coffee & side tables
centre and periphery roots and exile interpreting the music of istvan anhalt gyorgy kurtag and sandor veress
p this book examines the impact place and displacement can have on the composition and interpretation of western art music using as its primary objects of study the work of istvan anhalt 1919 2012 gyorgy kurtag 1926 and sandor veress 1907 92 . although all three composers are of hungarian origin their careers followed radically different paths . whereas kurtag remained in budapest for most of his career anhalt and veress left the former in 1946 and immigrated to canada and the latter in 1948 and settled in switzerland . all three composers have had an extraordinary impact in the cultural environments within which their work took place . p in the first section place and displacement contributors examine what happens when composers and their music migrate in the culturally complex world of the late twentieth century . the past one hundred years produced record numbers of refugees and this fact is now beginning to resonate in the study of music . as anhalt himself forcefully asserts however not all composers who emigrate should be understood as exiles . the first chapters of this book explore some of the problems and questions surrounding this issue . p essays in the second section perspectives on reception analysis and interpretation look at how performing acts of interpretation on music implies bringing the time place and identity of the musician the analyst and the teacher to bear on the object of study . like kodaly kurtag considers his work to be naturally embedded in hungarian culture but he is also a quintessentially european artist . much of his production he is one of the twentieth centurys most prolific composers of vocal music involves the setting of hungarian texts but in the late 1970s his cultural horizons expanded to include texts in russian german french english and ancient greek . the book explores how musicologists divergent cultural perspectives impinge on the interpretation of this work . p the final section the presence of the past and memory in contemporary music examines the impact time and memory can have on notions of place and identity in music . all living art taps into the personal and collective past in one way or another . the final four chapters look at various aspects of this relationship .