(Norwegian Musicological Society).
Norwegian organization, founded in 1964 with the aim of promoting Norwegian musicological research, primarily through encouraging members to publish the results of their work in the society’s yearbook, Studia Musicologica Norvegica. This publication contains articles in Norwegian, German and English. Members of the society participate in the Nordic Musicological Congress, normally held every four years in a different country, and some are involved in writing a new history of Norwegian music (to be published in five volumes, 1999–2003). Presidents of the society have been Olav Gurvin, Finn Benestad, Ola Kai Ledang, Nils Grinde, Gunnar Rugstad, Arvid O. Vollsnes, Owain Edwards, Idar Karevold and O.K. Sundberg.
OWAIN EDWARDS
North, Alex
(b Chester, PA, 4 Dec 1910; d Los Angeles, 8 Sept 1991). American composer and conductor. After attending the Curtis Institute, where he studied the piano with George Boyle, he won a scholarship (1929) to the Juilliard School. He also studied on scholarship at the Moscow Conservatory (from 1933) and went on to serve as music director of the German Theatre Group and the Latvian State Theatre. He was the only American member of the Union of Soviet Composers, from which he received commissions for two choruses and a set of piano variations. In 1935 he returned to the USA and taught music for dance at Finch, Briarcliff, Sarah Lawrence and Bennington colleges. In New York he studied composition with Copland and Toch and composed ballet scores for Martha Graham, Hanya Holm and Agnes de Mille. In 1939 he went to Mexico as music director for the Anna Sokolow dance troupe, and while there he studied with Revueltas and conducted concerts at the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City.
During World War II North served as a captain in the US Army; he organized therapeutic programmes for veterans and scored more than 80 documentaries for the Office of War Information. In 1946 his Revue for clarinet and orchestra was performed by Benny Goodman with the City Symphony of New York under Leonard Bernstein. He continued to compose for the theatre, particularly ballet scores, and after the success of his music for Elia Kazan’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Kazan invited him to write for the film version of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. This, the first jazz-based symphonic score to be written for a film, brought North wide acclaim, and in the 1950s he became a leading Hollywood composer.
North made no stylistic distinction between his film music and his works in other genres; his entire output is grounded in the traditions of symphonic and chamber music. Fundamentally dramatic in conception, though often not emotionally demonstrative, his works include moments of light and dark, violent dissonance and gentle lyricism or resignation. Although he used large symphonic forces to excellent effect (notably in the film scores for Spartacus and Cleopatra), he often wrote for smaller ensembles (as in The Bachelor Party and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). He was adept at integrating jazz elements (as in A Streetcar Named Desire, The Long, Hot Summer and The Rose Tattoo) and, like Bernard Herrmann, preferred to exploit timbre, affect and understated stylistic references, rather than referential themes and leitmotivic networks.
WORKS
(selective list)
for complete list see GroveA
film scores -
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*China Strikes Back, 1936; *Heart of Spain, 1937; *People of the Cumberland, 1937; *Mount Vernon, 1940; *A Better Tomorrow, 1944; *Library of Congress, 1945; *Venezuela, 1945; *City Pastorale, 1946; *Recreation, 1946; *Rural Nurse, 1946; *Coney Island USA, 1950; A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951; Death of a Salesman, 1951; The 13th Letter, 1951; Les misérables, 1952; Pony Soldier, 1952; Viva Zapata!, 1952; *The American Road, 1953; *Decision for Chemistry, 1953; The Member of the Wedding, 1953
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Desirée, 1954; Go, Man, Go!, 1954; Man with the Gun, 1955; The Racers, 1955; The Rose Tattoo, 1955; Unchained, 1955; The Bad Seed, 1956; I’ll Cry Tomorrow, 1956; The King and Four Queens, 1956; The Rainmaker, 1956; The Bachelor Party, 1957; Hot Spell, 1958; The Long, Hot Summer, 1958; South Seas Adventure, 1958; Stage Struck, 1958; The Sound and the Fury, 1959; The Wonderful Country, 1959; Spartacus, 1960; The Children’s Hour, 1961; The Misfits, 1961; Sanctuary, 1961
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All Fall Down, 1962; Cleopatra, 1963; The Outrage, 1964; The Agony and the Ecstasy, 1965; Cheyenne Autumn, 1965; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966; 2001: a Space Odyssey, 1967 [not used]; The Devil’s Brigade, 1968; The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968; A Dream of Kings, 1969; Hard Contract, 1969; Willard, 1971; Pocket Money, 1972; The Rebel Jesus, 1972; Once Upon a Scoundrel, 1973; Lost in the Stars, 1974 [adaptation of work by Weill, 1949]; Shanks, 1974; Bite the Bullet, 1975; Journey into Fear, 1975; The Passover Plot, 1976; Somebody Killed her Husband, 1978; Carny, 1980; Wise Blood, 1980; Dragonslayer, 1981 [after 2001: a Space Odyssey]; Under the Volcano, 1984; Prizzi’s Honor, 1985; The Dead, 1987; Good Morning, Vietnam, 1987; The Penitent, 1988; The Last Butterfly, 1991; many other documentaries
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Dramatic: Hither and Thither of Danny Dither (children’s op, J. Gury), 1941; ballets and dance scores, TV scores, incid music and musical revues, other children's works
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Inst: Quest, chbr orch, 1938; Suite, fl, cl, bn, 1938; Rhapsody, pf, orch, 1939; Suite, str qt, 1939; Trio, ww, 1939; Wind Qnt, 1942; Window Cleaner, cl, 2 pf, 1945; Revue, cl, orch, 1946; Sym. no.1, 1947; Dance Preludes, pf, 1948; Holiday Set, orch, 1948; A Streetcar Named Desire, suite, orch, 1951 [based on film score]; Death of a Salesman, suite, orch, 1951 [based on film score]; Viva Zapata!, suite, orch, 1952 [based on film score]; Rhapsody, tpt, pf, orch, 1956 [for film Four Girls in Town]; Sym. no.2, 1968 [based on TV score Africa]
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Vocal: Negro Mother (cant., L. Hughes), A, chorus, orch, 1940; Ballad of Valley Forge (A. Kreymborg), Bar, chorus, orch, 1941; Rhapsody, USA (A. Hayes), S, A, T, B, chorus, orch, 1942; Morning Star (cant., M. Lampell), chorus, orch, 1946; many songs
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Recorded interviews in US-NHoh
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MSS in US-LAum
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Principal publishers: Marks, Mills, North, Northern
| BIBLIOGRAPHY
GroveA (C. Palmer/C. McCarty) [incl. further bibliography]
D. Kraft: ‘A Conversation with Alex North’, Soundtrack!, iv/13 (1985), 3–8
W. Darby and J. Du Bois: American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915–1990 (Jefferson, NC, and London, 1990), 398–424
T. Thomas: Film Score: The Art and Craft of Movie Music (Burbank, CA, 1991), 182–94
G. Burt: The Art of Film Music (Boston, 1994), 59ff
CLIFFORD McCARTY/DAVID NEUMEYER
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