Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition

Musical Quarterly

Volumn 80, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 569-594

  Nicholls, David ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949592993     PISSN: 00274631     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/mq/80.4.569     Document Type: Review

References (51)

1. "I.S.A.M. Matters," I.S.A.M. Newsletter 24, no. 2 (1995): 3
2. For a discussion of both Dvořák's remarks and the response of a number of his American contemporaries, see Adrienne Fried Block, "Boston Talks Back To Dvořák," I.S.A.M. Newsletter 18, no. 2 (1989): 10-11, 15
3. Quoted in Hugo Weisgall, "The Music of Henry Cowell," Musical Quarterly 45 (1959): 498
4. The first published use of the term appears to be in Lou Harrison, "Item[:] The World of Music," in Music Primer (New York: C. F. Peters, 1971), 44-47. On p. 45, Harrison writes, "This whole round living world of music - the Human Music - rouses & delights me, it stirs me to a 'trans-ethnic,' a planetary music."
5. Bruce Saylor, "Henry Cowell," in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (henceforth AmeriGrove) (London: Macmillan, 1986), 1:520
6. Harry Partch, Genesis of a Music (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974), viii-ix
7. Partch, Genesis of a Music, viii
8. Richard Kostelanetz, "A Conversation, in Eleven-Minus-One Parts, with Lou Harrison about Music/Theater," Musical Quarterly 76, no. 3 (1992): 406
9. For a touching reminiscence of Cowell by Harrison, see "Tens on Remembering Henry Cowell," in A Lou Harrison Reader, ed. Peter Garland (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1987), 37-38
10. For an illuminating discussion of the main traits of Copland's compositional style, see William A. Austin, "Aaron Copland," in AmeriGrove 1:496-504. Of particular relevance are 500-502
11. On Harrison's Piano Concerto, see Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Lou Harrison (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995), 260-66
12. For a contemporary overview, see Henry Cowell, "Towards Neo-primitivism," Modern Music 10, no. 3 (1933): 149-53
13. From the notes accompanying the first published version of the work (San Francisco: New Music Edition, [1937]). Subsequent quotations regarding the United Quartet not otherwise cited are from the same source
14. For a more detailed discussion of this work, see David Nicholls, "Henry Cowell's United Quartet," American Music 13, no. 2 (1995): 195-217. The work has been recorded on CRI SD-173
15. For a discussion of the Concerto in Slendro, see Von Gunden, 157-62. The work is published by C. F. Peters and recorded on Desto DC-7144
16. Slendro is a pentatonic tuning system; the other system, pelog, is heptatonic. For a brief explanation of the two systems and the main differences between them, see the corresponding entries in Don Michael Randel, ed., The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1986), 681, 753
17. Harry Partch, "Statement" (regarding And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma), reproduced in Thomas McGeary, The Music of Harry Partch: A Descriptive Catalog (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1991), 17-18
18. The bass marimba and kithara are among the instruments Partch built; for descriptions (including the whole kithara genus) see Genesis of a Music, 272-76, 220-35, respectively
19. Delusion of the Fury has been recorded on CBS M2 30576
20. For further discussion of Hanison's use of non-Western instruments, see Garland, "A Conversation ... with Lou Harrison," in A Lou Harrison Reader, and particularly Von Gunden
21. Henry Cowell, "Cunent Chronicle: New York," Musical Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1952): 123-36
22. reprinted in Richard Kostelanetz, John Cage (London: Allen Lane, 1971), 95
23. Kostelanetz, "A Conversation ... with Lou Harrison," 383
24. For a brief discussion of the evolution of Cowell's string piano into Cage's prepared piano, see David Nicholls, American Experimental Music, 1890-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 159-66, 205, 206, and 210-12
25. Hanison's tack piano is obviously generically related to both of these instruments. For Cage's rhythmic structuring and its derivation from Cowell's work, see Nicholls, American Experimental Music, 207-10 and 214-16
26. and Nicholls, "Henry Cowell's United Quartet," 212-15
27. James Pritchett, The Music of John Cage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See particularly chap. 2 and 3 for a full discussion of Cage's indebtedness to Indian and other philosophies during this broad period
28. "The Future of Music: Credo" is reproduced in Kostelanetz, John Cage, 54-57
29. John Cage (in conversation with Daniel Charles), For the Birds (London: Marion Boyars, 1981), 74
30. Jean-Jacques Nattiez, ed., The Boulez-Cage Correspondence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 97
31. Cage, For the Birds, 75
32. Amanda K. Coomaraswamy, The Transformation of Nature in Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), 11
33. quoted in Pritchett, The Music of John Cage, 37
34. See Wim Mertens, American Minimal Music (London: Kahn &. Averill, and New York: Alexander Broude, 1983)
35. John Rockwell, All American Music (London: Kahn & Averill, 1985), chap. 9
36. Edward Strickland, American Composers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 1-10, 33-70, 105-23, and 141-58
37. David Farneth, "La Monte Young," in AmeriGrove 4:580
38. For a detailed discussion of (among other things) the tuning system employed in a related work, see Kyle Gann, "La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano," Perspectives of New Music 31, no. 3 (1993): 134-62. A recording of "13 I 73 5:35-6:14:03 PM NYC" was released on Shandar Disques in 1974
39. Shri Camel's catalogue number is CBS 73929
40. Personal communication, Terry Riley to David Nicholls, 18 Dec. 1995
41. and Shri Camel (1980)
42. Strickland, 67
43. John Adams, "Steve Reich," in AmeriGrove 4:25
44. Steve Reich, sleeve notes to Electric Counterpoint, recorded on Nonesuch 979 176-1
45. Philip Glass, Opera on the Beach (London: Faber and Faber, 1988), 18
46. There is an increasing body of literature dealing with the issues discussed in the subsequent paragraphs; a useful starting point for further reading is Katherine Bergeron and Philip V. Bohlman, eds., Disciplining Music: Musicology and Its Canons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), particularly chaps. 2 and 11
47. Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993), 162
48. Given the remarks that follow, it is interesting to note that in Kipling's Kim - which Said discusses at length - we find the following lines: "When tales were told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his reminiscences; for St. Xavier's looks down on boys who 'go native altogether.' One must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives." Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London: Macmillan, 1908), 177
49. For an amplification of these remarks, see David Nicholls, "Getting Rid of the Glue: The Music of the New York School," Journal of American Studies 27, no. 3 (1993): 349-51
50. Extracted from a letter of Harry Partch to Lou Harrison, dated 18 Aug. 1966; reproduced in A Lou Harrison Reader, 59
51. In fact, a miracle did happen and help did arrive, in the shape of Danlee Mitchell; see Paul Earls with Richard Kassel, "Harry Partch," in AmeriGrove 3: 482