Scarecrow Press American Art Song and American Poetry

Published 50 years after the last major treatment of American art song, the first edition of the three-volume American Art Song and American Poetry was the first work to fully consider the musical settings of American poetry. Ruth Friedberg's monumental study was undertaken as a partial remedy to examine American song, from Edward Macdowell up through 1980. In the first edition, Friedberg focused on the interrelationship between the composer and the poet and the ways in which this influenced the completed song. Pieces selected for inclusion had the dual function of recognizing the importance of contributions to the performing literature as well as illuminating phases of America's cultural past. In this second edition, now published in a convenient, one-volume format, Ruth Friedberg and Robin Fisher have updated the entries on composers and poets from the first edition and added new individuals to both categories. New composers appearing in this volume include Florence Price, Lee Hoiby, Emma Lou Diemer, Helen Greenberg, Flicka Rahn, Libby Larsen, John Musto, Lori Laitman, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Jake Heggie. Poets now receiving their first treatment are Ezra Pound, Emma Lazarus, Dorothy Diemer Hendry, Dorothy Parker, Willa Cather, Louise Bogan, and William Carlos Williams. As before, musical examples are liberally employed to illustrate specific approaches to poetic text-setting and are much more visually accessible due to present-day digital technology. The new edition of American Art Song and American Poetry will be a valuable addition to the collections of scholars, performers, and libraries. It is an ideal reference work for students and faculty of voice in undergraduate and graduate courses in American music as well as literature scholars interested in the interdisciplinary approaches. Singers and teachers of singing will find in this new edition a vast array of carefully selected program material for the studio and the recital hall, along with carefully researched background material to enable effective performance. Users will find the volume's extensive bibliography and general index extremely helpful. Review American Art Song and American Poetry is an outstanding resource. The research is exemplary, the information is shared in a clear and eloquent style, and it is convenient to have all the information contained in a single compendium. Singers who have only a nodding acquaintance with this literature will be piqued to explore it, while those familiar with this repertoire will be tempted to revisit these milestones of American song, and perhaps discover composers and settings new to them.--Journal of Singing For the second edition of this critically acclaimed work on the American art song, Friedberg and Fisher have combined all three volumes of Friedberg's earlier work (v. 1, CH, Mar'82; v. 2, CH, Mar'85; v. 3, CH, Sep'87) into one large book, supplemented by the addition of ten composers born after the midcentury mark. The make-up of each chapter remains the same: short biographical sketches of composer and poet, followed by a discussion of one or more poems and their musical settings. Although the limited number of works by each composer is hardly sufficient to gain insight into his or her style or aesthetic, the important addition of some of the most popular song composers currently working today--among them Libby Larsen, Jake Heggie, and Ricky Ian Gordon--makes the acquisition of the new edition worthwhile. The revised format--the pages and font are bigger--also improves the readability of the work. This book can easily lay claim to being the most important work on the subject available today. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.--CHOICE Performers, vocal and instrumental, will find this volume useful.--American Reference Books Annual The book could serve as an ideal textbook for university song literature courses focused on the A