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Article: CLASSICAL RECORDINGS; Gunther Schuller: A Prize Long Before His Pulitzer
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 1, 1994
- Author:
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Few honors have been as long overdue as the Pulitzer Prize for
music awarded to Gunther Schuller last month. Just how long it was
overdue, I did not recall until, searching through my records, I
came upon his "Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee," on a 1960
Mercury recording conducted by the late Antal Dorati. That piece
dazzled me when it was new, and it still dazzles me in its latest
incarnation as a remastered CD (Mercury 434.329). It is a triumph of
musical imagination, a brilliant attempt to translate visual images
into organized sounds, drawing on the flavors of medieval organum,
cool jazz, serialism and Arab folk music, among other resources,
with a sureness of touch comparable ...