The internment diary of Austrian composer Hans Gal (1890-1987) with a biographical study of his life and career. Includes a CD of first recordings of three of his works from the period

Finished just weeks before his death, George Rochberg's eloquent memoir offers a detailed look at his fruitful life as a composer, publisher, and teacher of music. The volume traces a life immersed in music, with early study under George Szell and Gian Carlo Menotti and later long-term collaborations with the Concord Quartet and commissions for major orchestras and opera companies. Rochberg takes care to describe the intellectual and aesthetic changes that led him down certain paths as a composer, often challenging the conventions of the day. Reflecting on music, aesthetics, colleagues, and the life of the creative mind, Rochberg's memoir captures not only the spirit but also the intellectual climate of the second half of the twentieth century. Rochberg's life as a composer was marked by an ongoing search for his artistic place between tradition and the avant-garde, with an extensive oeuvre comprising over one hundred works including chamber ensembles, string quartets, symphonies, solo pieces, songs, and an opera. In addition to his importance as an American composer, he was also a central figure in academia and publishing. He served as chair of the University of Pennsylvania's music department, and as an editor and director of publications at the Theodore Presser Company, he helped marshal the company into one of the premier American musical publishing houses. Through the course of the book, Rochberg reveals the thought processes that led him in unexpected directions as he pursued the independent path of his career. This is the story of a creative mind developing, at times struggling, and constantly growing.--Publisher's description.

"For over five decades, Elliott Sharp has been on a quest to take the music he hears in his inner ear and bring it to life in the real world. In this vivid memoir and manifesto, we share the adrenalin rush of New York's Downtown scene of the '80s and beyond, where--against a backdrop of junkies frozen 'in a perpetual fall' and escaped tarantulas skittering across club floors--Sharp becomes a pivotal figure at the junction of rock and the avant-garde. Moving deftly between the abstractions of Spinoza and fractal geometry and the gritty physicality of guitars, saxophones, silicon hardware, and offbeat instruments of his own devising, Sharp makes music solo and in a dizzying range of aggregations and collaborations with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Nusrat Fateh Ali-Khan, Sonny Sharrock, Hilary Hahn and blues legend Hubert Sumlin. We watch as he dodges fake cowboys' real bullets by the side of a highway near Colby, Kansas; segues from Zen tea to single malt with an elfin John Cage; trades licks with Bedouin sumsumiya players in a goat's-hair tent in the Negev; and looks up from his teenage strumming of 'Gloria' in Manny's Music on 48th Street to find Jimi Hendrix smiling benignly upon him. A mix of tales from the road and sky with thoughts on music, art, politics, technology, and the process of thinking itself, IrRational Music is a glimpse inside the smooth cranium of one of our most exacting, exciting creative artists"--Back cover.

Text: English, German (translation)

Text: English, German