Kurt Reinhard, Notes to The Music of Turkey: The Music of the Whirling Derivishes (Mevlevi), vol. 4 of A Musical Anthology of the Orient. Anthology AST-4003.
Detailed and scholarly-written liner notes is good information, especially if it is written for the recording that is taped by the author. This is such a case. The lengthy notes begins with historical background, followed by general statements of the genre and theoretical elements of the music. Each piece is commented with detailed analysis and is filled with extensive background information.
For an outsider of Turkish musical tradition, like me, this recording and comprehensive liner notes give a foundation to study this musical tradition, even thought today I have to "see" the performance.
This is a collection of Koizumi's essays on Japanese music. It includes various topics. Most of them are written for general reader and not truly academic. They, however, are written in very clear and well-organized Japanese. Some articles are very informative and conversational, and others are a little more formal. His discussion on modes by the use of "trichords" (he misleadingly used the term tetrachords) was a major step in the Japanese music studies.
Wilson Follett, Modern American Usage: A Guide, edited by Jacques Barzun (New York: Noonday, 1966).
I recently bought this book with Fowler's Modern English Usage (they are two different authors, Dr. Seaton!). Follett's American Usage has the entries that differs much from the Fowler book. I particularly like the one about articles. This book talks more in detail than the Fowler one. I bought the Fowler book, too.
Since it is intended for native English speaker, I might not theoretically understand everything written in the book, but I hope I am learning something.
Thanks for your recommendation!
If you need a Japanese version of this kind of dictionary, let me
know!!
Harry Perison, "The Quarter-Tone System of Charles Ives," Current Musicology 18 (1974): 96-104.
This is an introductory article to Ives's quarter-tone scale system, mainly used in his Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos, originally composed for one (!) piano which has two manuals, one of which is tuned a quarter-tone apart from the other.
The discussion does not really have any thesis statement and conclusion. The article gives some ideas, written clearly, of Ives's actual uses and theoretical thoughts of quarter-tone scales.
Randall Thompson, "American Composers V: George Antheil," Modern Music 8/4 (May-June 1931): 17-28.
It is not a analytical essay but a biographical account. Not every paragraph have a topic sentence. Changing a paragraph is a means to have a rest after a long paragraph, sometimes.
It is not a formal article, but personal and somehow journalistic presentation of George Antheil. The detailed information, on the other hand, seems to help knowing this composers certain aspect, especially his music before he came back to the United States to become a film-music composer at Hollywood.
Paul Griffiths, The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of 20th Century Music, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986).
Of course, to know more about twentieth-music terminology, this book works just fine. But it may be more fun to look up something more "traditional," such as "symphony" and "orchestra," which might give different view from other usual music dictionalies. Griffiths's view of these terms is provocative! Occasionally, however, explanation in this book seems a little complicated, because of his elaborated sentence structure.
World Music: The Rough Guide (London, Rough Guide, 1994).
Although the title claims that this book is a "rough" guide, it includes good amount of basic information of many cultures' popular music (and some traditional music genres). Each country's entry talks about historical and cultural background, and it gives nice overview of pop scene, including representative artists and their hit tunes.
Although no part of book, for example, has footnotes, and this book may not be totally "academic," the prose are very lively, readable and enjoyable.
The book serves as a good introduction to world's pop music and CD guide. How comprehensive!
Ernst C. Krohn, The Development of the Symphony Orchestra in St. Louis: An Historical Sketch, (St. Louis: Ernst C. Krohn, 1924).
This is a straight forward historical overview of the orchestra activities in St. Louis. There is no introduction or conclusion, and the prose as a whole is factual.
As a historical document, this would be very valuable, but it does not seems to be intended for a fun reading. The author could have add some pictures. He could separated the whole thing into several sections/chapters.
Aaron Copland, "Music since 1920" Modern Music 5/3 (March-April 1928): 16-20.
The article presents Copland idea of "modern music" at that time. Strauss, Debussy is the oldest, Schoenberg and Stravinsky comes next. On the other hand, he also includes figures like Hindemith, who may not fit into the older and newer "modern music."
The writing style is clear, but somehow makes his conclusion seems a little too predictable. However, I could not guess that Copland praises rather conservative composers, such as Hindemith, Milhaud, Honegger, and Prokofiev!
I expected that the author talks about what is human condition and the question if this has anything to do with Schubert. What I read, instead, was a rather straight forward survey of Schubert piano works. Although his discussion is easy to follow, I do not find any thesis or conclusion that ties the whole discussion. The question of the title remains unknown.
Kôichi Nishiyama, "Hawâdo Hansun (Howard Hanson)," Ongaku Geijyutu 11/10 (195?): 79-81.
Probably the only journal article on Hanson in the Japanese language. It is written in a rather informal style. The organization is a little bit confusing, because the discussion is not neatly organized chronologically. Also, the author sometimes discusses his styles, sometimes talks about his aesthetic ideas.
Burnet C. Tuthill, "Howard Hanson," The Musical Quarterly 22 (1936): 140-153.
It is a nice introductory "life and works" article. Some sentences need to be a little more polished. The discussion of specific works are valuable for a better understanding of Hanson's musical idioms, but I would like to have a broader view and more comments on composer's musical thoughts.
Why has nobody written a biography of Howard Hanson? Is there any dissertation of his life and works? So far I have never heard of any.
Steven C. Raisor, "A Postmodern Interpretation of American Minimal Music," Ph. D. diss., Florida State University, 1997.
When the author talks abstract and philosophical ideas, the sentences become long, and it is occasionally confusing to read these long sentences. Probably they have too many ideas.
I believe we are now in a post-modern world, but I do not believe in one single postmodernism. One can discuss about tendencies about it, maybe, but one should not establish the postmodern styles or ideas. Once such a firm postmodernism is established, it becomes a dogma. It becomes just another "isms," that simply replaces modernism. Then, it becomes the mainstream, from which a variety of artists, writers, and composers will be excluded as outsiders.
I believe that we are in the world in which one can do anything no matter what his/her artistic belief.
I do not believe that John Cage's 4'33" is a minimalistic work. John Cage did not think of the piece that way. His original conception was to create a piece that he send to Muzak Co., because he hated that kind of "beautiful" music. There may have not been any intention to "limit compositional materials to a minimum." Cage could just have wanted silence. Cage's view, in my opinion, is not to limit but accept everything. His idea is not a either/or Western thought. That is my personal view.
Accept everything.... In that sense Cage could have been a postmodernist, but I do not know exactly....
I wonder why the author does not talk more about the art history, especially about architecture and sculpture.
By the way the Zen sect is just one of many Buddhism sects. Many American people immediately say "Zen Buddhism" like a crazy. My family practices Buddhism but not the Zen sect. I become suspicious if they really know of any specific practice of Zen Buddhism when American musicologist talking about Zen.
J. Peter Burkholder, "'Quotation' and Emulation: Charles Ives's Uses of His Models," The Musical Quarterly 71/1 (1985): 1-26.
(1) Why does he try to classify Ives's "quotations"? Is there any advantage? He does not use these classification later in this article.
(2) He claims that classification of Ives's quotation "solves one problem: not one of [Ives's quoting] procedure is unusual" because all Ives's quoting techniques are richly anticipated in the music of earlier composers (p. 3). Is not he trying to classify Ives's quotation by the historically existed techniques? If he is, his claim is not surprising! Is there any historical examples of technique (1), (3), and (4)? He does not seem to give these.
(3) When he talks abstract ideas, the sentence becomes longer and his ideas become unclear.
(4) "The definition of "modeling" given above is intentionally vague, although it is not intended as a catch-all category" So what is it?
(5) In resetting a text already famous in a setting by Brahms or Schumann (a favorite assignment of Parker's), Ives more often than not shows his influences in a negative way, trying to achieve a setting quite unlike that of his model while remaining true to the text" What does it mean? Does it mean he tried to set a famous poem very differently from Romantic masters? Does it mean that Ives did it negatively because these Romantic masters set music so successfully? How one can prove that? (p. 5)
(6) How one can differentiate "quoting" from "borrowing"? (p. 7)
Henry Cowell, "What Should Composers Study?," The Peabody Notes 6/3 (Fall 1952): 1 and 2.
The discussion starts with Cowell's experience in his development of compositional techniques. Different from the title, Cowell does not specify what to study so much, but he claims that composers do need to study composition in some ways. The method does not have to be academic, but studying music is crucial to any composers, even Mozart, who seems to write pieces from his intuition, according to Cowell.
One point he made was that composers should not view "contemporary" medium and idioms without superficial dislike. This seems very important, because after studying "classical music," some composers want to write conservatively, simply disregarding new technology and compositional styles.
Robert Donington, The Opera, (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1978).
This introductory book for the opera is easy to read. The topic sentence for the each paragraph is clearly stated, but some paragraphs seem too long.
Each opera's synopsis should be separated from a musical discussion.
Too many kinds of things are written in one chapter. Probably the author could have had more small sections with titles so that a reader could follow various subject more easily.
Charles W. Ward, "Charles Ives's Concept of Music," Current Musicology 18 (1974): 114-19.
(1) Some paragraphs may be reorganized. The one that starts with "Sounds are thus not part of music..." would be included in the previous paragraph.
(2) This might be a good summary of Ives's musical thoughts.
(3) Is relevant to discuss "Benjamin Boretz and other contemporary theorists" in this article, while these theoriest does not seems to have written about Ives's music?
(4) Does this article have any persuasive conclusion?
William Brooks, "Unity and Diversity in Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony," Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research 10 (1974): 5-49.
(1) At the beginning, Brooks seems to have used various Ives's writings, but he does not give any bibliographical citations.
(2) Some of his comments are too abstract.
"Thus Ives offers musical networks rather than musical arrows."
*Actually, I do not think that this is a proper interpretation of what Ives said.
(3) Diagrams help a lot. I even do not have to read the prose so much!
(4) On the other hand, some diagrams does not clarify anything but confuses me!
Certainly from a chronological point of view, Ives should be appear around the discussion of Debussy, but his music's influence came much later. Although, he lived in the end of nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, I cannot give up the view that Ives should be discussed much later with a musical point of view.
Discussion begins with the lack of "American music" at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it goes to American painters and writers, who seems to have more American quality.
Is this fair to say that in the music world the United States had not have any American figure until Ives? American composers at the end of nineteenth century composed in European styles, but for many, that might have been American: to be Europeans.
Even though the works by American composers at that time might not sound distinctively American, it is not fair to dismiss all of them just because they were writing in European styles. What is wrong with writing European music if they wished so?
Intended for general readers, the author seems to avoid technical terms to describe Ives's thought on music. The word choice seems effective and persuasive. Actually, he makes good points on Ives's music and musical thought with a strong organization.
One small question: Why did Thomas use Ives's The Unanswered Question" after the discussion of "American music" and Ives? He even does not hesitate to say the piece "makes no attempt to depict American images as such" (p. 149).
Austin Clarkson, "Schuller, Gunther," New Grove Dictionary of American Music (London: Macmillan, 1986), 4: 164-66.
It seems not easy to deal with a person who achieved many things in his/her life. Gunther Schuller would be such a case. He used be a horn player, he is composer, teacher,scholar, and he is a composer. The Clarkson's articles has good organization not to mess with facts about Schuller's life. He try not to force himself into creating a chronological narrative. Instead, he classifies Schuller's achievement into several categories. This seems to have worked pretty good.
The article is filled with positive sides of Schuller's life. I wonder if anybody criticized his concept "Third Stream," which is coined by Schuller. Originally it meant the amalgamation of jazz and classical music, but later he extended to include all kinds of art and "vernacular" music. The meaning of "third" seems to have been lost completely at that time, because there are more than two streams in the world to make the third. Why do we have to make a stream anyway?
Is there any political reason not to criticize Schuller?
(I love his music, though.)
Tôru Takemitsu was criticized a lot when he was alive, because of some political reasons. That happens.
Randy B. Kohlenberg, Harrison Kerr: Portrait of a Twentieth Century American composer, (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1997).
Many materials presented in this book, which is a revision of the author's dissertation, are based on the interview with the composer. I just have to be a little picky about the amount of the transcriptions the author uses. He may have edited or paraphrased a little more so that the discussion of Kerr's life have more a cohesive narration. But for some people, just transcriptions are useful. My question came out when I saw several paragraph, which have only one sentence, followed by a transcription of an interview.
He could have more historical perspectives for each piece's discussion, since he seems to have interviewed with Kerr so extensively.
Horation Parker, "Concerning Contemporary Music," Proceedings of the Amnerican Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters 1 (1909-10): 36-43.
This would not to be considered an academic writing but a parsonal essay which shows Parker's musical views. Palestrina is "impersonal," and Bach is more "natural and unconstrained." "He is nearer to us" and so on.
Parker choronologically talks about various historical masterpieces and their relations to Parker's contemporary audience.
After his discussion of this issue, he seems to have lost what was the original problem he posed.
The time was still in which Richard Strauss was writing tone poems and opera.
A famous orchestral conductor once told me that he was glad he would be dead in fifty years, so that he would not have to hear the musi of that time (p. 36).