Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century
“Generous, expansive, alarming, fantastical, perverse, humane, beautiful and ugly, provisional and incomplete: here finally is a portrait that reflects the messy contours of 20th-century classical music.” (Literary Review)

Sound Within Sound presents an alternative history of 20th-century composers—nearly all of them women or composers of color—by a leading international music critic.

Profiling a dozen pioneering 20th-century composers—including American modernist Ruth Crawford Seeger (mother of Pete and Peggy Seeger), French electronic artist Éliane Radigue, Soviet visionary Galina Ustvolskaya, and Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou—acclaimed journalist and BBC broadcaster Kate Molleson reexamines the canon while bringing to life largely forgotten sonic revolutionaries whose dramatic lives and bursts of creativity played out against a backdrop of seismic geopolitical and social change.

These composers, working at a remove from London, Paris, Vienna, and New York, were sidelined and ignored for systemic, structural reasons. This is a landmark alternative history of 20th-century composers; a radical, new, and truly global work of revisionist history. It is a campaigning book that challenges the status quo while introducing you to a world of groundbreaking music.

The music history traditionally taught is one dominated by white men, and even then, only a select few enter the zeitgeist. This conventional history perpetuates the myth of “great works” created by “genius” artists. Men who enjoyed institutional privilege during their lifetimes and have since been enshrined by an industry of publishers and record labels.

But just because we haven’t heard of spectacular female composers doesn’t mean they weren’t creating essential music.
1141001210
Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century
“Generous, expansive, alarming, fantastical, perverse, humane, beautiful and ugly, provisional and incomplete: here finally is a portrait that reflects the messy contours of 20th-century classical music.” (Literary Review)

Sound Within Sound presents an alternative history of 20th-century composers—nearly all of them women or composers of color—by a leading international music critic.

Profiling a dozen pioneering 20th-century composers—including American modernist Ruth Crawford Seeger (mother of Pete and Peggy Seeger), French electronic artist Éliane Radigue, Soviet visionary Galina Ustvolskaya, and Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou—acclaimed journalist and BBC broadcaster Kate Molleson reexamines the canon while bringing to life largely forgotten sonic revolutionaries whose dramatic lives and bursts of creativity played out against a backdrop of seismic geopolitical and social change.

These composers, working at a remove from London, Paris, Vienna, and New York, were sidelined and ignored for systemic, structural reasons. This is a landmark alternative history of 20th-century composers; a radical, new, and truly global work of revisionist history. It is a campaigning book that challenges the status quo while introducing you to a world of groundbreaking music.

The music history traditionally taught is one dominated by white men, and even then, only a select few enter the zeitgeist. This conventional history perpetuates the myth of “great works” created by “genius” artists. Men who enjoyed institutional privilege during their lifetimes and have since been enshrined by an industry of publishers and record labels.

But just because we haven’t heard of spectacular female composers doesn’t mean they weren’t creating essential music.
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Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century

Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century

by Kate Molleson
Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century

Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the Twentieth Century

by Kate Molleson

Hardcover

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Overview

“Generous, expansive, alarming, fantastical, perverse, humane, beautiful and ugly, provisional and incomplete: here finally is a portrait that reflects the messy contours of 20th-century classical music.” (Literary Review)

Sound Within Sound presents an alternative history of 20th-century composers—nearly all of them women or composers of color—by a leading international music critic.

Profiling a dozen pioneering 20th-century composers—including American modernist Ruth Crawford Seeger (mother of Pete and Peggy Seeger), French electronic artist Éliane Radigue, Soviet visionary Galina Ustvolskaya, and Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou—acclaimed journalist and BBC broadcaster Kate Molleson reexamines the canon while bringing to life largely forgotten sonic revolutionaries whose dramatic lives and bursts of creativity played out against a backdrop of seismic geopolitical and social change.

These composers, working at a remove from London, Paris, Vienna, and New York, were sidelined and ignored for systemic, structural reasons. This is a landmark alternative history of 20th-century composers; a radical, new, and truly global work of revisionist history. It is a campaigning book that challenges the status quo while introducing you to a world of groundbreaking music.

The music history traditionally taught is one dominated by white men, and even then, only a select few enter the zeitgeist. This conventional history perpetuates the myth of “great works” created by “genius” artists. Men who enjoyed institutional privilege during their lifetimes and have since been enshrined by an industry of publishers and record labels.

But just because we haven’t heard of spectacular female composers doesn’t mean they weren’t creating essential music.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781419753565
Publisher: Abrams Press
Publication date: 11/15/2022
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Kate Molleson is a journalist and broadcaster and one of the UK’s leading commentators on contemporary classical music. She was a classical music critic for the Guardian for seven years and deputy editor of Opera magazine. She currently presents BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and Music Matters. She has presented documentaries for BBC4 and BBC World Service, and she teaches music journalism at the Darmstadt and Dartington international summer schools. Molleson grew up in various parts of Scotland and the far north of Canada, and studied clarinet performance at McGill University in Montreal and musicology at King’s College London, where she researched the operas of Ezra Pound. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Julián Carrillo (1875-1965) 11

Mexico's microtonal wars and the thirteenth sound revolution

Ruth Crawford (1901-53) 43

Wakingup, shakingup: a new American dissonance

Walter Smetak (1913-84) 73

From Brazil to caossonance: introducing Tak-Tak, godfather of Tropicália

José Maceda (1917-2004) 103

Filipino drone time: orchestrating city and century

Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) 135

Sound poet of St Petersburg: sonic realism, holy terror

Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guèbru (b. 1923) 161

Waltz for Addis Ababa: Ethiopia's piano royalty

Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) 183

Denmark's electronic music pioneer: truth, trauma and fairy tales

Muhal Richard Abrams (1930-2017) 215

Tradition wide as all outdoors: an awakening on Chicago's South Side

Éliane Radigue (b. 1932) 247

Occam Ocean: in search of sound within sound

Annea Lockwood (b. 1939) 273

New Zealand river crossings: hung up on serenity

Timeline 304

Thanks 310

Further Reading: The Essentials 312

Sources 314

Image Credits 327

Index 328

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