Music Sketches Cambridge Introductions to Music Series

The term 'music sketch' relates to the vast variety of documents that are used by composers to work out a musical technique or idea and to prepare their work for performance or publication. These documents can often provide crucial insights into authorship, biography, editorial practice and musical analysis. This introduction provides students and scholars with the knowledge and skills they need to embark on research projects involving the study of composers' working documents. Presenting examples of the compositional process over a 400-year period, it includes a selection of detailed case studies on how sketches were created and the techniques that were used, such as transcription and the sorting of loose leaves. Numerous illustrations of manuscripts and autographs, many of which have never been published before, show how these vital documents can be used to better understand compositional processes.

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Sketch studies past and present; 3. Tracking down evidence of the creative process; 4. The physical objects of the compositional process; 5. Studying loose leaves; 6. Sketchbooks; 7. Transcription and facsimile reproduction; 8. Sketches and the critical edition of music; 9. Dangerous liaisons: the evolving relationship between sketch studies and analysis; 10. Musical palimpsests; Appendix: Beethoven sketchbooks published between 1913 and 2013; Glossary.

Friedemann Sallis is a professor in the Department of Music at the University of Calgary. His publications include A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches (co-edited with Patricia Hall, 2004), Centre and Periphery, Roots and Exile: Interpreting the Music of István Anhalt, György Kurtág and Sándor Veress (co-edited with Robin Elliott and Kenneth DeLong, 2011), and numerous articles on twentieth-century music. He has acquired broad experience within the field of sketch studies, particularly with twentieth-century composers and performers, including György Kurtág, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono and Glenn Gould.