Our 'enry
For a variety of unpredictable reasons have been listening to a lot of Henry Cowell this holiday.
What an extraordinary composer! Lived from 1897 to 1965. Was also an impresario, theorist, performer, publisher, teacher. Above all, an experimenter and innovator quite unlike any other in the century.
Found this quote from Virgil Thomson about Cowell on the latter's WikiPedia page:
Henry Cowell's music covers a wider range in both expression and technique than that of any other living composer. His experiments begun three decades ago in rhythm, in harmony, and in instrumental sonorities were considered then by many to be wild. Today they are the Bible of the young and still, to the conservatives, 'advanced.'... No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal, so penetrating and so comprehensive. Add to this massive production his long and influential career as a pedagogue, and Henry Cowell's achievement becomes impressive indeed. There is no other quite like it. To be both fecund and right is given to few.
What are others' views of his work? Specifically, if my emphasis is accepted, why isn't his music better known and more often played… barely a dozen CDs in the catalogue devoted exclusively to him?
What an extraordinary composer! Lived from 1897 to 1965. Was also an impresario, theorist, performer, publisher, teacher. Above all, an experimenter and innovator quite unlike any other in the century.
Found this quote from Virgil Thomson about Cowell on the latter's WikiPedia page:
Henry Cowell's music covers a wider range in both expression and technique than that of any other living composer. His experiments begun three decades ago in rhythm, in harmony, and in instrumental sonorities were considered then by many to be wild. Today they are the Bible of the young and still, to the conservatives, 'advanced.'... No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal, so penetrating and so comprehensive. Add to this massive production his long and influential career as a pedagogue, and Henry Cowell's achievement becomes impressive indeed. There is no other quite like it. To be both fecund and right is given to few.
What are others' views of his work? Specifically, if my emphasis is accepted, why isn't his music better known and more often played… barely a dozen CDs in the catalogue devoted exclusively to him?
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