Changing the System: The Music of Christian WolffChristian Wolff is a composer who has followed a distinctive path often at the centre of avant-garde activity working alongside figures such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Cornelius Cardew. In a career spanning sixty years, he has produced a significant and influential body of work that has aimed to address, in a searching and provocative manner, what it means to be an experimental and socially aware artist. This book provides a wide-ranging introduction to a composer often overlooked despite his influence upon many of the major figures in new music since the 1950s from Cage to John Zorn to the new wave of experimentalists across the globe. As the first detailed analysis of the music of this prolific and highly individual composer, Changing the System: The Music of Christian Wolff contains contributions from leading experts in the field of new and experimental music, as well as from performers and composers who have worked with Wolff. The reception of Wolff's music is discussed in relation to the European avant-garde and also within the context of Wolff's association with Cage and Feldman. Music from his earliest compositions of the 1950s, the highly indeterminate scores, the politically-inspired pieces up to the most recent works are discussed in detail, both in relation to their compositional techniques, general aesthetic development, and matters of performance. The particular challenges and aesthetic issues arising from Wolff's idiosyncratic notations and the implications for performers are a central theme. Likewise, the ways in which Wolff's political persuasions - which arguably account for some of the notational methods he chooses - have been worked out through his music, are examined. With a foreword by his close associate Michael Parsons, this is a valuable addition to experimental music literature. |
From inside the book
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... writing from the publishers . Notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks , and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe . British Library Cataloguing in Publication ...
... writing from the publishers . Notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks , and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe . British Library Cataloguing in Publication ...
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... writing about music, and currently edits the journal American Music. Michael Parsons has been active since the mid-1960s as a composer, performer and writer on music. In 1969 he was co-founder with Cornelius Cardew and Howard Skempton ...
... writing about music, and currently edits the journal American Music. Michael Parsons has been active since the mid-1960s as a composer, performer and writer on music. In 1969 he was co-founder with Cornelius Cardew and Howard Skempton ...
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... writing in the 1950s : in these early pieces , it is as if he has taken the material of music apart , dismantled its traditional connections , leaving the sounds exposed , unattached , free to be assembled in new ways . 8 Christian ...
... writing in the 1950s : in these early pieces , it is as if he has taken the material of music apart , dismantled its traditional connections , leaving the sounds exposed , unattached , free to be assembled in new ways . 8 Christian ...
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... writers such as Carl Sandburg and John Dos Passos, in the photography of Walker Evans, in the collages and assemblages of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. The publication in 1947 of Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos created widespread ...
... writers such as Carl Sandburg and John Dos Passos, in the photography of Walker Evans, in the collages and assemblages of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. The publication in 1947 of Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos created widespread ...
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... his music since the 1960s and who was critical (along with others involved with AMM and the Scratch Orchestra) in introducing his music to the UK, for writing the Foreword to this book. There are many others whom it would be impossible to.
... his music since the 1960s and who was critical (along with others involved with AMM and the Scratch Orchestra) in introducing his music to the UK, for writing the Foreword to this book. There are many others whom it would be impossible to.
Contents
For Pianist The Solo Piano Music | |
Mutual Effects Organization and Interaction in the Orchestral Music | |
Exercising the ensemble Some Thoughts on the Later Music of Christian | |
Changing the System Indeterminacy and Politics in the Early 1970s | |
There Is Always a Time Words Music Politics and Voice | |
Prose Collection The Performer and Listener as CoCreator | |
Playing the Game? Five Reflections upon Performing Christian Wolffs | |
List of Works | |
Bibliography | |
Discography | |
Other editions - View all
Changing the System: The Music of Christian Wolff Dr Philip Thomas,Dr Stephen Chase Limited preview - 2013 |
Changing the System: The Music of Christian Wolff Philip Thomas,Stephen Timothy Chase Limited preview - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
American Experimental Music Apartment House Exercise audience avant-garde bars bass Boulez Bread and Roses Brecht Burdocks Cage's cello Changing the System chords Christian Wolff clarinet clef composer compositional concert conductor context continuity Cornelius Cardew create Cues Darmstadt David Behrman David Tudor discussion Duo for Pianists durations ensemble Example Exercise 24 Exercises with Peace experimental music Frederic Rzewski Gresser Harmonie Band hocketing idea improvisation indeterminacy indeterminate individual instructions Instrumental Exercises Interview John Cage John Tilbury Keyboard Miscellany kind Kotík listener Looking North material melody Morton Feldman movement musicians notation orchestra Ordinary Matter percussion Percussionist performance phrases pianist pitches players playing political possible Preludes Prepared Piano Programme note Prose Collection quartet relationship rhythm rhythmic structures Robyn Schulkowsky score Scratch Orchestra seminar sense situation social solo Song sounds string suggests techniques tempo texture traditional trio Variation violin voice Webern Wobbly Music Wolff's music writing York School