This show, first broadcast on June 28, 2015, looks at the emergence of composition strictly for percussion ensemble. Cuba’s Amadeo Roldán was the first to compose scores exclusively for percussion players. An array of American composers followed: innovative ultra-modernist John J. Becker; German-born Johanna M. Beyer, one of the most original and important modernists of the 1930s; master composer Henry Cowell; the quirky and forward-looking William Russell; avant-garde pioneer John Cage; and groundbreaking composer Lou Harrison. Harrison is also quoted from my own interview with him. The works played are:
AMADEO ROLDÁN
Ritmicas Nos. 5 & 6 (1930)
JOHN J. BECKER
Abongo (1933)
Vigilante 1938 (A Dance) (1935)
JOHANNA M. BEYER
Percussion Suite in 3 Movements (1933)
Waltz (1939)
HENRY COWELL
Ostinato Pianissimo (1934)
Pulse (1939)
WILLIAM RUSSELL
Made in America (1936, rev. 1990)
Chicago Sketches (1940)
JOHN CAGE
Trio (1936)
Third Construction (1941)
JOHN CAGE & LOU HARRISON
Double Music (1941)
LOU HARRISON
Fifth Simfony (1939) [excerpt]
Song Of Quetzalcoatl (1940)
Fugue for Percussion (1941)
Link to:
Music: SFCR Radio Shows 2012–2018
For more on percussion music, see:
Music Essay: The Beaten Path: A History of American Percussion Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #10, Percussion in Early 20th-Century Music
For more on these composers, see:
Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition
More Cool Sites To Visit! – Music
For more on John J. Becker and Henry Cowell, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #16, John J. Becker and the American Five Plus One
For more on Johanna M. Beyer, see:
Music: KALW Radio Show #2, Anticipations of Minimalism
Music: KALW Radio Show #4, Women’s History Month
For more on Johanna M. Beyer and John Cage, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #29, Electro-Acoustic Music, Part 1: New Instruments
For more on Johanna M. Beyer and William Russell, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #27, 20th-Century Music on the March
For more on John Cage, see:
Film Review: Prism’s Colors, The Mechanics of Time
Music Book: Sonic Transports – Glenn Branca essay, part 1
Music Book: Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers
Music Lecture: King of the Omniverse: Sun Ra and His Arkestra
Music: KALW Radio Show #3, Ancient China in 20th-Century Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #4, Postmodernism, part 1: Three Founders
Music: SFCR Radio Show #8, Daoism in Western Music, part 1
Music: SFCR Radio Show #22, Neo-Classicism, part 3
For more on John Cage and Henry Cowell, see:
Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music
Music Lecture: The Secret of 20th-Century American Music
For more on John Cage and Lou Harrison, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #25, Schoenberg in America
For more on Lou Harrison, see:
Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers
Music: SFCR Radio Show #30, A Century of Lou Harrison
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 