Wilfrid Mellers (1914-2008) was an English music critic, composer, and musicologist as well as professor emeritus of music at the University of York. He is the author of numerous books including Celestial Music?: Some Masterpieces of European Religious Music, Singing in the Wilderness: Music and Ecology in the Twentieth Century, and Between Old Worlds and New

• One: The Pioneer and the Wilderness; I: A pre-history of American music: the primitives, the retreat to Europe and the conservative tradition; II: Realism and transcendentalism: Charles Ives as American hero; III: Men and mountains: Carl Ruggles as American mystic; Roy Harris as religious primitive; IV: Skyscraper and Prairie: Aaron Copland and the American isolation; V: The Pioneer’s energy and the Artist’s order: Elliott Carter; VI: The American frenzy and the unity of serialism: Wallingford Riegger and Roger Sessions; VII: The retreat from the west: science and magic: Charles Griffes, Henry Cowell and Edgard Varèse; VIII: From noise to silence: Harry Partch, John Cage and Morton Feldman; IX: Innocence and nostalgia: Samuel Barber and Virgil Thomson; X: Today and Tomorrow: Lukas Foss and the younger generation; Two: The world of art and the world of commerce: the folk-song of the asphalt jungle; I: Introductory: Music and entertainment in nineteenth-century America: Stephen Foster, Louis-Moreau Gottschalk and John Philip Sousa; II: Orgy and alienation: country blues, barrelhouse piano, and piano rag; III: Heterophony and improvisation: the New Orleans jazz band and King Oliver; Bessie Smith and the urban blues; IV: From heterophony to polyphony: from polyphony to the antiphony of the big band: improvisation and composition in the work of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Count Basie; V: Jazz polyphony and jazz harmony: Duke Ellington as composer; VI: From art back to jazz. Modern jazz and the composing improviser: Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane; VII: From jazz back to art. Modern jazz and the improvising composer: Miles Davis and Gil Evans; Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis; VIII: From jazz to pop: the decline of the big bands: pianists, cabaret singers and the “musical”; IX: From pop to art: opera, the musical and George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”; X: From art to pop: Marc Blitzstein’s “Regina” and Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story”; the rebirth of wonder; Epilogue

Wilfrid Mellers (1914-2008) was an English music critic, composer, and musicologist as well as professor emeritus of music at the University of York. He is the author of numerous books including Celestial Music?: Some Masterpieces of European Religious Music, Singing in the Wilderness: Music and Ecology in the Twentieth Century, and Between Old Worlds and New

• One: The Pioneer and the Wilderness; I: A pre-history of American music: the primitives, the retreat to Europe and the conservative tradition; II: Realism and transcendentalism: Charles Ives as American hero; III: Men and mountains: Carl Ruggles as American mystic; Roy Harris as religious primitive; IV: Skyscraper and Prairie: Aaron Copland and the American isolation; V: The Pioneer’s energy and the Artist’s order: Elliott Carter; VI: The American frenzy and the unity of serialism: Wallingford Riegger and Roger Sessions; VII: The retreat from the west: science and magic: Charles Griffes, Henry Cowell and Edgard Varèse; VIII: From noise to silence: Harry Partch, John Cage and Morton Feldman; IX: Innocence and nostalgia: Samuel Barber and Virgil Thomson; X: Today and Tomorrow: Lukas Foss and the younger generation; Two: The world of art and the world of commerce: the folk-song of the asphalt jungle; I: Introductory: Music and entertainment in nineteenth-century America: Stephen Foster, Louis-Moreau Gottschalk and John Philip Sousa; II: Orgy and alienation: country blues, barrelhouse piano, and piano rag; III: Heterophony and improvisation: the New Orleans jazz band and King Oliver; Bessie Smith and the urban blues; IV: From heterophony to polyphony: from polyphony to the antiphony of the big band: improvisation and composition in the work of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Count Basie; V: Jazz polyphony and jazz harmony: Duke Ellington as composer; VI: From art back to jazz. Modern jazz and the composing improviser: Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane; VII: From jazz back to art. Modern jazz and the improvising composer: Miles Davis and Gil Evans; Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis; VIII: From jazz to pop: the decline of the big bands: pianists, cabaret singers and the “musical”; IX: From pop to art: opera, the musical and George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”; X: From art to pop: Marc Blitzstein’s “Regina” and Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story”; the rebirth of wonder; Epilogue