Simple Composition: Book

Name: Simple Composition: Book
Brand: Alfred Music
SKU: 98-CMB11
Price: 33.95 USD
Availability: InStock

By Charles Wuorinen

Item: 98-CMB11

$33.95

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Charles Wuorinen was described as a "maximalist", writing music that is luxuriant with events, lyrical and expressive, and strikingly dramatic. His works are characterized by powerful harmonies and elegant craftsmanship, offering at once a link to the music of the past and a vision of a rich musical future.

'Simple Composition', Wuorinen's classic text book, offers a glimpse inside the composer's studio and much practical advice to composer's searching for their own path.

"In writing this book, I intended it primarily as a guide for composers in search of practical advice and models of how one might work compositionally. But since my presentation made extensive use of the twelve-tone system in its simplest and most easily describable form, the book was taken as a primer in that system [...] Perhaps today the book may offer a slightly different contribution than it did originally: to offer a basic outline of a musical system and method that has proved immensely rich since its introduction by Schoenberg, as well as to provide a few practical tips." (Charles Wuorinen)

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Series: Edition Peters

Publisher: Edition Peters

ISBN10: 0-938856-06-5

ISBN13: 978-0-938856-06-1

UPC: 9780938856061

SKU: 98-CMB11

More about this title

About the Composer: Charles Wuorinen

Charles Wuorinen (1938-2020) was one of America's most prolific and intellectually rigorous composers, earning the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1982 and maintaining a composerly voice that synthesized rigorous modernist technique with lyrical, expressive content. His output spanned across virtually every genre, from chamber music to large orchestral works, and he remained deeply committed to the craft of composition throughout his career, viewing each work as both a technical exploration and an opportunity for genuine musical communication.

Wuorinen's influence extended beyond the concert hall into the composer's studio itself. He was a dedicated teacher and theorist who believed that understanding compositional method, particularly the twelve-tone system, could liberate rather than constrain creative expression. His willingness to articulate his own working processes and to demystify the techniques he employed made him an invaluable resource for emerging composers seeking to find their own voice within the modernist tradition.

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Why we love this

This book cuts through the mystique surrounding twelve-tone composition by grounding technique in actual working methods. Wuorinen writes like someone genuinely interested in helping composers solve real problems, not in defending a system; his voice is generous and practical, making dense material accessible without simplifying it. Whether you're teaching advanced composition students or working composers trying to understand the architecture beneath Schoenberg's innovation, this text offers something rarely found: honest insight into how a major 20th-century voice actually thinks about building a piece.

Who it's for

Composition teachers looking for a authoritative yet approachable text on twelve-tone method and broader compositional strategy; advanced student composers navigating modernist techniques; instructors seeking a primary source that connects historical innovation to contemporary practice.

Skills your students will build

Understanding twelve-tone system structure and application
Recognizing relationships between classical form and serial organization
Developing personal compositional voice within systematic constraints
Analyzing harmonic language and pitch organization in 20th-century works
Building practical problem-solving strategies for compositional decisions