[lit-ideas] Re: Why are the greatest composers all German?
- From: Chris Bruce <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:50:02 +0200
On 19. Jun 2006, at 06:13, Eric Yost wrote:
Amateur pianists might like to look at the score of William
Duckworth's 24-piece piano cycle, "The Time Curve Preludes."
Before I order it 'to look at' (such things are generally not
inexpensive), I'd like to know: will I also as an 'intermediate'
amateur pianist be able to *play* (at least some of) it?
Thanks very much for the names, Eric. It saddens me that I can reel
off almost countless names associated with the products of the
entertainment industry marketed under the various labels now assigned
to 'popular music', but must stop pretty quickly when asked for the
names of contemporary composers (even when that term 'contemporary' is
extended to include the last 50 years!) I do hope that your assessment
of the current state of the contemporary 'American classical music'
scene ("There's a creative explosion of new American classical works,
and an increasing number of venues for performing them,") is accurate.
The most recent music I've paid serious attention to (aside from
Torsten Rasch's 'Mein Herz Brennt') is John Williams (guitar - both
solo and with orchestra) recording of the work of the contemporary
Australian composers Peter Sculthorpe and Nigel Westlake.
By no means contemporary compositionally, but nevertheless a remarkable
piece of 'recent' work is Stanley Yates' arrangement for guitar of
Bach's 'Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites'. This comes in a spiral-bound
book containing the arrangements, the original scores, some very
insightful comments, a 40+page epilogue on 'Arranging, Interpreting,
and Performing the Music of J.S. Bach' and (if you buy the right
edition) a recording of Yates playing (unfortunately only) the first
three suites, published by Mel Bay Publications (in 1998 - I just
recently caught sight of it in the window of the local piano store and
to acquire it happily handed over an exorbitant sum [46 Euros for an
item bearing a US$39.95 price sticker; worth every - Euro or American -
cent]).
Important note: the book is apparently available in both a 'book only'
and a 'book/compact disc' configuration. With the latter you get the
Yates' performance of the first three suites, which I highly recommend.
(I know that something published in 1998 is hardly 'new', but I'm so
delighted with this that I can't help remarking on it. The Australian
pieces - composed between 1989 and 1994 - I mention above are hardly
'new' either; especially by the 'popular music' standards of my
adolescence, when something a month old was very old indeed!)
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
