Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since—notably the downtown New York scene of the 1980s (see John Zorn ) and generations of younger composers.
27-551: Among his most famous works are December 1952 , an entirely graphic score, and the open form pieces Available Forms I & II , Centering , and Cross Sections and Color Fields . He was awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (1998). Brown was born in Lunenburg, Massachusetts , and first devoted himself to playing jazz. He initially considered a career in engineering, and enrolled for engineering and mathematics at Northeastern University (1944–45). He enlisted in
54-488: A Northeasterner who grew up playing and improvising jazz. December 1952 consists purely of horizontal and vertical lines varying in width, spread out over the page; it is a landmark piece in the history of graphic notation of music . The role of the performer is to interpret the score visually and translate the graphical information into music. In Brown's notes on the work, he even suggests that one consider this 2D space as 3D and imagine moving through it. The other pieces in
81-766: A combination of Alexander Calder 's mobile sculptures and the spontaneous decision-making used in the creation of Jackson Pollock's action paintings . Although Brown precisely notated compositions throughout his career using traditional notation, he also was an inventor and early practitioner of various innovative notations. In Twenty-Five Pages , and in other works, Brown used what he called "time notation" or "proportional notation" where rhythms were indicated by their horizontal length and placement in relation to each other and were to be interpreted flexibly. However, by Modules I and II (1966), Brown more often used stemless note heads which could be interpreted with even greater flexibility. In 1959, with Hodograph I , Brown sketched
108-471: A female householder with no husband present, and 24.5% were non-families. 20.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.66 and the average family size was 3.08. In the town, the population was spread out, with 25.8% under the age of 18, 5.6% from 18 to 24, 29.8% from 25 to 44, 26.8% from 45 to 64, and 12.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
135-660: A number of instrumental consorts and choral ensembles specialising in Early music repertoire were formed. Groups such as the Tallis Scholars , the Early Music Consort and the Taverner Consort and Players have been influential in bringing Early music to modern audiences through performances and popular recordings. The revival of interest in Early music has given rise to a scholarly approach to
162-615: Is bordered by Townsend to the north, Shirley to the east, Lancaster to the southeast, Leominster to the south, Fitchburg to the west, and Ashby to the northwest. Three state highways pass through Lunenburg. Route 2A follows Mass Ave from the Shirley line to the Fitchburg line. Rt 13 follows Electric Ave from the Leominster line to Mass Ave. Rt 13 then follows Mass Ave/Rt 2a for 0.3 miles. Rt 13 then follows Chase Rd to
189-481: Is considered to be a member of the New York School of composers, along with John Cage, Morton Feldman , and Christian Wolff . Brown cited the visual artists Alexander Calder and Jackson Pollock as two of the primary influences on his work. He was also inspired by author, Gertrude Stein, and by many artists he was personally acquainted with such as Max Ernst and Robert Rauschenberg. Brown was married first to
216-437: Is divided in numbered "events" on a series of "pages". The conductor uses a placard to indicate the page, and with his left hand indicates which event is to be performed while his right hand cues a downbeat to begin. The speed and intensity of the downbeat suggests the tempo and dynamics. Brown's first open-form piece, Twenty-Five Pages , was 25 unbound pages, and called for anywhere between one and 25 pianists. The score allowed
243-531: Is misconstrued as, historically, "coming out of nowhere", musical notation has existed in many forms—both as a mechanism for creation and for analysis. Brown studied what is now called Early Music , which had its own systems of notation; he was a student of the Schillinger System, which almost exclusively used graph methods } for describing music. From this perspective, FOLIO was an inspired, yet logical, connection to be made—especially for
270-473: The M'iq Maq or Abenaki Confederacy , raided the village and took settlers captive to Quebec . Areas of neighboring Fitchburg were once part of Lunenburg, but broke away around 1764. The settlers found the walking distance to church and town meetings too great and needed their own town center. Whalom Park on Whalom Lake had long been a noted amusement park in Lunenburg during the 20th century. It
297-650: The MBTA Commuter Rail Fitchburg Line . Early Music Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical music . Interpretations of historical scope of "early music" vary. The original Academy of Ancient Music formed in 1726 defined "Ancient" music as works written by composers who lived before
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#1732783731030324-646: The U.S. Air Force in 1945. However, the war ended while he was still in basic training, and he was assigned to the base band at Randolph Field , Texas, in which he played trumpet. The band included saxophonist Zoot Sims . Between 1946 and 1950 he was a student at Schillinger House in Boston, which is now the Berklee College of Music . Brown had private instruction in trumpet and composition. Upon graduating he moved to Denver to teach Schillinger techniques. John Cage invited Brown to leave Denver and join him for
351-992: The poverty line , including 3.7% of those under age 18 and 1.4% of those age 65 or over. The Lunenburg public library began in 1853. The public schools in town are the Lunenburg Primary School, Turkey Hill Elementary School, and Lunenburg Middle-High School. The high and middle schools are in the same building, beside the Turkey Hill building. Private schools include Applewild School , an independent coeducational day school for pre-schoolers to eighth graders, established in 1957 in Fitchburg. Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School serves Lunenburg and Fitchburg. The Montachusett Regional Transit Authority supplies Councils-On-Aging service for elderly and disabled residents. Portions of Lunenburg are also on its regular bus routes. The nearest rail stations are Shirley, Fitchburg and North Leominster on
378-669: The Project for Music for Magnetic Tape in New York. Brown was an editor and recording engineer for Capitol Records (1955–60) and producer for Time- Mainstream Records (1960–73). Brown's contact with Cage exposed David Tudor to some of Brown's early piano works, and this connection led to Brown's work being performed in Darmstadt and Donaueschingen. Composers such as Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna promoted his music, which subsequently became more widely performed and published. Brown
405-540: The Townsend Line. Rt 225 begins in Lunenburg, at an intersection with Rt 2a/Mass Ave near the Shirley line. Rt 225 follows West Groton Rd from Rt 2a to the Shirley line. As of the census of 2000, there were 9,401 people, 3,535 households, and 2,668 families residing in the town. The population density was 355.8 inhabitants per square mile (137.4/km ). There were 3,668 housing units at an average density of 138.8 per square mile (53.6/km ). The racial makeup of
432-555: The collection are not as abstract. Lunenburg, Massachusetts Lunenburg is a town in Worcester County , Massachusetts , United States. The population was 11,782 at the 2020 census . Lunenburg was first settled by Europeans in 1718 and was officially incorporated in 1728. The name stems from one of the titles of King George II of Great Britain , Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg . During King George's War (1744–1748), French-allied First Nations, such as warriors of
459-461: The contour and character abstractly in what he called "implicit areas" of the piece. This graphic style was more gestural and calligraphic than the geometric abstraction of December 1952 . Beginning with Available Forms I , Brown used this graphic notation on the staff in some sections of the score. December 1952 is perhaps Brown's most famous score. It is part of a larger set of unconventionally-notated music called FOLIO . Although this collection
486-459: The dancer Carolyn Brown , who danced with Merce Cunningham from the 1950s to the 1970s, and then to the art curator Susan Sollins. Earle Brown died in 2002 of cancer, in Rye, New York , United States. A great deal of Brown's work is composed in fixed modules (though often with idiosyncratic mixtures of notation), but the order is left free to be chosen by the conductor during performance. The material
513-631: The end of the 16th century. Johannes Brahms and his contemporaries would have understood Early music to range from the High Renaissance and Baroque, while some scholars consider that Early music should include the music of ancient Greece or Rome before 500 AD (a period that is generally covered by the term Ancient music ). Music critic Michael Kennedy excludes Baroque, defining Early music as "musical compositions from [the] earliest times up to and including music of [the] Renaissance period". Musicologist Thomas Forrest Kelly considers that
540-514: The essence of Early music is the revival of "forgotten" musical repertoire and that the term is intertwined with the rediscovery of old performance practice . According to the UK's National Centre for Early Music , the term "early music" refers to both a repertory (European music written between 1250 and 1750 embracing Medieval, Renaissance and the Baroque) – and a historically informed approach to
567-423: The performance of music. Through academic musicological research of music treatises , urtext editions of musical scores and other historical evidence, performers attempt to be faithful to the performance style of the musical era in which a work was originally conceived. Additionally, there has been a rise in the use of original or reproduction period instruments as part of the performance of Early music, such as
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#1732783731030594-469: The performance of that music. Today, the understanding of "Early music" has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises, instruments and other contemporary evidence." In the later 20th century there was a resurgence of interest in the performance of music from the Medieval and Renaissance eras, and
621-415: The performer(s) to arrange the pages in whatever order they saw fit. Also, the pages were notated symmetrically and without clefs so that the top and bottom orientation was reversible. Through this procedure, no two performances of an open form Brown score will be the same, yet each piece retains a singular identity, and his works exhibit great variety from work to work. Brown relates his work in open form to
648-423: The revival of the harpsichord or the viol . The practice of " historically informed performance " is nevertheless dependent on stylistic inference. According to Margaret Bent , Renaissance notation is not as prescriptive as modern scoring, and there is much that was left to the performer's interpretation: "Renaissance notation is under-prescriptive by our standards; when translated into modern form it acquires
675-412: The town was 97.01% White , 0.69% Black or African American , 0.20% Native American , 0.78% Asian , 0.02% Pacific Islander , 0.26% from other races , and 1.04% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.15% of the population. There were 3,535 households, out of which 34.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.6% were married couples living together, 8.7% had
702-408: Was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.3 males. The median income for a household in the town was $ 56,813, and the median income for a family was $ 63,981. Males had a median income of $ 47,451 versus $ 31,934 for females. The per capita income for the town was $ 26,986. About 3.3% of families and 4.1% of the population were below
729-551: Was home of the famous Flyer Comet , now demolished. The park closed in 2000, unable to survive the competition with the newer and increasingly popular Six Flags New England in Agawam . According to the United States Census Bureau , the town has a total area of 27.7 square miles (72 km ), of which 26.4 square miles (68 km ) is land and 1.3 square miles (3.4 km ), or 4.59%, is water. Lunenburg
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