Comrades in Art: The Correspondence of Ronald Stevenson and Percy Grainger, 1957-61, with Interviews, Essays and other Writings on Grainge (Musicians on Music, 8) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0907689671 ISBN 13: 9780907689676

Publisher: Toccata Press, 2010

Synopsis

In 1957 the Australian-American composer Percy Grainger, then 75 and in failing health, received a letter from another pianist-composer, the young Ronald Stevenson, writing from his home in West Linton, below Edinburgh. That first contact - requesting Grainger's reminiscences of Ferruccio Busoni, with whom he had studied - led to an exchange of 32 letters over the four years before Grainger's death in February 1961. The two men soon found that, despite their 46-year age-difference, they had many affinities. Both were pianists of staggering abilities and composers who combined a love for folk-music and working-class art with an aesthetic that proposed a `world music' to include the farthest reaches of humanity. Both made an art of piano transcription of a wide variety of works and were champions of little-known music and composers. And both revered the work of Walt Whitman, that great poet of inclusivity, the pioneering spirit and the open road. This book presents both the complete Grainger-Stevenson correspondence and Ronald Stevenson's many articles and lectures on Grainger and his music, edited by Teresa Balough, whose two interviews with Stevenson open and close the volume - which includes a CD of a lecture-recital on Grainger that Stevenson presented in Grainger's home in White Plains, New York, in 1976.

About this title

About the Author:

Teresa Balough is Adjunct Professor of Music at Eastern Connecticut State University. She received her bachelor and masters degrees in music at the University of kentucky and a PHD in musicology from the University of Western Australia with a thesis on The Essential Grainger: Percy Grainger's Kipling Settings. Her first publication, in 1975, was A Complete Catalog of the Works of Percy Grainger and she has since writen numerous articles, monographs and book on Grainger, including A Musical Genius from Australia: Kipling and Grainger and The Inner Fire: Spirit and Evolving Consciousness in the Work of Percy Grainger. She is also the author of May Human Beings Hear It: The Institute for the Development of Intercultural Relations through the Arts, The Sacred Dance and Voices of Conscience. In 1985 she appeared in the CBC Grainger documentary The Noble Savage and In 1988 delivered a plenary address on Grainger's vision of a world music and its importance for Music Education World Conference. In 1993 she presented the annual Grainger Lecture at the University of Melbourne on Grainger's ideas on the spiritual evolution of music and their implications for the course of human evolution. She has completed a Life and Works of Percy Grainger which awaits publication. She resides in Old Lyme, Connecticut, with her husband, Owen Peagler, and their daughter Kirin.

This book appearsas part of two Toccata Press Series. The first, Musicians in Music, brings together the writings of important composer, performers and writers, often appearing for the first time in English and sometimes never before assembled in any language. Musicians in earliertitles include Sir Adrian Boult, Otto Klemperer, William Alwyn, Havergal Brian, Luigi Dallapiccola, Vagn Holmboe and Karol Szymanowski. Musicians in Letters presents authoritative editions of the correspondence of leading composers editions of the correspondence of leading composers and performers; the series was inaugurated with The Villa-Lobos letters and will continue with Martinu's Letters Home: Fifty years of Correspondence with Family and Friends.

Review:

This is a welcome addition to the Grainger literature in this fiftieth anniversary of his death. (...) there is much to enjoy and to think about from the pen and voice of a very fine composer (...) reflecting and illuminating our understanding of Grainger. (...) the book is beautifully produced, with many attractive and revealing illustrations. DELIUS SOCIETY JOURNAL Comrades in ArtI\> is a highly entertaining portrait of two composers: Percy Grainger and Ronald Stevenson. ... (A) must have for the Grainger enthusiast. The book is attractive in organization and content... . Comrades in ArtI\> is more than just the correspondence between two composers. It is a study of the music of Grainger and its place in music culture through the eyes of a scholarly admirer. TEMPO Ronald Stevenson proves himself an eloquent Grainger devotee, in his writings, in interview with Teresa Balough, and on the accompanying CD, noting the connection between Grainger and Busoni, the shared devotion he had to Whitman, and delight in Kipling. Stevenson is clearly a pianist in the Grainger manner, robust and forthright. It is a joy. MUSIC & VISION DAILY The subsequent, if short, correspondence ranged widely and they discovered common interests, folk music and the poetry of Walt Whitman among them. Perhaps Grainger's most astonishing claim is that he was the real pioneer in most aspects of modern music. (...) There is a lot of material available about Grainger and this unabashed tribute is a complement to that. And we get to make closer acquaintance with Ronald Stevenson along the way. FANFARE Fascinating and entertaining reading...The men correspond with a style and grace that seems remote in this e-mail age....Reading these letters...will have you fired up about two under-appreciated musical free-thinkers. SCOTSMAN

About this edition

• Publisher: Toccata Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0907689671
• ISBN 13: 9780907689676
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Balough Teresa R.