231.
Experimental Music: Cage and beyond.
London: Studio Vista, 1974. First edition. Tall narrow 8vo. Blue paper covered boards. 154pp. Illustrated throughout with photographs and musical scores.
Nyman’s classic book in which he begins with Cage’s definitions of experimental music from the early-mid 1950s and develops the term to describe the work of other American composers (Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Meredith Monk, Malcolm Goldstein, Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, among others), as well as composers such as Gavin Bryars, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury, Frederic Rzewski and Keith Rowe.
He also distinguishes experimental music from the European avant-garde (Boulez, Kagel, Xenakis, Birtwistle, Berio, Stockhausen and Bussotti), for whom “The identity of a composition is of paramount importance” (p.9).
Includes a 3pp. bibliography.
Very Good plus in dw.
Back to top
