Page 339 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

DIRECTORY 337

(1928), and David (1954). During the Brecht. These included the two satirical (1959), and Music for Orchestra II (1962).
1940s, he taught composition at Mills operas Die Dreigroschenoper (The She also worked with Hammer Film
College, California. One of his pupils was Threepenny Opera; 1928), adapted Productions, writing scores for horror
the pioneer of minimalism, Steve Reich. from an 18th-century English ballad movies to earn money.
opera, and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt
Mahagonny (“Rise and fall of the
PAUL HINDEMITH city of Mahagonny”; 1930). Drawing ELLIOTT CARTER
1895–1963 inspiration from cabaret and jazz as well 1908–2012
as his classical training, Weill created
Paul Hindemith taught composition at bitingly surreal numbers, such as the In the 1930s, New Yorker Elliott Carter
Berlin’s School of Music until he was famous “Ballad of Mack the Knife” from was one of many Americans who studied
forced to resign in 1937, due to his Die Dreigroschenoper. In 1933, following under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Back in
opposition to the Nazi regime. He went Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the the United States, he developed his own
to the United States, teaching at Yale Jewish Weill fled Germany, first for style, with different instrumental parts
from 1940 to 1953 before returning to Paris, then the United States, where following different lines, interacting
Germany. His textbooks, starting with he wrote a series of Broadway musicals with one another like characters in a
The Craft of Musical Composition (1941), before his death in 1950. play. Carter’s important orchestral works
are still widely studied. His compositions included his Cello Sonata (1948), two
include chamber works, symphonies, and String Quartets (1950–1951 and 1959),
operas, most famously Mathis der Maler JOAQUÍN RODRIGO a Double Concerto for Harpsichord and
(“Matthias the painter”), which premiered 1901–1999 Piano (1961), and a Piano Concerto
in Zurich in 1938. Telling the story of (1964–1965), a response to the building
German painter Matthias Grünewald, Blind from the age of three, Joaquín of the Berlin Wall. From the 1970s, he
who joined a peasants’ uprising in 1525, Rodrigo nonetheless studied music in turned to vocal music, with settings of
it concerns an artist living in troubled Paris. He returned to his native Spain in contemporary North American poets,
times and trying to follow his conscience 1939 after the end of the civil war there. such as Elizabeth Bishop in A Mirror
in the face of an oppressive regime. His most famous piece, the Concerto on Which to Dwell (1975).
de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra,
inspired by the gardens of the royal
HENRY COWELL palace of Aranjuez, premiered the next SAMUEL BARBER
1897–1965 year. Other works include 11 concertos; 1910–1981
another guitar piece, Fantasia para
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Californian un gentilhombre (“Fantasia for a Samuel Barber was born in Pennsylvania
composer, pianist, and teacher Henry gentleman”; 1954), and an opera, El in 1910 and became one of the most
Cowell toured North America and hijo fingido (“The false son”; 1964). celebrated American composers of the
Europe, shocking audiences with century. His most popular work was one
works such as The Tides of Manaunaun of his earliest—the Adagio for Strings
(1912), The Aeolian Harp (1923), and The ELISABETH LUTYENS (1938), an orchestration of the Adagio
Banshee (1925). These involved creating 1906–1983 movement from a String Quartet he had
“tone clusters” by placing his fist or written two years earlier. An alumnus of
forearm on the keyboard while the other For much of her life, Elisabeth Lutyens’s Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music,
hand played the notes as normal or uncompromising Modernism drew blank Barber was later known for vocal works,
placing one hand inside the piano and incomprehension from her fellow Britons. such as Knoxville: Summer of 1915 for
strumming the strings like a harp. Lutyens studied in Paris and at the solo soprano (1948), the Hermit Songs
Cowell was eclectic, drawing inspiration Royal College of Music in London. Her cycle (1952–1953), and two operas: Vanessa
from his own Irish roots, hymns, or early works included a Concerto for (1958), and Antony and Cleopatra (1966),
Japanese or Indian music. Through his Nine Instruments (1939), composed in which was written for the inauguration
periodical, New Music, he was an active a style individual to her but somewhat of the Metropolitan Opera’s new theatre
promoter of other people’s works. akin to the serialism developed by at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1966.
Arnold Schoenberg. Vocal works
included literary settings, notably a
KURT WEILL motet using texts from the philosopher MILTON BABBITT
1900–1950 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1952). Among her 1916–2011
stage works were the chamber opera
German composer Kurt Weill is best Infidelio (1954) and Isis and Osiris (1969– The avant-garde American composer,
known for his collaborations with the 1970). Her best-known orchestral pieces teacher, and theorist Milton Babbitt had
left-wing dramatist and poet Bertolt include Six Tempi (1957), Quincunx a background in both mathematics and

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