Encounters With British Composers

Author : Andrew Palmer
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 529 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781783270705

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Encounters with British Composers by Andrew Palmer Pdf

Contemporary British composers talk about their music, with the emphasis on the aesthetic sensibilities and psychological processes behind composing rather than technique. This book features interviews with leading and upcoming British composers who use the same raw materials but produce classical music that takes very different forms. Uniquely, Andrew Palmer approaches the sometimes baffling worldof contemporary music from the point of view of the inquisitive, music-loving amateur rather than the professional critic or musicologist. Readers can eavesdrop on conversations in which composers are asked a number of questionsabout their professional lives and practices, with the emphasis on the aesthetic sensibilities and psychological processes behind composing rather than technique. Throughout, the book seeks to explore why composers write the kindof music they write, and what they want their music to do. Along the way, readers are confronted with an unspoken but equally important question: if some composers are writing music that the public doesn't want to engage with, who's to blame for that? Are composers out of touch with their public, or are we too lazy to give their music the attention it deserves? ANDREW PALMER is a freelance writer and photographer. He is editor of Composing in Words: William Alwyn on His Art (Toccata Press, 2009), author of Divas... In Their Own Words (Vernon Press, 2000) and co-author of A Voice Reborn (Arcadia Books, 1999). Since 1998 he has been a corresponding editor of Strings magazine (USA). Interviewees include: Julian Anderson, Simon Bainbridge, Sally Beamish, George Benjamin, Michael Berkeley, Judith Bingham, Harrison Birtwistle, Howard Blake, Gavin Bryars, Diana Burrell, Tom Coult, Gordon Crosse, Jonathan Dove, David Dubery, Michael Finnissy, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Alexander Goehr, Howard Goodall, Christopher Gunning, Morgan Hayes, Robin Holloway, Oliver Knussen, James MacMillan, Colin Matthews, David Matthews, Peter Maxwell Davies, John McCabe, Thea Musgrave, Roxanna Panufnik, Anthony Payne, Elis Pehkonen, Joseph Phibbs, Gabriel Prokofiev, John Rutter, Robert Saxton, John Tavener, Judith Weir, Debbie Wiseman, Christopher Wright

Author : Iain Quinn
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2023-11-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781837650828

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Music and Religion in the Writings of Ian Mcewan by Iain Quinn Pdf

The majority of characters in Ian McEwan's novels are educated members of the middle class, but without any great private financial means and certainly no great affluence. Despite different occupations, whether scientist (Solar), musician (On Chesil Beach, Amsterdam) or surgeon (Saturday), they are faced with moral, ethical, religious and personal dilemmas that bear resonance to a contemporary audience. Classical music is present throughout McEwan's writings (including his recent Lessons, 2022), mostly not as an accompanying theme but as a necessary part of life's pleasures and for some, essential needs. The combination of music and the unforgettable narrative moments create a unique space for McEwan to translate his views on the world. The value of music, not least as a complementary presence to silence, is portrayed not just as the source of comfort but as a known presence that is dependable to an individual on a near spiritual level. Within his writings there is also a clear understanding of the role of the Church of England as a societal, cultural and established presence within British society. In the literary descriptions of McEwan and other authors this often extends beyond the immediate theological and ecclesiastical concerns of the day. McEwan's writings demonstrate a perceptive knowledge of the nuances of this highly specific cultural dynamic. McEwan's ability to discern sentiments that easily resonate with musicians place his contribution to the field of music and literature studies in a singular position among living writers discussing classical music in Britain. This book provokes questions for those who encounter these areas for the first time in McEwan's writings, and it offers a place of sustained enquiry for those who have experienced these fields first-hand, whether as listeners, performers, congregants, audience members or scholars across literary, musical or ecclesiastical fields. Iain Quinn's book will be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary British literature, as well as those interested in words and music studies more generally.

Author : Philip Rupprecht,Philip Ernst Rupprecht
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 507 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2015-07-09
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780521844482

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British Musical Modernism by Philip Rupprecht,Philip Ernst Rupprecht Pdf

The first in-depth historical analysis of British art music post-1945, providing a group-portrait of eleven composers ranging from avant-garde to pop.

Author : Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2017-02-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780520959040

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Music after the Fall by Tim Rutherford-Johnson Pdf

"...the best extant map of our sonic shadowlands, and it has changed how I listen."—Alex Ross, The New Yorker "...an essential survey of contemporary music."—New York Times "…sharp, provacative and always on the money. The listening list alone promises months of fresh discovery, the main text a fresh new way of navigating the world of sound."—The Wire 2017 Music Book of the Year—Alex Ross, The New Yorker Music after the Fall is the first book to survey contemporary Western art music within the transformed political, cultural, and technological environment of the post–Cold War era. In this book, Tim Rutherford-Johnson considers musical composition against this changed backdrop, placing it in the context of globalization, digitization, and new media. Drawing connections with the other arts, in particular visual art and architecture, he expands the definition of Western art music to include forms of composition, experimental music, sound art, and crossover work from across the spectrum, inside and beyond the concert hall. Each chapter is a critical consideration of a wide range of composers, performers, works, and institutions, and develops a broad and rich picture of the new music ecosystem, from North American string quartets to Lebanese improvisers, from electroacoustic music studios in South America to ruined pianos in the Australian outback. Rutherford-Johnson puts forth a new approach to the study of contemporary music that relies less on taxonomies of style and technique than on the comparison of different responses to common themes of permission, fluidity, excess, and loss.

Author : Ian Pace,Nigel McBride
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2019-05-24
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781351031530

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Critical Perspectives on Michael Finnissy by Ian Pace,Nigel McBride Pdf

The composer and pianist Michael Finnissy (b. 1946) is an unmistakeable presence in the British and international new music scene, both for his immeasurable generosity as prolific composer for many different types of musicians, major advocate for the works of others, and performer and conductor who has also been a driving force behind ensembles; he was also President of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1990 to 1996. His vast and enormously varied output confounds those who seek easy categorisations: once associated strongly with the ‘new complexity’, Finnissy is equally known as composer regularly engaged with many different folk musics, for working with amateur and community musicians, for a long-term engagement with sacred music, or as an advocate of Anglo-American ‘experimental’ music. Twenty years ago, a large-scale volume entitled Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy gave the first major overview of the output of any ‘complex’ composer. This new volume brings a greater plurality of perspectives and critical sensibility to bear upon an output which is almost twice as large as it was when the earlier book was published. A range of leading contributors – musicologists, composers, performers and others – each grapple with particular questions relating to Finnissy’s music, often in ways which raise questions relating more widely to new music, and provide theoretical foundations for further of study both of Finnissy and other composers.

Author : George Parsons,Robert Sholl
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2020-08-06
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781108492539

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James MacMillan Studies by George Parsons,Robert Sholl Pdf

Eleven international scholars analyse key works by Sir James MacMillan, and contextualise his unique musical-theological approach.

Author : Nicholas Jones,Richard McGregor
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Composers
ISBN : 9781783274833

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The Music of Peter Maxwell Davies by Nicholas Jones,Richard McGregor Pdf

Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. This book provides a global view of his music, integrating a number of resonant themes in the composer's work while covering a representative cross-section of his vast output - his work list encompasses nearly 550 compositions in every established genre. Each chapter focuses on specific major works and offers general discussion of other selected works connected to the main themes. These themes include compositional technique and process; genre; form and architecture; tonality and texture; allusion, quotation and musical critique; and place and landscape. Throughout, the book contends that Davies's works are not created in a vacuum but are intimately connected to, and are a reflection of, 'the past'. This deep engagement occurs on a number of levels, fluctuating and interacting with the composer's own predominantly modernist idiom and evoking a chain of historical resonances. Making sustained reference to Davies's own words, articles and programme notes as well as privileged access to primary source material from his estate, the book illuminates the composer's practices and approaches while shaping a discourse around his music. NICHOLAS JONES is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Cardiff University. RICHARD MCGREGOR is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cumbria and part-time Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Author : Lewis Foreman
Publisher : London : P. Elek
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 1975
Category : Composers
ISBN : UCAL:B3984100

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British Music Now by Lewis Foreman Pdf

"The last decade and a half has seen the emergence of more composers of real and demonstrable talent in Britain than almost any previous period. Their work is reaching an increasingly wide and keen audience in concert hall and opera house, through national and local radio, festivals amateur and professional, and even children's performing groups. In this timely book a team of experts provides a much-needed survey and assessment of these new composers--all of them under fifty at the time of writing. The sheer abundance and variety of music composed in Britain in the 1960s and '70s is astonishing. The operas and theatre pieces of Nicholas Maw, Gordon Crosse and Alexander Goehr; the orchestral and chamber music of Thea Musgrave, Hugh Wood and Alun Hoddinott; the experimentalism, in a number of different forms, of Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Roger Smalley and John Tavener; the more traditional idiom of John McCabe, William Mathias and Anthony Milner; Richard Rodney Bennett's film scores and David Bedford's rapprochement with pop forms; the electronic wizardry of Tristram Cary--here is the work of a generation of composers, more than one of international stature, who have responded to the impact of Serialism and of a previous generation that includes Britten and Messiaen, and succeeded in expressing themselves in truly personal styles. A chapter is devoted to each major composer, and others are covered at lesser length in further chapters and a ready-reference section. The style and development of each is analysed and his oeuvre outlined. There is an extensive and up-to-date bibliography and discography." --Dust jacket

Author : Sophie Fuller,Jenny Doctor
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2019-09-23
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781000007978

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Music, Life and Changing Times: Selected Correspondence Between British Composers Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, 1927–77 by Sophie Fuller,Jenny Doctor Pdf

At this book's core is a critical edition of letters exchanged over 50 years between Anglo-Irish composer Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) and the Welsh composer Grace Williams (1906-1977). These two innovative and talented women are highly regarded for their music, their professional activities and their roles in British musical life. The edition comprises around 200 letters from 1927 to 1977, none of which have been published before, along with scholarly introductions and contextualizations. Interwoven commentaries, in tandem with carefully constructed appendices, frame the letter texts. Moreover, the commentaries and introductory essays highlight and track the development of important themes and issues that characterize the study of twentieth-century British music today. This edition presents a dialogue, through both sides of a unique correspondence, offering an alternative commentary on musical and cultural developments of this period.

Author : Jenny Doctor
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 608 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781000090017

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Music, Life, and Changing Times: Selected Correspondence Between British Composers Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, 1927–77 by Jenny Doctor Pdf

At this book's core is a critical edition of letters exchanged over 50 years between Anglo-Irish composer Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) and the Welsh composer Grace Williams (1906-1977). These two innovative and talented women are highly regarded for their music, their professional activities and their roles in British musical life. The edition comprises around 200 letters from 1927 to 1977, none of which have been published before, along with scholarly introductions and contextualizations. Interwoven commentaries, in tandem with carefully constructed appendices, frame the letter texts. Moreover, the commentaries and introductory essays highlight and track the development of important themes and issues that characterize the study of twentieth-century British music today. This edition presents a dialogue, through both sides of a unique correspondence, offering an alternative commentary on musical and cultural developments of this period.

Author : Nicholas Cook
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 569 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2024
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780197663981

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Music, Encounter, Togetherness by Nicholas Cook Pdf

Modern Western musical thought tends to represent music as a thing--a pattern, a structure, even an organism--than as a human practice. Music, Encounter, Togetherness focusses on music as something people do, as a mode of encounter between individuals and cultures, and as an agent of interpersonal and social togetherness. It presents music as a utopian dimension of everyday life.

Author : Laura Seddon
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-15
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781317171348

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British Women Composers and Instrumental Chamber Music in the Early Twentieth Century by Laura Seddon Pdf

This is the first full-length study of British women's instrumental chamber music in the early twentieth century. Laura Seddon argues that the Cobbett competitions, instigated by Walter Willson Cobbett in 1905, and the formation of the Society of Women Musicians in 1911 contributed to the explosion of instrumental music written by women in this period and highlighted women's place in British musical society in the years leading up to and during the First World War. Seddon investigates the relationship between Cobbett, the Society of Women Musicians and women composers themselves. The book’s six case studies - of Adela Maddison (1866-1929), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Morfydd Owen (1891-1918), Ethel Barns (1880-1948), Alice Verne-Bredt (1868-1958) and Susan Spain-Dunk (1880-1962) - offer valuable insight into the women’s musical education and compositional careers. Seddon’s discussion of their chamber works for differing instrumental combinations includes an exploration of formal procedures, an issue much discussed by contemporary sources. The individual composers' reactions to the debate instigated by the Society of Women Musicians, on the future of women's music, is considered in relation to their lives, careers and the chamber music itself. As the composers in this study were not a cohesive group, creatively or ideologically, the book draws on primary sources, as well as the writings of contemporary commentators, to assess the legacy of the chamber works produced.

Author : Nalini Ghuman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2014-05-15
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780199314904

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Resonances of the Raj by Nalini Ghuman Pdf

During the century of British rule of the Indian subcontinent known as the British Raj, the rulers felt the significant influence of their exotic subjects. Resonances of the Raj examines the ramifications of the intertwined and overlapping histories of Britain and India on English music in the last fifty years of the colonial encounter, and traces the effects of the Raj on the English musical imagination. Conventional narratives depict a one-way influence of Britain on India, with the 'discovery' of Indian classical music occurring only in the post-colonial era. Drawing on new archival sources and approaches in cultural studies, author Nalini Ghuman shows that on the contrary, England was both deeply aware of and heavily influenced by India musically during the Indian-British colonial encounter. Case studies of representative figures, including composers Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst, and Maud MacCarthy, an ethnomusicologist and performer of the era, integrate music directly into the cultural history of the British Raj. Ghuman thus reveals unexpected minglings of peoples, musics and ideas that raise questions about 'Englishness', the nature of Empire, and the fixedness of identity. Richly illustrated with analytical music examples and archival photographs and documents, many of which appear here in print for the first time, Resonances of the Raj brings fresh hearings to both familiar and little-known musics of the time, and reveals a rich and complex history of cross-cultural musical imaginings which leads to a reappraisal of the accepted historiographies of both British musical culture and of Indo-Western fusion.

Author : Joseph Holbrooke
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1925
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:561149338

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Contemporary British Composers ... With Portraits and Facsimiles of Musical Examples by Joseph Holbrooke Pdf

Author : Julian Anderson,Christopher Dingle
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781783274987

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Julian Anderson by Julian Anderson,Christopher Dingle Pdf

Revealing much about the workings of the musical world, these conversations will not only be essential reading for composers and composition students, but also contemporary music lovers more generally