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(More customer reviews)This is a compilation of composer Arthur Farwell's essays on music, copiously annotated by editor Thomas Stoner. A wealth of info about Farwell, but also the musical world of his day: Foote, Chadwick, MacDowell, the Indianist movement, the Wa-wan Press (which Farwell founded as a means for American composers to get their works published), east and west coast musical activities, etc. Absolutely dripping with fascinating stuff, not least of all Farwell's thoughts on music in general and the direction of American music in particular.
Farwell was a prolific composer, but finding scores can be challenging. Singers should note the recent B&H editions of 34 (!) settings of Emily Dickinson; the odd number may be found in libraries here and there, but the motherlode resides in the Sibley Library at the Eastman School of Music.
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Arthur Farwell was the great apostle of American music. He published works by American composers in his Wa-Wan Press, he lectured widely on the need to develop a national style, and he spearheaded the American Music Society's drive to promote the country's composers. The twenty-year crusade covered in `Wanderjahre', originally published as articles in Musical America, begins in 1889 when Farwell's musical interest first developed, continues through his Bohemian days in Boston as a budding composer and his trip to Europe for further study, then chronicles his work in America on his return in 1899. Later critical articles and reviews confirm Farwell as an original, often audacious voice, frequently at odds with the musical establishment but raising key issues of American musical life in his day, and giving valuable insights into that milieu.
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