LaRocca interviews MacMillan
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,801
    Just stumbled on this recent interview while checking whether the Benedict XVI Institute page was active yet. Very interesting takes on Wagner & Cage!
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  • Carol
    Posts: 856
    This is a wonderful website of which I was unaware. Thank you for pointing it out. The article was most interesting and I thank you for calling attention to it.
  • CatherineS
    Posts: 690
    Thanks for the link! I'd recently read this article there and was enjoying seeing a composer talk about the spirituality of music and of his art of composing. I'm more used to seeing talk of the spirituality of music as regards the listener (ie the congregation). I'll browse the rest of the articles on that site to see what other treasures may be there.

    On a related note I am reading an interesting (if a bit geeky) book about the spirituality of a composer and his compositions, that being Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd’s Gradualia, by Kerry McCarthy. I'm not a musicologist, so I'm skimming occasional bits that get into heavy details of musical structure, but the overall commentary on the spirituality of the musical structure and the (spiritual/liturgical) context in which the pieces were composed is very interesting.

    If anyone else has recommendations on this subject, please feel free to send them my way.
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    https://www.amazon.com/Music-Morals-Theological-Appraisal-Psychological/dp/081890660X

    This is an excellent book by Basil Cole whom I have spent a little time with.
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  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    I have a newfound respect for Schoenberg AND Cage after reading that. My jaw dropped, akin to LaRocca.

    Makes sense if you think about it though. As I've surmised before, 4'33" is the most programmed piece for the Elevation in the Church's history. Cage would've made a fortune if he had copyrighted it. But mystics don't make (or need) copyrights anyway.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    As to Schoenberg, look at the principal motif of his Friede auf Erde (frequently sung in the bass line). It's a quote from Beethoven's Solemnis--specifically, the first bars of the Credo. Of course, the first two notes of the Beethoven are lifted from the priest's intonation of "Credo".

    I still hold that Schoenberg went off the rails with 12-tone and I will not apologize.
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  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Yeah, there's still the twelve-tone stuff. Yikes. I read that he had a phobia of the number 13. Perhaps a fear of one-upmanship in modern music theory?
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  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    Cage would've made a fortune if he had copyrighted it.

    The piece most certainly is copyrighted. And it most certainly was published in 1952 by Editions Peters (edition no. 6777). And when the piece is performed, it invariably is played from the published score, not from memory.

    So the composer certainly received income from his composition, even though it may not have been a fortune.

    BTW, perusing the several recorded performances of 4' 33" on youtube, it appears that all the performers do the piece too slowly.
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  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Are there any sacred 12-tone choral works that do not "go off the rails" but, instead, have a numinous spiritual essence about them?

    I, for one, should hope so, since I have ventured into that realm.
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  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    Charles, check out Stravinsky's "The Dove Descending", to a poem by T.S. Eliot. Definitely unorthodox (as most Stravinsky is) but it's much more approachable than Schoenberg's works.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    "The Dove Descending" is a sparkling setting of T.S. Eliot's poem.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQQ90PqlFWA
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    If you want numinous, Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles and the Eliot Introitus qualify.

    Donald Martino wrote a few sacred pieces (7 Pious Pieces, The White Island) using diatonic hexachords, that are both serial and (for certain values of "tonal") tonal.
  • toddevoss
    Posts: 162
    Slightly related, The Dove Descending is also the title of a very good commentary on The Four Quartets.
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