AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES                                                                       214 a-d

Edward Cone

With Dan Cooper

Princeton, N.J. 

March 1, 1999

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a                                                                                                             pp. 1-12

Extent of compositional output--current projects--Yeats songs--learning the Hammerklavier Sonata--accomplishments as a pianist--interest in analysis--beginning to compose--interest in writing--writing short stories and essays--life as a student--work on the Special Committee on the Humanities at Princeton--experiences during the war--being part of the Special Services--cryptanalysis--study with Sessions and others.

Side b                                                                                                                        pp. 12-23

More on Sessions--study with Schnabel--Sessions and twelve-tone music--music and time--teleological shaping of music--his analysis of Chopin--View from Delft--formal systems of composition--Boulez: Structures--relation between the whole and the parts in music: rhythm, melody, etc.--Cone terminology—composing: conscious vs. unconscious decisions--interest in connections between music and painting--Cone art collection--interest in aesthetics--analogy with perspective in the visual arts--analysis: between description and prescription.

Side c                                                                                                             pp. 23-32

Essay on the three hearings--his own music and how it has changed--writing twelve-tone music--Elegy for orchestra--Fantasy--Prelude, Passacaglia, and Fugue--two-piano piece--Funereal Stanzas--String Sextet--writing for different combinations of instruments--importance of timbre in some music--Berlioz--piano music and kinesthetics--electronic music--interest in nature.