We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Johanna Beyer: Music for Woodwinds

by Johanna Beyer

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    includes PDF liner notes
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9.99 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Johanna Beyer: Music for Woodwinds via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15.99 USD or more 

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.

about

Through her novel approaches to texture and melody, German-American composer Johanna Magdalena Beyer (1888–1944) became one of the most distinctive modernist voices of the mid-20th century. Beyer was the first woman known to have composed for electric instruments (Music of the Spheres, 1938). Her compositions anticipate elements of minimalism, a movement that would manifest two decades after her passing. Beyer was long omitted from the written history of ultramodernism, but her activities as a composer and pianist in 1930s New York City placed her within the orbits of many important artists. Her mentors, friends, and collaborators included Ruth Crawford, Charles Seeger, Henry Cowell, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Otto and Ethel Luening, Marion Bauer, Dane Rudhyar, Percy Grainger, and choreographer Doris Humphrey. At last, in the 21st century, Beyer’s name is now invoked alongside these others, as the significance of her music is becoming more widely recognized.

Although her works for percussion ensemble, piano, and strings have garnered the most attention, Beyer composed a substantial amount of music for woodwinds. Thirteen solo and chamber works, all written between 1932 and 1943, represent an exceptional contribution to the wind repertoire. Only five pieces involving clarinet and flute have previously been recorded. This album brings to light the rest of Beyer’s known chamber music for winds, allowing for a more complete assessment of her achievements.

Beyer wrote to Cowell in 1940, “I am not a set piece of so many molecules. I am an ever changing something.” Nothing truer could be said of Beyer’s woodwind music, which reveals a composer in constant search of new approaches and instrumental colors. In little more than a decade of intense creativity, she produced inventive pieces in an ever-unfolding ultramodernist style. These works, now accessible for performance and study, confirm Johanna Beyer’s importance in the canon of 20th-century wind chamber music.

credits

released March 11, 2022

Arizona Wind Quintet: Brian Luce, flute; Sara Fraker, oboe & English horn; Jackie Glazier, clarinet & bass clarinet; Marissa Olegario, bassoon & contrabassoon; William Dietz, bassoon; with Daniel Linder, piano

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

New World Records Brooklyn, New York

Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc., which records under the label New World Records, was founded in 1975.

We are dedicated to the documentation of American music that is largely ignored by the commercial recording companies.

contact / help

Contact New World Records

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Johanna Beyer: Music for Woodwinds, you may also like: