# Henry Cowell



## Sid James

*Henry Cowell* (1897 - 1965) was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:

Henry Cowell's music covers a wider range in both expression and technique than that of any other living composer. His experiments begun three decades ago in rhythm, in harmony, and in instrumental sonorities were considered then by many to be wild. Today they are the Bible of the young and still, to the conservatives, "advanced."... No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal, so penetrating and so comprehensive. Add to this massive production his long and influential career as a pedagogue, and Henry Cowell's achievement becomes impressive indeed. There is no other quite like it. To be both fecund and right is given to few.

(from Wikipedia)

Cowell was one of the early American modernists, who revolved around the same circles as Carter, Varese and Ives in New York in the 1920's.

I've just recently been acquainted with his music, via Naxos cd's. He's a really interesting composer, whose use of tone clusters influenced people like Bartok. His work ranges from the Neo-Classical/Baroque to the avant garde, with soloists doing things like plucking the strings of the piano.

What do forum members think of & know about this unique musical figure? Has anyone heard some of his 20 symphonies, for instance?


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## altiste

*Cowell's piano music*

I heard four piano pieces by Henry Cowell played last year in a concert by Jay Gottlieb, and it was probably the work I enjoyed most on the programme. It contained _Aeolian Harp_ (1923) (strings strummed inside the piano), then _Tiger_ (1928) creating real extremes in dynamics. I don't know the symphonies yet, but look forward to hearing them.


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## Sid James

Yeah, altiste, I agree that his piano music sounds pretty unique. Volume 1 of the 2 naxos cd's has _Tiger_ which you mention, as well as _Deep Colour, The Fairy Answer & Fabric_. I would love to see it done live, with the pianist reaching inside the piano to strum the strings.

Alot of his music was inspired by his Irish heritage, such as the _Irish Suite_, which is virtually a mini concerto for string piano and small orchestra. Parts of it sound pretty dissonant, but in the last movement, he actually locks you in with a melody (like Bartok did) with the string piano accompanying the orchestra. I think it should be more well-kown, it's still totally accessible but so modern, you can hardly believe that it was composed in 1929.


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## Morimur

A composer who's value is criminally underestimated. His works deserve to be better known.


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## starthrower

Cowell tells his own story.


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## starthrower

Morimur said:


> A composer who's value is criminally underestimated. His works deserve to be better known.


Yes, a good reason to revive this thread. I haven't listened to much of his early experimental work with the exception of one piano piece but I've been listening to several symphonies on YouTube since recordings are hard to come by. These works are strong on melody and not radical in nature like some of his early stuff. There are lot of good pieces by the Louisville Orchestra, and the American Symphony on YouTube. I've posted a few in the Current Listening thread over the past couple weeks.


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## Vasks

I had to laugh when I read the word "criminally" from TC poster Morimur, since he spent four years in prison.

Nevertheless, it's true: His piano pieces of the teens and 20s' where groundbreaking and placed him in the history books. My favorite is "Advertisement". And equally true his music became tame (and IMO duller) in nature later in life.


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## starthrower

I don't hear his later work as sounding dull. But he's not trying to jar listeners with violent sounds. The prison experience obviously shook him up and set him on a different musical course.


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## millionrainbows

Is anyone familiar with Japanese Gagaku music? 
It's a Japanese court music, which uses its own ensemble of instruments, including a set of pipes which produces very pure, straight, vibrato-less tones. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagaku









WhenI first heard Gagaku, on an LP obtained, as was usual, from my searches in the vinyl cut-out bins of K-Mart back in 1969, on the obscure Legacy label out of Los Angeles (which also issued several volumes of John Cage's Variations IV), I thought for decades that it used a cheap Farfisa organ, the kind used by Question Mark and the Mysterians on _96 Tears_, Elvis Costello on _This Year's Model,_ and Steve Reich on _Four Organs._ This instrument turned out to be the Shō, a set of blown pipes.























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So what does all this have to do with Henry Cowell? Cowell composed a Western version of Gagaku music for orchestra. This can be heard (in mono) on the First Edition CD pictured below. See how it all fits? K-Mart, Gagaku, John Cage, Lou Harrison? More to follow.









Beginning in the 20th century, several western classical composers became interested in gagaku, and composed works based on gagaku. Most notable among these are Henry Cowell (Ongaku, 1957), La Monte Young (numerous works of drone music, but especially Trio for Strings, 1958), Alan Hovhaness (numerous works), Olivier Messiaen (Sept haïkaï, 1962), Lou Harrison (Pacifika Rondo, 1963), and Benjamin Britten (Curlew River, 1964).


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