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Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music
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, vernac
- GenresMusicNonfiction
510 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 28, 2015
I doubt I've read every essay here; I've certainly never this book cover to cover. I doubt it was intended for such a reading - there is some dense writing here. But for anyone interested in 20th-century "classical" music, it's a great book to pull off the shelf every few months to read a few essays. Just about every time I pick this one up, I read Milton Babbitt's provocative, somewhat maddening 1958 article, "Who Cares if You Listen?"
July 21, 2009
If you want to fall asleep check out Ferneyhough's article.
April 3, 2017
In 1967, Elliott Schwartz and Barney Childs edited a collection of texts where composers of the 20th century could speak in their own words about music. These “own words” were either the composers’ own writings that Schwartz and Childs republished, or interviews with the given composer. The book became a minor classic. In 1998, Jim Fox and Da Capo Press reprinted Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music with 15 new composers represented.
The composers represented in the updated 1998 edition are:
So, one can see that the composers are generally from the English-speaking world, or various European composers from the first half of the twentieth century who made such a splash that their writings were translating into English. One does regret the absence of any Darmstadt, Nordic, Latin American or Iberian voices, but the book is still so ample that any reader will feel he’s getting his money’s worth.
Some of the texts were drawn from publications that many fans of 20th-century classical music are likely to at least be aware of and perhap seeking out. The Milton Babbitt bit is that composer’s essay that was eventually published as “Who Cares if you Listen?”, and sadly the editors of this book don’t point out that that was not Babbitt’s own title but rather put over the article by his editor in the 1950s. Cornelius Cardew is represented by his infamous agitprop pamphlet and work of Maoist self-criticism Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. George Rochberg’s bit comes from his book-length defense of his compositional aims The Aesthetics of Survival.
The chapters often capture the composer at a moment in time that readers today would not normally see as the high point of their careers. The interview with Charles Wuorinen dates from when that composer was only 23 years old, hardly into his career that has now spanned over half a century. (He speaks quite dismissively of jazz and classical music from Europe; one wonders if he would voice such strong opinions now.) When Elliott Carter wrote the piece of his here in 1960, he was already seen as a representative of an older American generation, but in fact his mature career had hardly started.
The piece are of highly variable quality. Not every composer’s gift for music implies an ability to write movingly or be an informative interlocutor. Brian Ferneyhough (interviewed just after he completed the piece "Terrain") is, as always, a pleasure to read due to his characteristically dense, highly precise and erudite way of speaking. Anthony Braxton, on the other hand, seems to be unable to get his inner feelings about music across and one senses some frustration. Sofia Gubaidulina’s interview is one of the least worthwhile with her, and she spends much of her time defending her third husband’s musicological theories instead of shining much light on her own work.
Still, even if some composers’ chapters are more satisfying than others, I imagine that anyone interested in classical music of the 20th century will find much to enjoy here in terms of information on these composer’s viewpoints in general and often details of certain works in particular.
The composers represented in the updated 1998 edition are:
T. J. Anderson, Milton Babbitt, Samuel Barber, Béla Bartók, Jack Beeson, Alban Berg, Ernest Bloch, William Bolcom, Henry Brant, Anthony Braxton, Benjamin Britten, Ferruccio Busoni, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Elliott Carter, Chou Win-Chung, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Claude Debussy, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Gubaidulina, Roy Harris, Paul Hindemith, Charles Ives, Ben Johnston, Alvin Lucier, György Ligeti, Otto Luening, Richard Maxfield, Darius Milhaud, Harry Partch, Sergei Prokofiev, Steve Reich, George Rochberg, Erik Satie, Gunter Schuller, Roger Sessions, Dmitri Shostakovich, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Igor Stravinsky, Virgil Thomson, Michael Tippett, Edgar Varèse, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Stefan Wolfe, Charles Wuorinen
So, one can see that the composers are generally from the English-speaking world, or various European composers from the first half of the twentieth century who made such a splash that their writings were translating into English. One does regret the absence of any Darmstadt, Nordic, Latin American or Iberian voices, but the book is still so ample that any reader will feel he’s getting his money’s worth.
Some of the texts were drawn from publications that many fans of 20th-century classical music are likely to at least be aware of and perhap seeking out. The Milton Babbitt bit is that composer’s essay that was eventually published as “Who Cares if you Listen?”, and sadly the editors of this book don’t point out that that was not Babbitt’s own title but rather put over the article by his editor in the 1950s. Cornelius Cardew is represented by his infamous agitprop pamphlet and work of Maoist self-criticism Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. George Rochberg’s bit comes from his book-length defense of his compositional aims The Aesthetics of Survival.
The chapters often capture the composer at a moment in time that readers today would not normally see as the high point of their careers. The interview with Charles Wuorinen dates from when that composer was only 23 years old, hardly into his career that has now spanned over half a century. (He speaks quite dismissively of jazz and classical music from Europe; one wonders if he would voice such strong opinions now.) When Elliott Carter wrote the piece of his here in 1960, he was already seen as a representative of an older American generation, but in fact his mature career had hardly started.
The piece are of highly variable quality. Not every composer’s gift for music implies an ability to write movingly or be an informative interlocutor. Brian Ferneyhough (interviewed just after he completed the piece "Terrain") is, as always, a pleasure to read due to his characteristically dense, highly precise and erudite way of speaking. Anthony Braxton, on the other hand, seems to be unable to get his inner feelings about music across and one senses some frustration. Sofia Gubaidulina’s interview is one of the least worthwhile with her, and she spends much of her time defending her third husband’s musicological theories instead of shining much light on her own work.
Still, even if some composers’ chapters are more satisfying than others, I imagine that anyone interested in classical music of the 20th century will find much to enjoy here in terms of information on these composer’s viewpoints in general and often details of certain works in particular.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews