: A Monologue And A Dialogue / Lukas Foss (1922- ). Interview With Roger Reynolds / John Cage (1912-1992). Composers, Performance And Publications Music, Electronic And Performed / Richard Maxfield (1924-1969). An Interview With Robert Ashley, August 1964 / Morton Feldman (1926-1987). An Interview With Barney Childs, 1962 / Charles Wuorinen (1938- ) --^ Iii. Postmodernism And Recent Concerns. Five Revolutions Since 1950 / Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928- ). Dreaming On Things To Come ... / Michael Tippett (1905- ). An Interview With Joseph Hausler, 1968/69 / Gyorgy Ligeti (1923- ). On The Third String Quartet / George Rochberg (1918- ). Third Stream / Gunther Schuller (1925- ). Third Stream Revisited / Gunther Schuller (1925- ). Some Sound Observations / Pauline Oliveros (1932- ). Music As A Gradual Process / Steve Reich (1936- ). An Interview With Elliott Schwartz, 1996 / T.j. Anderson (1928- ). Maximum Clarity / Ben Johnston (1926- ). On Criticism / Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981). An Interview With Dorothea Redepenning, 1992 / Sofia Gubaidulina (1931- ). I Am Sitting In A Room (1969) / Alvin Lucier (1931- ). An Interview With Graham Lock, 1988 / Anthony Braxton (1945- ). Composing A Viable (if Transitory) Self: Brian Ferneyhough In Conversation With James Boros / Brian Ferneyhough (1943- ).^ From Something About The Music / William Bolcom (1938- ). Edited By Elliott Schwartz And Barney Childs With Jim Fox.