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The Origins of “Dissonant Counterpoint”: Henry Cowell's Unpublished Notebook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2011

JOHN D. SPILKER
JOHN D. SPILKER*
Affiliation:
johndspilker@gmail.com
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Abstract

Housed in the Henry Cowell Papers at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is Cowell's unpublished notebook that comprises written instructions for using “dissonant counterpoint” along with forty-three exercises. Beyond providing information about the technique during its early development (1914–17), the archival source documents Cowell's active involvement in devising a compositional practice that has heretofore been exclusively attributed to Charles Seeger. The notebook also provides evidence of Cowell's work habits and values that challenge current scholarly depictions of the composer as an undisciplined bohemian. He was a systematic and tenacious innovator who revered tradition as well as experimental techniques. He also placed a strong emphasis on the practical application of new ideas in addition to their theoretical development. These traits account for Cowell's continued advocacy on behalf of dissonant counterpoint that extended well beyond the time he compiled his notebook. From the 1910s to the 1960s he disseminated the technique through his writing, composing, and teaching, and thus provided a life for dissonant counterpoint in American musical culture through the end of the twentieth century. Appendix B contains a full transcription of the notebook.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 481 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2011

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References

References

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Cowell, Henry. “The Impasse of Modern Music: Searching for New Avenues of Beauty.” Century Magazine 114/6 (October 1927): 671–77.Google Scholar
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Cowell, Henry. Quartet Romantic and Quartet Euphometric. New York: C. F. Peters, 1974.Google Scholar
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Hicks, Michael. Henry Cowell, Bohemian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Higgins, Dick, ed. Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music. New York: McPherson, 2001.Google Scholar
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Nicholls, David. American Experimental Music: 1890–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
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Polanksy, Larry, and Kennedy, John. “Total Eclipse: The Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer.” Musical Quarterly 80/4 (Winter 1996): 719–78.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “American Compositional Theory in the 1930s: Scale and Exoticism in ‘The Nature of Melody’ by Henry Cowell.” Musical Quarterly 85/4 (Winter 2001): 595–640.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Cowell's Sliding Tone and the American Ultramodernist Tradition.” American Music 23/3 (2005): 281–323.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Partnership in Modern Music: Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford, 1929–1931.” American Music 15/3 (1997): 325–80.Google Scholar
Riegger, Wallingford. “The Music of Vivian Fine.” Bulletin of the American Composers Alliance 8/1 (1958): 2–4.Google Scholar
Saylor, Bruce. “The Tempering of Henry Cowell's Dissonant Counterpoint.” In Essays on Modern Music, vol. 2, ed. Brody, Martin, 3–12. Boston: League of Composers–International Society for Contemporary Music, 1985.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “Henry Cowell.” Magazine of Art 33 (1940): 288–89, 322–25, 327.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. The Letter and Psalm 137. In New Music Quarterly 26/3. New York: New Music Edition, 1954.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “On Dissonant Counterpoint.” Modern Music 7/4 (1930): 25–31.Google Scholar
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Seeger, Charles. Studies in Musicology II: 1929–1979. Edited by Pescatello, Ann M.. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “Tradition and Experiment in (the New) Music.” In Studies in Musicology II: 1929–1979, ed. Pescatello, Ann M., 17–273. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Shirley, Wayne. “The Hymns and Fuguing Tunes.” In The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium, ed. Nicholls, David, 95–143. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.Google Scholar
Spilker, John D. “‘Substituting A New Order’: Dissonant Counterpoint, Henry Cowell, and the Network of Ultra-Modern Composers.” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2010.Google Scholar
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Straus, Joseph N.The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
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Tick, Judith. Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisgall, Hugo. “The Music of Henry Cowell.” Musical Quarterly 45/4 (October 1959): 484–507.Google Scholar
Beyer, Johanna. Piano Book. Johanna Beyer Scores, box 1, folder 20, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Composers' Forum Laboratory Concert Program, 20 May 1936. Henry Cowell Papers, box 2, folder 1, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Composers' Forum Laboratory Concert Program, 19 May [1937]. National Archives II, College Park, Md., in Record Group (RG) 69.5.3.Google Scholar
Concert Program, 2 Feb. [1926], Aeolian Hall. Henry Cowell Papers, box 66, folder 12, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Concert Program, 9 April 1926, Brno. Henry Cowell Papers, box 66, folder 13, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. Dissonant Counterpoint Notebook. Henry Cowell Papers, box 31, folder 4, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Examination, Appreciation of Modern Music, Advanced Group.” Henry Cowell Papers, box 164, folder 5, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Examination, Appreciation of Modern Music, Elementary Group.” Henry Cowell Papers, box 164, folder 5, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Exercizes for Seeger.” Henry Cowell Papers, box 31, folder 5, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “General Outline of Course on Music 120, Stanford University Summer Session 1934, Appreciation of Modern Music.” Henry Cowell Papers, box 164, folder 5, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. The Nature of Melody. Henry Cowell Papers, box 148, folder 1, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. New Musical Resources, Typescript Draft #1. Henry Cowell Papers, box 141, folder 11, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Cowell, Sidney Robertson. “A Note for Charles Seeger's Biographer set down by Sidney Cowell in 1966.” Charles Seeger Estate, box 5, Library of Congress, Music Division.Google Scholar
Holland, Jeanette B. “Springterm 1951.” Henry Cowell Papers, box 164, folder 15. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
New School Bulletin 6/1 (6 September 1948), 7/1 (5 September 1949), 8/1 (4 September 1950), 9/1 (3 September 1951), 10/1 (1 September 1952), 11/1 (7 September 1953), 12/1 (6 September 1954), 13/1 (5 September 1955), and 14/1 (3 September 1956). Fogelman Library, New School for Social Research.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. Interview with Rita H. Mead, 15 November 1974. Henry Cowell Papers, box 81, folder 23, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. Interview with Andrea Olmstead, 7 July 1977. Henry Cowell Papers, box 81, folder 26, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Google Scholar
Antokoletz, Elliott. Twentieth Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1992.Google Scholar
Beal, Amy C. “‘Her Whimsy and Originality Really Amount to Genius’: New Biographical Research on Johanna Beyer.” American Music Review 38/1 (Fall 2008): 1, 4–5, 12–13.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Carlos Chávez.” Pro-Musica Quarterly 7/1 (June 1928): 19–23.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Contemporary Musical Creation in Education.” Etude 72/9 (September 1954): 11, 49.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Current Chronicle, New York.” Musical Quarterly 38/1 (January 1952): 123–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “The Impasse of Modern Music: Searching for New Avenues of Beauty.” Century Magazine 114/6 (October 1927): 671–77.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Music.” In The Americana Annual: An Encyclopedia of Current Events, ed. McDannald, A. H., 390–94. New York: Americana Corp., 1934.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. New Musical Resources. Edited by Godwin, Joscelyn. New York: Something Else Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. New Musical Resources. Edited by Nicholls, David. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “New Terms for New Music.” Modern Music 5/4 (1928): 21–27.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. Quartet Romantic and Quartet Euphometric. New York: C. F. Peters, 1974.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. Six Casual Developments for Clarinet and Piano. Bryn Mawr, Penn.: Merion Music, 1971.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. String Quartet No. 1. New York: Associated Music Publishers, 1965.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. String Quartet No. 4: United Quartet. New York: C. F. Peters, 1966.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. Suite for Woodwind Quintet. Bryn Mawr, Penn.: Merrymount Music Press, 1949.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. Trio in Nine Short Movements for Violin, Violoncello and Piano. New York: C. F. Peters, 1968.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry, ed. American Composers on American Music, A Symposium. New York: F. Ungar, 1962.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry, ed. New Music Quarterly 1/1. San Francisco: New Music Society of California, 1927.Google Scholar
Gaume, Matilda. “Ruth Crawford: A Promising Young Composer in New York, 1929–1930.” American Music 5/1 (Spring 1987): 74–84.Google Scholar
Goetschius, Percy. Exercises in Elementary Counterpoint. New York: Schirmer, 1910.Google Scholar
Greer, Taylor. “The Dynamics of Dissonance in Seeger's Treatise and Crawford's Quartet.” In Understanding Charles Seeger, Pioneer in American Musicology, ed. Yung, Bell and Rees, Helen, 13–28. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Greer, Taylor. A Question of Balance: Charles Seeger's Philosophy of Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Harrison, Lou. Music Primer, Various Items about Music to 1970. New York: C. F. Peters, 1971.Google Scholar
Hicks, Michael. Henry Cowell, Bohemian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Higgins, Dick, ed. Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music. New York: McPherson, 2001.Google Scholar
Johnson, Steven. “‘Worlds of Ideas’: The Music of Henry Cowell.” In The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium, ed. Nicholls, David, 15–93. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.Google Scholar
Lichtenwanger, William. The Music of Henry Cowell: A Descriptive Catalog. Brooklyn: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1986.Google Scholar
Miller, Leta E., and Lieberman, Frederic. Lou Harrison: Composing a World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Nelson, Mark D. “In Pursuit of Charles Seeger's Heterophonic Ideal: Three Palindromic Works by Ruth Crawford.” Musical Quarterly 72/4 (1986): 458–75.Google Scholar
Nicholls, David. American Experimental Music: 1890–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Oja, Carol J.Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Pescatello, Ann M.Charles Seeger: A Life in American Music. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Polanksy, Larry, and Kennedy, John. “Total Eclipse: The Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer.” Musical Quarterly 80/4 (Winter 1996): 719–78.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “American Compositional Theory in the 1930s: Scale and Exoticism in ‘The Nature of Melody’ by Henry Cowell.” Musical Quarterly 85/4 (Winter 2001): 595–640.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Cowell's Sliding Tone and the American Ultramodernist Tradition.” American Music 23/3 (2005): 281–323.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Partnership in Modern Music: Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford, 1929–1931.” American Music 15/3 (1997): 325–80.Google Scholar
Riegger, Wallingford. “The Music of Vivian Fine.” Bulletin of the American Composers Alliance 8/1 (1958): 2–4.Google Scholar
Saylor, Bruce. “The Tempering of Henry Cowell's Dissonant Counterpoint.” In Essays on Modern Music, vol. 2, ed. Brody, Martin, 3–12. Boston: League of Composers–International Society for Contemporary Music, 1985.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “Henry Cowell.” Magazine of Art 33 (1940): 288–89, 322–25, 327.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. The Letter and Psalm 137. In New Music Quarterly 26/3. New York: New Music Edition, 1954.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “On Dissonant Counterpoint.” Modern Music 7/4 (1930): 25–31.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. Reminiscences of an American Musicologist. Edited by Tusler, Adelaide G. and Briegleb, Ann M.. Los Angeles: University of California, 1972.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. Studies in Musicology II: 1929–1979. Edited by Pescatello, Ann M.. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “Tradition and Experiment in (the New) Music.” In Studies in Musicology II: 1929–1979, ed. Pescatello, Ann M., 17–273. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Shirley, Wayne. “The Hymns and Fuguing Tunes.” In The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium, ed. Nicholls, David, 95–143. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.Google Scholar
Spilker, John D. “‘Substituting A New Order’: Dissonant Counterpoint, Henry Cowell, and the Network of Ultra-Modern Composers.” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2010.Google Scholar
Strang, Gerald. Eleven. In New Music Quarterly 7/4. San Francisco: New Music Society of California, 1934.Google Scholar
Straus, Joseph N.The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Terman, Lewis. The Intelligence of Schoolchildren. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1919.Google Scholar
Tick, Judith. Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisgall, Hugo. “The Music of Henry Cowell.” Musical Quarterly 45/4 (October 1959): 484–507.Google Scholar