A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches

This indispensable handbook explains how scholars and students should work with and think about the composer's working manuscripts.

Patricia Hall (Edited by), Friedemann Sallis (Edited by)

9781107405400, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 July 2012

270 pages
24.6 x 18.9 x 1.4 cm, 0.49 kg

'… a wide-ranging, handsomely presented, pedagogical survey that is intended to explain "how scholars and students should work with and think about the composer's working manuscripts" … invaluable resource … The contributing authors strike a fair balance between practical guidance and specific research concerns, and there is a useful appendix that lists the addresses of thirty-eight archives and institutes that house twentieth-century music manuscripts … offers sound advice … invaluable … The author's extensive knowledge of Bartok's sketches is amply illustrated in this chapter … this information is fascinating.' Twentieth-Century Music

This indispensable handbook, first published in 2004, explains how scholars and students should work with and think about the composer's working manuscripts. This book surveys the knowledge necessary to work efficiently in archives and libraries housing this material and with the skills and techniques specifically related to sketch studies: transcription, reconstructing sketchbooks, deciphering handwriting, dating documents. It deals with the music of important twentieth-century composers and presents visual examples of manuscripts from the collections of world-renowned institutions such as the Paul Sacher Foundation. The book aims to make the work of both researchers and students more efficient and rewarding.

Introduction Friedemann Sallis and Patricia Hall
1. Sketches and sketching Giselher Schubert and Friedemann Sallis
2. Preliminaries before visiting an archive Ulrich Mosch
3. Archival etiquette Therese Muxeneder
4. Coming to terms with the composer's working manuscripts Friedemann Sallis
5. The classification of musical sketches exemplified in the catalogue of the Archivio Luigi Nono Erika Schaller
6. Digital preservation of archival material William Koseluk
7. Transcribing sketches Regina Busch
8. A tale of two sketchbooks: reconstructing and deciphering Alban Berg's sketchbooks for Wozzeck Patricia Hall
9. 'Written between the desk and the piano': dating Béla Bartók's sketches László Somfai
10. Defining compositional process: idea and instrumentation in Igor Stravinsky's Ragtime (1918) and Pribaoutki (1915) Tomi Mäkelä
11. Floating hierarchies: organisation and composition in works by Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen during the 1950s Pascal Decroupet
12. Elliot Carter's sketches: spiritual exercises and craftsmanship Denis Vermaelen
13. E-Sketches: Brian Ferneyhough's use of computer assisted compositional tools Ross Feller
14. John Cage's Williams Mix (1951–3): the restoration and new realizations of and variations on the first octophonic, surround-sound tape composition Larry Austin
Appendix. Select list of institutions housing manuscript collections of twentieth-century composers.

Subject Areas: Musical scores, lyrics & libretti [AVQ], 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV]