Composers analyze their works
A century of reflective writing on musical composition: an anthology of self-analyses from Janáček to the present day.
Rarely have composers reflected so much on their craft, spoken so much in public, or disserted so much on the essence of their art or style as they have over the last hundred years. Published by Editions Droz under the aegis of the Haute école de musique de Genève and edited by Nicolas Donin, this book examines a selection of writings, unpublished, difficult to access or not yet translated, written between 1897 and the present day by over thirty composers, including Cowell, Dallapiccola, Donatoni, Henze, Honegger, Janáček, Koechlin, Krenek, Reich, Schaeffer, Schoenberg and Tippett. Reflecting on their work or on the often mysterious question of inspiration, or analyzing one of their own works, these creators abandon themselves to contemplative introspection or indulge in observation based on an almost scientific methodology. Not having the same ambitions as theoretical or aesthetic treatises, their testimonies here are more personal, and perhaps even more sincere. Their destination, format and content are as varied as they come: excerpts from a diary or an interview intended for the general public, a kind of logbook or a detailed analysis reserved for specialists, short answers to a psychological survey on composition processes or a long document, notes taken for a seminar or a structured essay. Equally diverse, the approaches range from a kind of self-psychoanalysis to critical distancing, from a focus on a single piece to a more global retrospective vision, from simultaneity with the conception of the work to a chronological distance of several decades; moreover, these self-analyses sometimes reflect different personalities in fascinating ways. Whether complete or in extract form, each text in this anthology is illuminated by an introductory note that places it in context.
Un siècle d'écrits réflexifs sur la composition musicale, Anthologie d'auto-analyses, de Janáček à nos jours, edited by Nicolas Donin, 720 p., Fr. 45.00, Publications de la Haute école de musique de Genève / Editions Droz, Genève 2019, ISBN 978-2-600-05995-4
