The Ballad Of John Latouche

Born into a poor Virginian family, John Treville Latouche (1914-56), in his short life, made a profound mark on America's musical theater as a lyricist, book writer, and librettist. The wit and skill of his lyrics elicited comparisons with the likes of Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Cole Porter, but he had too, noted Stephen Sondheim, a large vision of what musical theater could be, and he proved especially venturesome in helping to develop a lyric theater that innovatively combined music, word, dance, and costume and set design. Many of his pieces, even if not commonly known today, remain high points in the history of American musical theater. A great American genius in the words of Duke Ellington, Latouche initially came to wide public attention in his early twenties with his cantata for soloist and chorus, Ballad for Americans (1939), with music by Earl Robinson-a work that swept the nation during the Second World War. Other milestones in his career included the all-black musical fable, Cabin in the Sky (1940), with Vernon Duke; an interracial updating of John Gay's classic, The Beggar's Opera, as Beggar's Holiday (1946), with Duke Ellington; two acclaimed Broadway operas with Jerome Moross: Ballet Ballads (1948) and The Golden Apple (1954); one of the most enduring operas in the American canon, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), with Douglas Moore; and the operetta Candide (1956), with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs, participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated poetry, adapted plays, and much else. Meanwhile, as one of Manhattan's most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he developed a wide range of friends in the arts, including, to name only a few, Paul and Jane Bowles (whom he introduced to each other), Yul Brynner, John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Kiesler, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams-a dazzling constellation of diverse artists working in sundry fields, all attracted to Latouche's brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support for their work. This book draws widely on archival collections both at home and abroad, including Latouche's diaries and the papers of Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work.

Born into a poor Virginian family, John Treville Latouche (1914-56), in his short life, made a profound mark on America's musical theater as a lyricist, book writer, and librettist. The wit and skill of his lyrics elicited comparisons with the likes of Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Cole Porter, but he had too, noted Stephen Sondheim, "a large vision of what musical theater could be," and he proved especially venturesome in helping to develop a lyric theater that innovatively combined music, word, dance, and costume and set design. Many of his pieces, even if not commonly known today, remain high points in the history of American musical theater. "A great American genius" in the words of Duke Ellington, Latouche initially came to wide public attention in his early twenties with his cantata for soloist and chorus, Ballad for Americans (1939), with music by Earl Robinson-a work that swept the nation during the Second World War. Other milestones in his career included the all-black musical fable, Cabin in the Sky (1940), with Vernon Duke; an interracial updating of John Gay's classic, The Beggar's Opera, as Beggar's Holiday (1946), with Duke Ellington; two acclaimed Broadway operas with Jerome Moross: Ballet Ballads (1948) and The Golden Apple (1954); one of the most enduring operas in the American canon, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), with Douglas Moore; and the operetta Candide (1956), with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs, participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated poetry, adapted plays, and much else. Meanwhile, as one of Manhattan's most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he developed a wide range of friends in the arts, including, to name only a few, Paul and Jane Bowles (whom he introduced to each other), Yul Brynner, John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Kiesler, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams-a dazzling constellation of diverse artists working in sundry fields, all attracted to Latouche's brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support for their work. This book draws widely on archival collections both at home and abroad, including Latouche's diaries and the papers of Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work.

A candid and fascinating portrait of the American composer. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) became one of America's most beloved and esteemed composers. His work, which includes Fanfare for the Common Man, A Lincoln Portrait, and Appalachian Spring, has been honored by a huge following of devoted listeners. But the full richness of Copland's life and accomplishments has never, until now, been documented or understood. Howard Pollack's meticulously researched and engrossing biography explores the symphony of Copland's life: his childhood in Brooklyn; his homosexuality; Paris in the early 1920s; the Alfred Stieglitz circle; his experimentation with jazz; the communist witch trials; Hollywood in the forties; public disappointment with his later, intellectual work; and his struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Furthermore, Pollack presents informed discussions of Copland's music, explaining and clarifying its newness and originality, its aesthetic and social aspects, its distinctive and enduring personality. "Not only a success in its own right, but a valuable model of what biography can and probably should be. " - Kirkus Reviews

This essay collection celebrates the richness of Christian musical tradition across its two thousand year history and across the globe. Opening with a consideration of the fourth-century lamp-lighting hymn Phos hilaron and closing with reflections on contemporary efforts of Ghanaian composers to create Christian worship music in African idioms, the ten contributors engage with a broad ecumenical array of sacred music. Topics encompass Roman Catholic sacred music in medieval and Renaissance Europe, German Lutheran song in the eighteenth century, English hymnody in colonial America, Methodist hymnody adopted by Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century, and Genevan psalmody adapted to respond to the post-war tribulations of the Hungarian Reformed Church. The scope of the volume is further diversified by the inclusion of contemporary Christian topics that address the evangelical methods of a unique Orthodox Christian composer’s language, the shared aims and methods of African-American preaching and gospel music, and the affective didactic power of American evangelical “praise and worship” music. New material on several key composers, including Jacob Obrecht, J.S. Bach, George Philipp Telemann, C.P.E. Bach, Zoltan Kodály, and Arvo Pärt, appears within the book. Taken together, these essays embrace a stimulating variety of interdisciplinary analytical and methodological approaches, drawing on cultural, literary critical, theological, ritual, ethnographical, and media studies. The collection contributes to discussions of spirituality in music and, in particular, to the unifying aspects of Christian sacred music across time, space, and faith traditions. This collection celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music.

Music Criticism in Vienna records a culture in which musical criticism had achieved the status of a minor art form. The period covered - October 1896 to December 1897 - was an eventful time in Vienna. Bruckner died, then Brahms; Mahler arrived; premieres of works by Czech composers coincidedwith increasing tension in the Empire between Czechs and Germans; Puccini's La Boheme reached Vienna on its sensational progress around the world; and the great programme music debate continued. These events and issues were recorded and debated by some two dozen critics ranging from Eduard Hanslick,widely credited with (and blamed for) raising music criticism to an art, to Heinrich Schenker. The focus of Sandra McColl's monograph is unashamedly on the critics themselves, and her reconstruction of the climate of debate about whatever music or musicians came to their notice. She illuminates theintellectual climate in which the music was created, performed and received, and provides a foundation for the study of musical criticism in the post-Hanslick generation.