Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliot Carter to Frederic Rzewski by Howard Pollack

One of the finest American composers of the 20th century, Walter Piston (1894-1976) taught for over thirty years (1926-1960) at Harvard, where he guided the education of such diverse, well-known composers as Elliott Carter, Leroy Anderson, Arthur Berger, Gail Kubik, Irving Fine, Harold Shapiro, Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Pinkham, Gordon Binkerd, Robert Moevs, Samuel Adler, Karl Kohn, John Harbison, and Frederic Rzewski. This book profiles the biographies, major accomplishments, stylistic development, and technical resources of 33 of these students, including four women. Special emphasis is placed on their relation to Piston and to each other. Two American Walter Piston and James Gould Cozzens; Songs without the orchestral miniatures of Leroy Anderson; Regional John Vincent and Gail Kubik; Classicism Everett Helm and Ellis Kohs; New forms, new the music of Arthur Berger; Expanding the modernist Elliott Carter and Leonard Bernstein; Adventures in Irving Fine and his music; A midcentury Harold Shapero's Symphony for classical orchestra; A heritage Daniel Pinkham; Favored Robert Middleton and Allen Sapp; In Bartók's John Bavicchi, Nicholas Van Slyck, and Noël Lee; The center Gordon Binkerd; A life in the symphonies of Samuel Adler; “Carter and the postwar composers” Billy Jim Layton, Yehudi Wyner, and Martin Boykan; Music with new Robert Moevs, Karl Kohn, Claudio Spies, Peter Westergaard, and John MacIvor Perkins; Four Eugenia Frothingham, Victoria Glaser, Betsy Warren and Rosamond Brenner; A new age and a new David Behrman and Frederic Rzewski; The elusive John Harbison; Walter Piston and his students in widening contexts.