Thursday, June 16, 2011

Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers

I've gotten email from University of Rochester Press about a new entry in their Eastman Studies in Music Series: Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers, by Bálint András Varga. Looks like an interesting book; the questions are:
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? 
The composers queried include 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. I hope Gudaidulina isn't the only female composer included. $49.95 from UR press.

2 comments:

Joe Barron said...

I've gotten the same e-mail. Haven't posted it to my blog yet, though.

Michael Walsh said...

The second and third questions seem inter-related somehow.