Mavericks and Other Traditions in American MusicFrom colonial times to the present, American composers have lived on the fringes of society and defined themselves in large part as outsiders. In this stimulating book Michael Broyles considers the tradition of maverick composers and explores what these mavericks reveal about American attitudes toward the arts and about American society itself. Broyles starts by examining the careers of three notably unconventional composers: William Billings in the eighteenth century, Anthony Philip Heinrich in the nineteenth, and Charles Ives in the twentieth. All three had unusual lives, wrote music that many considered incomprehensible, and are now recognized as key figures in the development of American music. Broyles goes on to investigate the proliferation of eccentric individualism in all types of American music—classical, popular, and jazz—and how it has come to dominate the image of diverse creative artists from John Cage to Frank Zappa. The history of the maverick tradition, Broyles shows, has much to tell us about the role of music in American culture and the tension between individualism and community in the American consciousness. |
From inside the book
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... England. He published biting satirical prose works that at times embraced the macabre. He was doggedly eccentric throughout his life, and almost consciously sustained the image of a bohemian rebel, in appearance and conduct, some three ...
... , to be learned in. William Billings, frontispiece to The New-England Psalm-Singer. The figure on the left may be Billings, and if so it is the only known portrait of him. William Billings , " Chester , " mm . 9-16. William Billings 15.
... England, it quickly be- came popular. The Puritan clerics may have won the battle over sacred mu- sic in church with the establishment of the singing school, but with the new style they lost the war. Billings began his musical career as ...
... England Psalm-Singer. It was a bolt out of the blue. Tunebooks for use in singing schools were relatively common, although most were imported from England. A handful had been printed in America. All were anthologies, however ...
... England Psalm-Singer, Billings increased that number tenfold.7 Given the magnitude of the work, Billings must have labored on The New-England Psalm-Singer for some time prior to 1770. In the preface he ad- mits that the work cost him ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
69 | |
PART 3 After the War | 151 |
PART 4 The Legacy of the Mavericks | 269 |
Notes | 337 |
Bibliography | 363 |
Index | 377 |