Musings - Gunther Schuller

"Scholar, composer, conductor, teacher, author, music publisher, indefatigable advocate--Gunther Schuller isn't merely a musician; he's a monopoly." So wrote Alan Rich of New York Magazine in 1978, and his description still holds.

Musings is a marvelous introduction to Schuller and his extraordinary range of musical experience, taste, and learning. The book is devided into four sections offering a rich sampling of Schuller's musical interests. In Part I, "Jazz and the Third Stream," Schuller gives us his definitions of jazz as well as insightful pieces on such figures as Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, and Cecil Taylor. Part II, "Music Performance and Contemporary Music," includes pieces on conducting, the future of opera, the question of a new classicism, and the works of Monteverdi and Stravinsky, Part III shows us "Schuller the Composer" with such pieces as "Shapes and Designs," "Composing for Orchestra," and "In Praise of Winds," as well as Schuller's own thought about his controversial opera The Visitation. The final section, "Music Esthetics and Education," finds Schuller reflecting on such matters as form, structure, and symbol in music, and the need for broadening the audience for quality music.

From the scholarly to the popular and the polemical, Musings will delight Schuller's admirers and win new converts.