The Big Composers Cookery Book

Why does twentieth-century music sound the way it does? What strategies did composers use in the twentieth century, and how did history and philosophy influence their creative processes? These and other questions are discussed in the newly published The Big Composers Cookery Book: strategies and structures in new music from 1900-present by Peter-Jan Wagemans.

Similarly to Dutch composer Ton de Leeuw's 1964 publication Muziek uit de twintigste eeuw (Music of the 20th century), Wagemans puts the music in a larger music-history perspective. However, Wagemans’ book covers the entire twentieth century and presents in-depth analyses of its most important works. He discusses in detail the craft of composing, the structures and strategies that composers use to organise their sonic world, and their reactions to events in the world around them.

In doing so, he sheds new light on the triangular relationship of analysis, historical context and philosophical context that is behind the written scores. The Big Composers Cookery Book draws on Wagemans’ thirty-plus years of experience as a composition teacher, music theorist and lecturer on twentieth-century history at Codarts University in Rotterdam.

For whom is this book written? The Big Composers Cookery Book is written both for interested laypeople, who will gain greater insight into the relationship between history and composition, and for composers, who can look up a variety of compositional techniques, from Schoenberg to Zappa. It is also a combined reference work and textbook for music students. The book is published in English.