The composer Witold Lutostawski (born 1913) is one of the outstanding musical personalities of the twentieth century. In this critical biography Steven Stucky traces Lutostawski's development from the Stravinsky-influenced music of his student days to his emergence in the 1960s as a leading avant-gardist. Since the vicissitudes of cultural life in his native Poland have profoundly affected the composer's career, the book includes detailed accounts of Lutostawski's official censure for 'formalism' in the late 1940s and the leading role he later played in a flourishing Polish modernist movement. Both well-known works, such as the Concerto for Orchestra, Trois poemes d'Henri Michaux and the Second Symphony, and the lesser-known early music are considered in detail. Fragments of many compositions never before published in the West are included. There are also analytical summaries of each major work from Jeux véitiens (1961) to Mi-parti (1976).

The writings of twentieth-century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski reveal many important aspects of his approach to music and his viewpoints as an artist and as a man. In Lutoslawski on Music, the first full collection of writings by this famous composer, Zbigniew Skowron has amassed an exciting assortment of essays, speeches, lectures, and articles, many of which are newly translated in English and previously unpublished. After an introductory autobiography, the writings, grouped in five parts, illustrate various aspects of the composer's creativity, and discuss musical form, compositional technique, and perception. Lutoslawski examines his own works as well as those of other composers, and expresses his views on crucial aspects of twentieth-century music, including the role of Schoenberg and Debussy and the impact of the western avant-garde of the 1950s. The book also contains Lutoslawski's Artistic Diary, his "notebook of ideas" written from 1959 to 1984 containing intensely personal reflections that do not appear in his public speeches and writings. Concluding with a select bibliography, this collection will give readers a unique and comprehensive overview of the man and his music, encouraging a full appreciation of Lutoslawski's compositional technique and aesthetic views, as well as his position in the history of twentieth-century music.

Lutoslawski Studies presents for the first time an overview of the great twentieth-century composer Witold Lutoslawski's works and his compositional style, focusing on areas such as the composer's aesthetics, the evolution of his style, and the compositional strategies which apply to broader periods of his creativity. The international team of contributors bring to this study the results of recent research, offering a broader approach that links many issues which have been treated selectively in former studies, as well as throwing new light on the essence of the composer's music and the way in which modern and traditional elements co-exist.

The writings of twentieth-century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski reveal many important aspects of his approach to music and his viewpoints as an artist and as a man. In Lutoslawski on Music, the first full collection of writings by this famous composer, Zbigniew Skowron has amassed an exciting assortment of essays, speeches, lectures, and articles, many of which are newly translated in English and previously unpublished. After an introductory autobiography, the writings, grouped in five parts, illustrate various aspects of the composer's creativity, and discuss musical form, compositional technique, and perception. Lutoslawski examines his own works as well as those of other composers, and expresses his views on crucial aspects of twentieth-century music, including the role of Schoenberg and Debussy and the impact of the western avant-garde of the 1950s. The book also contains Lutoslawski's Artistic Diary, his 'notebook of ideas' written from 1959 to 1984 containing intensely personal reflections that do not appear in his public speeches and writings. Concluding with a select bibliography, this collection will give readers a unique and comprehensive overview of the man and his music, encouraging a full appreciation of Lutoslawski's compositional technique and aesthetic views, as well as his position in the history of twentieth-century music.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

The basic principles of progression and the means by which tonality is established in Bartók's music remain problematical to many theorists. Elliott Antokoletz here demonstrates that the remarkable continuity of style in Bartók's evolution is founded upon an all-encompassing system of pitch relations in which one can draw together the diverse pitch formations in his music under one unified set of principles.

The first book-length consideration of questions relating to music and meaning.