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Believe Your Ears

Life of a Lyric Composer
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Believe Your Ears is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player, and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London, and Russia, and gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas, and symphonies. He writes that "the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music" but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular "school," avoiding the trends, -isms, experiments, fads, and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion, and humor-even entertainment-to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of "experts." Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Billie Jean King, the Grateful Dead, Richard Rodgers, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden, and Aaron Copland-a who's who in Mechem's storied career.
Prelude Chapter 1: Exposition Chapter 2: Military Music Chapter 3: Key Change: The Accidental Composer Chapter 4: Counterpoint: What Is American Music? Chapter 5: Development Chapter 6: Vienna, con tutta forza Chapter 7: Major / Minor Chapter 8: Vienna, recapitulation Chapter 9: Choral Cycles Chapter 10: Sinfonia Giubilante Chapter 11: Lento, molto sostenuto Chapter 12: Unresolved Dissonance Chapter 13: London: Deceptive Cadence Chapter 14: Professor Nontroppo to the Jayhawk Chapter 15: Opera 101: Composing Tartuffe Chapter 16: Opera 102: The Real Opera World Chapter 17: The Life and Death of John Brown Chapter 18: Everyone Sang Chapter 19: John Brown's Resurrection Chapter 20: Intermezzo: What Is American Opera? Chapter 21: Russian Extravaganza Chapter 22: Tartuffe Spricht Deutsch Chapter 23: The Rivals: Flatulence Will Get You Nowhere Chapter 24: Darcy Sings: Pride & Prejudice Chapter 25: Coda: A Summing-Up Appendix 1: Choral music: "The Text Trap" Appendix 2: "Afterword" to John Brown Appendix 3: "The Hymn Bandit"
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