Terence J . O'Grady | University of Wisconsin Green Bay (original) (raw)

Papers by Terence J . O'Grady

Twayne eBooks, 1983

... The Beatles, a musical evolution. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: O'Grady, Terence... more ... The Beatles, a musical evolution. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: O'Grady, Terence J. PUBLISHER: Twayne (Boston). ... VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): 216 p. SUBJECT(S): Beatles. DISCIPLINE: No discipline assigned. LC NUMBER: ML421.B4 O35 1983. ...

There is little question that American art music has frequently fared poorly in the chronicles of... more There is little question that American art music has frequently fared poorly in the chronicles of mainstream music history. As Edith Borroff complains, "What America gets in most histories is the bum's rush."1 Whether the author is American or European, textbooks and historical surveys of Western art music written in the last fifty years have often dealt with most American composers in a cursory fashion. Frequently, a handful of "representative" figures are discussed briefly with little or no indication as to exactly what it is they represent. It is seldom made clear what criteria are operative when it comes to choosing the most important representatives and examples of American art music. But if the precise nature of these criteria is often not apparent, it is very apparent that some types of American composers have done much better than others when it comes to the amount and nature of coverage provided by music history textbooks and historical surveys. While pre-twentieth-century American composers often enjoy limited exposure in such volumes, the situation changes significantly when we come to some of the composers associated with the American experimental or avant-garde tradition. Composers such as Charles Ives and Henry Cowell have been given significantly greater attention than earlier Americans. What qualities do these American avant-garde composers possess that warrant this increased attention? And when textbooks and historical surveys differentiate among the early twentieth-century American avant-gardists (as they usually do), on what basis is this done, and why are some elevated above others? While textbooks and surveys can hardly be expected to be as subtle or refined in their arguments in this connection as more specialized scholarly studies generally are, the positions taken by textbooks and surveys in evaluating composers-both historically and aesthetically-and the justifications provided for these positions are of the utmost importance. In a discussion of art history textbooks which applies equally well to music history Terence J. O'Grady is Professor of Communication and the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. He has most recently published in American Music and is a past contributor to this journal.

In an essay dealing with modern practices in the translating of poetry, Jonathan Griffin weighs t... more In an essay dealing with modern practices in the translating of poetry, Jonathan Griffin weighs the advantages and disadvantages of strict and free translation. Occasionally, he suggests, a great amount of freedom is necessary "if the translation is to become a poem." By and large, however, he states that "a close translation into a real poem is what will serve the source-poem best: will serve it much better than a free adaptation would."1 To illustrate this point, Griffin sets up a musical analogy. The performance of older music comes completely to life, he suggests, only when the authentic instruments (or reasonable facsimiles) are used. That the sort of scholarship needed to assure "authenticity" need not result in dryness or pedantry is argued by his next analogy: Then I heard the pianist Artur Schnabel and, soon afterwards, came to know him. At that time most people played Beethoven's piano sonatas, for instance, from heavily edited texts, sometimes inaccurate and always overlaid with the editor's expression-markswhich quite often contradicted the composer's. Schnabel went back to the manuscripts and in every way tried to find and do what the composer had written and intended. And yetthis is the pointthis strict scholarship did not prevent his performances from being the most passionate, tender and surprising that I have ever heard. He was faithful, he was logicalbut he was always spontaneous. You knew you were hearing the music itself, the truthand this although, or because, he never played it exactly the same way twice. He said to me once, about Schubert's great piano sonata TERE.NCE J. O'GRADY is an assistant professor Of communication, the arts, and the performing arts (music) with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He has published in Music Educators Journal, Ethnomusicology, and College Music Symposium and is active in his university's Aesthetic Awareness Program.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Green Bay role of popular music in the college curriculum has always been somewhat vague and ill-... more Green Bay role of popular music in the college curriculum has always been somewhat vague and ill-defined. When, in the late 1960s, college courses in popular music were added to the traditional offerings in western art music, ethnomusicology, and jazz, the action seemed to be taken more as a response to the then frequent demand for relevance than for any specific pedagogical reasons, or because of any well-developed view that the study of popular music filled some important gap or in some way complemented the more traditional areas of musical endeavor. The cries for relevance, as useful and productive as they have been in some areas, seem to have diminished somewhat in recent years. Perhaps it is now appropriate to examine more carefully the musical relevance of popular music to the college curriculum. The study of popular music is, perhaps before anything else, an ethnomusicological one. The "commercial" concerns of popular music do not diminish its potential as a social indicator; on the contrary, it is just these concerns, coupled with the "trendiness" of the genre and its suitability for dissemination in a mass culture, that make it such a valuable barometer of society. Popular music clearly has a place in ethnomusicological studies, right alongside the broadside ballads and the music of the street-singing Bauls of Bengal. And yet, any approach to popular music which investigates only its social milieu would be failing to take into account its instructive value in purely musical terms. It is specifically the music of popular music which is too often neglected, whether the focus is on the popular music of another era, or on contemporary popular music. All too frequently, popular music criticism deals at length with the sociological implications of the lyrics, hair length, sadistic roleplaying in performance, etc., and the musical aspects are glossed over. This is

University Microfilms eBooks, 1975

Journal of Aesthetic Education, 1989

... is particularly true in the case of an interdisciplinary form like per-formance art. Many val... more ... is particularly true in the case of an interdisciplinary form like per-formance art. Many valuable contributions to the aesthetic evaluation of that genre can be made by approaching it from the different perspectives and expressive vocabularies of music, theater and dance, and the ...

Reviews & Biographies by Terence J . O'Grady

Twayne eBooks, 1983

University Microfilms eBooks, 1975

Journal of Aesthetic Education, 1989

Journal of Aesthetic Education, 1980

American National Biography Online