Journal: March 1998

Adrienne Fried Black, "Why Amy Beach Succeeded as a Composer: the Early Years," Current Musicology 36 (1983): 41-59.

The title of the article indicate that the author discusses about Beach's successful career as a composer. She also talks about Beach as a pianist, however. I wonder the bibliographical accounts on Beach's early age is appropriate for the discussion. Of course, a part of this composer's success derived from her earlier days as a pianist, but how, for example, she was raised affected to her later carrer, I still wonder.

I also would like to how Beach was successful among other "male" composers.

Another impression after reading this article is that the author might have emphasised Beach's gender issue too much. Probably, Black may need explain other female composers' social status, to give me a more clear picture about why gender issue is important in her article.

My first question is what is a criteria for this author to choose these operas to discuss the subject matter. The final paragraph does not seem to give us a sense of conclusion from the previous discussion. My guess is that the article actually talks about two things: the ending of Wagner's opera and Weltanschauungsmusik. Indeed, that is the title of the article, but I would look for a more close tie between the two. Although, the beginning of the article states the purpose of this article somehow, a transitional paragraph between the two ideas would have helped me to guide to the author's exact aim in this well-analysed article.

P. 65
"My main focus will be more on questions of musical dramaturgy than on details of musical composition"

My question: Does the musical dramaturgy not come from the compositional details?

My question: Are you talking more about the plot's dramaturgy rather tha musical dramaturgy?

P. 73
"But Die Meistersinger is a public work par excellence. Therefore, the private reconcilation is mirrored at the end by a public one that restores civic peace in Nürnberg, this representiative sixteenth-century German city"

My question: Is this opera simply attributed to Nürnberg when the ending praises the German culture and tradition as a whole?

John Rockwell, "Return of Tonality, thr Orchestral Audience & the Danger of Success: David Del Tredici," in All American Music: Composition in the Late Twentieth Century, (Da Capo 1997, repr. of 1983 ed.).

I do not like the words in the title "Return of Tonality," because there was no such a thing. Historically, atonal music was the mainstream, and the composers who wrote tonal music were considered to be outsiders or considered not to be "composers." That was a problem.

What is happening to Tredici was that the composers who were writing atonal music cannot ignore the person who writes tonally, not because of their popularity in the real world but because of the atomospere that sorrowinded composer changed. They do not have to write atonal music to a be "serious composer." It is just a matter of politics.

Rockwell's organization of the chapter, as well as other chapters, is formulated. He started with recent (yet 1983) topics of the composers and goes into a biography. The biographical information somehow serve to clarify the following discussion. To catch the reader who are interested in "recent" music, such a organization would work well.

He does not employ any musical example, nor does footnotes. Composers' comments are quoted. Probably he is writing from his memory and interview he coneducted.

It is interesting to know how dangerous for composer to become popular by writing tonal pieces as Rockwell describes, but it is almost fanny to think about music without audience.

Arnold Rosner, "An Analytical Survey of the Music of Alan Hovhaness," (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Baffalo, 1972).

I found that the lack of footnotes and bibliography is really critical to such an academic writing. It is not just a matter of plagerism but also a matter of unkindness. I expected to see nice bibliography that lists at least journal articles that I could not find from my own research. I could have seen some unpublished materials or the information from a personal communication with Hovhaness. There is just nothing for credit or reference. (By the way, many people enjoy reading bibliography rather than the main text. Do you know that?)

The author says that since there is nothing academic available when he wrote his dissertation, the bibliographe can justfiably be ommited, although he talks about Hovhaness's own writing of his pieces on record jacket. I believe that the composer's own writing, no matter how it may not be so academic, is important for any type of study, if there is nothing else to look up. Also, it is certainly helpful for somebody who may have access to recordings in the collage music library.

Furthremore, there must be some reference books such as dictionary andencyclopedias that the author would have consulted. They must be included in the bibliography. This seems especially appropriate for the biographical accounts of Hovhaness, because biographical accounts would not be created without consulting any type of sources, no matter if it is a secondary source or primary source.

Although, the lack of footnotes and bibliography might not severely disgrace the contents of the dissertation per se, I am not sure if one wants to quote from this dissertation. I have to read this dissertation carefully and probably have to consult other souces to make my writing have more information to bring a reader to original sources.

Henry Cowell, "The "Scientific Approach to Non-European Music," Music Vanguard 1 (Summer 1935): 62-67.

Cowell's way of talking is sometimes objective and sometimes personal. He tries to introduce the idea of "comparative musicology," the predecessor of ethnomusicology. Cowell tries to prove how the idea of music in Europe is limited and propose a new way to look at musical world. In 1935, he already used the plural form of the word "music."

Cowell also introduces several musicologists' attempts to see world's music not based sololy on the Western measure but on different perspectives. He does not mention any particular music nation but seems to focus on Asian music cultures, not Africans or other cultural ereas. I have to feel Cowell's affinity with Asian musical tradition from his childfood.

Edward Downes, "The Music of Norman Dello Joio," The Musical Quarterly 48/2 (April, 1962): 419-72.

Downe's historical perspective seems to concern much with mainstream and off-mainstream composers. The former aim to write "obscure" and "complex" pieces which are not accepted by large among of people. The latter are likely to have been accepted more by the various audience, but they somehow have to guilty that their are not writing "art" music.

Such mainstream and off-mainstream dichotomy probable used to exist, when a certain musical style become more politically substantial than others, and it seems not to be valid anymore today.

The auther of the article also seems to emphasize the influence of Hindemith over Dello Joio. It is not clear, however, how Dello Joio has been influenced by Hindemith from straight foward discussion of Dello Joio's music. The conclusion seems to just repeat his opinions of Dello Joio and does not bring back to the previous discussions of Dello Joio pieces.

Otto Luening, "American Composers, XX: Douglas Moore," Modern Music 20/3 (1942): 248-253.

I am not sure how Luening was limited in terms of the length of the article, but I just have to say that his argument tends to be too general. I cannot imagine how Moore's music sounds. Luening's discussion of Moore's each piece is so brief, it is hard to get a concrete view on composer's style.

Let us not blame Luening, though. Probably, the "American Composers" series may have been intended just for introducing many young American composers, and that purpose might have been achived from this short article. I just wish I could read more elaborate argument with musical example and a little longer documentation and descrption of Moore's music.

Norman Dello Joio, "The Composer and the American Scene," Music Journal 22 (March 1963): 30-32, 99-100.

I am not sure if Dello Joio needed to write such an extensive historical view to reinforce his point, but he wrote on American music was very comprehensively. That was impressive!

He seeme to say that some of his contemporaries' music seems to destruct a musical tradition. The gap between "young" composers and audience is one of the evidence he used. His question has been argued by many people who are interested in twentieth-century "mainstream" music. I would say that let give composers a chance to experiment with their ideas so that a few "good" composition might appear. I do not want to make, at least, "tonal/atonal" dichotomy; atonal music is too intellectual and not accepted by many, therefore it's bad. A particular musical language should not be considered to be bad or good. There is only a bad composition.

His comment "Teachers's collages...spend more time on methods of teaching than on music itself" is intersting. Since I was at an educational institute in Japan, I have to agree his opinion. Sometimes such teaching methods are so abstract that it is only used by scholars and is not easily adapted in a real classroom discussion. I learned a lot of things from my brief teaching experience (two weeks at a junior high school and two weeks at senior high school in Japan). Interactive and persuasive commnunicatio skills with student seems more important than theories. Also, as Dello Joio says, teachers in Japanese school do not know about twentieth-century music and world musics. I taught both of them, and the senior-high teacher said that she learned about Japanese music from me for the first time in her life! There is something wrong in the educational system.

Madeleine Goss, Modern Music-Makers, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952).

I heared that the author (Is it a male name or female name?) conducted interviews with every composers except for Ives. This book is not a direct transcription of the interviews, however. Goss integrated the interviews with his (her?) own narratives of the composers. The discussions in this book sound very persuasive because of good use of composers's comments. Although there is not musical examples, each chapter gives nice social and biographical backgrounds of one composer. I like this book better than "dry" analyses-only documents.

The work lists may be outdated, but historical facts are easily updated by recent dictionaries and encyclopedias. What composers said about their music has the primary importance!

Cole Gagne, ed., Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers, (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1993).

Different from Goss's book, the author separates the interview section from the author's own writing (basically biographical background). This seems more comfortable to some people, because they know what exactly composers say and do not have to wonder too much if something was changed by the author. Direct transcription also gives the context in which one of the composers make a certain comment. One can use the composers' comments in his/her narrative as Goss did. I may use some parts of Hovhaness's (many "s"s!) discussion in my term paper.

A good thing about an interview is that it is not totally formal but relaxed, and composers are likely to say about insight of their musical thought much clearer, not with philosophical or abstract words. The composers also are likely to talk about their impression on their works more frankly, not in a too-serious manner.

Michael Russ, Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exibition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

(1) Why does Author emphasize Russian quality of the piece, while he does not find any particular association of hit piece with such quality?

(2) The author says, "Pictures is entirely without development in the German sense" (p. 9). This statement seems a little misleading, because this piece is not a sonata or variation, but a suite.

(3) "Realism is more than realistic word- or scene-painting. The descriptive qualities must be linked to real life and usually to social justice" (p. 11). What is the "social justice"? Does word- or scene-painting have nothing to do with "real life"?

(4) A Japanese composer named Ikuma Dan went to Russia and identified all the picture by which Mussorgsky seems to have been inspired. He actually talked to Russian scholars and museum people there. Russ may need to talk to Dan, because, according to Russ, some illustration for the piece were lost, which may not be correct. Dan's research eventually became a TV program and a book, which is avilable in Japan, and I own a copy!

Fernand Puellette, Edgard Varèse, trans. by Derek Coltman (New York: Orion, 1968).

This book would not been considered academic, but the contents are filled with provocative information. It is a personal commentary on Varèse's music, rather than a dry, objective biography. He sometimes speaks as a journalist and reports what happened in the first performances of Varèse pieces, and sometimes he critiques the performance review of Varèse concerts, trying to justfy Varèse's musical concepts. Although most of them are endnoted, the author employs various kinds of documents: presumably interviews and reviews.

This book gives vivid history of Varèse's life and music. The description is somehow chronological. It is a good documentary book I would like to recommend to those who are interested in Varèse's music. For a more analytical approach, however, one may need to read some other books and articles.

Geoffrey Block, Ives: Concord Sonata (Camridge: Camridge University Press, 1996).

This book is one of the Cambridge Music Handbooks. I felt more comfortable in reading this booklet than the Gershwin's one. Probably, the author convinces me that he knows Ives's music comprehensively and gives his solid understandings on Ives scholarships. Also, the use of Ives's own writings helps me to get into the idea of the piece discussed. The writing is clear and well-organized.

Henry Cowell, "Charles E. Ives," in American Composers on American Music: A Symposium, edited by Henry Cowell (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1933).

Cowell seems to be a real lover of Ives's music. He finds Ives's music "indigenous American" and says it is "art music." Also his writing is very persuasive.

Cowell criticized American music before Ives because it relied on European musical tradition too much.

Question: How American music should have been "American" before Ives, especially in the "art music" tradition?

Question: Why is being European less American? Because European Americans have to differ from Euroepan-Europeans?

Question: What was general understanding of "art music" at that time? Why, for example, was Chadwick more popular than Ives then?
Because Ives was too young?

Question: Why does American music always have to be American? Is it justified that American music based on European music can be eliminated?

Yellin, Victor Fell, Review of A History of Musical Americanism, by Barbara A. Zuck, American Music 1/1 (Spring 1983) 70-76.

Often the review gives decent information. By criticising some aspects of Zuck's book, Yellin gives what is the main issues when it comes to "Americanism" in American music history. It seems very helpful to read this article, while one reads Zook's book. It may not be easy for those who do not know American music so much to read Zuck's book critically. The article leads the leader to a more broader view to see the controvercial issues on musical Americanism and motivate a further investigation of the crutial problem surrounding American music history.

He gives a nice "check list" of the "American" music. I would like to quote it here.

Pentatonic/modal tunes, prosodic or dance syncopetions, the penchant for open octaves, fifths and fourths, blue-note alterations, melodic inflections derived (primarily) from black and Yiddish speech, and idiosyncratic performance practices.

Yellin also points out there is two Americanisms: compositional Americanism and conceptional Americanism.

Monday 16 March 1998.

"The Indian Music Debate and 'American' Music in the Progressive Era," College Music Symposium 30 (1977): 73-93.

The auther quotes Arthur Farwell's comment on "Indian" and American music.

"Music written merely with respect to the most "exotic" features of Indian life will ultimately not last"

I believe, the word "Indian life" can be substituted to any nationality. At least "Japanese life" would work. Also, the same theory can be applied to a Japanese composer who write cousciously a "Japanese" composition.

Pisani says that "Indians" were not considered "Americans," and therefore their musical tradition os mpt a part of the culutural heritage of most Americans. This seems a little disapointing statement, but I cannot deny it. Leonard Bernstein, in his Young People's Concert TV program, pointed out this, too.

Question: Was the use of "Indian" theme based on exoticism?

Question: Was the African-American musical tradition a part of "cultural heritage of most Americans? Is it now?

Question: Have native Americans succeeded to use the musical tradition of "American" people--as seen in Native American rock music?

Ivo Supicic, Music in Society: A Guide to the Sociology of Music (New York: Pendragon, 1987).

I am not sure how much this book was influencial toward so-called new musicology, but this book reminds me Gary Tomlinsons's article.

I wonder what is the difference between ethnomusicogy and music sociology. Is it just a terminological distinction? Does society not involve "human activity," which antholopology deals with?

Supicic quoted Alan P. Merriam! (p. 25-26)

It seems that the sociology of music tend to have European taste, probably the sociological study mainly has focused on European society, while ethnology, although basically doing the same thing as sociology, have dealt more with non-European cultures.

The author seems to know very well about scholarship. He read books and articles in several languages, and give concise ideas about them.

Does Supicic's distinction between musicological and ethnomusicological approaches (p. 28) valid? The word "musicological" seems unclear here. What is the methodology of "M"usicology other than ethnomusicology? Historical? Aesthetic?
History and aesthetics may also be a part of human activity which is conditioned by the society. I am confused.... Maybe there is just a one big "M"usicology.... ???

Thetranslation seems to have been pretty well, but of course, not everything in French can be translated exactly into English (too obvious???)

The book's discussion may need more concrete muical examples. He employs many aesthetic, usical, other general writings, but does not use his musical analysis.

Sorry. Not in this site!

Philip Blackburn, Enclosure 3: Harry Partch (Sain Paul, MN: American Composers Forum, 1997).

This is a superb collection of Harry Partch's own writing and his pictures, most of which have never been available before. The comments on each documents are written separately at the end of the book. This allow the reader to look through beautiful reproductions of Partch's writing and pictures just for fun. The writings in this book are photographically reproduced documents, some of which are newspaper and pamphlet clips, and others are Parth's handwriting and typed documents. Frequently two unrelated documented are printed toghther on the same page, or just a plain concert program is superimposed on the one piece's stage plan pictures (which is very important resource, but cannot see because of superimposed letters!!). The author could have been more careful about editing documents. Text documents can be printed on cheper paper.

Sometimes a writing is combined with unrelated photograph. In other words, a picture is used as the backgound of a writing. Or pamphlet's original format may have been changed by the author.

Otherwise, it is valuable resource for those who are interested in Harry Parth's music (of course this book can be used academically), and it is also a nice coffee-table book (although it is a little expensive for that purpose).

Why no color pictures???

Walter Piston, "Can Music Be Nationalistic?" Music Journal 19/7 (October 1961): 25 and 86.

"How can we possibly separate the world of music by geographical borders?" (p. 25)

"Music is entirely individual, and music of any nationality is simply music of composers who happen to be of that nationality" (p. 25)

What is "a typical American music"? (p. 86)

The new sounds in that we call "Eastern" are not too different from the exoticism of the Romantic period (p. 86).

This sounds very true to me. Even some Japanese compositions that use the musical idioms of Europe have the same quality!

The public is attracted by new and strange sound but, of course, fails to get the meaning (p. 86).

Again, people should understand everything immediately (p. 86).

What does "understanding" music mean? How, if we do, understand music?

Henry Cowell, "Toward Neo-Primitivism," Modern Music 10/3 (1932 33): 149-53.

His writing is very personal but sometimes very effective. When he talks about neo-classicism, he says: [it is] easy to compose, easy to understand, easy to forget.

An reaction against modern music's "over-complexity" does not have to be neo-primitivism, but this is also Cowell's opinion.

He seems to distinct "modern music" from "experimental music." This is very important. American "modern music" is not European "avant garde" but "experimental," in the sence that one composer, who is away from the tradition, would be able to invent his/her own new musical language from fresh ideas.

Schuller seems to know how a reader would react as he/she reads the article. He gives his point at where it is needed. Therefore, his writing would not lose the reader's interests.

The topic is intersting. Jazz can be taught at school, but it should be taught in a different way from the classical music tradition's teaching method. I agree. But I do not like a Jazz performance being evaluated and graded by a school teacher so much, because it may be different from the real world.

Besides, the great musicians in Jazz, except for some recent ones, have not have any learning at schools, as Schuller points outs. He tries to persuades the demand of school teaching because of complexity of modern Jazz idioms. I still am not convinced by his statement, however. American school system, especially undergraduates classes, focuses to much on memorizing things: facts, terms, and names. These things do help further study later but are not interesting to memorize. For those who continue to study music at a graduate level would gain a lot, but those who not, if they just loose their interest in studying it, memorizing process is just harmful. One might say how them a teacher grades students. I am not sure about the answer, but I would say, "Don't grade them if possible." Is it too a radical idea?

Is the statement of Schuller "Art without discipline is not possible" applied to Jazz, or should be applied?

Carlos Chavez, "Music for the Radio," Modern Music 17 (1930-40): 87-92.

The radio seems to have been a "hot" issue in 1930s and '40s.
It is a part of "mechanical music" with recordings, on which Henry Cowell wrote an article in Modern Music.

Chavez's title for this article is a little unclear, because he sometimes seems to discuss technical possibility of broadcasting live performance, sometimes talks about what kind of music can be aired, or sometimes the possiblity of new compositions, intended especially for radio broadcasting.

Howard Hanson, "The Unwritten Note," Music Journal 19/7 (October 1961): 58 and 87.

This is a personal writing, and Hanson's writing style may not be polished much. For example, the second sentense in the fifth paragraph, which starts as "How then do...," contains too many ideas, and the sentence is too long.

The contents is an ordinary (to me at least) lament on the American music culture. The title of the article does not represent the contents of the article clearly. This may have been an editoral problem.

Fumio Koizumi, Kayô-kuoku no Kôzô, (Tokyo: Tôjyusha, 1984).

This is a collection of Koizmi's discussion on Japanese popular music. Some of them are taken from lectures, others from journal articles. Koizimi talks Japanese popular music in terms of text, scale patters, and vocal qualities of singers.

In many places, he claimes that Japanese music education have focused on Western music so much that nobody believe that Japanese music is something to study seriously. Especially the popular music has been treated badly; there still is not single institution which teach Japanese pop music.

Since this is a collection of various kinds of things, the sentense style varies from one chapter to another. Sometimes, he talks frankly and in an informal Japanese, and sometimes, he talks like more formaly.

With a many musical example, this book serves a good starting point for a research on Japanese popular music. Those who want to study should not neglect this book.

Margaret Notley, "Bruckner and Viennese Wagnerism," in Bruckner Studies, edited by Paul Hawkshaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

The article discusses how the Wagnerism affected to Vienese reception of Bruckner's symphonies. It is a rather known story today, but the author gives very informative details, not only receptional facts but also the underlining social and aesthetic view points.

The writing style is readible and straightforward.

Yori'aki Matsudaira, Gendai Ongaku no Pasâjyu: 20.5 Seiki no Ongaku (Passages of the Contemporary Music: The Music of the 20.5 Century) (Tokyô: Seido-sha, 1995).

Very informative book on post WWII music. The focus is analytic and compositional rather than social and historical.

When I read this book, I always question who the reader would be. The contents includes a lot of technical terms that I do not understand (especially "electronic"so philosophical (aesthetic?) that I really do not know exactly what the author means to say.

The topic shifts around in one chapter. I am a little confused how he organizing his discussion.

The bright side of this book is that this book contains much information from which one can think about general tendency of the post-WWII music. Another advantage of reading this book is that this book offers an Asian view of European and Asian "new music" scenes.

An American reader might be frustrated because most of the post WWII American composers are not discussed very much. It is the reality, however, of the American music's reception in Japan. Japanese composers are more interested in European music than American music.

Ury Eppstein, The Beginning of Western Music in Meiji Era Japan, (Lewiston, NY: 1994).

This might be the only book that discusses seriously about Japanese music after Edo period. Some articules are written on post-Edo periods, many of which focus on popular genres. This book, on the other hand, talks about European classical music, especially about educational school songs created by the Japanese government. I believe that there is one dissertation that deals with educational songs, or shôka, but that disseratation's importance seems to lie in the translation of the school songs' text.

I found this book not easy read, probably because of the words used in the discussion may not be simple to read through, and organization of ideas is rather complicated. Some sentences contain too many ideas and many paragraphes have too many topics.

Sorry, but not in this site!

Martin Williams, "Third Stream Problems," in Jazz Heritage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

Williams begin his article with pre-Third Stream music, the mixture/synthesis (?) of classical and Jazz idioms. Starting from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, he briefly mentions Milhaud and Schuller. His focus, however, is Gunther Schuller and his contemporaries sich as Howard Brubeck (Dave's brother!) and Johm Lewis.

The argument is not totally formal. He uses adjectives and metaphor. He seems to have his unique style and choice of words.

Different from the title, the article does not really pose any question. The conclusion, therefore, is vague.