Please note that, as of April 25, 2019, CMS Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music (MBAM) and CMS Sourcebooks in American Music (SAM) have merged into a single series entitled CMS Monographs and Sourcebooks in American Music. Below are available volumes published prior to the merger.
Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music is a series of comprehensive and rigorous studies designed to illuminate enduring music of the Americas and significant American composers.
by Petra Meyer-Frazier
Paperbound [6 X 9: 230 pages]
ISBN: 978-1-881913-34-4
During the nineteenth century the households of advantaged Americans were tempered by a widely accepted parlor culture that informed the construction of gender and so many other related aspects of society. Central to this way of life was a set of expectations and behaviors for the American woman—in fact, an ideal. In spite of dangers and excesses well addressed at the time, the cultivation of musical interests by young women was encouraged and admired. Professor Meyer-Frazier has turned her attention to this subject with a thoughtful study of the sheet music collected by girls during their years of education and courtship. A large number of these keepsake volumes of so-called “parlor music” survive and bear witness to the lives of their owners. With the benefit of period literature and recent scholarship Dr. Meyer-Frazier places these documents in context and considers their nature and meaning from a variety of sociological and musicological angles. Nine lucid essays are enhanced by biographical vignettes of representative collectors and by iconographical examples adorning sheet music covers.
by Matthew J. Cooper
Paperbound [6 X 9; xvii + 127 pp.]
ISBN: 978-1-881913-61-0
This volume by Matthew Cooper represents the first book-length study devoted exclusively to Duke Ellington as pianist. As such, it should be regarded as a substantial contribution to the Ellington scholarship for the very reason that the piano was central to the Duke’s achievements as a musician. He composed at the keyboard; he improvised at the keyboard; he led his musicians from the keyboard; and he—as the leading member of the rhythm section—delivered the fundamental energy of his creations on the keyboard.
In his consideration of both representative and landmark recorded performances, Professor Cooper reports the views of a host of authorities and provides original commentary. He identifies three practices in Ellington’s piano work: an early foundational stride style, a style typical of his swing maturity, and an atypical, post-bop / modern style. What might be understood as rather fascinating is that Dr. Cooper argues that all three “existed side by side from the 1940s (or perhaps earlier) until the end of his career.” The author’s conclusions are supported by copious transcriptions.
Reviews:
From Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, by Mark Gridley
Review by Dr. Louis Tavecchio
by Kathy H. Brown
Paperbound [6 X 9; xx + 300 pp.]
ISBN: 978-1-881913-60-3
Kathy H. Brown focuses on the nature and content of the teaching of soprano Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976)—with an emphasis on interpretation of the text—after her immigration to the United States. Advice culled from the transcripts of voice lessons and master classes as well as from questionnaire from students is provided for two-hundred-twenty-three art songs by twenty-six composers and twenty-five arias by twelve composers. This is preceded by summaries of Lehmann’s careers in the opera house and on the recital stage in Europe and America. The volume is illustrated with fifty black-and-white photographs and the black-and-white reproduction of thirty-eight paintings by Lehmann herself in response to specific lieder by Schubert and Schumann.
by Franco Sciannameo
Paperbound [11 X 8.5; xiii + 321 pp.]
ISBN-10: 157647187X
ISBN-13: 978-1576471876
The tale of Phil Trajetta (1777-1854) is marked by the intrigues of youthful passions, war, imprisonment, and escape as well as travel, adventure, and entrepreneurial schemes. The son of a famous musical father and the bearer of impeccable musical credentials, he traveled to the United States in 1799 and devoted his life to musical endeavors until a few years before his death in 1854. His career as a composer, performer, and educator was prominent and entirely respectable. In fact, he founded viable musical conservatories in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia and, with a sojourn as a violinist in Charleston, South Carolina, placed himself in the four leading centers of music in the United States of his day. He was the creator of secular compositions as well as sacred works. He was the author of theoretical tracts that enjoyed several reprintings. What adds special interest to his consideration is that his original homeland was not located on the British Isles or in Germanic states but on the Italian peninsula. His musical experience and his point of departure, as a result, were not as common in the new American nation as those of his British- or German-born peers. Franco Sciannameo's study of Trajetta is the first in the English language. A facsimile edition of his treatise An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music (3rd ed., 1873), modern editions of representative compositions, and a catalogue of extant works are presented alongside commentary in which the known details of Trajetta's life are documented and contextualized.
by Keith C. Ward
Paperbound [6 X 9; xiii + 249 pp.]
ISBN-10: 1576471888
ISBN-13: 978-1576471883
No thoughtful observer of America’s love affair with the piano and piano music would ever suggest that, on the Western side of the Atlantic, the splendid accomplishments of European composers and performers have not been generously embraced. The treasury of European keyboard music, to the present day, represents the lion’s share of the repertory studied, taught, publicly presented, and recorded in this country. Such widespread appreciation, nonetheless, has brought relative obscurity to those composers of piano music who cultivated their art as citizens or residents of the United States. Professor Keith Ward addresses this state of affairs and with his work invites pianists—from beginners to concert artists as well as teachers—to reconsider the virtues of the often dismissed body of American keyboard music dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in light of its availability in recently published collections. The assistance he offers takes the following forms:
- A documented explanation of the historical forces that conditioned this development
- An analytical inventory of the contents of collections published primarily since the American Bicentennial
- An annotation for each collection, including commentary on editorial practices
- An assessment of the technical difficulty of each piece
- An identification of American repertoire of comparable merit to compositions making up the teaching and performing canons
- A master list of relevant composers
- A directory of recent publishers of American piano music
There is no apology in his advocacy of American-made music just as there is no reason to question the significance of revered European masters. Instead, he argues eloquently for making a place for American piano music again in the American parlor and on the American concert stage, where it once flourished.
edited by James R. Briscoe
Paperbound [6 X 9; xxviii + 202 pp.]
ISBN-10: 1576471624
ISBN-13: 978-1576471623
The fourteen articles in this collection raise a number of questions that teachers of music history have to be able to answer, not only for their students but also for themselves. What, exactly, is music history? Whose history is it? What, in fact, is music? What do undergraduates need to know about the history of music? Why? What does one semester or one year, or even a two-year sequence, permit the instructor to cover? Why is a teacher necessary in the era of the Internet? How should limited class time be filled? With which topics? As a series of lectures? As discussion sessions? Listening to music? Looking at scores? Engaging in musical activities? Going to events? What should be assigned—reading, listening, writing, keeping a log, preparing a read-through of a composition—and why? The articles that follow do more than raise questions. They invariably suggest and prescribe answers, as well as recommend approaches to teaching. Veterans and novices alike who teach undergraduate music history cannot fail to enrich their students’ experience by reading these essays and incorporating the advice found in them into their own pedagogy. Teacher’s goals should be to put them all on a course of discovery by knowing how to use every available resource and to inject them with a passionate curiosity and a visceral delight in learning. This book will help at least some of us attain these goals!
Selected, Prepared, and Introduced by Bill F. Faucett
Paperbound [7 X 10; xvi + 259 pp.]
ISBN-10: 1576471411
ISBN-13: 978-1576471418
During the years between the onset of the Civil War and the armistice of World War I music in American life flourished as never before. Some American musicians of the era remained mindful of their European counterparts while others concentrated just as enthu-siastically on expanding local traditions. Their achievements were many, as well as influ-ential of later developments.
- The lively music business, initially led by a network of regional publishers, coalesced into a centralized commercial giant and made New York City's Tin Pan Alley legendary.
- The wind band movement took hold in towns and cities to become a staple of public entertainment and public education.
- Now-venerated institutions and ensembles were founded and cultivated.
- The quest for a distinctively national concert music attracted many champions.
- A "golden age" of music criticism transpired, thanks to the propagation of journals and newspapers.
- The emergence of ragtime and jazz in the African-American community and new trends in social dancing transformed the landscape of entertainment music.
- New technologies revolutionized the dissemination and preservation of performances of all kinds.
For this volume Dr. Bill F. Faucett has selected a cogent sampling of the published commentary of participants and observers responding to such developments. His anthology offers readers a fresh opportunity to reconsider a formative era in American music history.
edited by Michael J. BuddsPaperbound [8.9 X 6; xiv + 213 pp.]
ISBN-10: 1576470725
ISBN-13: 978-1576470725
Many commentators have observed that the influence of jazz and related popular musics on musical practice beyond American borders should be considered one of the most dynamic developments of the twentieth century. This collection of essays concentrates on American influences in Germany, where such unlikely "foreign" elements enjoyed a remarkable vogue for much of the past century, not only in the realm of popular culture but in the realm of high art as well.
Against the tumultuous social and political upheavals of modern Germany there evolved a fascinating musical sound track that introduced German musicians and their public to ragtime, spirituals, the blues, later dance music, and jazz with resulting opportunities for imitation and assimilation. In this volume American scholars from various academic perspectives—Alan Lareau (German studies), Frank Tirro (musicology), E. Douglas Bomberger (musicology), Dane Heuchemer (musicology), Kathryn Smith Bowers (music education), and David Snowball (rhetoric and communication) are joined by German musician-scholars—Joachim Lucchesi, Carlo Bohländer, and Heinz Werner Zimmermann.
Contents:
- Michael J. Budds — The New World Enriches the Old
- Alan Lareau — Jonny's Jazz: From Kabarett to Krenek
- Frank Tirro — Jazz Leaves Home: The Dissemination of "Hot" Music to Central Europe
- E. Douglas Bomberger — European Perceptions of Ragtime: Hindemith and Stravinsky
- Dane Heuchemer — American Popular Musician Hindemith's Royal Palace and Krenek's Jonny spielt auf: Influences and Usage
- Kathryn Smith Bowers — East Meets West: Contributions of Mátyás Seiber to Jazz in Germany
- Joachim Lucchesi — Hanns Eisler: Jazz as a Weapon
- David Snowball — Controlling Degenerate Music: Jazz in the Third Reich
- Carlo Bohländer — The Evolution of Jazz Culture in Frankfurt: A Memoir
- Heinz Werner Zimmermann — The Influence of American Music on a German Composer
by David P. DeVenney
Clothbound [6 X 9; xiii + 258 pp.]
ISBN: 978-0-9650647-0-5
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CMS announces the publication of Source Readings in American Choral Music: Composers' Writings, Interviews, & Reviews compiled and annotated by David P. DeVenney. Appearing as the fifteenth volume in the series Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music, the text represents the first attempt to collect and publish significant documents that illuminate the history of choral music in the United States from colonial times to the post-World War II era. The thirty-one selections -- many reprinted in their entirety -- are enhanced with a chronology of landmark events in this history and by an extensive bibliography of relevant literature.
The book is valuable as a supplementary text for university study, as a reference work, and as an important contribution to the unwritten history of choral music in the United States. Professor DeVenney, a member of the choral faculty of the University of Arizona and a champion of the American repertory in the concert hall, has demonstrated his expertise on this subject in a number of well-received books and articles. Michael J. Budds of the University of Missouri-Columbia served as editor for this project.
Dedicated to landmark compositions and creative performances, the CMS Sourcebooks in American Music series demonstrates the remarkable scope of musical expression in the United States. Prepared by recognized scholars and directed to students, teachers, and interested readers in other disciplines, these sourcebooks serve as summaries of past scholarship, identify materials for further study, and offer fresh historical and critical assessments.
by Larry Starr (University of Washington)
ISBN: 978-1-57647-092-3
Paperbound 7 X 10; xi + 139 pp. + CD
There could be no more fitting subject for the opening volume of this endeavor than Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. Long a favorite of performers and audiences alike, this inimitable cycle of art songs created at mid-century by a highly distinctive voice in American music pays tribute to one of America's revered poets, herself a pioneer of "the modern" on her own terms. Professor Starr convincingly identifies the shared aesthetic affinities of the poet and the composer in spite of the social, artistic, and chronological gaps that separated them and explains the pivotal nature of the work in Copland's output. He then sensitively describes the singular musical solutions devised for each poem, all the while emphasizing the composer's respect for the idiosyncrasies of Dickinson's verse. Commentary on the original version for soprano and piano is supplemented by information on Copland's later orchestrations for selected songs, a discussion of performance and interpretation, and details concerning the work's history on recordings. For the reader's convenience a compact disc with performances of Twelve Poems by Adele Addison with the composer himself at the keyboard and of Eight Poems by Barbara Hendricks and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas is included with the text.
by Neil Minturn (University of Missouri-Columbia)
ISBN: 1-57647-093-8
Paperbound 7 X 10; xiv + 224 pp.
Neil Minturn addresses the phenomenon of rock and roll with a serious investigation of Martin Scorsese's documentary film The Last Waltz (1978). This celebrated "rockumentary" artfully captures for posterity the final public performance of The Band, a partnership of one American and four Canadians that yielded an impressive body of popular song in the rock idiom between 1961 and 1976. Joining its members for their farewell was a variety of friends and guests who—like the music of The Band itself—reflected the rich array of vernacular expressions that have nourished rock and roll since its emergence. Professor Minturn approaches the performances and the film itself in terms of the concepts of intimacy and tradition. He presents the San Francisco concert as the summation of an extraordinary musical pilgrimage and prefaces his scene-by-scene analysis of Scorsese's cinematic creation with a cogent introduction to issues surrounding documentary film-making. Selected performances are discussed in detail.
by Gene H. Anderson (University of Richmond)
ISBN-13: 978-1-57647-120-3
Paperbound 7 X 10; xx + 258 pp. + CD
Between 1925 and 1928 the Hot Five—the incomparable Louis Armstrong and four seasoned practitioners of the burgeoning jazz style—recorded thirty-three performances in Chicago for the OKeh label. Oddly, the quintet immortalized on vinyl recordings rarely performed as a unit in local nightspots. And yet, like other music now regarded as especially historic, their work in the studio summarized approaches of the past and set standards for the future. Remarkable both for popularity among the members of the public and for influence on contemporary musicians, these recordings helped make "Satchmo" a household name and ultimately an adored public figure. They showcased Armstrong's genius, notably his leadership in transforming the practice of jazz as ensemble improvisation into jazz as the art of the improvising soloist. In his study Professor Anderson—for the first time—provides a detailed account of the origins of this pioneering enterprise, relates individual pieces to existing copyright deposits, and contextualizes the music by offering a reliable timeline of Armstrong's professional activities during these years. All thirty-three pieces, moreover, are described in informed detail. A CD with twenty of the original recordings is included.
by Paul Laird
ISBN: 978-1-57647-152-4
Paperbound 7 X 10; xv+ 249 pp.
A secular work with sacred Hebrew texts and a "hint of Broadway"—commissioned by an Anglican cleric for a British choral festival to be held in a medieval cathedral and written by a popular American composer of Jewish heritage in his own eclectic style—would certainly attract widespread interest. In fact, since its 1965 premiere, Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein has taken its place in the concert repertory as the most frequently performed piece of twentieth-century American choral music. In his thoughtful study Professor Paul R. Laird traces the unusual genesis of the work from sketches conceived for other projects and describes in detail the musical content of the final form of its three movements. Published for the first time with the author’s commentary are the complete correspondence between Dean Walter Hussey and the composer, a survey of published criticism that greeted its first performances on both sides of the Atlantic, and an accounting of emendations to two performance scores in Bernstein's own hand.
by Frank Tirro
ISBN-10: 1576471284
ISBN-13: 978-1-57647-128-9
Paperbound 7 X 10; xxv + 196 pp. + CD
In the wake of World War II jazz musicians found themselves confronting transition as well as opportunity. Big band swing and "sweet" commercial music, once so popular, had peaked as social diversions and were, in a sense, victims of the War. A handful of young African-American musicians challenged the function of jazz as entertainment and dance music with a hot, uncompromising new idiom: bebop. Their revolutionary efforts were soon followed by explorations in harmony, orchestration, counterpoint, and meter that were perceived as cool. In this volume Professor Tirro considers systematically the cele-brated recordings made between 1949 and 1951 by the Miles Davis Nonet, performances that, after the fact, became known as the Birth of the Cool. In addition to identifying styl-istic precedents and to stressing the connection of various participants to the Claude Thornhill Band, he convincingly summarizes the attributes of cool jazz, describes the professional context that generated these landmark recordings, and directs the readers' attention to the contributions of arrangers and performers alike. Discussions of the music are organized by arranger: Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and John Carisi. Evans, Mulligan, Lewis, and Davis must be considered unqualified titans of modern jazz; their collaboration in this endeavor is but one fascinating, artistically rewarding episode in long, distinguished careers. A compact disc with relevant selections accompanies the text.
by Mark Zobel
ISBN: 978-1-57647-142-5
Paperbound 7 X 10; xi + 129 pp.
Boyhood in a small Connecticut town, the imprint of a free-thinking father, a formal music education at Yale University, a lucrative career as a New York City insurance executive, and a personal philosophy balancing individuality and idealism: these are the conditions that formed and informed the controversial music of Charles Ives. His works were rescued from obscurity--in many instances, long after their creation--and introduced to the concert world. For some time the accomplishments of this Yankee renegade have been recognized as central to the American musical experience.
His Third Symphony, conceived early in the twentieth century and only given its premiere in 1946, was identified by the composer himself as a pivotal effort in his compositional odyssey and, perhaps ironically, earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1947.In this study Dr. Zobel reviews the complicated narrative of the Symphony's composition, explains why Ives considered it a turning point between the "old ways" and the "new ways," explores the structural implications of its camp-meeting program and the sophisticated manipulation of hymn tunes in its fabric, and places it in the context of Ives's idiosyncratic worldview. In the process he interprets the timing of its first public performance as a means to appreciate evolving attitudes toward modernism in the American musical establishment.
The text is enhanced by a sampling of critical commentary dating from the past sixty years.
by Thomas DeLio University of Maryland)
ISBN: 978-1-57647-182-1
Paperbound 7 X 10; xvii + 150 pp. + CD
Asserting that John Cage's innovations from the late 1930s and 1940s represent much more than a transitional phase in the American composer's sonic and philosophical journey, composer and theorist Thomas DeLio focuses his analytical energies on Amores, an economical four-movement quartet dating from 1943. This particular chamber work calls attention to Cage's dedicated expansion of musical resources by his creation of a repertory for percussion instruments as well as one for an instrument of his own invention, the prepared piano. In this study the piece is interpreted by Professor DeLio as a singular movement in music history: the reconciliation of what the author has identified as organic and inorganic approaches to composition central to the evolution of music during the twentieth century. In doing so, he surveys the relevant thoughts of prominent aestheticians and places the piece at a nexus of what some have labeled Modernism and Postmodernism, but which DeLio understands as two branches of Modernism itself. Accompanying the text is a compact disc containing an especially memorable recorded performance of Amores, one first issued in 1961 featuring Cage himself in the two movements conceived exclusively for the prepared piano.
by Wayne C. Wentzel
ISBN: 978-1-881913-62-7
Paperbound 7" x 9"; 680 pp. + CD
It is probably safe to contend that the reception history of Adagio for Strings (1934) by American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is unmatched. It has, of course, achieved canonical status in the three versions prepared by its composer—for string quartet, string orchestra, and mixed chorus. In addition, its broad appeal to classical music lovers as well as to members of the general public has resulted in an array of transcriptions and arrangements. But what becomes ultimately compelling is the spectrum of social contexts where this music is heard and been enthusiastically embraced:
- in the discotheque and on the modern dance stage,
- at the movie theater and on television,
- during memorial services and demonstrations of patriotism,
- at rock concerts and the circus, in therapy sessions and scientific research,
- at figure-skating competitions and other sporting events,
- at weddings and funerals, and
- on the Internet.
In 2011 over 29,000 hits for Adagio for Strings could be found on YouTube alone. There are fascinating connections to poetry and fiction, paintings and sculpture, ring tones and crossword puzzles.
Wayne Wentzel's study of this beloved work represents the most exhaustive consideration to date. He not only provides a well documented account of its birth and infancy but its adolescence--when it moved beyond the expected concert setting--and its maturity--when it became a pervasive feature of Western culture in both its cultivated and popular realms. Musical analysis and references to a host of testimonials and assessments are bolstered by discographical and bibliographical reports.
Professor Wentzel concludes the volume with thoughtful speculation on the meaning of Barber's masterpiece and wrestles with inevitable and yet controversial questions: Is it American? Is it sad? Is it gay? And, after more that seventy-five years, is it trite?
A compact disc presenting an assortment of well-known performances for various media accompanies the text.
by Kendra Preston Leonard
ISBN: 9781138707160
290 pages, Hardback, e-Book
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The Art Songs of Louise Talma presents some of Talma’s finest compositions and those most frequently performed during her life. It includes pieces appropriate for beginning, intermediate, and advanced singers and collaborative pianists. The songs include text settings of American, English, and French poets and writers, including Native American poems, works by W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, e. e. cummings, John Donne, Gerald Manley Hopkins, William Shakespeare, and Wallace Stevens, as well as poems from medieval France and religious texts. Because of the popularity of Talma’s choral works and the fact that her works for voice and piano were performed often, this sourcebook will be useful to singers at all stages of their careers, as well as scholars of twentieth-century music as a whole. The diversity of compositional approaches Talma used provides a snapshot of American trends in composition during the twentieth century; during the course of her career, Talma moved from neo-classicism to serialism and finally to non-strict serial-derived atonality in her works. Inclusion of performance and reception histories of the songs helps trace changing public taste in American art song and the repertoire of performers, particularly those interested in contemporary music.
by Jeremy S. Brown
ISBN: 9780815375739
326 pages | 65 B/W Illus., Hardback
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The Wind Band Music of Henry Cowell studies the compositions for wind band by twentieth-century composer Henry Cowell, a significant and prolific figure in American fine art music from 1914-1965. The composer is noteworthy and controversial because of his radical early works, his interest in non-Western musics, and his retrogressive mature style—along with notoriety for his imprisonment in San Quentin on a morals charge. Eleven chapters are organized both topically and chronologically. An introduction, conclusion, series of eight appendices, bibliography, and discography complete this comprehensive study, along with an audio playlist of representative works, hosted on the CMS website.