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
Results 1-5 of 68
... performance with a tunebook , “ Chester ” was probably sung frequently , in- formally , tune alone . The melody itself is typical Billings . Each of the first three phrases be- gins with the same rhythms and similar notes , but the ...
... Performance, I then thought it to be. Oh! how did my foolish heart throb and beat with tumultuous joy! With what impatience did I wait on the Book-Binder, while stitching the sheets and putting on the covers, with what ecstasy, did I ...
... performance of these daunting works, no orchestra would touch them. Heinrich proudly proclaimed himself an American composer well be- fore Ralph Waldo Emerson's call to take up such a cause in literature. He sought to portray himself ...
... performances in Lexington, Louisville, Frankfort, and Cincinnati. Spinoffs from his com- pany went as far as Nashville and Fayatteville ... performance of a Beethoven symphony in America. How he managed to pull it off in 44 pioneers.
... performances even in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York were plagued by a scarcity of personnel, particularly string ... performance sounded like must be left to the imagi- nation.11 Sometime between this inaugural concert and the spring ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
69 | |
PART 3 After the War | 151 |
PART 4 The Legacy of the Mavericks | 269 |
Notes | 337 |
Bibliography | 363 |
Index | 377 |