Music, we are often told, is a language. But if music is a language, then who is speaking? The Composer's Voice tries to answer this obvious but infrequently raised question. In so doing, it puts forward a dramatistic theory of musical expression, based on the view that every composition is a symbolic utterance involving a fundamental act of impersonation. The voice we hear is not that of the composer himself, but of a persona--a musical projection of his consciousness that experiences and communicates the events of the composition. Developing his argument by reference to numerous examples ina wide variety of styles, Mr. Cone moves from song and opera through program music to absolute instrumental music. In particular, he discusses the implications of his theory for performance. According to the dramatistic view, not only every singer but every instrumentalist as well becomes a kind of actor, assuming a role that functions both autonomously and as a component of the total musical persona. In his analysis of the problems inherent in this dual nature of the performer's job, Mr. Cone offers guidance that will prove of practical value to every performing musician. He has much to say to the listener as well. He recommends an imaginative participation in the component roles of musical work, leading to a sense of identification with the persona itself, as the path to complete musical understanding. And this approach is shown to be relevant to a number of specialized kids of listening as well--those applicable to analysis, historical scholarship, and criticism. The dance, too, is shown to depend on similar concepts. Although The Composer's Voice involves an investigation of how music functions as a form of communication, it is not primarily concerned with determine, or interpreting, the "content" of the message. A final chapter, however, puts forward a tentative explanation of musical "meaning" based on an interpretation of the art as a coalescence of symbolic utterance and symbolic gesture. While not essential to the main lines of the argument, it suggests interesting possibilities for further development of the dramatistic theory. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

An eminent conductor's theories on musical training--musicians should read full scores and be familiar with the musical conventions and cultural milieu of the composer's time--are punctuated by lively anecdotes and reminiscences of his international musical career

(Amadeus). Derived from a popular series of lecture-recitals presented by Carol Montparker over the past several years, The Composer's Landscape features eight insightful essays on the piano repertoire. Each chapter focuses on a single composer: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, and Mendelssohn. Montparker uses landscape as a metaphor for the score, whether it be a well-tended garden of Mozart or the thorny thickets on a Schumann page: the topographical peaks and valleys, the circuitous melodic lines, the thoroughfares where all the voices convene, and so on. The discussions include thoughtful suggestions for navigating these "landscapes," which differ so greatly from one composer to the next, taking note of the essential technical and interpretive elements, as well as the challenges for the "explorer pianist." As an actively performing pianist, lecturer, teacher, music journalist, and author of six other books on music, Montparker has the experience and understanding to guide readers through these issues while elucidating the finer points. Woven into her text are excerpts from her interviews with world-renowned pianists, from Alfred Brendel to Andre Watts, conducted during her many years as senior editor of Clavier magazine. The book also includes images from original autograph manuscripts and audio of Montparker performing selections by composers featured in the book.

Despite Messiaen's position as one of the greatest technical innovators of the twentieth century, his musical language has not been comprehensively defined and investigated. The composer's 1944 theoretical study, The Technique of My Musical Language, expounds only its initial stages, and while his posthumously published Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie contains detailed explanations of selected techniques, in most cases the reader is left to define these more precisely by observing them in the context of Messiaen's analyses of his own works. Technical processes are nevertheless in many cases the primary components of a work or movement. For instance, personnages dominate 'Joie du sang des étoiles' from the Turangalîla-symphonie, and in certain cases, such as 'L'échange' from the Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, the process (asymmetric augmentation) is the only structuring element present. Given this reliance on idiosyncratic techniques, clear comprehension of the music is impossible without a detailed knowledge of Messiaen's methods. Gareth Healey charts their development and interconnections, considers their relationship with formal structures, and applies them in refined and extended form to works for which Messiaen himself left no published analysis.