Boston: Elliott Carter's ‘Micomicón’

Tempo ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 58 (229) ◽  
pp. 74-75
Author(s):  
Rodney Lister
Keyword(s):  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
American Life ◽  
John Harbison ◽  
Milton Babbitt ◽  
A Performance

Next season James Levine ceases to be Music Director Designate of the Boston Symphony, and becomes the orchestra's Music Director and Conductor. Due to previous commitments, Levine has conducted only one program in each of the three seasons since he was named to the post. Celebration of his ascendency to the directorship of the orchestra has already begun, though, with the commissioning of works from a number of composers, including Milton Babbitt, John Harbison, and Yehudi Wyner, for his first season, restoring one of the proudest traditions of the BSO – that of the music director's active and enthusiastic promotion of contemporary orchestral compositions. It is not insignificant that this first season of the directorship of this American orchestra by an American conductor features American composers at a time when classical concert music seems to be about the only area of American life resistant to overt jingoism. Levine's earliest plans for the season included performing Elliott Carter's Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei, and, hoping to link the occasion and the BSO to the triptych, he commissioned from Carter a short introductory fantasy to that work, entitled Micomicón. This pendant received its première, preceding a performance of Partita, the first part of the Symphonia triptych, at Symphony Hall in January.

Catalog of Published Concert Music by American Composers

1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Chadwick Hansen ◽  
Gilbert Chase ◽  
Irving Lowens ◽  
Henry A. Kmen ◽  
Duncan P. Schiedt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers

Catalog of Published Concert Music by American Composers

Notes ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 759
Author(s):  
Richard H. Hunter ◽  
Angelo Eagon
Keyword(s):  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers

Encouragement from an Unexpected Source: Louis Antoine Jullien, Mid-Century American Composers, and George Frederick Bristow's Jullien Symphony

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine K. Preston
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Know How ◽  
The World ◽  
True Meaning

In the spring of 1856, the critic Émile Girac published a review of George Frederick Bristow's Symphony No. 2, the Jullien Symphony, in The Albion. What he wrote is revealing; it reads in part:But do you know how much is expressed by those two little words the Jullien Symphony? They mean simply that Jullien did more for Concert music in three months, than the Philharmonic Society has accomplished since Mr. U.C. Hill created it and brought it before the world. [Jullien] gave us Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, as we have never heard them interpreted in New York. He taught us the art of shades and effects in music …. He [also] revealed to us the powers of Bristow, Fry, and Eisfeld, and did far more for their reputation than was ever done by the Society, which owed so much at least to the first and last of these noble and courageous musicians. … [T]his is the true meaning of Bristow's symphony.

“Common Joys, Sorrows, Adventures, and Struggles”: Transnational Encounters in Amy Beach's “Gaelic” Symphony

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-180
Author(s):  
SARAH GERK
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
American Music ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Multiple Streams ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
American Nationalism

AbstractAmy Beach's “Gaelic” Symphony is the most prominent nineteenth-century American expression of Irishness in music. Despite the reference to another country in its title, the work has largely been interpreted via the lens of American nationalism. Its historiography reflects the immense interest in national style in nineteenth-century American music scholarship. This article initiates a discussion about nineteenth-century American composers’ engagement with the world beyond their own national borders. It explores the “Gaelic” Symphony's transnational dimensions, which engage largely with two groups: concert music composers and the Irish diaspora. Regarding the former, the article illuminates nuances of intertextuality in Beach's style. It revises the historical narrative surrounding the “Gaelic” Symphony as a response to Antonín Dvořák's “New World” Symphony, finding multiple additional models for Beach's work. The “Gaelic” Symphony is positioned instead as a representation of concert music styles that valued cosmopolitan approaches and judged composers on the skill with which they consciously blended multiple streams of influence. Regarding the latter category of the Irish, the article contextualizes the symphony within a revival of Irish cultural practices taking place in the 1890s, revealing how constructions of Irishness in the symphony reflect Gaelic revival values and respond to social tensions between Boston's Irish-American community and the city's upper class.

Prelude: Beginnings

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
William Brooks ◽  
Christina Bashford ◽  
Gayle Magee
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Great War ◽  
University Of Illinois ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Western Front ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
The Great War ◽  
A Performance

The path to this volume has occupied nearly the full duration of the centennial of the Great War. The three collaborators and coeditors (who are still friends, amazingly) began by organizing a pair of international conferences: Over Here and Over There (University of York, England, February 27–28, 2015); and 1915: Music, Memory, and the Great War (University of Illinois, March 10–11, 2015). The first of these, conducted in tandem with an undergraduate module taught by William Brooks, included numerous performances, presentations, and exhibits by students and scholars, including Gayle Magee, Christina Bashford, and Deniz Ertan, each of whom has contributed to the present volume. The second conference included papers by many of the other authors represented here, with yet others in attendance; it included a performance by a Canadian troupe that re-created an entertainment given by Canada’s legendary “Dumbells” at the western front during the war and a recital by tenor Justin Vickers and pianist Geoffrey Duce, who presented multiple settings by English and American composers of the iconic text “In Flanders Fields.”...

Fragments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Mirchandani
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Edgard Varese ◽  
Choral Works ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Mixed Chorus ◽  
Milton Babbitt ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
A Performance

This chapter focuses on Marga Richter's shorter, more fragmented works that had little or no development and were not as expansive as her earlier (and later) pieces. Unlike other U.S. composers in the 1960s such as Edgard Varèse and Milton Babbitt, Richter did not gravitate toward total serialism, electronic music, or chance music, although she reluctantly responded to the trend of composing sparse, economical, and atonal works. An encounter with composer William Sydeman at the Bennington Composers Conference was influential in steering Richter toward the prevailing attitudes of the day. This chapter discusses some of Richter's more concise compositions during the 1960s, including short solo and chamber music scores such as Fragments for solo piano; choral works like Psalm 91 for mixed chorus for mixed chorus; and the modern ballet score, Abyss for the Harkness Ballet. It also considers Richter's compositional retreat at a family residence in Shrewsbury, Vermont, and her self-admitted tendency to suffer from a letdown following elation from a performance or completion of a major work.

Implication, Quotation, and Coltrane in Selected Works By David N. Baker

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-164
Author(s):  
HORACE J. MAXILE
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Black Vernacular ◽  
Vernacular Music ◽  
Compositional Structures ◽  
Concert Works ◽  
African American Composers

AbstractThis article explores composer David N. Baker's use of elements of jazz and vernacular music to articulate formal structures and suggest extramusical commentaries in his concert works, with particular focus on the Sonata for Cello and Piano and the Sonata I for Piano. Themes of homage to and respect for jazz saxophonist John Coltrane resonate through these works. Various features bring the jazz legend to mind, but Baker's compelling play with implication and quotation provides fertile ground for studying musical signification and the use of vernacular emblems within Western compositional structures and the concert music of African American composers. Conventional analytical methods are combined with readings of referential symbols to work toward interpretations that address both structural and expressive domains. This approach allows discussions of compositional techniques to intersect with cultural and philosophical considerations. By addressing issues of musical structure and expressivity, this article seeks to move beyond commonplace surface-level descriptions of black vernacular emblems in the concert music of African American composers.

Anticipation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Douglas Bomberger
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
American Composers ◽  
American Life

In fall 1917, military rhetoric entered many realms of American life, including music. Orchestras and concert series publicized tentative programs for the coming season as new European works became difficult to obtain; some American commentators called for works by American composers as a stopgap measure. The warrantless search of Karl Muck’s home in Seal Harbor, Maine, by naval investigators caused anxiety among the musical residents of the summer colony. Schumann-Heink continued to perform frequently after recovering from her accident of the previous winter. The Fifteenth Regiment Band performed daily shows while on guard duty at Camp Dix in New Jersey.

Catalog of Published Concert Music by American Composers

Notes ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 1032
Author(s):  
Karl Kroeger ◽  
Music Branch
Keyword(s):  
Concert Music ◽  
American Composers
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document