The Songs of David Amram: A representative analysis and review of published vocal music for accompanied and unaccompanied voice

David Werner Amram III, born in Philadelphia in 1930 is a celebrated American composer whose works have increasingly gained worldwide attention. His compositions embrace many genres including incidental music, film scores, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, instrumental trios, quartets, cantatas and operas as well as songs. One of Amram's earliest published songs, Pull My Daisy, is from his musical score for the experimental film of the same name. The song, text by Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, is set in a jazz style. Twelve of his songs, published in three collections are drawn either from his incidental music for Shakespeare plays or from his chamber opera, Twelfth Night. Another group written for baritone voice, wind and string quintets is entitled Three Songs for America. Trail of Beauty for mezzosoprano, oboe and orchestra contains four settings of Native American texts. The first chapter of this paper provides a biography of the composer. Succeeding chapters give some analysis of representative songs from each published group, background to their composition, texts, information from reviews where available, and the composers own comments from telephone interviews with the writer. An appendix contains brief illustrations of music from representative songs. It is observed that Amram's multifaceted musical interests have led him to write appealing and interesting music, both instrumental and vocal.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2001

Author dc:creator

• Bieritz, Gerald L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Garner, Cody
• Collins, Michael
• Cho, Gene J.
• Sundquist, David H.
• Paul, Pamela Mia
• Clark, Thomas

• Amram, David. Songs. Selections.
• David Werner Amram
• representative analysis
• vocal music
• accompanied voice
• unaccompanied voice

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Bieritz Gerald L.
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 51505849
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2913/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc2913

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc2913