The word ‘revolution’ is often misused in connection with contemporary music. Every composer who writes some kind of new music is called a revolutionary musician by many people. Let us now examine the exact meaning of revolution. According to dictionaries, the term denotes reversal of conditions, fundamental change. In other words, it is a destruction of all that existed before and a beginning anew, a start from nothing.

In any survey of Schoenberg's work one fact must be emphasized above all: that no younger composer writes quite the same music as he would have written, had Schoenberg's music not existed. The influence of an artist is not, even during his lifetime, confined to his disciples or even to those who have felt the direct impact of his work. It is filtered through to the humblest participant, first in the work of other original artists who have absorbed and re-interpreted it for their own purposes; then through the work of hundreds of lesser individuals, who unconsciously reflect the new tendencies even when they are opposed to them. For genuinely new ideas determine the battle-grounds on which their opponents are forced to attack. In the very process of combat the latter undergo decisive experiences which help to carry the new ideas forward.

Stravinsky's 1968 transcriptions of Wolf are extraordinarily moving, for the gesture of farewell has the effect of an empty stage. The music remains though the composer is gone; here however Stravinsky seems to have withdrawn even from the music. Of the signs and traits that reveal the man in his previous Tchaikovsky, Pergolesi or Gesualdo disguises, none remain. One is left only with his choice. What makes the work so deeply affecting is the fact that the choice alone still speaks to us as Stravinsky.

Recently a composer was told by a knowledgeable critic that no one writes symphonies any more, to which he replied: ‘Yes, I know; so I call mine something else.’ Roger Sessions has not done this. His eight symphonies, which span the years from 1927 to the present, are worthy of the name, and give undeniable evidence that reports of the genre's demise have been premature. In originality and scope of expression, and in the mastery with which large-scale symphonic thinking is reconciled with a post-tonal idiom, the cycle that begins with the Second Symphony (1946) deserves to be counted among the outstanding musical achievements of the past 25 years.

More than twenty years have passed since the publication of Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, and although the work has been widely praised, it has still to find its rightful place in the repertoire. In several respects it is, indeed, an isolated work. Composed between March 1949 and March 1950, it was Copland's first music for solo voice and piano since 1928, and has remained his only song-cycle (apart from the sets of American popular songs). The choice of poems is unusual; but the genre itself is foreign to the American ‘tradition’. The fact that relatively few American composers have entered this field perhaps reflects a desire to avoid direct comparison with 19th century European models. Charles Ives wrote many songs but no cycles, and the best of them are without musical ancestry (or direct progeny); if influences can be discerned they are from outside the field of ‘art’ music. So it is remarkable that Copland's cycle calls to mind the French mélodie, and particularly Fauré.

Claudio Spies was born in Chile in 1925; he has lived in the United States since 1942 and became an American citizen in 1966. Raised by parents of German-Jewish origin he speaks fluent English, Spanish, German, Italian and French, and has made great compositional use of these linguistic skills. He has set texts in all these languages but French, and has also set texts in Latin. Half of his output, in fact, consists of vocal music, and is marked by careful attention to prosody and the characteristic rhythms and syntax of the language being set.