Amazon.com: The Boulez-Cage Correspondence (9780521485586): Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Robert Samuels: Books


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $3.10 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
The Boulez-Cage Correspondence
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Boulez-Cage Correspondence [Paperback]

Jean-Jacques Nattiez (Editor), Robert Samuels (Editor)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

List Price: $44.00
Price: $41.23 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $2.77 (6%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 4 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Monday, February 27? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback $41.23  

Book Description

January 27, 1995
Between May 1949 and August 1954 the composers Pierre Boulez and John Cage exchanged a series of remarkable letters that reflect on their own music and the culture of the time. This correspondence, together with other relevant documents, has been edited and annotated by Jean-Jacques Nattiez and is now available for the first time in English in a paperback edition.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition $19.80

The Boulez-Cage Correspondence + Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition
  • This item: The Boulez-Cage Correspondence

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This small but heavily annotated correspondence between French composer Pierre Boulez and recently deceased American composer John Cage contains letters dating from 1949 to 1954, as well as supplementary documents. The age difference between the two men is apparent, and the older Cage often assumes the role of teacher and mentor. The letters contain no striking personal revelations, but they record the activities and musical ideas of the composers, who at the time were moving in different directions. Often technical, the letters contain graphs and tables of sounds, durations, amplitudes, and more. The friendship between the composers later cooled, but these documents provide a historical record of the musical climate during the era of their relationship. Recommended for academic libraries.-- Debora Richey, California State Univ.
Fullerton Lib.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Their letters detail an intense interchange and illuminate the differences between the frankly eclectic Cage, who was then deepening his acquaintances with Zen Buddhism, dada, and abstract expressionism, and Boulez, who was immersing himself in his notions of mathematical control of his composition." Booklist

"The book's contrapuntal portrayal of the widening chasm is quite fascinating. It is a necessary book; an invaluable document of its time." The Guardian

"This admirably edited collection, containing all the surviving letters exchanged between Pierre Boulez and John Cage, helps to answer one of the great questions about post-war music--how was it that these men arrived at such similar premises for the writing of the 1950s New Music from such disparate backgrounds?....It is a necessary book: an invaluable document of its time." John Bentley, The Guardian

Product Details

  • Paperback: 188 pages
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 27, 1995)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0521485584
  • ISBN-13: 978-0521485586
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars the early seeds of modernity discussed in brief letters., April 28, 2000
By 
scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   
John Cage was the first to introduce Pierre Boulez to the United States. In New York he took Boulez around visiting painters and musicians, this was the early Fifties. David Tudor(long a Cage friend) was performing Boulez's Second Piano Sonata for the first time. Bookstores were frequent stops and Boulez( we learn) never heard of the poet e.e.cummings, and bought a modest book of his poetry. Some thirty years later Boulez set a text of cummings for 22 unaccompanied voices. This correspondence was between two innovators coming from radically different places yet stopping at the same conceptual places. And it is a shame that this friendship fell out quickly,each going into radically different venues. Boulez although fascinated with chance procedures(which Cage had been working with the I Ching, Book of Changes at that time) Boulez was arrongantly fascinated by the aesthetic object,its history and attenuation, and has remained so since. This correspondence has frequent entries on the concept of indeterminacy, again Boulez comes to it via Mallarme, and aleatoric thinking, the throwing of the dice.Boulez sought a musical structure that contained the element of chance as in his Third Piano Sonata in the latter Fifties. Both however were at a creative place in modernity when the Western canon of structure and comprehensibility was falling itself.However it is odd for Boulez to this day thinks of his work as moments containing a "freedom" of something, when he conducts Mahler, he thinks of those passages that are freer than others,like a symphony is a dialogue between the two. Mahler's Sixth Symphony is the case in point. There are letters of Boulez to Cage, while in South America with the Barrault Theatre Company, one entry includes a description from Boulez that he is having a good time "milhauding" around, referring to Darius Milhaud the composer who frequently utilized folk elelments in his music by collecting them in volumes.Nattiez is a very sympathetic observer to this cause of modernity and the roots of things.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
One's first reaction on hearing about John Cage's prepared piano might well be curiosity verging on amused scepticism. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
soleil des eaux, concerto for prepared piano, rue beautreillis, pour quatuor, visage nuptial, total serialism, domaine musical, morton feldman, serial structure, john cage, prepared pianos, rhythmic structure, piano sonata, chance operations
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Pierre Boulez, David Tudor, Buenos Aires, Imaginary Landscape, Virgil Thomson, South America, Compagnie Renaud-Barrault, Yvette Grimaud, United States, Pierre Henry, Henry Cowell, John Holzaepfel, Musical Quarterly, Three Dances, William Masselos, Compagnie Mad, Lou Harrison, Marina Scriabine, Maro Ajemian, Merce Cunningham, Nicole Henriot, Pierre Schaeffer, Earle Brown, Leslie Brady, Marya Freund
New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:




Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
 
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject