The debate over modernist music has continued for almost a century: from Strauss's Elektra and Webern's Symphony Op.21 to John Cage's renegotiation of musical control, the unusual musical practices of the Velvet Underground, and Stanley Kubrick's use of Ligeti's Lux Aeterna in the epic film 2001. The composers discussed in these pages -- including Bartok, Stockhausen, Bernard Herrmann, Steve Reich, and many others -- are modernists in that they are defined by their individualism, whether covert or overt, and share a basic urge toward redesigning musical discourse. The aim of this volume is to...
The debate over modernist music has continued for almost a century: from Strauss's Elektra and Webern's Symphony Op.21 to John Cage's renegotiation of...
John Cage, one of America's most renowned composers from the 1940s until his death in 1992, was also a much-admired writer and artist, and a uniquely attractive personality able to present his ideas engagingly wherever he went. In CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage, Peter Dickinson showcases a collection of vividly revealing and unpublished interviews given by Cage in the late 1980s for a BBC Radio 3 documentary. For this paperback edition, Dickinson presents a new preface noting developments in Cage criticism since the book's publication in 2006, updated comments from several of...
John Cage, one of America's most renowned composers from the 1940s until his death in 1992, was also a much-admired writer and artist, and a uniquely ...
Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism, and Expression is the first extensive English-language study devoted to Eduard Hanslick--a seminal figure in nineteenth-century musical life. Bringing together eminent scholars from several disciplines, this volume examines Hanslick's contribution to the aesthetics and philosophy of music and looks anew at his literary interests. The essays embrace ways of thinking about Hanslick's writings that go beyond the polarities that have long marked discussion of his work such as form/expression, absolute/program music, objectivity/subjectivity, and...
Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism, and Expression is the first extensive English-language study devoted to Eduard Hanslick--a seminal figure in ni...
The unique sounds of the biwa, shamisen, and other traditional instruments from Japan are heard more and more often in works for the concert hall and opera house. Composing for Japanese Instruments is a practical orchestration and instrumentation manual with contextual and relevant historical information for composers who wish to learn how to compose for traditional Japanese instruments. Widely regarded as the authoritative text on the subject in Japan and China, it contains hundreds of musical examples, diagrams, photographs, and fingering charts. Many of the musical examples can be heard on...
The unique sounds of the biwa, shamisen, and other traditional instruments from Japan are heard more and more often in works for the concert hall and ...