In the fall of 1959 Norma Beecroft, a twenty-five-year-old composition student, left her home in Toronto and travelled to Rome to study with the eminent Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. She left behind her lover and mentor, the thirty-four-year-old Harry Somers, by then recognized as one of Canada’s leading young composers. For the next six months they wrote each other almost every day. Their intense and intimate correspondence documents lives lived apart but shared on the page, until t...

In the fall of 1959 Norma Beecroft, a twenty-five-year-old composition student, left her home in Toronto and travelled to Rome to study with the eminent Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. She left behind her lover and mentor, the thirty-four-year-old Harry Somers, by then recognized as one of Canada’s leading young composers. For the next six months they wrote each other almost every day. Their intense and intimate correspondence documents lives lived apart but shared on the page, until t...

Harry Somers is one of Canada's leading composers, and one of the most original. In the 1950s he experimented with contrapuntal writing, serialism, and style juxtaposition; in more recent years he has been concerned with the development of new vocal resources and improvisation.Harry Somers, a detailed study of the composer and his works, has been commissioned by the Canadian Music Centre as the first of a series, each volume of which will cover in depth the career and work...

First comprehensive study of John Weinzweig (1913–2006), the pre-eminent Canadian composer of his generation, with essays by composers, theorists, and musicologists. Includes a CD of extracts.Influenced by European modernists such as Stravinsky, Berg, and Webern, Weinzweig was the first Canadian composer to employ serialism, thereby bringing a spirit of innovation to mid-twentieth-century Canadian music. A forceful advocate for modern Canadian composition, Weinzwei...

Now in trade paperback: “The definitive guide to musical enjoyment” (Forum).In this fascinating analysis of how to listen to both contemporary and classical music analytically, eminent American composer Aaron Copland offers provocative suggestions that will bring readers a deeper appreciation of the most viscerally rewarding of all art forms.

'This book distils what, at my advanced age, I feel able to say about music, musicians, and matters of my pianistic profession.'Ever since Alfred Brendel bid farewell to the concert stage after six decades of performing, he has been passing on his insight and experience in the form of lectures, readings and master-classes. This reader for lovers of the piano distils his musical and linguistic eloquence and vast knowledge, and will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the ...

Listen. What do you hear?We are surrounded by sounds all the time, but we tend not to hear them; our brains are very good at editing what our ears pick up. If we stop for a moment to listen, there they are: the ticking clock, traffic noise, fragments of conversation, a passing plane. These are examples of what the American composer John Cage called “illegal harmony”.In response to the noisiest century in history, modern composers have consistently flown in ...

Over three decades, Paul Griffiths's survey has remained the definitive study of music since the Second World War; this fully revised and updated edition re-establishes Modern Music and After as the preeminent introduction to the music of our time. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical reformation of compositional technique and in John Cage's development of zen music; in Milton Babbit...

From Gregorian chant to Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, the music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods is both beautiful and intriguing, expanding our horizons as it nourishes our souls. In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly provides not only a compact overview of the music itself, but also a lively look at the many attempts over the last two centuries to revive it. Kelly shows that the early-music revival has long been grounded in the idea of spontaneity...

(Berklee Guide). The definitive text used for the time-honored Chord Scales course at Berklee College of Music, this book concentrates on scoring for every possible ensemble combination and teaches performers and arrangers how to add color, character and sophistication to chord voicings. Topics covered include: selecting appropriate harmonic tensions, understanding jazz harmony, overcoming harmonic ambiguity, experimenting with unusual combinations and non-traditional alignments, and many ...

This book represents a way of thinking about jazz harmony. It explains how chords are built, named and used. It presents examples in the form of conventional notation and images of the piano keyboard. A glossary of terms is included. If you need some kind of structure or framework of understanding to be able to do music at all, you may find it here. At the very least, by Step 20 you should be able to look at a chord chart and recognise (and even play) the symbols and patterns that form the...

Claude Vivier's haunting and expressive music has captivated audiences around the world. But the French-Canadian composer is remembered also because of the dramatic circumstances of his death: he was found murdered in his Paris apartment at the age of thirty-four. Given unrestricted access to Vivier's archives and interviews with Vivier's family, teachers, friends, and colleagues, musicologist and biographer Bob Gilmore tells here the full story of Vivier's fascinating life, from his aband...