Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers
- Author: Varga, Balint Andras
The responses from . . . Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis . . . are as lucid an introduction to their musical preoccupations as could be hoped. Production values are as...
Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers
- Author: Varga, Balint Andras
Purchase product
The responses from . . . Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis . . . are as lucid an introduction to their musical preoccupations as could be hoped. Production values are as...
About
Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences or from, say, the natural world? What influences, past and present, have influenced recent composers? How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style, and when does this degenerate into self-repetition? These are questions about which some of the most important composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century often have quite strong feelings--but have seldom been asked. In this pathbreaking book, Bálint András Varga puts these three questions to such renowned composers as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and Iannis Xenakis. Varga's sensitive English renderings capture the subtleties of their sometimes confident, sometimes hesitant, answers. All statements from English-speaking composers -- such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller, andSir Michael Tippett -- consist of the composers' own carefully chosen words. Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is vital reading for anybody interested in the current state of music and the arts. TheHungarian music publisher Bálint András Varga has spent nearly forty years working for and with composers. He has published several books, including extensive interviews with Lutoslawski, Berio, and Xenakis. His previous book forthe University of Rochester Press is György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages.
Contents
- Milton Babbitt
- Sandor Balassa
- Luciano Berio
- Sir Harrison Birtwistle
- Pierre Boulez
- Attila Bozay
- Earle Brown
- Sylvano Bussotti
- John Cage
- Elliott Carter
- Friedrich Cerha
- George Crumb
- Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
- Edison Denisov
- Henri Dutilleux
- Peter Eoetvoes
- Morton Feldman
- Lukas Foss
- Alberto Ginastera
- Karel Goeyvaerts
- Sofia Gubaidulina
- Georg Friedrich Haas
- Hans Werner Henze
- Klaus Huber
- Zoltan Jeney
- Mauricio Kagel
- Georg Katzer
- Ernst Krenek
- Ladislav Kupkovic
- Gyoergy Kurtag
- Helmut Lachenmann
- Gyoergy Ligeti
- Witold Lutoslawski
- Francois-Bernard Mache
- Michio Mamiya
- Giacomo Manzoni
- Paul Mefano
- Andras Mihaly
- Tristan Murail
- Marlos Nobre
- Luigi Nono
- Krzysztof Penderecki
- Goffredo Petrassi
- Emil Petrovics
- Henri Pousseur
- Steve Reich
- Wolfgang Rihm
- Peter Ruzicka
- Laszlo Sary
- Pierre Schaeffer
- Dieter Schnebel
- Alfred Schnittke
- Gunther Schuller
- Johannes Maria Staud
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
- Andras Szollosy
- Toru Takemitsu
- Dimitri Terzakis
- Sir Michael Tippett
- Laszlo Vidovszky
- Wladimir Vogel
- Gerhard Wimberger
- Christian Wolff
- Iannis Xenakis
Awards and reviews
The responses from . . . Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis . . . are as lucid an introduction to their musical preoccupations as could be hoped. Production values are as consistently high as one expects from the University of Rochester Press. . . . The most illuminating such symposium of composers cast 'in their own words.' Absorbing and highly pleasurable reading can be assured. -- Richard Whitehouse
The responses vary greatly in length and complexity . . . [but] the variety, together with the lucidity of the responses, makes for a more engaging read. . . . One of the more thought-provoking books on modern music. -- Toby Deller
