Download or read book An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt written by Andrew Mead and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this celebration of Milton Babbitt's art, Andrew Mead explores the development of a central figure in contemporary American music. As a teacher and writer, Babbitt has influenced two generations of students, including such notable musicians as Stephen Sondheim and Donald Martino. He has helped establish the study of music theory as a serious academic pursuit, and his articles on Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and the twelve-tone system constitute a seminal body of research. But Babbitt is first and last a composer, whose works are, in Mead's words, "truly music to be heard." With Mead as a guide, we discover the strong emotional and expressive charge of Babbitt's music that is inextricably entwined with its structure. Babbitt is a twelve-tone composer, unabashedly so, and it is precisely his profound understanding of Arnold Schoenberg's epochal insight that gives Babbitt's music its special quality. By examining the underlying principles of twelve-tone composition, Mead allows us to appreciate Babbitt's music on its own terms, as a richly varied yet unified body of work. In achieving this purpose, he provides an excellent introduction to twelve-tone music in general. Without relying on professional jargon, he lucidly and succinctly explains Babbitt's complexities. A catalog of compositions, a discography, and a bibliography complete a book that will interest performers, music theorists, and music historians, as well as other readers who are enthusiastic or curious about contemporary musical works. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt written by Milton Babbitt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-24 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like his compositions, Milton Babbitt's writings about music have exerted an extraordinary influence on postwar music and thinking about music. In essays and public addresses spanning fifty years, Babbitt has grappled profoundly with central questions in the composition and apprehension of music. These writings range from personal memoirs and critical reviews to closely reasoned metatheoretical speculations and technical exegesis. In the history of music theory, there has been only a small handful of figures who have produced work of comparable stature. Taken as a whole, Babbitt's writings are not only an invaluable testimony to his thinking--a priceless primary source for the intellectual and cultural history of the second half of the twentieth century--but also a remarkable achievement in their own right. Prior to this collection, Babbitt's writings were scattered through a wide variety of journals, books, and magazines--many hard to find and some unavailable--and often contained typographical errors and editorial corruptions of various kinds. This volume of almost fifty pieces gathers, corrects, and annotates virtually everything of significance that Babbitt has written. The result is complete, authoritative, and fully accessible--the definitive source of Babbitt's influential ideas.
Download or read book Milton Babbitt written by Milton Babbitt and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many consider Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Milton Babbitt to be the preeminent figure in post-World War II American music. Beyond the extraordinary power of his music, he is also, as he says, "somewhat known as a talker." In fact, he is renowned as an energetic teacher and inspired lecturer. In 1983 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Babbitt presented a concise summary of his most essential musical insights in a series of lectures and seminars. These are gathered here, presenting for the first time in book form a comprehensive overview of the subjects that have formed the core of his teaching for the past forty years. Babbitt's central concern in these lectures is the twelve-tone tradition with which he is so closely identified. His discussion of this tradition ranges from close consideration of specific compositional problems to frank evaluation of his own position in that tradition. In his characteristically penetrating way, Babbitt discusses the most controversial issues in twentieth-century music, from serialism and atonality to the responsibility of the listener and the place of music in the university. Until now, few have had direct exposure to Babbitt's ideas. In Madison, he spoke to a variety of audiences and, because of the pedagogical context, his presentation was direct and explanatory. This volume preserves the dazzling constructions and spontaneous excitement of his spoken language. At the time of publication, Milton Babbitt was William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Emeritus at Princeton University. He has been showered with awards during his long and distinguished career, including the Pulitzer Prize (1982) and a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (1986). He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Download or read book Oxford Bibliographies written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Thinking in and about Music written by Zachary Bernstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Milton Babbitt, Schenkerian -- Construction, Cognition, and the Role of the Surface -- The Seam in Babbitt's Compositional Development : Composition for Tenor and Six Instruments -- The Surface and the Series in Composition for Four Instruments -- Poetic Form and Psychological Portraiture in Babbitt's Early Texted Works -- Completeness and Temporality -- Babbitt's Gestural Dialectics -- Afterword. "Anything Vital is Problematical".
Download or read book An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbit written by Andrew Mead and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern Music and After written by Paul Griffiths and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-16 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over three decades, Paul Griffiths's survey has remained the definitive study of music since the Second World War; this fully revised and updated edition re-establishes Modern Music and After as the preeminent introduction to the music of our time. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical reformation of compositional technique and in John Cage's development of zen music; in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies; in Karlheinz Stockhausen's development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of music as sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that haven't yet stopped unfolding. This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no singular history of music; Griffiths's study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how and why they converge and diverge. This new edition of Modern Music and After discusses not only the music of the fifteen years that have passed since the previous edition, but also the recent explosion of scholarly interest in the latter half of the twentieth century. In particular, the book has been expanded to incorporate the variety of responses to the modernist impasse experienced by composers of the 1980s and 1990s. Griffiths then moves the book into the twenty-first century as he examines such highly influential composers as Helmut Lachenmann and Salvatore Sciarrino. For its breadth, wealth of detail, and characteristic wit and clarity, the third edition of Modern Music and After is required reading for the student and the enquiring listener.
Download or read book Serial Composition and Atonality written by George Perle and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1972 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Theory of Music Analysis written by Dora A. Hanninen and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces a theory of music analysis that one can use to explore aspects of segmentation and associative organization in a wide range of repertoire including Western classical music from the Baroque to the present, with potential applications to jazz and popular music, and some non-Western musics. Rather than a methodology, the theory provides analysts with precise language and a broad, flexible conceptual framework through which they can formulate and investigate questions of interest and develop their own interpretations of individual pieces and passages. The theory begins with a basic distinction among three domains of musical experience and discourse about it: the sonic (psychoacoustic); the contextual (or associative, sparked by varying degrees of repetition); and the structural (guided by a specific theory of musical structure or syntax invoked by the analyst). A comprehensive presentation of the theory, with copious musical illustrations, is balanced with close analyses of works by Beethoven, Debussy, Nancarrow, Riley, Feldman, and Morris. Dora A. Hanninen is professor of music theory at the University of Maryland. She received the 2010 Outstanding Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory.
Download or read book Simple Composition written by Charles Wuorinen and published by C F Peters Corporation. This book was released on 1994 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: New York: Longman, c1979.
Download or read book The music of Milton Babbitt 1947 1970 written by Stephen Arnold and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Music in the USA written by Judith Tick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-26 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion charts a path through American music and musical life using as guides the words of composers, performers, writers and the rest of us ordinary folks who sing, dance, and listen. The anthology of primary sources contains about 160 selections from 1540 to 2000. Sometimes the sources are classics in the literature around American music, for example, the Preface to the Bay Psalm Book, excerpts from Slave Songs of the United States, and Charles Ives extolling Emerson. But many other selections offer uncommon sources, including a satirical story about a Yankee music teacher; various columns from 19th-century German American newspapers; the memoirs of a 19th-century diva; Lottie Joplin remembering her husband Scott; a little-known reflection of Copland about Stravinsky; an interview with Muddy Waters from the Chicago Defender; a letter from Woody Guthrie on the "spunkfire" attitude of a folk song; a press release from the Country Music Association; and the Congressional testimony around "Napster." "Sidebar" entries occasionally bring a topic or an idea into the present, acknowledging the extent to which revivals of many kinds of music play a role in American contemporary culture. This book focuses on the connections between theory and practice to enrich our understanding of the diversity of American musical experiences. Designed especially to accompany college courses which survey American music as a whole, the book is also relevant to courses in American history and American Studies.
Download or read book Music and Meaning written by Jenefer Robinson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to promote new ways of thinking about musical meaning, this volume brings together scholars in music theory, musicology, and the philosophy of music, disciplines generally treated as separate and distinct. This interdisciplinary collaboration, while respecting differences in perspective, identifies and elaborates shared concerns. This volume focuses on the many and various kinds of meaning in music. Do musical meanings exist exclusively in internal, formal musical relations or might they also be found in the relationship between music and other areas of experience, such as action, emotion, ideas, and values? Also discussed is the vexed question why people listen to and apparently enjoy music which expresses unpleasant emotions, such as melancholy or despair. Among the particular pieces the writers discuss are Mahler's Ninth Symphony, Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, and Schubert's last sonata. More broadly, they consider the relation of musical meaning and interpretation to language, storytelling, drama, imagination, metaphor, and emotion.
Download or read book Perspectives on American Music since 1950 written by James R. Heintze and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-01-26 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the century comes to a close, composition of music in the United States has reached little consensus in terms of style, techniques, or schools. In fourteen original articles, the contributors to this volume explore the broad range and diversity of post-World War II musical culture. Classical and jazz idioms are both covered, as is the broad history of electronic music in the United States.
Download or read book The Structure of Atonal Music written by Allen Forte and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1973-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes and cites examples of pitch-class sets and relations in atonal music
Download or read book Three Questions for Sixty five Composers written by Bálint András Varga and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences? What has influenced recent composers? How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style? This book reveals the spontaneous thoughts of some of the most famous composers from around the world about their own development as composers and their reactions to the outside world.
Download or read book Music Politics and the Academy written by Pieter C. van den Toorn and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I value this book for its idealism, its positive vote for autonomy and technical analysis, its courageous answer to feminist musicology, its exposure of the contradictions of academic politics. Its importance lies not in settling the debates but in construing the issues in new and provocative ways."—Kofi Agawu, author of Playing with Signs "We need books like this. It deals with major topics, raises critical issues, and develops numerous interesting ideas; and it is written in an engaging manner. The book should attract attention and will provide at least one articulate countervoice to the discussion of important issues currently affecting the field, that have been raised by those professing to the "New Musicology."—Robert Morgan, author of Twentieth-Century Music
