Intimate Voices: The Twentieth-Century String Quartet. Volume 1: Debussy to Villa-Lobos. Volume 2: Shostakovich to the Avant-Garde

Modern composers as diverse as Béla Bartók, Maurice Ravel, Benjamin Britten and John Cage have confided some of their most personal and intense thoughts to the medium of the string quartet. The resulting repertoire has won the allegiance of string players and of listeners in the concert hall and at home. Yet, until now, no book has addressed the language of these remarkable works, their interactions with the masterpieces of Beethoven and others, and their new
approaches to musical expression. Intimate Voices, organized in rough chronological order, offers the observations and intuitions of twenty leading authorities on quartets by twenty-one composers from eleven countries. Its two volumes ? also available separately ? comprise an indispensable guide to amateur and professional chamber musicians, scholars, students, and anyone seeking a deeper acquaintance with the great achievements of twentieth-century music.

Includes esays on :
Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Bartók, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten, Ligeti, Berio, Xenakis, Scelsi, Cage, Babbitt, Carter, Powell, Ran

Contributors: Marianne Wheeldon; Joseph Kraus; Joseph Straus; David Neumeyer; Matthew R. Shaftel; Dave Headlam; David Clampitt; Eero Tarasti; Neil Minturn; Patrick McCreless; Christopher Mark; Jane Piper Clendinning; Richard Hermann; Evan Jones; Eric Drott; David W. Bernstein; Andrew Mead; Jonathan W. Bernard; Jeffrey Perry; Robert Peck

CONTENIDO:

Vol. 1

Preface
Part One: New Voices from the Old World
The Strings Quartets of Debussy and Ravel (Marianne Wheeldon)
Sibeliu's "Internal Voices": Structure and Process in the Quartet in D minor, Voces Intimae, Op. 56 (Joseph Kraus)
The Pitch Language of the Bartók Quartet (Joseph N. Straus)
The String Quartet in the Music of Paul Hindemith (David Neumeyer)

Part Two: The Second Viennese School
Comprehensibility, Variation, and the String Quartet Tradition: The Second Movement of Arnold Schoenberg's Third Quartet, Op. 30 (Matthew R. Shaftel
Process in the String Quartets of Alban Berg (Dave Headlam
Webern's Music for String Quartet (David Clampitt)

Part Three: Inherited and Indigenous Traditions
Villa-Lobos's String Quartets (Eero Tarasti)
Appropriate tradition: The String Quartets of Sergei Prokofiev (Neil Minturn)

List of Contributors
Index

Vol. 2

Preface
Part One: Motive, Quotation, and Form
Dimitri Shostakovich: The String Quartet (Patrick McCreless)
Supported by Tradition: Sonority, Form, and Trascendence in Britten's String Quartet (Christopher Mark)

Part Two: The European Avant-Garde
György Ligeti's String Quartets (Jane Piper Clendinning)
Becoming Berio: Evidence from His First Three String Quartets (Richard Hermann)
An Experiential Account of Musical Form in Xenakis's String Quartets (Evan Jones)
The String Quartets of Giacinto Scelsi (Eric Drott)

Part Three: The String Quartet in America
"A Line in Rhythnic Space": John Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) (David W. Bernstein)
The String Quartets of Milton Babbitt (Andrew Mead)
The String Quartets of Elliot Carter (Jonathan W. Bernard)
Mel Powell and the String Quartets (Jeffrey Perry)
The String Quartets of Shulamit Ran (Robert W. Peck)

List of Contributors
Index