TWISTING THE ARM OF MICHAEL MAIERHOF: COMPOSER, PERFORMER, CONCERT ORGANISER

Tempo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (295) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
Musical History ◽  
German Art ◽  
Artistic Directors ◽  
German Composer

AbstractThe German composer Michael Maierhof took a curious and unusual path to becoming a professional composer, performer and concert organiser, one that gives him a unique perspective on the German art music scene. This interview with Maierhof took place on 17 January 2020 in Maierhof's apartment in Hamburg, Germany and forms part of my research into the artistic and socio-economic motivations that composers and artistic directors employ when utilizing a conductor. The interview explores his personal history, compositional techniques, and perspective on the course of contemporary musical history before going on to consider his views on conductor's responsibilities and their role in contemporary music.

Grupo de Renovacion Musical (1942–1948)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marysol Quevedo
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Igor Stravinsky ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Premature Deaths ◽  
The U.S

The Grupo de Renovacion Musical was a school of Cuban composers that emerged out of the Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana during the 1940s. The young composers were pupils of Spanish-born composer José Ardévol, who served as the leader and mentor of the group. After the premature deaths of Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla (1939 and 1940 respectively), Ardévol took over some of their duties as music professor at the Conservatorio Municipal. Ardévol and his pupils saw a need for Cuban composers to focus on compositional techniques and strongly believed that all composers should master traditional compositional methods, such as traditional counterpoint, sonata form, and fugues (most commonly used by composers of the Baroque and Classical periods) in order to fully develop their music-writing abilities. They also rejected the obvious nationalism that Roldán and Caturla had popularised and that was also found in the works of many other Latin American composers from the previous generation. Instead, they preferred the neoclassical trends of Europe—mostly of France and Spain—with composers Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla serving as their models. However, they never denied the importance of the legacy established by Roldán and Caturla for future generations of Cuban composers. The group acknowledged that Roldán and Caturla were visionaries in their own time, influential through their compositions, which brought Cuban music up to date with contemporary music developments in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, and for introducing the use of traditional Cuban music elements to contemporary art music—particularly the use of rhythm and percussive instrumentation.

European Professors at the Cursos Latinoamericanos de Música Contemporánea: Two experiences – Piriápolis, 1974; Buenos Aires, 1977

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
OMAR CORRADO
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Music Composition ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The One

AbstractBetween 1971 and 1989, fifteen editions of the Cursos Latinoamericanos de Música Contemporánea (Latin American Contemporary Music Courses) took place alternatively in five countries of the continent. These were intensive meetings concentrated in two weeks, consisting of classes, workshops, seminars, conferences, and concerts. One of the central concerns was contemporary art music composition, although an important space was also given to performance, technologies, innovative pedagogies, popular music, and musicology. Around 150 lecturers from different countries took part in the courses, among them, about forty-five were European. On the one hand, the courses aimed at providing updated information on contemporary international musical life. On the other hand, they encouraged its critical evaluation in relation to the history, culture, and concrete practices of Latin American musicians. This article analyses exchanges between Latin American and European musicians regarding compositional techniques, theoretical perspectives, repertoires, aesthetics, and ideological positions during the 1974 and 1977 editions of the Cursos.

Music after the Fall

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War

By the start of the 21st century many of the foundations of postwar culture had disappeared: Europe had been rebuilt and, as the EU, had become one of the world’s largest economies; the United States’ claim to global dominance was threatened; and the postwar social democratic consensus was being replaced by market-led neoliberalism. Most importantly of all, the Cold War was over, and the World Wide Web had been born. Music After The Fall considers contemporary musical composition against this changed backdrop, placing it in the context of globalization, digitization, and new media. Drawing on theories from the other arts, in particular art and architecture, it 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 considers a wide range of composers, performers, works, and institutions are considered critically to build up a broad and rich picture of the new music ecosystem, from North American string quartets to Lebanese improvisers, from South American electroacoustic studios to pianos in the Australian outback. A new approach to the study of contemporary music is developed that relies less on taxonomies of style and technique, and more on the comparison of different responses to common themes, among them permission, fluidity, excess, and loss.

Anthology of Goethe Songs

10.31022/n023 ◽  
1994 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Ferruccio Busoni ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
German Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Voice And Piano

Few poets have had so profound an influence on the history of German art music as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Since the late eighteenth century, over seven hundred of his poems have been set by nearly six hundred composers as lieder for voice and piano. This anthology gathers twenty-two such settings, in a wide variety of styles, by composers ranging from Goethe's friend Carl Zelter to Hans von Bülow, Ferruccio Busoni, and Othmar Schoeck.

THE MUSIC OF NICOLAUS A. HUBER

Tempo ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (224) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
John Warnaby
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
German Speaking

There is a school of thought in Britain which suggests that the rigours of modernist composition resulted in sterility and uniformity. Yet in the German-speaking world, composers have explored a wide range of expressive possibilities within a modernist sensibility. They have proved that the discipline of modernism is capable of stimulating genuine individuality, and over the past 30 years, Nicolaus A. Huber has emerged as one of the most distinctively radical, yet equally recognizable personalities on the German contemporary music scene. In contrast to Lachenmann, Rihm, or Höller, Huber has not attempted anything on the largest scale, but in the spheres of orchestral, chamber and instrumental music, he has produced a substantial body of work of considerable originality and dramatic power, frequently involving theatrical elements.

From Film Score to Art Music and Back

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-192
Author(s):  
Julia Khait
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
Sergei Prokofiev ◽  
Film Scores ◽  
Film Score ◽  
Stylistic Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ivan The Terrible

Sergei Prokofiev was one of a few composers who worked equally successfully in the fields of film music and art music. His scores for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible are as significant for the history of film music as are his operas and ballets for musical theater. He approached film projects with the same creative rigor as his stage and symphonic works. And so we must think of his film scores not as a separate enterprise but, rather, as one of the various theatrical and dramatic genres at which he tried his hand. While the operatic features of his music for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible have become widely recognized, Prokofiev’s other film scores can also be placed in a broader context of the composer’s output. The cross-connections between genres can be traced at different levels, from common themes and literary ideas and similar stylistic evolution, to shared compositional techniques and borrowings of musical material from one work to another.

Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1928–2007)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Toop
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Graphic Notation ◽  
Karlheinz Stockhausen ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Public ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
German Composer

For much of the 1950s and 1960s, the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was an absolutely seminal figure within the European avant-garde. By the mid-1950s, every new work of his seemed to open up new perspectives for radical composing: key notions and genres such as serialism, electronic music, variable forms, and graphic notation were all crucially affected by his work. Of all post-war composers, Stockhausen best exemplifies Chateaubriand’s dictum that ‘‘the original writer is not the one who imitates no one, but he whom no one can imitate’’; whereas other major figures had hosts of epigones, Stockhausen’s huge influence largely involved his way of thinking about composition, which was constantly evolving and re-forming, rather than attempted emulations. At the same time, by the late 1960s he was also something of a cult figure in the pop/rock world, as witness his appearance on the cover of the Beatles’ ‘‘Sergeant Pepper’’ album. Yet from the mid-1970s, Stockhausen increasingly (though never totally) withdrew from the public eye, working for just over twenty-five years on a massive cycle of seven operas collectively entitled Licht [Light], involving about thirty hours of music––probably the most ambitious (completed) project in the whole of Western art music.

Turnage, Mark-Anthony (1960--)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Venn
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Royal College ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Miles Davis ◽  
Stylistic Elements ◽  
Gunther Schuller ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Considerable Range

Mark-Anthony Turnage is one of the leading British composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His prolific output fuses stylistic elements, compositional techniques, and instrumentation from art music, jazz, and popular music, as well as, on occasion, more quotidian material such as football chants. The experience of working with jazz musicians such as Peter Erskine (a regular collaborator) has resulted in a long-standing commitment to improvisation in his music. Born in Essex, 1960, Turnage encountered a considerable range of art music through his family and, particularly, BBC Radio 3. Turnage had compositional lessons as a teenager with Oliver Knussen; like Knussen, Turnage later studied with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music and Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. It was during his time at the Royal College that he familiarized himself with jazz and soul; Miles Davis became a particular influence.

Helmut Lachenmann's Concept of Rejection

Tempo ◽  
1995 ◽  
pp. 4-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elke Hockings
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Compositional Style ◽  
Small Circle ◽  
English Music ◽  
German Composer

The eminent German composer Helmut Lachenmann enjoys an exalted reputation among a small circle of English contemporary music enthusiasts. To the wider English music public, though, he is little known. There are hardly any comprehensive accounts of Lachenmann in English. His consciously elusive compositional style could even be introduced to the English audience as ‘old-guard avantgarde’ without being challenged at all.

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