Johanna Beyer

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Johanna Magdalena Beyer (born July 11, 1888 in Leipzig ; † January 9, 1944 in New York, NY ) was a German-American composer and pianist .

biography

Little is known of her life prior to moving to the United States in 1923. She was a member of the Leipziger Singakademie for three years and graduated with a diploma from the German Conservatories and music seminars, where she studied piano, harmony , music theory , counterpoint , singing and dancing. New York colleagues later reported on her excellent piano playing and musicality; their musical training appears to have been traditional and solid. As a young woman, she spent three years in the United States from 1911 to 1914; nothing is known about their activities during these years.

After her final emigration to the United States in 1923 - her biographical notes read of an invitation to a composers' forum - she studied at Mannes College of Music , where she received two degrees in 1928. To earn a living she taught piano a. a. at Greenwich House Music School, but had trouble making ends meet.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s she began studying with Ruth Crawford , Charles Seeger and Dane Rudhyar, and from 1934 attended Henry Cowell's drum class at the New School for Social Research .

Her musical life during these years was closely linked to Seeger, Crawford, Cowell, John Cage and other modernists such as Jessie Beats , a now forgotten composer and painter who studied with Beyer. Her closest friend was Cowell, traditional correspondence tells of a turbulent and possibly romantic relationship between the two composers. Beyer acted as Cowell's secretary of her own free will from 1936 to 1941, only receiving partial compensation in 1941.

Although largely ignored as a composer, she has had a number of important performances: The first took place in 1933 at the New School , where her “Three Songs” for soprano, piano and percussion were performed. A year later, the second movement from her suite for clarinet and bassoon was heard at a concert organized by Henry Cowell as part of the California Society for New Music in San Francisco, but was perceived as a "gloomy, bland duet". John Cage performed two movements of their "Three Movements for Percussion" during his percussion tour of the American Northwest in the late 1930s.

In 1936 she was able to prove her versatile skills with the stage play "The modern composer", for which she was responsible for the texts, the music, the choreography of modern ballet, the costumes as well as the production management and PR , and for which she was also responsible as a pianist participated. The play was performed at the Central Manhattan Music Center under the auspices of the Federal Music Project ; the manuscripts are considered lost. Her music was performed in the New York Composers Forum in 1936 and 1937.

Beyer suffered from the muscle disease ALS in the last years of her life . She died in New York City on January 9, 1944 .

Musical style

Many of Beyer's compositions, especially those composed between 1931 and 1939, are committed to the aesthetics of “American ultra-modernism”, a group of composers around Ruth Crawford Seeger , Charles Seeger , Henry Cowell , Dane Rudhyar and Carl Ruggles . They can be taken as examples of the “dissonant counterpoint”, the compositional system that Charles Seeger and Henry Cowell had developed and which is also strongly reflected in the works of Ruth Crawford Seeger. Nevertheless, Beyer developed her own distinctive gestures and procedures that set her music apart from that of her colleagues. Her compositions are characterized by an economical use of the material, balanced and well-constructed forms, "a unique sense of humor and bizarre" and an obligation to musical experiment.

Although her music did not attract much attention during her lifetime or in the decades after her death, it was, with its almost “prophetic” power, one of the most experimental compositions composed in the 1930s. "Music of the Spheres" (1938) is the first electroacoustic work to be composed by a woman. The fourth movement of her suite for two clarinets (1931) is one of the first examples of a pitch-based approach to rhythmic processes that only fully developed in the late 1940s with composers such as Elliott Carter and Conlon Nancarrow . In addition, some works already anticipate developments in minimal music in the 1960s, for example in the fourth movement of their first string quartet. She also used clusters in her piano works , for example in “Clusters” for piano solo from 1936 and in “Movement for two pianos” (1936), which the pianist also plays with the use of the forearms.

Johanna Beyer's greatest and most lasting contribution to the development of new music is probably her works for percussion . Her “Percussion Suite” from 1933 is one of the earliest examples of this genre and differs greatly from the works of her contemporaries. She "explores (in her music) the underestimated and quite expressive possibilities of percussion instruments," as John Kennedy writes. Further works for percussion from the 1930s are “IV” (1935), “March for 30 Percussion Instruments” (1939), which for Kennedy is “one of the best orchestrated works for percussion ensembles”, and “Three Movements for Percussion "(1939). All of her compositions for percussion differ from those of her contemporaries in their style of humor and their emphasis on musical processes rather than purely rhythmic exploration.

Works

Percussion

  • Percussion Suite in three movements (1933)
  • IV (1935)
  • March for 30 percussion instruments (1939)
  • Percussion , opus 14 (1939)
  • Three Movements for Percussion (1939)
  • Waltz for Percussion (1939)

Chamber works

  • Suite for Clarinet I (1932)
  • Suite for clarinet Ib (1932)
  • Suite for clarinet and bassoon (1933)
  • Sonata for clarinet and piano (1936)
  • Suite for bass clarinet and piano (1936?)
  • Movement for double bass and piano (1936)
  • Movement for two pianos (1936)
  • Suite for violin and piano (1937)
  • Suite for oboe and bassoon (1937)
  • Six Pieces for oboe and piano (1939)
  • Woodwind Quintet (1933)
  • Movement for woodwinds (1938)
  • Wind trio (194?)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1933/1934)
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1936)
  • Movement for string quartet (Dance) (1938)
  • String Quartet No. 4 (1943?)
  • Music of the Spheres from the opera Status Quo (1938)

For piano (solo) :

  • Utility Music (1934)
  • Clusters (or, New York Waltzes) (1936)
  • Winter Ade and five other folk song settings (1936)
  • Dissonant Counterpoint (193?)
  • Suite for piano (1939)
  • Sonatina in C (1943)
  • Prelude and Fugue (in C Major) (undated)
  • Piano-Book, Classic-Romantic-Modern (undated)

Songs:

  • Sky Pieces (1933)
  • Three Songs (Timber Moon; Stars, Songs, Faces; Summer Grass) (soprano, piano, drums) (1933)
  • Ballad of the Star-Eater (soprano and clarinet) (1934)
  • Three Songs for soprano and clarinet (Total Eclipse; Universal-Local; To Be) (1934)
  • Have Faith! (Soprano and flute, 3 versions) (1936–7)

mixed ensembles

  • March (14 instruments) (1935)
  • Cyrnab (chamber orchestra) (1937)
  • Elation (Concert Band) (1938)
  • Reverence (wind ensemble) (1938)

Choir

  • The Robin in the Rain (1935)
  • The Federal Music Project (1936)
  • The Main-Deep (1937)
  • The People, Yes (1937)
  • The Composers' Forum Laboratory (1937)

orchestra

  • Fragment for chamber orchestra (1937)
  • Symphonic Suite (1937)
  • Dance for large orchestra from the opera Status Quo (1938)
  • Symphonic Movement I (1939)
  • Symphonic Opus 3 (1939)
  • Symphonic Opus 5 (1940)
  • Symphonic Movement II (1941)

Discography (excerpts)

  • Restless, Endless, Tactless: Johanna Beyer and the Birth of American Percussion Music , Meehan / Perkins Duo and the Baylor Percussion Group, (New World Records 80711, 2011)
  • Dissonant Counterpoint , I-VIII; Utility music , on the CD: Nine Preludes , Ruth Crawford / Johanna Beyer, Sarah Cahill, piano (New Albion, NA 114 CD, 2001)
  • Ballad of the Star-Eater , Merlyn Quaife, soprano, Craig Hill, clarinet, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Bees , Peter Dumsday, piano, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Clarinet Sonata II in Bb, Pat Okeefe, clarinet, If Tigers Were Clouds (Zeitgeist, Innova 589, 2003)
  • The Federal Music Project , Astra Choir , John McCaughey, conductor, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • "Movement" for double bass and piano, Nicholas Synot, double bass, Kim Bastin, piano
  • "Movement" for pianos, Peter Dumsday, piano 1, Kim Bastin, piano 2, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Music of the Spheres (1938), The Electronic Weasel Ensemble, New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media: Women in Electronic Music (CRI CD 728, 1977, 1997)
  • Sonatina in C, Peter Dumsday, piano, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • String Quartet No. 1, Miwako Abe, Violin 1, Aaron Barnden, Violin 2, Erkki Veltheim, Viola, Rosanne Hunt, Violoncello, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • String Quartet No. 2, Miwako Abe, Violin 1, Aaron Barnden, Violin 2, Erkki Veltheim, Viola, Rosanne Hunt, Violoncello, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Suite for Clarinet, Daniel Goode, Clarinet, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Suite for Clarinet Ib, Craig Hill, Clarinet, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • Suite for violin and piano, Miwako Abe, violin, Michael Kieran Harvey , piano, Works for Violin by George Antheil , Johanna Beyer, Henry Cowell , Ruth Crawford, Charles Dodge, David Mahler, Larry Polansky, Stefan Wolpe (New World Records 80- 641, 2006)
  • "Three Pieces" for choir: The Main Deep; The Composers Forum Laboratory; The People, Yes !, Astra Choir , John McCaughey, conductor, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • "Three Songs" for soprano and clarinet, Merlyn Quaife, soprano, Craig Hill, clarinet, Sticky Melodies , (New World Records 80678-2, 2008)
  • IV , performed by "Essential Music", The Aerial no. 3, (Non Sequitur Recordings, 1991)
  • Suite for clarinet and bassoon, only 2nd and 4th movements, Rosario Mazzeo, clarinet, Raymond Allard, bassoon (New Music Quarterly Recordings 1413 side A [78rpm], 1938).

swell

  • Beal, Amy: Johanna Beyer. University of Illinois Press, Champaign 2015
  • Beal, Amy: "Her Whimsy and Originality Really Amount to Genius": New Biographical Research on Johanna Beyer. American Music Review 38/1, Fall 2008, pp. 1, 4-5, 12-13.
  • Boland, Marguerite: Experimentation and Process in the Music of Johanna Beyer. Viva Voce 76, 2007 ( PDF available online ).
  • Boland, Marguerite: Le Langage Musical de Johanna Beyer. Reports of the Colloquium Des Ponts vers L'Amérique I , Center de recherches sur les arts et le language, EHESS (Paris), December 2006 ( PDF available online ).
  • Boland, Marguerite and Larry Polansky: Tempo Melodies in the Johanna Beyer Clarinet Suites (Fourth Movement) , 2007-08 ( PDF available online ).
  • de Graaf, Melissa: "Never Call Us Lady Composers": Gendered Receptions in the New York Composers' Forum, 1935-1940. American Music 26/3, Fall 2008, pp. 277-308.
  • de Graaf, Melissa: The Reception of an Ultra-Modernist: Ruth Crawford's Experience in the Composers' Forum. In: Ellie Hisama and Ray Allen (Eds.): Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music. University of Rochester Press 2006.
  • de Graaf, Melissa: Intersections of Gender and Modernism in the Music of Johanna Beyer. Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter 33/2, Spring 2004, pp. 8–9, 15.
  • Hinkle-Turner, Elizabeth: Lady Ada's offspring: Some women pioneers in music technology. In: Martina Homma (Ed.): Frau Musica (nova): Composing today / Composing today. Studio-Verlag, Sinzig 2000, pp. 25-33.
  • Hinkle-Turner, Elizabeth: Women Composers and Music Technology in the United States. Ashgate, New York 2006.
  • Polansky, Larry and John Kennedy: "Total Eclipse": The Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer: An Introduction and Preliminary Annotated Checklist. The Musical Quarterly 80/4, 1996, pp. 719-78.
  • Polansky, Larry: The Choral and Chamber Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer . Liner notes by Johanna Beyer - Sticky Melodies , New World Records 2008.
  • Reese, Kirsten: Restless: Approaching Johanna Magdalena Beyer. MusikTexte : Zeitschrift für Neue Musik 81–82, 1999, pp. 6–15.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Kennedy and Larry Polansky: "Total Eclipse": The Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer. Musical Quarterly 80/4, Winter 1996, p. 720.
  2. ^ Melissa de Graaf: Intersections of Gender and Modernism in the Music of Johanna Beyer. Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter 33/2, Spring 2004, pp. 8–9, 15.
  3. ^ Melissa de Graaf, "Never Call Us Lady Composers": Gendered Receptions at the New York Composers' Forum, 1935-1940. American Music 26/3, Fall 2008, pp. 291-92.
  4. ↑ Amy Beal: "Her Whimsy and Originality Really Amount to Genius": New Biographical Research on Johanna Beyer. American Music 38/1, Fall 2008, p. 12.
  5. ^ Charles Amirkhanian : Women in Electronic Music - 1977 . Liner notes , New World Records , Publication No. 80653.
  6. ↑ cf. Kennedy and Polansky: Total Eclipse , p. 721.
  7. ↑ cf. Kennedy and Polansky: Total Eclipse , p. 723.
  8. ↑ on Beyer's experiences with the Composers' Forum cf. Melissa de Graaf: Intersections of Gender and Modernism in the Music of Johanna Beyer.
  9. ↑ cf. Kennedy and Polansky: Total Eclipse , p. 725.
  10. ↑ cf. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner: Lady Ada's offspring: Some women pioneers in music technology. In: Martina Homma (Ed.): Frau Musica (nova): Composing today / Composing today. Studio-Verlag, Sinzig 2000, pp. 25-33.
  11. ↑ Marguerite Boland and Larry Polansky: Tempo Melodies in the Johanna Beyer Clarinet Suites , 2007-08 (English, PDF)
  12. ↑ cf. also in the following Kennedy and Polansky: Total Eclipse , p. 726.
  13. ↑ There is also an arrangement of this work for 6 cellos and triangle by Johannes X. Schachtner , 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Beyer, Johanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beyer, Johanna Magdalena (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1944
Place of death new York