Believe Your Ears is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player, and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London, and Russia, and gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas, and symphonies. He writes that “the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music” but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular “school,” avoiding the trends, –isms, experiments, fads, and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion, and humor—even entertainment—to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of “experts.”Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Billie Jean King, the Grateful Dead, Richard Rodgers, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden, and Aaron Copland—a who’s who in Mechem’s storied career.
Kirke Mechem is the composer of some 250 published titles, most notably four operas and many orchestral and vocal works that have graced the stages of opera houses and symphony halls throughout the world. He is commonly referred to as the “dean of American choral music.” His opera Tartuffe has been performed more than 400 times in six countries.
Table of Contents
PreludeChapter 1: ExpositionChapter 2: Military MusicChapter 3: Key Change: The Accidental ComposerChapter 4: Counterpoint: What Is American Music?Chapter 5: DevelopmentChapter 6: Vienna, con tutta forzaChapter 7: Major / MinorChapter 8: Vienna, recapitulationChapter 9: Choral CyclesChapter 10: Sinfonia GiubilanteChapter 11: Lento, molto sostenutoChapter 12: Unresolved DissonanceChapter 13: London: Deceptive CadenceChapter 14: Professor Nontroppo to the JayhawkChapter 15: Opera 101: Composing TartuffeChapter 16: Opera 102: The Real Opera WorldChapter 17: The Life and Death of John BrownChapter 18: Everyone SangChapter 19: John Brown’s ResurrectionChapter 20: Intermezzo: What Is American Opera?Chapter 21: Russian ExtravaganzaChapter 22: Tartuffe Spricht DeutschChapter 23: The Rivals: Flatulence Will Get You NowhereChapter 24: Darcy Sings: Pride & PrejudiceChapter 25: Coda: A Summing-Up Appendix 1: Choral music: “The Text Trap”Appendix 2: “Afterword” to John Brown Appendix 3: “The Hymn Bandit”
