Irving Fine’s Twelve-tone Neoclassicism
Mid-20thcentury art music in America was largely dominated by twelve-tone composition. Other types of music were being composed, neoclassicism among them, but in the postwar years it was serial and other forms of composition...
Viola & Electronics: The Voice of a Hybrid Being
Although traditionally used to fill in harmonies or double melody lines, the viola has become increasingly prominent as a solo instrument in modern and experimental settings. Part of its appeal is the relative salience...
Notes on Field Recording
(My recent work on Doubting All Things Aligned, a collaboration with Chris Lynn that combines field recordings with composed and improvised music, stimulated these thoughts on field recordings—the part of the collaboration I was...
Gato Barbieri (1932-2016)
Although probably best known for his soundtrack to the 1972 Bernardo Bertolucci film Last Tango in Paris, tenor saxophonist Leandro “Gato” Barbieri, who died on April 2, was an innovator in fusing elements of...
Christopher Shultis & the Experimental Music Tradition
The 1920s and 1930s were a fertile time for experimental music in America. Composers such as Henry Cowell, George Antheil, William Russell—and very soon after, John Cage—explored...
After All, Saxophone is a Metal Instrument: Ulrich Krieger’s “Acoustic Electronics”
By most accounts, one of the most perplexing rock albums ever released was Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Was it a taunting prank directed at Reed’s fans, the grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation...
Notizie
Tom Johnson rip
American composer Tom Johnson (1939-2024), whose body of work included instrumental and vocal pieces employing pared-down musical material, died in Paris on the last...
