Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition (I450-I600) Jessie Ann Owens, Brandeis Univeristy "This is a stunning piece of work which will alter the landscape of Renaissance musicology in very important ways."--Lawrence Bernstein, University of Pennsylvania. "One of the most important studies in Renaissance musicology in many years. A landmark."--Lewis Lockwood, Harvard University. How did Renaissance composers write their music? In this revolutionary look at a subject that has fascinated scholars for years, musicologist Jessie Ann Owens offers new and striking evidence that contrary to accepted theory, sixteenth-century composers did not use scores to compose--even to write complex vocal polyphony. Drawing on scores that include comtemporary theoretical treatises, documents and letters, iconographical evidence, actual fragments of composing slates, and numerous sketches, drafts, and corrected autograph manuscripts, Owens carefully reconstructs the step-by-step process by which composers between 1450 and 1600 composed their music. November 1996 432 pp.; 89 halftones, 31 musical examples 172. 509577-4 $50.00w/$40.00 ------------------------------- Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age" John Daverio, Boston University Forced by a hand injury to abandon a career as a pianist, Robert Schumann went on to become one of the world's great composers. Among many works, his Spring Symphony (1841), Piano Concerto in A Minor (1841/1845), and the Third, or Rhenish, Symphony (1850) exemplify his infusion of classical forms with intense, personal emotion. His musical influence continues today and has inspired many other famous composers in the century since his death. Now, in Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age," John Daverio presents the first comprehensive study of the composer's life and works to appear in nearly a century. This well-researched study of Schumann interprets the composer's creative legacy in the context of his life and times, combining nineteenth-century cultural and intellectual history with a fascinating analysis of the works themselves. March 1997 512 pp.; 64 musical examples, 7 halftones 279. 509180-9 $35.00t/$28.00 ---------------------------------- Music Criticism in Vienna, 1896-1897: Critically Moving Forms Sandra McColl, University of Queensland, Brisbane Music Criticism in Vienna is a close study of the work of some two dozen music critics in Vienna in the fifteen months from October 1896 to December 1897, a period which saw the deaths of Bruckner and Brahms and the rise of Mahler and Richard Strauss. It reconstructs in detail the climate of musical debate in a major center around the turn of the century. -------------------------- Meter as Rhythm Christopher Hasty, University of Pennsylvania In this book Christopher Hasty presents a striking new theory of musical duration. Drawing on insights from modern "process" philosophy, he advances a fully temporal perspective in which meter is released from its mechanistic connotations and recognized as a concrete, visceral agent of musical expression. Part one of the book reviews oppositions of law and freedom, structure and process, determinacy and indeterminacy in the speculations of theorists from the eighteenth century to the present. Part two reinterprets these contrasts to form a highly origianl account of meter that engages diverse musical repertories and aesthetic issues. January 1997 368 pp.; 116 musical examples 128. 510066-2 $80.00w/$64.00 -------------------------------- The Dynamics of Harmony: Principles and Practice George Pratt, Huddersfield University This is a readable and imaginative book presenting, with infectious enthusiasm, a sensible simplification of the main processes of classical harmony in the Bach-Schubert period. Pratt's explanations of concepts such as "real" and "substitute" chords, of false distinctions between "major" and "minor" and of the simple basis of seemingly complex chromatic harmony enables readers to grasp the principles of harmonic progression, and to see most progressions as a form of "dominant-powered" movement. He focuses his study on Bach chorales, Mozart piano sonatas, and a Schubert song cycle, thereby providing depth, variety, and a realistic sense of a context of "real music" to his explanations and to the exercises. But he also offers the reader an immediate invitation to apply the same principles to an immense range of musical literature from Monteverdi to Scott Joplin. February 1996 160 pp.; numerous musical examples 117. 879020-1 paper $22.00w/$17.60 --------------------------------------- Analysis Through Composition: Principles of the Classical Style Nicholas Cook, Southampton University In this textbook, Cook provides an unusual and stimulating new approach to teaching analytical concepts through the study of style composition. He emphasizes throughout analysis and decision-making within a practical context, drawing on musical examples from eighteenth-century works. Students can use these examples as models to complete compositional assignments provided in a number of subject areas. 1996 260 pp.; 111 musical examples + 20 worksheets 505. 879013-9 spiral bound $35.00s/$28.00 ---------------------------------------------- Richard Strauss's Elektra Bryan Gilliam, Duke University "Each step in Elektra's creation yields fascinating material. . . . Gilliam's ideas are clearly expressed and convincing, and his presentations of the evidence are exemplary--a treat and a model for any scholar."--Choice. "Delves deep into the opera's origins by the closest analysis yet undertaken of the sketchbooks at the composer's home in Garmisch and elsewhere. These shed fascinating light on Strauss's working methods."--The Independent. Elektra was the fourth of fifteen operas by Strauss and opened his successful partnership with the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Gilliam's study of this major work examines its musical-historical context and also provides a detailed analysis of some of its musical features. (Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure) 1992 (paper 1996) 288 pp.; 4 figures, music examples 221. 816602-8 paper $24.95w/$20.00 450. 313214-1 cloth $75.00w/$60.00 --------------------------------------- Webern and the Lyric Impulse: Songs and Fragments of Poems of George Trakl Anne C. Shreffler, University of Basel, Switzerland "Schreffler's skills as both archival detective and analytical interpreter combine to produce a convincing and absorbing narrative of the creative process."--The Musical Times. (Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure) 1995 278 pp.; 10 illus., 73 music examples 52. 816224-3 $59.00w/$47.20 --------------------------------- Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109 Nicholas Marston, University of Bristol "With unfailing analytical vision, [Marston] has produced a superb collection of sketch interpretations; they will stimulate us to think afresh about a work whose genesis will undoubtedly fascinate us for a long time to come."--The Musical Times. (Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure) 1995 296 pp.; music examples, 9 halftones, 3 linecuts 481. 315332-7 $56.00w/$44.80 ---------------------------------- Musical Beginnings: Origins and Development of Musical Competence Edited by Irene Deliege, University of Liege, and John Sloboda, University of Keele This timely volume provides an up-to-date, integrative account of research on the development of musical ability, particularly in infancy and early childhood. Each chapter addresses central issues and charts a child's developmental progress with reference to his or her changing environment: from the intense and semi-exclusive mother-baby bond, to the wider contexts provided by family, school, and society at large. 1996 240 pp.; 21 illus. 33. 852332-7 paper $23.95w/$19.20 24. 852333-5 cloth $65.00w/$52.00
Music and the Occult: French Musical Philosophies, 1750-1950 Joscelyn Godwin This book is an adventure into the unexplored territory of French esoteric philosophies and their relation to music. Occultism and esotericism flourished in nineteenth-century France as they did nowhere else. Many philosophers sought the key to the universe, some claimed to have found it, and, in the unitive vision that resulted, music invariably played an important part. These modern Pythagoreans all believed in the Harmony ofthe Spheres and in the powerful effects of music on the human soul and body. The book begins with the anti-Newtonian "color harpsichord" of P�re Castel, and closes with the disciples of Ren� Gu�non and their fierce anti-modernity. The major forces in between--Fabre d'Olivet, Charles Fourier, Wronski, Lacuria, Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, and their disciples--were all at odds with the world. Yet they opened up a world view of such grandeur as to compel admiration. They were truly "Renaissance men" ranging over the whole field of learning and not shying away from the mysteries and enigmas that beset the human condition. For them music was a blend of science and art that could bring insight into the cosmic order, and even into the mind of God. Theirs was a "speculative music" in the tradition of Pythagoras, Plato, Ficino, and Kepler, which is generally thought to have died with the coming of the Enlightenment. On the contrary, as this book shows, it flourished more vigorously than ever. A widely published musicologist and authority on esotericism, Godwin is able to give aclear and concise context for these philosophers' often surprising beliefs, and he demonstrates how this "speculative music" influenced composers such as Satie and Debussy, who were familiar with occultism. His long study of music and the Western esoteric tradition makes him uniquely qualified to unravel the strange story of these forgotten sages. Paperback: 1-878822-56-X List Price $22.95 Hardback: 1-878822-53-5 List Price $45.00 ---------------------------------------------- "Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist" And Other Essays on American Music Arthur Farwell, edited by Thomas Stoner The composer Arthur Farwell (1875-1952) had only recently joined the staff of the paper, Musical America, when his autobiographical "Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist" began appearing in weekly installments early in 1909. Already known as an apostle of American music, he had established his Wa-Wan Press in 1901 to publish works of American composers. Then between 1903 and 1907, he made four cross-country trips, lecturing on the need to develop a national style of music and playing his own piano pieces based on Native American themes. Not stopping there, he spearheaded a national organization-- the American Music Society--with centers in various cities in order to promote the country's composers at the grass roots. After almost a decade of such promotional work, Farwell was eager for his ideals to gain wider coverage. He felt the best way to achieve this was to write an adventure-filled narrative involving adventure that presented a forum for his personal cause. The twenty-year odyssey covered in "Wanderjahre" begins in 1889 when the young Farwell's serious musical interest is first sparked. He chronicles his years leading up to his Americanist efforts, first as a student of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then his Bohemian days in Boston as a budding composer, followed by his trip to Europe for further study. The second half of the tale starts with Farwell's return from abroad in 1899, when his American crusade begins to take shape. Farwell's writings offer rich insight into a remarkable visionary and crusader for American music. As the centerpiece for this collection, "Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist" provides a colorful, firsthand view of his tireless efforts. Also included are eight other journalistic essays which reveal Farwell as an original, often audacious, voice that frequently collided with the musical establishment. Farwell's discourse raises key issues of America's musical life in his day while capturing an engaging view of that milieu. Thomas Stoner is Professor of Music at Connecticut College, New London, CT. "A delight to read and an eminently worthwhile project. It's an inspiring well-told story whose reverberations reach to central issues in the historiography of American music as a whole." Richard Crawford, University of Michigan Hardback: 1-878822-48-9 List Price $49.50 --------------------------------------------- The Poetic Debussy A Collection of His Song-Texts and Collected Letters (2nd Revised Edition) Edited by Margaret G. Cobb This thoroughly revised and updated second edition contains the most recent discoveries in the composer's oeuvre, including a number of hitherto unknown songs. Paperback: 1-878822-34-9 List Price $24.95 ----------------------------------------------- French Organ Music From the Revolution to Franck and Widor Edited by Lawrence Archbold and William J. Peterson In Europe and America alike, nineteenth-century French organ music continues to attract performers and devotees. Scholars and critics are examining, often in innovative ways and with reference to previously uptapped sources, the organ music of C�sar Franck and other distinguished composers--Bo�ly, Guilmant, Widor--and are exploring the impact upon this repertoire of the organ-building achievements of Aristide Cavaill�-Coll. This volume contains contributions by many of the most prominent scholars and performer-scholars currently dealing with this fascinating repertoire, including the noted French organists Daniel Roth and Marie-Louise Jacquet-Langlais. The essays examine selected parts of this varied repertoire through stylistic analysis, the study of compositional process and the exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance-practice traditions developed and became codified. New consideration is also given to the political and cultural contexts within which French organist-composers worked. The book divides into four sections: "From the Revolution to Franck" reexamines the careers of organists during the Revolution, surveys the types of organ music that they preserved in those disruptive circumstances, analyzes an important collection of cantus-firmus-based organ works by Bo�ly, places early nineteenth-century liturgical music within the specific characteristics of the Parisian Rite, and investigates the meaning of Lemmens's �cole d'orgue in historical context of nineteenth-century pedagological works. "Franck: The Texts" focuses on a little-known document that provides new information on Franck's registrations, and analyzes the late stage of Franck's process of composing the celebrated Choral No. 1 in E Major. "Franck: Issues in Performance" reexamines Franck's preserved manuscripts, the various publications of his organ works, and the divergent performance traditions associated with this repertoire. "Widor and His Contemporaries" explores Guilmant's extensive organ works included in the collection L'Organiste liturgiste, provides a close reading of Widor's monumental Symphonie romane, and examines the famous Trocad�ro organ series, a milestone not only in Parisian organ playing, but in the broad history of organ music in public culture. This volume of scholarly and readable essays, nearly all of them previously unpublished or unavailable in English translation, provides convincing evidence that the field of nineteenth-century French organ music has now emerged as a newly important arena of musical and cultural studies. "This book will make a significant contribution to the contemporary organ world, both in this country and abroad." Wayne Leupold Hardback: 1-878822-55-1 List Price $79.00 --------------------------------------------- Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945 Essays and Analytical Studies Edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann This volume of fourteen essays surveys a diverse range of compositional practices and analytical approaches to music from the second half of the century. The book is divided into three sections: Compositional Poietics, Some Structuralist Approaches, and Insights from Other Disciplines. In the opening section, Jonathan Kramer (Columbia University) discusses what the term "postmodernism" might mean for music; Robert Cogan (New England Conservatory) considers the consequences of having the history of many musical cultures available to today's composers; and Robert Morris (Eastman) traces some of the confluences among composition, ethnomusicology, music theory, and musicology in North America since the Second World War. In the second section, Andrew Mead (University of Michigan) reveals previously unrecognized serial procedures in the music of Elliott Carter; Cynthia Folio (Temple University) analyzes polyrhythmic relationships through transcriptions of compositions by jazz musicians such as Thelonious Monk and Eric Dolphy; Elizabeth West Marvin (Eastman) extends contour analysis to compare musical contours of dynamics, rhythms, melodies, and chordal spacing in music by Dallapiccola and Stockhausen; Walter Everett (University of Michigan) documents compositional process and provides detailed analysis of harmony and voice leading in the Beatles' Abbey Road, side two, using the tools of Schenkerian analysis; and Jane Piper Clendinning (Florida State University) discusses the role of canon in Ligeti's compositions through graphic analysis. In the final section, Insights from Other Disciplines, Jonathan Bernard (University of Washington) discusses minimalism in art and music and develops analytical techniques for works by Reich and Glass; Ellie Hisama (Ohio State University) coordinates feminist thought with structuralist theory to provide a powerful analysis of music by Ruth Crawford; David Headlam (Eastman) considers the influence of the Delta blues tradition on the music of Led Zeppelin and, in the vein of Foucault and Barthes, questions the notion of authorship; Richard Hermann (University of New Mexico) develops contour theory in directions strikingly different from Marvin's, relating it to aspects of linguistics and performance technique in an analysis of Berio's Sequenza IV. Finally, John Covach (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) explains the purely musical humor in Rob Reiner's film This is Spinal Tap, drawing upon philosophical theories of humor. An Afterword by Nicholas Cook (University of Southampton) draws upon postmodernist principles cited in the opening essays to reflect upon the collection as a whole and tie together some common threads that the essays share. "What distinguishes Marvin and Hermann's collection of essays on recent music is not only its breadth--its willingness to address both high art and popular music, and to adopt both structuralist and post-structuralist methodologies, but also its intellectual and musical sophistication. On the one hand, it does what contemporary music theory does best: the close analytical reading of musical texts. On the other, it brings a variety of other perspectives--such as those of ethnomusicology, feminist theory, and postmodernist criticism--to bear on new musics greatly in need of serious analytical and critical attention." Patrick McCreless, The University of Texas at Austin and Past President, Society for Music Theory ------------------------------------------- Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937-1995 Edited by Jonathan W. Bernard Eastman Studies in Music 7 Elliott Carter (b.1908) is now widely recognized as America's most eminent living composer. This definitive volume of his essays and lectures--many previously unpublished or uncollected--shows his thinking and writing on music and associated issues developing in parallel with his career as a composer: his reputation became internationally established in the 1950's, and the material in this book offers an important and knowledgeable commentary on the course of American and European music in the succeeding decades. Carter writes about his own music (in articles that are classic texts for all students of his compositional oeuvre), about new music in Europe and the United States, and about the relations between music and the other arts. Other pieces range from a consideration of aspects of music in general (such as time and rhythm as a philosophical problem) to the work of individual composers, such as Debussy, Ives, Var�se, and Stravinsky, among numerous others. As a whole, the collection is the expression of Carter's musical philosophy, and a valuable record for historians of modern music. Hardback: 1-878822-70-5 List Price $59.95 ---------------------------------------------- The Wind Ensemble and its Repertoire Essays on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Eastman Wind Ensemble Edited by Frank J. Cipolla and Donald R. Hunsberger The Eastman Wind Ensemble has enjoyed an international reputation for leadership in repertoire development and performance practices during its forty-plus year existence. Founded in 1952 by Frederick Fennell at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, the Ensemble has been a major professional recording entity and has provided leadership in the areas of research and communication in the development of the contemporary wind band. The Fortieth Anniversary of the Ensemble was celebrated in February, 1992 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, with a series of concerts, conducting workshops and scholarly papers, presented under the aegis of the American Sonneck Society. These papers are the foundation of this book and will be viewed as primary research into the areas of historical development of the wind band, repertoire analysis and performance practices; in addition, international reports on wind band history and development in England, Europe and Japan are included. "...provides excellent historical perspective, valuable insights into contemporary performance, and examples of the impact of the Eastman Wind Ensemble and its philosophy throughout the world." Harlan D. Parker, Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MarylandHardback: 1-878822-46-2 List Price $39.50 --------------------------------------------- American Women Composers before 1870 Judith Tick This book is the first study of American women composers and attitudes toward female musicians before 1870. It is an attempt to map out a large and hitherto unknown history by defining issues and establishing some criteria for dealing with the large repertory of sheet music published in the mid-nineteenth century. This study traces attitudes in etiquette books, discusses education in female seminaries, and locates the most important popular composers and some outstanding works. This book locates a few landmarks in the seemingly barren terrain of historical assessments regarding women's contributions to American musical life. The repertory begins with the first sheet music published by a woman in this country in the 1790s and surveys music by mid-nineteenth century composers, including brief biographies of five prominant women active in the 1850s and '60s. This study does not attempt to be an exhaustive bibliography of the music during this period. Such a goal would be difficult, if not impossible, given the lack of bibliographical control in American music of this era. During this time women moved from their initial rather tentative efforts at musical composition, when they published most of their music anonymously, to becoming competitors in the flourishing sheet music market of the mid-1800s, when they wrote parlor songs and keyboard pieces that were popular commerical successes. The succeeding generation of women composers active in the 1880s and '90s was the first to write serious works (as opposed to parlor music) in the "higher forms" of symphony and opera. The repertory that is the basis for the study are the collections of sheet music at the New York Public Library, Yale University, the Boston Public Library, and the New York Historical Society, supplemented by occasional pieces from other libraries. Most examples refer to pieces that were demonstrably popular according to criteria for success that is outlined in this study. This reprint includes a new preface by the author and a foreword written especially for this edition by Ruth A. Solie. Hardback: 1-878822-58-6 List Price $59.00 Paperback: 1-878822-59-4 List Price $24.95 ---------------------------------------------- Viennese Harmonic Theory From Albrechtsberger to Schenker and Schoenberg Robert W. Wason For the American theorist a historical study of Viennese harmonic theory should require no justification, since a continuation of that history is unfolding in America today. Schoenberg himself educated a generation of American musicians in his way of thinking during the 1930s and 1940s, and Schenker's students began spreading their teacher's word at about the same time. The present study is a critical survey of primary materials: Viennese treatises on harmony (and some unpublished materials) from the late 18th through the 20th centuries. The study does not discuss all of the Viennese treatises on harmony from the 19th century, but rather concentrates on the dominant line of fundamental bass thinking which extends throughout the century to Schenker and Schoenberg. It traces the roots of Viennese harmonic theory of the first half of the 19th century to 18th-century figured bass theory, discusses the mixture of figured bass and Rameauian harmony that characterizes most Viennese theory in the first half of the 19th century, and treats Sechter's revival of Rameau's basses fondamentale at mid-century. This study makes a particularly important contribution in its discussion of Bruckner's reinterpretation of Sechter's system, as well as its examination of the revisions of the system by students of Sechter and Bruckner. Fianlly, it discusses the early 20th-century attempts to resolve the crisis in which the theory found itself at the hands of Bruckner. Aside from the study of primary materials, the work brings together the results of a large number of recent German and Austrian studies of 19th-century harmonic theory, presenting these from the point of view of an American theorist. ISBN: 1-878822-51-9 (cloth) LIST: $59.00 ISBN: 1-878822-52-7 (paper) LIST: $24.95 ------------------------------------------ Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China: Abing, His Music, and Its Changing Meanings Jonathan P. J. Stock This work examines the multiple and conflicting interpretations created around the life of the blind folk musician Abing (1893- 1950). Abing is a household name in China, but, despite the central place he holds in Chinese music, he is little known, and his music rarely heard abroad. This detailed study of Abing, and the accompanying CD compilation of his best-known pieces, reveal much about this unjustly neglected composer, and about the performance and reception of traditional music in contemporary China. Particular attention is given to the problematic category of the musical "work" in a tradition that relies heavily on improvisation and creative reworking of material. Abing's music has also taken strikingly different shapes since his death, notably in arrangements--some involving Western instruments--that adapt the music to changing tastes and ideological trends, in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and overseas. Eastman Studies in Music series, Volume 6 =============================== UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS U.S. and Canada: P O Box 41026 Rochester, NY 14604-4126 Phone: (716) 275-0419 Fax: (716) 271-8778 U.K. and the Rest of the World: Boydell & Brewer P O Box 9 Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF * ENGLAND E-mail: URPRESS@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Theories and Analyses of Twentieth-Century Music J. Kent Williams Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0-15-500316-X jkwms@infi.net This book is intended as a basic text for upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses. It is organized in spiral fashion whereby earlier chapters introduce topics that are revisited and expanded upon later. The principal concern, pitch organization, is afforded broad and eclectic coverage with relatively equal emphasis upon tonal, atonal, and neotonal idioms. Basic concepts of set theory are presented in Chapters 2-6 and then developed and applied throughout the rest of the book. Separate chapters are devoted to rhythm and meter, texture, form and process, chance and indeterminacy, minimalism, and eclecticism.
[1] Music Theory Online (MTO) as a whole is Copyright � 1997, all rights reserved, by the Society for Music Theory, which is the owner of the journal. Copyrights for individual items published in MTO are held by their authors. Items appearing in MTO may be saved and stored in electronic or paper form, and may be shared among individuals for purposes of scholarly research or discussion, but may not be republished in any form, electronic or print, without prior, written permission from the author(s), and advance notification of the editors of MTO.
[2] Any redistributed form of items published in MTO must include the following information in a form appropriate to the medium in which the items are to appear:
This item appeared in Music Theory Online[3] Libraries may archive issues of MTO in electronic or paper form for public access so long as each issue is stored in its entirety, and no access fee is charged. Exceptions to these requirements must be approved in writing by the editors of MTO, who will act in accordance with the decisions of the Society for Music Theory.
in [VOLUME #, ISSUE #] on [DAY/MONTH/YEAR].
It was authored by [FULL NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS],
with whose written permission it is reprinted here.