Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers - (Eastman Studies in Music) by Bálint András Varga (Hardcover)

About the Book

Master interviewer Bálint András Varga poses three probing questions to renowned contemporary composers about their work, and carefully renders their answers in their own words.

Book Synopsis

Master interviewer Bálint András Varga poses three probing questions to renowned contemporary composers about their work, and carefully renders their answers in their own words.

Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences or from, say, the natural world?
What influences, past and present, have influenced recent composers?
How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style, and when does this degenerate into self-repetition?
These are questions about which some of the most important composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century often have quite strong feelings--but have seldom been asked.
In this pathbreaking book, Bálint András Varga puts these three questions to such renowned composers as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and Iannis Xenakis. Varga's sensitive English renderings capture the subtleties of their sometimes confident, sometimes hesitant, answers.
All statements from English-speaking composers -- such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller, andSir Michael Tippett -- consist of the composers' own carefully chosen words.
Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is vital reading for anybody interested in the current state of music and the arts.

TheHungarian music publisher Bálint András Varga has spent nearly forty years working for and with composers. He has published several books, including extensive interviews with Lutoslawski, Berio, and Xenakis. His previous book forthe University of Rochester Press is György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages.

Review Quotes

--Frank Madlener, General Director, IRCAM [Centre Pompidou, Paris]-- "."

--Sir Simon Rattle, Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Artistic Director of the Berlin Philharmonie-- "."

Essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary music.-- "ON AN OVERGROWN PATH [http: //www.overgrownpath.com/2011/06/into-great-noise.html]"

Franz Welser-Möst, General Music Director, Vienna State Opera-- "."

Revealing [new statements from] . . . the majority of the defining figures of Western music since 1945. . . . Extremely informative and carefully edited. . . . A broad panorama of contemporary music, showcasing many major artistic isssues and illustrating the enormous diversity of the international scene.--Peter Laki "MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES"

The responses from . . . Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis . . . are as lucid an introduction to their musical preoccupations as could be hoped. Production values are as consistently high as one expects from the University of Rochester Press. . . . The most illuminating such symposium of composers cast 'in their own words.' Absorbing and highly pleasurable reading can be assured.--Richard Whitehouse "GRAMOPHONE"

The responses vary greatly in length and complexity . . . [but] the variety, together with the lucidity of the responses, makes for a more engaging read. . . . One of the more thought-provoking books on modern music.--Toby Deller "CLASSICAL MUSIC"

This book presents a rich collection of personal statements by our most famous recent composers. . . A fascinating compendium of an important chapter in contemporary cultural history.-- "."

Typical of, to elicit such a multiplicity of responses to three deceptively simple questions. Necessary reading for all who care about the music of our time.-- "."

In this rich book conceived by Bálint András Varga, eminent composers of different generations converse with each other through their highly distinctive answers to three recurring, probing questions. Each page of this book is haunted by questions of memory ----not least, how a composer's specific style develops through time.