Inventing an American Music

Inventing an American Music By Nicholas E. Tawa Written for the concert The Composer’s Voice, performed on Oct 6, 1996 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. A unending cultural debate began in the 1890s on the question of what comprises an American music? Edward MacDowell, an outstanding composer of the 1890s, had maintained it…

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The Composer’s Voice: Influence and Originality in Hartmann and Mahler

The Composer’s Voice: Influence and Originality in Hartmann and Mahler By Leon Botstein Written for the concert The Composer’s Voice, performed on Oct 6, 1996 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Karl Amadeus Hartmann was, as Andrew D. McCredie, the leading Hartmann scholar, has pointed out, an artist of conscience. The central question for…

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Symphony No. 1 (1948), Symphony No. 6 (1953)

Symphony No. 1 (1948), Symphony No. 6 (1953) By Robert Maxham, Executive Director, Ames International Orchestra Festival Written for the concert The Composer’s Voice, performed on Oct 6, 1996 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. As single-minded as Karl Amadeus Hartmann was as an opponent of Nazism, he was equally multiform as a composer.…

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Das klagende Lied (1901)

Das klagende Lied (1901) By Edward R. Reilly, Vassar College Written for the concert The Composer’s Voice, performed on Oct 6, 1996 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Das klagende Lied is a unique work in Mahler’s output. It is also, as Mahler himself described it, his Schmerzenkind (child of sorrow). In genre it…

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