Colin McPhee

by Oja, Carol J.

• ISBN13: 9780252071805
• ISBN10: 0252071808
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

Colin McPhee was a performer, writer, and pioneer among Western composers in turning to Asia for inspiration. A close friend of Aaron Copland, Carlos Chavez, Henry Cowell, and Virgil Thomson, he played a vital role in new music activities in New York in the 1920s, but his most important accomplishments came from his devotion to the music of Bali. Carol Oja'sColin McPhee: Composer in Two Worldstraces his life, his influences on fellow musicians, and the profound experience of a composer striving to comprehend an entirely new musical language. After hearing rare recordings of the Balinese gamelan--a percussion orchestra with delicately layered textures and clangorous sounds--McPhee traveled to Bali and worked closely with such Western anthropologists as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The island may also have appealed to him because of its relatively open attitude toward homosexuality. Gay by inclination, he nevertheless married anthropologist Jane Belo and built a native-style house on the island where they lived for most of the 1930s. During this time, McPhee became a devoted and meticulous chronicler of Balinese musical culture, and hisMusic of Baliremains a classic in ethnomusicology. Beginning in the mid-1930s, his own compositions became an imaginative hybrid of Balinese and Western music, anticipating the later work of such figures as John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Steve Reich. Finally back in print, Carol Oja's account of McPhee's unconventional life and work evokes key issues in composition and ethnomusicology, sure to be of interest to scholars, musicians or anyone interested in 20th century American or Balinese music.

Author Biography

Carol J. Oja is William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard University, specializing in historical musicology.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Illinois Paperback	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xix
List of Instrument and Performer Abbreviations	p. xxiii
The Education of a Prodigy, 1900-26	p. 1
A Young Professional in New York, 1926-31	p. 25
Asia Beckons, 1928-31	p. 55
The First Trips to Bali, 1931-34	p. 65
A Western Interlude, 1935-36	p. 93
The Last Years in Bali, 1937-38	p. 121
Hard Times in New York, 1939-52	p. 149
Changing Fortunes, 1952-59	p. 185
Compositions After 1940	p. 205
The Years in California, 1960-64	p. 249
Catalogue of the Music of Colin McPhee	p. 259
Preliminary Catalogue of Colin McPhee's Gamelan Transcriptions for Western Instruments	p. 273
Writings of Colin McPhee	p. 281
Glossary of Balinese Terms	p. 285
Notes	p. 287
Bibliography	p. 337
Index	p. 345
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