Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers

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Milton Babbitt
Sandor Balassa
Luciano Berio
Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Pierre Boulez
Attila Bozay
Earle Brown
Sylvano Bussotti
John Cage
Elliott Carter
Friedrich Cerha
George Crumb
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Edison Denisov
Henri Dutilleux
Peter Eoetvoes
Morton Feldman
Lukas Foss
Alberto Ginastera
Karel Goeyvaerts
Sofia Gubaidulina
Georg Friedrich Haas
Hans Werner Henze
Klaus Huber
Zoltan Jeney
Mauricio Kagel
Georg Katzer
Ernst Krenek
Ladislav Kupkovic
Gyoergy Kurtag
Helmut Lachenmann
Gyoergy Ligeti
Witold Lutoslawski
Francois-Bernard Mache
Michio Mamiya
Giacomo Manzoni
Paul Mefano
Andras Mihaly
Tristan Murail
Marlos Nobre
Luigi Nono
Krzysztof Penderecki
Goffredo Petrassi
Emil Petrovics
Henri Pousseur
Steve Reich
Wolfgang Rihm
Peter Ruzicka
Laszlo Sary
Pierre Schaeffer
Dieter Schnebel
Alfred Schnittke
Gunther Schuller
Johannes Maria Staud
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Andras Szollosy
Toru Takemitsu
Dimitri Terzakis
Sir Michael Tippett
Laszlo Vidovszky
Wladimir Vogel
Gerhard Wimberger
Christian Wolff
Iannis Xenakis

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Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences or from, say, the natural world? What influences, past and present, have influenced recent composers? How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style, and when does this degenerate into self-repetition? These are questions about which some of the most important composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century often have quite strong feelings--but have seldom been asked. In this pathbreaking book, Bálint András Varga puts these three questions to such renowned composers as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and Iannis Xenakis. Varga's sensitive English renderings capture the subtleties of their sometimes confident, sometimes hesitant, answers. All statements from English-speaking composers -- such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller, andSir Michael Tippett -- consist of the composers' own carefully chosen words. Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is vital reading for anybody interested in the current state of music and the arts. TheHungarian music publisher Bálint András Varga has spent nearly forty years working for and with composers. He has published several books, including extensive interviews with Lutoslawski, Berio, and Xenakis. His previous book forthe University of Rochester Press is György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages.

Reviews

The responses from . . . Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis . . . are as lucid an introduction to their musical preoccupations as could be hoped. Production values are as consistently high as one expects from the University of Rochester Press. . . . The most illuminating such symposium of composers cast 'in their own words.' Absorbing and highly pleasurable reading can be assured. -- Richard Whitehouse

The responses vary greatly in length and complexity . . . [but] the variety, together with the lucidity of the responses, makes for a more engaging read. . . . One of the more thought-provoking books on modern music. -- Toby Deller

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