Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds

by Carol J. Oja

Overview

Colin McPhee was a performer, writer, and pioneer among Western composers in turning to Asia for inspiration. A close friend of Aaron Copland, Carlos Chavez, Henry Cowell, and Virgil Thomson, he played a vital role in new music activities in New York in the 1920s. But his most important accomplishments emerged from his devotion to the music of Bali.

After hearing rare recordings of the Balinese gamelan—a percussion orchestra with delicately layered textures and clangorous sounds—McPhee traveled to Bali to learn more. There, he worked closely with Western anthropologists like Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. McPhee became a devoted and meticulous chronicler of Balinese musical culture in classic texts like Music of Bali while integrating Balinese and Western music into an imaginative hybrid that anticipated work by John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Steve Reich.

A fascinating portrait of an unconventional artist-scholar, Colin McPhee evocatively looks at key issues in composition and ethnomusicology while describing the profound experience of a composer striving to comprehend a new musical language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252071805
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/26/2004
Series:	Music in American Life
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Carol J. Oja is the William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard University. Her books include Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War and Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s

Table of Contents

	Preface to the Illinois Paperback	xi
	Acknowledgments	xix
	List of Instrument and Performer Abbreviations	xxiii
1.	The Education of a Prodigy, 1900-26	1
2.	A Young Professional in New York, 1926-31	25
3.	Asia Beckons, 1928-31	55
4.	The First Trips to Bali, 1931-34	65
5.	A Western Interlude, 1935-36	93
6.	The Last Years in Bali, 1937-38	121
7.	Hard Times in New York, 1939-52	149
8.	Changing Fortunes, 1952-59	185
9.	Compositions After 1940	205
10.	The Years in California, 1960-64	249
Appendix A.	Catalogue of the Music of Colin McPhee	259
Appendix B.	Preliminary Catalogue of Colin McPhee's Gamelan Transcriptions for Western Instruments	273
Appendix C.	Writings of Colin McPhee	281
Appendix D.	Glossary of Balinese Terms	285
	Notes	287
	Bibliography	337
	Index	345

Editorial Reviews

"A strong and necessary argument for the reconsideration of McPhee's work as a composer."—Larry Polansky, Ethnomusicology

"Carol Oja has recounted his story with outstanding thoroughness and sensitivity. . . . McPhee's legacy is a small body of specialized work, creative and scholarly, that suggested new paths in the music of this century. It deserved—indeed, awaited—the full and well-balanced study Oja has given it."—John Beckwith, American Music

From the Publisher

McPhee (1900-1964) was a pioneer among American composers in turning to Asia for inspiration. Living on the island of Bali during the 1930s, he became a devoted chronicler of its musical culture. This study traces his life, his influences on fellow musicians, and his struggles as a composer. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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