Browse

Artful Noise: Percussion Literature in the Twentieth Century

Thomas Siwe

A substantial body of musical literature for solo and ensemble percussion was created in the twentieth century. This book examines percussion literature’s evolution: how it came to be and the styles ... More

A substantial body of musical literature for solo and ensemble percussion was created in the twentieth century. This book examines percussion literature’s evolution: how it came to be and the styles that composers embraced as they produced a large body of music for percussion instruments alone. The focus is on the music that was created, the various genres that arose, and the composers who contributed seminal works. The question is posed: What world and cultural events brought composers to reject the past and embrace modernism? The twentieth century is notable for its many technological advances as well as for the global conflicts that disrupted the lives of millions. Both had significant impact on the arts. Tape recorders, synthesizers, and computers became useful tools for the avant-garde composer. Artists, exiled from their homelands by the war’s devastation, arrived in the Americas with new ideas to share. On the West Coast of the United States, composers found that percussion music was an ideal accompaniment for a nascent modern dance movement. The end of World War II brought monumental change to higher education and to music education in the States. College-trained percussionists became an important resource for the modern composer, who contributed new solo and ensemble works to the percussion canon. The twentieth century witnessed the rise of the percussive arts to a status equal to that of other instrumental groups.Less

Bach Perspectives, Volume 10: Bach and the Organ

Matthew Dirst (ed.)

A publication of the American Bach Society, this book pioneers new areas of research into the life, times, and music of the master composer. This volume is a collection of groundbreaking essays ... More

A publication of the American Bach Society, this book pioneers new areas of research into the life, times, and music of the master composer. This volume is a collection of groundbreaking essays exploring various aspects of Johann Sebastian Bach's organ-related activities. Bach's report on Johann Scheibe's organ at St. Paul's Church in Leipzig is reconsidered. The likely provenance and purpose of a collection of chorale harmonizations copied in Dresden is clarified. The ways various independent trio movements served Bach as an artist and teacher is investigated. The origins of concerted Bach cantata movements are sought, spotlighting the organ and proposing family trees of both parent works and offspring. Finally, the book provides a broad cultural frame for such pieces and notes how their components engage in a larger discourse about the German Baroque organ's intimation of Heaven. The book provides an eighteenth-century context for Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas with obbligato organ by showing how their various components engage in a larger discourse about the German Baroque organ: namely, its intimation of Heaven.Less

Bach Perspectives, Volume 9: J. S. Bach and His German Contemporaries

Andrew Talle (ed.)

This addition to the Bach Perspectives series offers a counter-narrative to the isolated genius status that J. S. Bach and his music currently enjoy. The book contextualizes Bach by examining the ... More

This addition to the Bach Perspectives series offers a counter-narrative to the isolated genius status that J. S. Bach and his music currently enjoy. The book contextualizes Bach by examining the output, reputation, and compositional practices of his contemporaries in Germany whose work was widely played and enjoyed in his time, including Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner, Gottlieb Muffat, and Johann Adolf Scheibe. Chapters place Bach and his work in relation to his peers, examining avenues of composition they took while he did not and showing how differing treatments of the same subjects or texts resulted in markedly different compositional results and legacies. By looking closely at how Bach's contemporaries addressed the tasks and challenges of their time, this project provides a more nuanced view of the musical world of Bach's time while revealing in more specific terms than ever how and why Bach's own music remains fresh and compelling.Less

From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory

James Tenney

Larry Polansky and Lauren Pratt (eds)

One of the twentieth century's most important musical thinkers, the author did pioneering work in multiple fields, including computer music, tuning theory, and algorithmic and computer-assisted ... More

One of the twentieth century's most important musical thinkers, the author did pioneering work in multiple fields, including computer music, tuning theory, and algorithmic and computer-assisted compositions. This book is a collection of the author's hard-to-find writings arranged, edited, and revised by the self-described “composer/theorist.” Tenney argued that “a new kind of music theory is needed which deals with the question of what we actually hear when we listen to a piece of music, as well as how or why we hear as we do.” His collection, which spans the years from 1955 to 2006, constitutes one of the most important bodies of music-theoretical thought of the twentieth century. Each article in this volume asks how new and radical musical ideas might emerge from how we hear. Selections focus on his fundamental concerns—“what the ear hears”—and include thoughts and ideas on perception and form, tuning systems and especially just intonation, information theory, theories of harmonic space, and stochastic (chance) procedures of composition.Less