Preface by Kyle Gann 7 Introduction by Dick Higgins 13 PART ONE: HC in Person Playing Concerts in Moscow 35 Music Is My Weapon 47 PART TWO: Contemporaries Charles Ives 51 Charles Seeger 72 Edgar Var?se 77 John J. Becker 85 Amadeo Roldan and Alejandro Caturla 91 Carl Ruggles 93 Joseph Schillinger 99 Nicholas Slonimsky 105 Colin McPhee 108 Virgil Thomson 111 Harry Partch 117 Roger Sessions 119 Lou Harrison 127 John Cage 132 Ferruccio Busoni 144 Igor Stravinsky 146 George Antheil 150 Bela Bart?k 155 PART THREE: music of the World's Peoples The ScientiWc Approach to Non-European Music 163 Folk Music 170 Music of the World's Peoples 176 The World's Vocal Arts 182 Music of Indonesia 186 Music of the Orient 188 PART FOUR: HC on Works by HC Persian Set 197 Quartet Romantic and Quartet Euphemetric 200 United Quartet 207 PART FIVE: Music and Other Arts Vocal Innovators of Central Europe 211 The League's Evening of Films 215 How Relate Music and Dance? 218 Relating Music and Concert Dance 223 New Sounds in Music for the Dance 232 PART SIX: Musical Craft Tonal Therapy 237 The Process of Musical Creation 240 Our Inadequate Notation 244 The Joys of Noise 249 Music of and for the Records 253 The Nature of Melody 257 PART SEVEN: Theory and Music History Harmonic Development in Music 271 The Impasse of Modern Music 289 Towards Neo-Primitivism 299 Shaping Music for Total War 304 On Programming American Music 308 A Composer's World 311 selected bibliography 321 discography 327 index 339 credits and acknowledgments 343 publisher's colophon 346
Henry Dixon Cowell invented "tone clusers"; composed over 1000 works; wrote over 200 articles, essays, and reviews of 20th century music; championed Ives, Varese, Ruggles, and many other experimental composers; taught extensively (among his students: George Gershwin and John Cage); founded New Music Quarterly, New Music Quarterly Recordings, and New Music Editions.
"Though Henry Cowell was a composer and a music critic of startling originality (as well as a producer, a promoter, a publisher and an ethnomusicologist), he has remained largely a 'background figure' in American music. But editor Dick Higgins' Essential Cowell promises to bring Cowell's criticism into the spotlight.... [T]his volume will enlighten aficionados of World Music and engage anyone interested in innovative composition."-Publishers Weekly "'Cowell was a pioneer of experimental music and influenced composers like John Cage.'The late [Dick] Higgins, an artist, publisher, and composer who studied with Cowell at New York City's New School, collected these 46 essays by Cowell. Included are eighteen studies of fellow musicians and composers, from Charles Ives to Bela Bart?k; a section on world music; and essays on musical craft, theory, and history. ...[His] writing is accessible and perceptive, and even those without extensive knowledge of 20th-century music will find these pieces engaging. Recommended for music and large public libraries."-Library Journal
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