This anthology of essays, interviews, and autobiographical pieces provides an invaluable overview of the evolution of contemporary musicβfrom chromaticism, serialism, and indeterminacy to jazz, vernacular, electronic, and non-Western influences. Featuring classic essays by Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and Reich, as well as writings by lesser-known but equally innovative composers such as Jack Beeson, Richard Maxfield, and T. J. Anderson, this collection covers a broad range of styles and approaches. Here you will find Busoni's influential "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music"; Partch's exploration of a new notation system; Babbitt's defense of advanced composition in his controversial "Who Cares If You Listen?"; and Pauline Oliveros's meditations on sound. Now updated with fifteen new composers including Michael Tippet, GyΓΆrgy Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, Ben Johnston, Sofia Gubaidulina, and William Bolcom, this important book gathers together forty-nine piecesβmany out of print and some newly written for this volumeβwhich serve as a documentary history of twentieth-century music, in theory and practice. Impassioned, provocative, and eloquent, these writings are as exciting and diverse as the music they discuss.
