Reflections of an American Composer

by Berger, Arthur

• ISBN13: 9780520232518
• ISBN10: 0520232518
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

A book of memoirs and essays by notable composer, critic and teacher Arthur Berger. The author writes vividly about the music scenes in New York, Paris, and Boston, and of his work with notable colleagues such as Stravinsky, Copeland, and Virgil Thompson.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
I. TRENDS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN COMPOSITION
Composers and Their Audience in the Thirties	9	(12)
Nationalism	21	(14)
Is Music in Decline?	35	(15)
Rendezvous with Apollo: Form Is Feeling	50	(19)
Reinventing the Past: Pastiche, Collage, or ``Criticism''?	69	(14)
Serialism: Composer as Theorist	83	(10)
Rapprochement or Friendly Takeover?	93	(6)
Postmodern Music	99	(12)
II. WRITING ABOUT MUSIC
Virgil Thomson and the Press	111	(11)
Music on My Beat	122	(17)
PNM and the Ph.D.	139	(11)
A Tale of Two Critics: Rosenfeld and Haggin	150	(11)
III. AESTHETICS AND MUSICAL ANALYSIS
Do We Hear What We Say We Hear?	161	(12)
New Linguistic Modes and the New Theory	173	(12)
The Octatonic Scale	185	(16)
IV. RETROSPECTIVE
Backstage at the Opera	201	(8)
A Tale of Two Conductors: Koussevitzky and Mitropoulos	209	(11)
From My Diary: Brief Encounters	220	(11)
Appendix: From My Scrapbook	231	(10)
Notes	241	(16)
Index	257