R. Murray Schafer
R. Murray Schafer by Stephen Adams, published by University of Toronto Press on December 15, 1983, offers a comprehensive critical survey of the life and works of one of Canada’s notable composers. This 256-page book explores Murray Schafer’s innovative contributions to music and his influence across various fields, including education, journalism, and environmental sound research. Adams delves into Schafer’s extensive writings, providing context for his music and revealing the unifying patterns in his diverse career.
Readers will find an analysis of Schafer’s evolution as a composer, from his early neo-classical pieces to his avant-garde experiments with modernist techniques such as serialism and electronic sound. The book highlights the concept of the ‘soundscape’ as central to Schafer’s philosophy. Additionally, this edition includes a full bibliography, discography, and a catalogue of his works, making it a valuable resource for those interested in music instruction, conducting, and the history of individual composers.
Official synopsis Publisher
Murray Schafer is one of Canada’s few composers to have achieved an international reputation. His innovative and often controversial work extends beyond music into the areas of education, literary scholarship, journalism, theatre, and graphics, as well as a new field of his own making—environmental sound research. This comprehensive critical survey of his life and works reveals the unifying pattern within an amazingly productive and varied career.
Adams examines Schafer’s extensive writings, which form the intellectual context of his music. Though Schafer is both avant-gardist and self-confessed romantic, his writings solve this apparent paradox and show, as well, the central position of the ‘soundscape’ in his thought. Adam traces the development of Schafer’s music from his early works in a mild neo-classical vein to his experimentation with various modernist procedures—serialism, electronic sound, stereophony, graphic notations, and elements of chance—all of which he fused together in his first stage of work or ‘audio-visual poem,’ Loving, in 1965.
This volume includes a full bibliography, discography, and catalogue of his works.
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