Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Friday, January 14, 2005
influence
Larry Bell’s report from Rome is particularly interesting to me in light of the assertion I have heard several times that all 20th century American composers were either French or German in attitude. The assertion is offensive in almost every way, even though it is intended only as a provocative generalization, but I’m especially struck by the way it marginalizes Italian influence on 20th century music, an influence that has not been given the credit it deserves. There has long been a condescension toward Italian music in academic and avant-garde circles.
One of the richest aspects of American music has been its ability to learn from all cultures. I’m curious to know which influences my forum colleagues and other contributors think are left out of the discussion. What cultures have been marginalized? Which ones are given too much credit?
posted by Lawrence Dillon
7:57 AM
"To Meet This Urgent Need": follow-up
As I write we are in the last day of the conference on music at the American Academy in Rome. It has been a remarkable collection of scholarly papers, concerts, and informal ancecdotal presentations.
Professor-composer Martin Brody has provided introductions and a paper on the Academy during the 1954, Elliott Carter-Yehudi Wyner year. Judith Tick spoke to the historical context that led to the founding of the music program in 1921 and Carol Oja continued with a discussion of the international networks of composers that were formed during the inter-war years.
Andrea Olmstead covered the Rome prize fellows from 1921-1937. She brought forth the revelation (to many of us) that not only was Roger Sessions's seminal Piano Sonata given its premiere at the Academy, but (and this was the real bombshell) that the premiere of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" (the slow movement of his b-minor string quartet) was given in the same room at the Villa Aurelia where we were sitting!
Librarian of the Academy, Christina Huemer, continued with an exhaustive list of the musical resources of the Academy library, including a new 80-CD set (compiled and reformatted by Academy music liaison, Richard Trythall), which chronicles performances of fellows and residents of the Academy at the Villa Aurelia and the RAI orchestra of Rome from the early 1950's to the mid-1990's.
Marcello Piras outlined the fascinating connections between Italian and American music, especially in their more vernacular forms in the nineteenth century. Italian musicologist, Pierluigi Petrobelli, was, alas unable to join us. Wednesday evening concluded with a short, but intense concert of solo violin music by long-time Academy friends Elliott Carter and Geoffredo Petrassi. The former was represented by "Riconscenza," written as a tribute to Petrassi and the later by "Elogio de l'ombre." Both works were beautifully played by Italian violinist Giorgio Moench, a performer much admired by both composers.
Vivian Perlis unveiled a portion of her mammoth oral history of American music. Residing at the Yale School of Music, this collection of individual interviews will be one of the principal sources for future scholars on American music. Pianist Donald Berman spoke reported on his musical discoveries at the Academy and previewed, along with the superb soprano Susan Naruki, some of the works by Academy fellows to be featured on tonight's final concert.
Yesterday afternoon, a group of current fellows, older fellows, and American expatriates informally discussed the intimate connections between Italian and American composers over the past forty years. Included in this panel were Richard Trythall, Alvin Curran, James Dashow, Larry Bell, Arthur Levering, and current fellows Harold Meltzer, and Steven Burke.
This morning's roundtlable discussion features the Italian composers Mauro Bortolotti, Paolo Coteni, and musicologist Daniela Tortora and this afternoon's roundtalbe will be a free-form exchange with all of the participants. This afternoon Academy president Adele Chatfield-Taylor and director Lester Little unveiled the new Aaron Copland studio. Charles and Jessie Price contributed a new Steinway A piano which was inaguarated with Berio Sequenza and Jelly Roll Morton. The conference ends with a performance of fellow's works tonight at the Villa Aurelia.
posted by Larry Thomas Bell
5:46 AM
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