Jan Maegaard 1926-2012



Jan Maegaard was a Danish composer, teacher and researcher at Copenhagen University. He taught a comprehensive music history course over two years when I was a young student there. His keen feeling for how canonic procedures developed over the centuries, his first-class account of recent tendencies were not just impressive, his passionate and clear informative way opened my senses and understanding to new and experimental music. His book "Musikalsk modernisme" from 1964 is still a much-to-be-recommended account of what happened till then and of essential properties of this music in general (still in Danish only, sorry). This is so, I think, because its systematic design prevents any falling into anecdotical blurring of facts. How rows and series have been used is accounted for with great insight. Information theory is a background for the view of complexity, and notation is accounted for by considering the practical problems encountering composers. This and more provides a vast perspective for the contents, while still being very concise and keeping to a modest size of 155 pages.


DANSK: Jan Maegaard var en dansk komponist, lærer og forsker ved Københavns Universitet. Da jeg var en ung studerende der, stod han for et omfattende toårigt kursus i musikhistorie. Hans vågne fornemmelse for hvordan kanoniske procedurer udviklede sig gennem århundrederne, hans førsteklasses redegørelse for nyere tendenser var ikke kun imponerende - hans såvel lidenskabelige som informative facon åbnede mine sanser og forståelse for ny og eksperimenterende musik. Hans bog Musikalsk Modernisme (stadig let at skaffe fra bibliotekerne) er en meget anbefalelsesværdig fremstilling af hvad der skete indtil da og af den eksperimenterende musiks væsen i det hele taget. Dette tror jeg beror på, at den gennem sit systematiske anlæg undgår enhver udviskning af facts. Brug af rækker og serier redegøres for med stor indsigt. Informationsteori er baggrund for synet på kompleksitet, og notation omtales gennem behandling af de praktiske problemer, komponisterne møder. Alt dette og mere sætter stoffet i et stort perspektiv, samtidig med at bogen med sine beskedne 155 sider er meget koncis.

CBN


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