John Kirkpatrick, American music, and the printed page

240 Pages·2013·5.736 MB·English

by  Kirkpatrick, John, Massey, Drew

or over sixty years, the scholar and pianist John MJ
Kirkpatrick tirelessly promoted and championed o
u
h
the music of American composers. In this book, Drew sn
i
Massey explores how Kirkpatrick’s career as an editor c
K John Kirkpatrick,
of music shaped the music and legacies of some of the great ,
a i
American modernists, including Aaron Copland, Ross Lee n r
d
k
Finney, Roy Harris, Hunter Johnson, Charles Ives, Robert th p American Music,
e
Palmer, and Carl Ruggles. Drawing on oral histories, interviews, a
P
t
and Kirkpatrick’s own extensive archives, Massey carefully
rr
reconstructs Kirkpatrick’s collaborations with such luminaries, ii Printed Page
nc
and the
displaying his editorial practice and inviting reconsideration of tk
e,
many of the most important debates in American modernism—
dA
for example, the self-fashioning of young composers during
Pm
the 1940s, the cherished myth of Ruggles as a composer in
a
e
communion with the “timeless,” and Ives’s status as a pioneer
gr
of modernist techniques. ei
c
a
“A substantial and provocative contribution to our understanding n

of Kirkpatrick as a man, performer, editor, and scholar. This
book’s implications reach beyond the particular composers and
works involved and will interest readers concerned with American
music generally, as well as those interested in the history and
practice of editing in the twentieth century.”
—Tom C. Owens, editor of Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives
Drew Massey
is assistant professor of music at
M
Binghamton University.
a
s
s
Cover photo: Kirkpatrick seated at clavichord, ca. 1925. MSS 56, the John Kirkpatrick Papers in the Irving S.
e
Gilmore Music Library of Yale University. Photographer unknown.
y
Cover design: Frank Gutbrod
D M
rew assey
John Kirkpatrick, American Music,
and the Printed Page
Eastman Studies in Music
Ralph P. Locke, Senior Editor
Eastman School of Music
Additional Titles of Interest
The Ballet Collaborations of Richard Strauss
Wayne Heisler Jr.
Dane Rudhyar: His Music, Thought, and Art
Deniz Ertan
Intimate Voices:The Twentieth-Century String Quartet,
Volumes 1 and 2
Edited by Evan Jones
Irony and Sound: The Music of Maurice Ravel
Stephen Zank
Leon Kirchner: Composer, Performer, and Teacher
Robert Riggs
The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology
Edited by Arved Ashby
Portrait of Percy Grainger
Edited by Malcolm Gillies and David Pear
Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in
Twentieth-Century American Music
Edited by Ray Allen and Ellie M. Hisama
The Substance of Things Heard: Writings about Music
Paul Griffiths
Widor: A Life beyond the Toccata
John R. Near
A complete list of titles in the Eastman Studies in Music series
may be found on our website, www.urpress.com.
John Kirkpatrick,
American Music, and
the Printed Page
Drew Massey
The University of Rochester Press gratefully acknowledges generous support from
the Manfred Bukofzer Endowment of the American Musicological Society.
Copyright © 2013 by Drew Massey
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no
part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2013
University of Rochester Press
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-404-8
ISSN: 1071-9989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Massey, Drew (Drew Michael), author.
John Kirkpatrick, American music, and the printed page / Drew Massey.
pages cm. -- (Eastman studies in music, ISSN 1071-9989 ; v. 98)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58046-404-8 (hardcover : alkaline paper) 1. Kirkpatrick, John,
1905–1991. 2. Music--Editing--History--20th century. 3. Music--United States--
20th century--History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series: Eastman studies in
music ; v. 98.
ML427.K45M37 2013
780.92--dc23
2013005009
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
Musical excerpts from John Kirkpatrick’s edition of Carl Ruggles’s Mood are repro-
duced with permission from the John Kirkpatrick Estate.
Musical excerpts from Carl Ruggles’s sketches of The Sunken Bell and Mood are repro-
duced with permission from the Carl Ruggles Estate.
The more credit accrues to Mr. Kirkpatrick for this labor and d evotion
on his part, because, truth to tell, much of the music heard last night
was ugly and tedious to a degree.
—Olin Downes, New York Times, March 27, 1940
I haven’t been able to get a calm and collected view on the patch you
sent. . . . So far my impression is of the painter who said that it took two
men to paint a picture: one to do the painting and another to shoot
him when he had painted enough.
—Kirkpatrick, letter to Carl Ruggles, January 30, 1943
The next researcher on Ives will have to do some researching on your
technique.
—Nicolas Slonimsky, letter to John Kirkpatrick,
November 16, 1960

Contents
List of Musical Examples ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Strange Stopping Places 1
1 Beginnings 8
2 Mentorship: Music Publishing 28
3 Collaboration: Ruggles’s Evocations 50
4 Performance: Ives’s Concord Sonata 73
5 Imagination: Ruggles’s Mood 92
6 Voice: The Prose Works 118
7 Institution: The Charles Ives Society 129
Conclusion: Kirkpatrick, Compared 153
Notes 157
Works of John Kirkpatrick 181
Bibliography 187
Index 197
Plates follow page 100.

Musical Examples
2.1 Hunter Johnson, For an Unknown Soldier, mm. 1–7 39
2.2 Hunter Johnson, Piano Sonata, mvt. 3, mm. 212–15;
Roy Harris, Piano Sonata, coda, mm. 1–5 40
2.3 Hunter Johnson, Piano Sonata, mvt. 3, mm. 1–4; Roy Harris,
Piano Sonata, mvt. 3, mm. 2–6 41
2.4 Finney, Third Piano Sonata, mvt. 2, mm. 1–6 43
2.5 Robert Palmer, First Prelude, mm. 1–6 46
2.6 Palmer, Second Prelude, mm. 1–6 46
3.1 J. S. Bach, Fugue in B Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier,
book 1, mm. 1–4 60
3.2 Ruggles, Evocation for Ives, mm. 1–5, multiple states 62
3.3 Ruggles, Evocation for Ives, mm. 21–26, multiple states 64
3.4 Ruggles, Evocation for Ives, mm. 30–32, multiple states 68
3.5 Underlying fundamental sounding, “Ives” Evocation, mm. 1–5 70
4.1 Charles Ives, Concord Sonata, variant readings, pp. 5–6 87
5.1 Kirkpatrick edition, Mood, mm. 22–25, violin part, and
related material 98
5.2 Kirkpatrick edition, Mood, mm. 61–65, and related material 98
5.3 Kirkpatrick edition, Mood, m. 10, and related material 105
5.4 Ruggles, sketches for The Sunken Bell 107
5.5 Kirkpatrick edition, passages from Mood 109
5.6 Ruggles, sketch material for Mood, not included in
Kirkpatrick’s edition 111