Walter Piston 1894–1976

Tempo ◽  
1977 ◽  
pp. 23-24
Author(s):  
Paul Rapoport
Keyword(s):  
Harvard University ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Main Text ◽  
Elliott Carter ◽  
American Composer ◽  
Nadia Boulanger ◽  
Walter Piston ◽  
Academic Study

Walter Piston, the American composer and teacher, died aged 82 on 12 November 1976. As a young amateur he learned to play nearly all the instruments, but he did not begin academic study of music until he was 25 He graduated from Harvard University with highest honours in 1924, studied for two years in France with Nadia Boulanger, and returned to teach at Harvard for over three decades, retiring in 1960. Among his pupils were Leonard Bernstein and Elliott Carter. His three main text books (Harmony, Counterpoint and Orchestration) have been, widely used for many years.

Carter, Elliott (Cook Jr.) (1908–2012)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Ravenscroft
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Charles Ives ◽  
Harvard College ◽  
Elliott Carter ◽  
Gustav Holst ◽  
Nadia Boulanger ◽  
Walter Piston

Born in 1908 into a wealthy New York City family, Elliott Carter enjoyed a cosmopolitan childhood, spending time in Europe and learning French at an early age. The composer Charles Ives mentored the young Carter, taking him to concerts in New York and encouraging his developing interest in music. Carter’s childhood, characterized by immersion in a culturally enriched environment and exposure to the modern world, provided the elements from which his artistic aesthetic and musical language would later be forged. When Carter entered Harvard College, he focused his studies on English literature, Greek, and philosophy, although musical activities continued in the form of lessons with Walter Piston and Gustav Holst, as well as singing with the Harvard Glee Club. Carter completed a master’s degree in music at Harvard in 1932, after which he moved to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger for three years. He received a doctorate in music from the École Normale de Musique in Paris in 1935.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Aaron Copland ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Elliott Carter ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
American Composer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
The Way

This book explores the changing images of American composer and music icon Charles E. Ives across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, paying particular attention to issues of agency (how an idea transfers from one person to another) and constituency (the nature and size of the audience to which a person speaks). Ives has been, at various times, considered a hero, victim, villain—sometimes singly, sometimes simultaneously. He had been portrayed, for example, as a pioneer of American musical modernism and a symbol of American freedom, but at the same time the perpetrator of one of the greatest musical hoaxes of all times. This book examines the way Ives has been imagined by the critics, composers, performers, and scholars who have had the most impact in shaping the various conversations about him, from Leonard Bernstein and Henry Cowell to Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter. It argues that the history of Ives's reception is not only a series of portraits of an unusual composer, but also a series of mirrors that reflect the way Americans have viewed themselves.

Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski

1993 ◽  
Vol 134 (1804) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
David Wright ◽  
Howard Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Elliott Carter ◽  
Walter Piston

The Vamp

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Pollack
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
American Composer

Latouche and African-American composer James Mundy originally set out to write an all black music called Samson and Lila Dee, based on the biblical story of Samson and Delilah. But this project evolved into the 1955 musical farce about the early days of the Hollywood film industry, The Vamp, starring Carol Channing. The out-of-town reviews were good, but the show flopped on Broadway. This chapter also surveys Latouche’s popular songs from this period, including collaborations with Leonard Bernstein, Donald Fuller, Ulpio Minucci, John Strauss, Marvin Fisher, and others.

AN AMERICAN MODERNIST: TEATIME WITH ELLIOTT CARTER

Tempo ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (264) ◽  
pp. 22-29
Author(s):  
Laura Emmery
Keyword(s):  
West Coast ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
The West ◽  
Elliott Carter ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Nadia Boulanger

AbstractThis interview with Elliott Carter, conducted on 30 May 2012, is among the last that he gave. Carter talks candidly about his past, the present, and what his legacy will be. While discussing his latest works – a series of short epigrams and a new setting of Wallace Stevens poems – Carter explains how each composition is a unique musical adventure; consequently, he does not repeat himself. Innovation is the essence of Carter's oeuvre, clearly manifested in his string quartets, which Carter still views as his grandest musical statements. He speaks openly about the difficulties of getting these and other works performed well, the lack of performances of his compositions on the West Coast, and the current trends and direction of composition today. Carter recalls important experiences and events in his life involving Nadia Boulanger, Ives, Cage, Boulez, and Stravinsky.

Steven Takasugi Sideshow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

Tempo ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (276) ◽  
pp. 74-75
Author(s):  
Ian Power
Keyword(s):  
Harvard University ◽  
Advanced Study ◽  
American Composer ◽  
Guggenheim Foundation ◽  
A Performance

Sideshow, for amplified octet and electronics by American composer Steven Takasugi, was given its US premiere by Talea Ensemble in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 1 December 2015. A 2010 Guggenheim Foundation grant launched Takasugi's work on this hour-long piece, and the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik programmed the first performance in their November 2015 festival. The piece was eagerly anticipated, not least because an excerpt of it featured in Manchester-based Distractfold Ensemble's programme at Darmstadt in 2014, a performance that earned them the Kranichsteiner performance prize that year.

scholarly journals An Irish-American in Paris: Swan Hennessy (1866–1929)

2018 ◽  
pp. 47-78
Author(s):  
Axel Klein
Keyword(s):  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Press ◽  
American Composer ◽  
Genealogical Information ◽  
Archive Material ◽  
Academic Study

(Edward) Swan Hennessy (1866–1929) was an Irish-American composer resident in Paris from c1903, where he developed a reputation as a ‘Celtic’ composer, drawing mainly on his Irish heritage. Although the majority of his known works (numbering  more than 80) are still in print and occasionally performed, especially by chamber musicians, his life and career have hitherto remained largely unknown. Condensing aspects of the author’s forthcoming life-and-works monograph on the composer, this article is the first academic study to trace Hennessy’s biography and to provide a critical assessment of his music. It draws on genealogical information, archive material in the Hennessy family’s possession and other sources for establishing the composer’s Irish roots, the circumstances of his education, early career and travels in Europe. His network of contacts and influences in France and his reception on the musical scene and in the press are also examined, with extensive use of sources from England, Ireland and Germany as well as France, including reviews of concerts and his published music. While the focus of the article is on the nature of and reasons for Hennessy’s musical celticism, the assessment of his music also encompasses the non-celticist works that reveal an impressionist voice influenced by Debussy and Ravel. The article concludes with a comprehensive catalogue of Hennessy’s compositions.

Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski

Notes ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 988
Author(s):  
Bill F. Faucett ◽  
Howard Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Elliott Carter ◽  
Walter Piston
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