Eagle Minds

Description

Eagle Minds—a selection from the correspondence between the Canadian composer and scholar Istvan Anhalt and his American counterpart George Rochberg—is a splendid chronicle and a penetrating analysis of the swerving socio-cultural movements of a volatile half-century as observed by two highly gifted individuals.

Beginning in 1961 and spanning forty-four years, their conversation embraces not only music but other forms of contemporary art, as well as politics, philosophy, religion, and mysticism. The letters chronicle the deepening of their friendship over the years, and the openness, honesty, and genuine warmth between them provide the reader with an intimate look at their personalities. A fascinating intellectual tension emerges between the two men as they record their individual responses to musical modernism, to changing political and social realities, and to their Jewish heritage and sense of place, one as a son of Ukrainian immigrants to the United States, the other as a refugee from war-torn Hungary.

Allowing us a privileged glimpse into the private lives and thoughts of these fascinating men, Eagle Minds is a valuable tool for scholars interested in North American composers in the late twentieth century and essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural and social history of that era.

Sujets

• Music

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554586899
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

EAGLE MINDS

EAGLE MINDS
S ELECTED C ORRESPONDENCE OF I STVAN A NHALT AND G EORGE R OCHBERG (1961-2005)
ALAN M. GILLMOR, EDITOR
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Anhalt, Istv n, 1919-
Eagle minds : selected correspondence of Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg/
edited by Alan M. Gillmor.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55458-018-7
1. Anhalt, Istv n, 1919- -Correspondence. 2. Rochberg, George-Correspondence. 3. Composers-Correspondence. I. Gillmor, Alan M. II. Rochberg, George III. Title.
ML410.A59A4 2007 780.92 2 C2007-902763-6
Cover photo and frontispiece: Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg, Kingston, Ontario, August 1985. Photo by Beate Anhalt. Library and Archives Canada. Cover design by Sandra Friesen. Text design by Catharine Bonas-Taylor.
2007 Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
www.wlupress.wlu.ca

This book is printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper (100% post-consumer recycled).
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
for Willis
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: A New Friendship (1961-1964)
1961
1962
1963
1964
Part II: Musical Composition (1965-1976)
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
Part III: The Aesthetics of Survival and Alternative Voices (1981-1985)
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
Part IV: Politics, Religion, and Society (1986-2000)
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
Part V: Envoi (2001-2005)
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Index
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg, Kingston, Ontario, August 1985 frontispiece
George Rochberg, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, 2000
Istvan Anhalt, Kingston, Ontario, 2005
George and Gene Rochberg, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, February 1999
Page of a letter from Anhalt to Rochberg (15 June 1998)
Page of a letter from Rochberg to Anhalt (10 October 1998)
Beate and Istvan Anhalt, Kingston, Ontario, October 2000
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My profound gratitude must be offered first, of course, to Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg, who cooperated in this enterprise with uncommon generosity, clarifying countless points of fact and obscure calligraphy. Moreover, both took the time to proofread their respective letters in a draft version, catching as a consequence numerous typographical errors which one is tempted to blame on the computer voice recognition software but which, more honestly, must be attributed to the lazy eyes of the editor. I would also like to offer my deep appreciation to Gene Rochberg, who, since her husband s death, has taken over the onerous task of proofreading and editorial advising.
I would like to thank Dr. S. Timothy Maloney, the former Director of the Music Division of Library and Archives Canada, for taking a strong personal interest in this project from the beginning and assisting me in numerous ways, and to Jeannine Barriault, Maureen Nevins, and the staff of the Music Division of Library and Archives Canada I record my appreciation for their splendid assistance and consummate professionalism. Dr. Felix Meyer, Johanna Blask, and Petra Kupfer of the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, as well as the Music Division of the New York Public Library, have kindly placed at my disposal letters of Anhalt to Rochberg held in their respective George Rochberg Collections. I would also like to single out Zolt n Bartos (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), Paul Landau (Director, Israel Music Institute), Nancy M. Shawcross (Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania), and Christine Taylor (Interlibrary Loans Department, Carleton University).
To my colleagues, Professors Paul Attallah, Donald Beecher, Bryan Gillingham, Elaine Keillor, Gregory MacIsaac, Steven Wilson, and James Wright, all of Carleton University, I extend my gratitude for their assistance on a number of points great and small.
A bald list does not adequately reflect my deep gratitude to those-many of them subjects of this correspondence-who generously responded to my inquiries: the late Roger Beare, Glenn Black, Arnold Broido, Curt Cacioppo, Ivan Chan, David Clunie, Lowell Cross, Brenda Dalen, Morris Eaves, Robin Elliott, Alfred Fisher, Donald Gillmor, Joseph Graham, Arlene Greenberg, Beverly Holmes, Fr. Giancarlo Isoardi, Peter Laki, Gord McFee, Helen Mirkil, Monte Keene Pishny-Floyd, Winston Purdy, Michael Roeder, Gordon Smith, Melvin Strauss, Joel Thome, and John Thomson.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
INTRODUCTION
In the late summer of 1960, an International Conference of Composers was held in the southwestern Ontario town of Stratford, since July 1953 the home of the renowned Stratford Festival. Under the leadership of Canadian composer Louis Applebaum, who in 1955 became the first music director of the festival, an eight-day series of panels, discussions, and concerts opened on 7 August. In attendance were fifty-five composers from twenty countries, more than half of them from the United States and Canada, as well as a number of music critics and administrators. Among the participants were the composers Luciano Berio, Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Henri Dutilleux, Iain Hamilton, Vagn Holmboe, Elizabeth Maconchy, Otar Taktakishvili, and Joseph Tal. The American contingent included Roy Harris, Ernst Krenek, Otto Luening, Gunther Schuller, Edgard Var se, and George Rochberg, and among the Canadian representatives were Violet Archer, John Beckwith, Claude Champagne, Udo Kasemets, Oskar Morawetz, Jean Papineau-Couture, Harry Somers, John Weinzweig, and Istvan Anhalt. Rochberg appeared on a panel entitled Serialism alongside his countryman Ernst Krenek and the Briton Iain Hamilton. Both Rochberg and Anhalt had music performed during the conference, the former represented by his Duo Concertante for violin and cello, the latter by his first Symphony. 1 Thus began a lifelong friendship between Anhalt and Rochberg. Shortly thereafter began a correspondence, which continued until the spring of 2005; sadly, Rochberg died, on 29 May 2005, as this book was in its final stages.
I first met Istvan Anhalt in the fall of 1970. He had joined the Faculty of Music of McGill University soon after his arrival in Montreal in 1949. In August 1970, I arrived at McGill as a young assistant professor. Anhalt almost immediately befriended me, smoothing my entr e into a large and many-faceted department. Much to my regret, I did not meet George Rochberg, although we communicated by letter and telephone on a number of occasions. I had long known of him through his music and recall vividly the culture wars that he precipitated with the first performances of the string quartets (nos. 3-6) commissioned by the Concord Quartet in the 1970s. I had long treasured a grievously worn copy of the original LP recordings of these works.
In 1985, the Music Division of the National Library of Canada (since 21 May 2004 Library and Archives Canada) received the first instalment of Anhalt materials-scores, drafts, letters, photographs, and so forth-that would form the Istv n Anhalt Fonds. 2 The composer asked me if I would act on his behalf as an external appraiser of the collection, as required by the Archives. This I agreed to do, acting again in that capacity on four other occasions, in 1993, 1997, 1998, and 2000. It was while examining the archive that I discovered the correspondence between Anhalt and Rochberg, a large cache of handwritten letters, an increasingly rare instance of the pen superseding the computer as a major means of communication. So taken was I with the richness and the sheer intellectual range of this correspondence that it very nearly diverted me from the business at hand, as I sat in the Archives for some days absorbed in the letters. Accordingly, I approached Anhalt with the suggestion that the correspondence be edited with an eye to publication. He seemed open to the idea and approached Rochberg late in 1991 for his reaction; his response was swift, unequivocal, and, to put it mildly, forceful:
In re this business