Excerpt from "II High Color" - performed by Sarah Cahill. . .If your browser doesn't support plug-in download mp3 here.
A champion of the works of Carl Ruggles, Arnold Schoenberg,
Charles Ives and Leo Ornstein,
his students included George Gershwin, John Cage,
and his interests extended beyond western classical traditions.
"Though Henry Cowell was a composer and a music critic of startling originality
-as well as a producer, a promoter, a publisher and an ethnomusicologist-,
he has remained largely a background figure in American music.
But editor Dick Higgins' Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music promises to bring
Cowell's criticism into the spotlight. Gathering together essays on
Stravinsky, Bartok, John Cage and many other composers,
as well as selections from Cowell's unpublished opus, The Nature of Melody,
this volume will enlighten aficionados of World Music
and engage anyone interested in innovative composition."
-Publishers Weekly 10/29/01
"Cowell was a pioneer of experimental music and influenced composers like
John Cage . . . The late Higgins, an artist, publisher, and composer
who studied with Cowell at New York City's New School,
collected these 46 essays by Cowell.
Included are eighteen studies of fellow musicians and composers,
from Charles Ives to Bela Bartok, a section on world music;
and essays on musical craft, theory, and history.
Recommended for music and large public libraries."
-Library Journal 11/1/01
"Henry Cowell was one of the most important figures in the history of American music
in the 20th century, and this collection of his writings
is a welcome addition to our knowledge of that history."
- Professor James Tenney, California Institute of the Arts

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