Editing Henry Cowell

{{short description|American composer (1897–1965)}}
{{For|the California state park|Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox classical composer
| name        = Henry Cowell
| image       = Henry Cowell portrait NYPL 4002097 (cropped).jpg
| caption     = Photo from promotional flier for Cowell's 1924 Carnegie Hall debut
| birth_name  = Henry Dixon Cowell
| birth_date  = {{Birth date|1897|3|11}}
| birth_place = [[Menlo Park, California]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{Death date and age|1965|12|10|1897|3|11}}
| death_place = [[Woodstock, New York]], U.S.
| parents     = Harry Cowell<br />[[Clarissa Dixon]]
| spouse      = {{marriage|[[Sidney Robertson Cowell|Sidney Robertson]]|1941}}
| occupation  = {{hlist|[[Composer]]|writer|[[pianist]]|publisher|teacher}}
| signature   = Henry Cowell Signature.png
}}
'''Henry Dixon Cowell''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|aʊ|əl}}; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American [[composer]], writer, [[pianist]], publisher, teacher<ref name="Grove">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Nicholls |first1=David |last2=Sachs |first2=Joel |year=2001 |encyclopedia=[[Grove Music Online]] |title=Cowell, Henry |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2249182 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 |url-access=subscription |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002249182 }} {{Grove Music subscription}}</ref><ref name=jul>Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012). [http://journal.juilliard.edu/journal/henry-cowell-life-stranger-fiction "Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction"]. ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.</ref><ref name=lacv>Campbell, Brett (2014). [https://www.sfcv.org/articles/preview/liberating-henry-cowells-music-san-quentin "Liberating Henry Cowell's Music at San Quentin"]. ''San Francisco Classical Voice''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.</ref> and the husband of [[Sidney Robertson Cowell]]. Earning a reputation as an extremely controversial performer and [[eccentricity (behavior)|eccentric]] composer, Cowell became a leading figure of American [[avant-garde music]] for the first half of the 20th century — his writings and music serving as a great influence to similar artists at the time, including [[Lou Harrison]], [[George Antheil]], and [[John Cage]], among others.<ref>Buja, Maureen (2022) [https://interlude.hk/playing-with-the-piano-henry-cowell-and-john-cage/ "Playing With the Piano: Henry Cowell and John Cage"] ''Interlude''. Retrieved 11 June 2022</ref><ref>Cage, John [https://www.youtube.com/SGEUC2VD7TI "Composers' Voices From Ives To Ellington: John Cage on Henry Cowell"] ''Oral History of American Music'', Retrieved 11 June 2022</ref><ref name=lat>Swed, Mark (2010). [https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/01/henry-cowell-revived-in-new-york.html "Critic's notebook: Revelatory Henry Cowell revival at Lincoln Center"]. ''The Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.</ref> He is considered one of America's most important and influential composers.<ref name=jul/><ref>Sachs, p. 7</ref>

Cowell was mostly [[autodidact|self-taught]] and developed a unique musical language, often blending [[American folk music|folk melodies]], [[dissonant counterpoint]], unconventional [[orchestration]], and themes of [[Ancient Celtic religion|Irish paganism]]. He was an early proponent and innovator of many [[modernism (music)|modernist]] compositional techniques and sensibilities, many for the [[piano]], including the [[string piano]], [[prepared piano]], [[tone clusters]], and [[Graphic notation (music)|graphic notation]].<ref name="Grove"/><ref name=nytp>Peyser, Joan (1981). [https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/arts/henry-cowell-an-influential-american-original.html "Henry Cowell — an Influential 'American Original'"] ''The New York Times'', Retrieved 20 June 2022.</ref> ''[[The Tides of Manaunaun]]'', originally a theatrical prelude, is the best-known and most widely-performed of Cowell's tone cluster pieces for piano.

==Early life==
===Childhood===
Cowell was born on March 11, 1897, in rural [[Menlo Park, California]], a suburb of [[San Francisco]].<ref name=lat/> His father, Henry Blackwood "Harry" Cowell, was a romantic [[poet]] and recent immigrant from [[County Clare]], [[Ireland]].<ref name=risch>Rischitelli, p. 17</ref> His mother, [[Clarissa Dixon|Clara "Clarissa" Cowell]] (née Dixon), was a [[activism|political activist]], [[author]], and native of the [[American Plains]], who was 46 when she gave birth to Henry in addition to being over ten years older than her husband.<ref name=risch/><ref>Sachs, pp. 14-15</ref><ref name=ancestry>[https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/877904:5187%20%20Clarissa%20Dixon%20in%20the%20California,%20U.S.,%20Death%20Index,%201905-1939 Clarissa Dixon in the California, U.S., Death Index, 1905-1939], ancestry.com. Retrieved April 13, 2022.</ref><ref name=abc>Peters, Cathy; Livingston, Guy (2014). [https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/intothemusic/5318730 ''"The extraordinary life of Henry Cowell"''] ''Australian Broadcasting Corporation'', Retrieved 20 June 2022</ref> Clarissa's ancestry was similarly [[Scotland|Scotch]] and Irish, although her paternal lineage had been in America for centuries, with figures including astronomer [[Jeremiah Dixon]], one of the surveyors behind the American [[Mason–Dixon line]].<ref>Sachs, p. 11</ref> After meeting for the first time, the two quickly wed and undertook [[bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyles, residing in a small, crude [[cottage]] (later demolished in 1936) Harry had built on the outskirts of the city — where Henry would eventually be born. It was in his first few years that Henry had his first exposures to music.<ref name=s2>Sachs, p. 19</ref>[[File:Henry Cowell playing the violin — aged 5.jpg|thumb|left|upright 0.8|Henry Cowell playing the violin — aged 5 ({{circa|1902}})]]

His parents often sang to him the folk songs of their native homelands, and he was soon able to recite them before he learned to speak.<ref name=time>(30 November 1953). [https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,823160,00.html "Music: Pioneer at 56"]. ''Time''. Retrieved 11 June 2022.</ref><ref>Blumhofer, Jonathan (2018). [https://artsfuse.org/171144/rethinking-the-repertoire-23-henry-cowells-piano-concerto/ "Rethinking the Repertoire #23 – Henry Cowell's Piano Concerto"]. ''The Arts Fuse''. Retrieved 13 June 2022.</ref> During occasional visits to downtown San Francisco, he also recalled hearing the traditional music of [[music of Indonesia|Indonesia]], [[music of China|China]], [[music of Japan|Japan]], and others.<ref name=abc/> The family was gifted small instruments by friends and neighbors, including a [[zither|mandolin harp]] and a quarter-size [[violin]], the latter of which the young Henry took an interest in, making it his instrument of choice for a few years.<ref name=risch/><ref name=s3>Sachs, pp. 23-24</ref> His mother eventually decided to stop both the private lessons and his public school career after Cowell had severe bouts of [[Sydenham's chorea]] and [[scarlet fever]] — from which he eventually recovered.<ref name=s3/><ref>Carwithen, Edward Ralph, "Henry Cowell: Composer and Educator," (1991) PhD Diss., University of Florida, p. 200</ref>

Due to an ongoing affair between Harry and a French mistress, the Cowells amicably divorced in 1903, by which time Henry was 5.<ref>Tommasini, Anthony (1997), [https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/09/arts/modern-times-catch-up-to-a-past-maverick.html "Modern Times Catch Up to a Past Maverick"], ''The New York Times'', Retrieved 11 June 2022.</ref> He was thereafter raised in [[Chinatown, San Francisco|Chinatown]] by his mother, who imbued him with her strong [[anarchism|anarchist]] and [[feminism|feminist]] beliefs. It was during this time he exhibited a strong defiance of [[Gender role|gender stereotypes]] — he refused to have his hair cut, often wore women's clothing and adored the color pink while preferring to be called "Mrs. Jones".<ref name=s2/> He also had further music exposures when engaging with his new [[Asian Americans|Asian-American]] friends and their families in the neighborhood.<ref name=s4>Hicks, p. 22</ref><ref>Daniel, p. 73</ref> After the [[1906 San Francisco Earthquake]], much of the Cowells' possessions and memorabilia were destroyed in the ensuing fire, after which Henry and his mother fled the state of [[California]]. With no permanent place to live, Henry resided with his mother's family and friends around the American Plains and Midwest, later in [[New York City]]. School teachers of this time often took note of his "musical genius" and eccentric personality that was hindered by "extreme [[poverty]]".<ref>Lewis M. Terman, ''The Intelligence of School Children'' (1919), p. 246</ref> [[Lewis Terman]], an eventual pioneer of the [[IQ test]], met with the young Henry during the family's brief stay in rural [[Iowa]]. He would posit that Cowell had, "language almost literary. No college professor of English could have improved upon it. And it was so natural. His conversation breathes [[intelligence]]. I had the feeling that no unschooled boy who was not a [[genius]] of the first order could speak thus"<ref>Lewis M. Terman, "Notes on Henry. March 1, 1917." Copy of holograph.</ref> and, "Although the IQ is satisfactory, it is matched by scores of others. [...] But there is only one Henry."<ref>Skinner, pp. 107-108</ref> Clarissa's career as a progressive feminist writer did not earn her much money, and by the time they eventually returned to San Francisco, she had become terminally ill with [[breast cancer]].<ref name=ancestry/> They found their home destroyed from the prior earthquake, and looted by [[vandalism|vandals]] after standing unoccupied for so long. Neighbors housed the two as the then thirteen-year-old Henry restored it. In order to keep them financially afloat, he took up small jobs such as picking and selling flower bulbs at the [[Menlo Park Train Station]], janitorial work, [[farming]], and cleaning a neighbor's chicken houses.<ref>Daniel, p. 74</ref>

===Education and early career===

[[File:Dynamic Motion Manuscript 1916.jpg|thumb|The original manuscript to ''[[Dynamic Motion]]'' (1916), showing the young Cowell's early methods for notating large piano clusters]] While receiving no formal musical education (and little schooling of any kind beyond his mother's [[homeschooling|home tutelage]]), he began to compose short classical pieces in his mid-teens. Cowell saved what money he could from odd jobs, and at the age of fifteen, purchased a used [[upright piano]] for $60 ($1,772 in 2022).<ref name=h68>Hicks, p. 68</ref> The piano significantly aided his compositional output — by 1914, he had written over 100 pieces, including his first surviving piece for solo piano, the repetitive ''Anger Dance'' (originally ''Mad Dance'').{{refn|Cowell describes the inspiration for the piece in the commentary track he recorded for Folkways in 1963: "The ''Anger Dance'' was composed at a time when I had been very much annoyed by the fact that a doctor to whom I showed a bent-up leg suggested that it should be cut off immediately. And since I didn't in the least approve of this, and thinking of it over and over again made me more and more angry, I stomped home on my crutches, and the phrases of the ''Anger Dance'' went through my mind louder and louder as I walked home" (track 20/5:06–5:41). Cowell biographer Michael Hicks (2002) describes the work as one of Cowell's "most prescient" and "proto-minimalist" (p. 60). The piece does, in terms of structure, anticipate [[Minimalist music|minimalist]] procedures, and an interpretation by Steffen Schleiermacher from 1993 is simultaneously metronomic and jazzy in a way that reveals its kinship with the work of [[Steve Reich]], in particular. But in his own 1963 recording, Cowell expresses a torment, through jagged [[Tempo|tempi]] and ambivalent [[dynamics (music)|dynamics]] (all clearly purposeful), that renders ''Anger Dance'' very different in character from the work of the American minimalists.|group=n}} He would begin experimenting in earnest, often by slamming the keyboard with all his strength, and rolling his mother's [[darning#Tools|darning egg]] across the strings.<ref>Hays, Sorrel (2017). [https://folkways.si.edu/magazine-winter-2017-henry-cowell-mellifluous-cacophony-and-its-legacy/article/smithsonian "Henry Cowell: Mellifluous Cacophony and Its Legacy"] ''Smithsonian Folkways Magazine''. Retrieved 13 June 2022.</ref> In the same year, at the age of 17, Cowell enrolled at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], studying composition with renowned American [[musicology|musicologist]] and composer [[Charles Seeger]]. Seeger later made note of their, "concurrent but entirely separate pursuit[s] of free composition and academic disciplines." After showing Seeger the drafts of his music, he encouraged Cowell to write about the methods and theory behind his tone clusters, which later became the draft for his book ''New Musical Resources''.<ref name=h68/>

Still a teenager, Cowell wrote the piano piece ''[[Dynamic Motion]]'' (1916), his first important work to explore the possibilities of the [[tone cluster]] ({{Audio|Cowell-Dynamic Motion.ogg|listen}}). It requires the performer to use both forearms to play massive [[secundal]] [[Chord (music)|chords]] and calls for keys to be held down without sounding to extend its [[Consonance and dissonance|dissonant]] cluster [[overtone]]s via [[sympathetic resonance]]. After two years at Berkeley, Seeger recommended that Cowell study at the Institute of Musical Art (later the [[Juilliard School of Music]]) in New York City. Cowell only studied there for three months (October 1916 to January 1917) before dropping out, believing the musical atmosphere was too stifling and uninspiring.<ref name=bartok>Bartok et al., p. 14</ref> It was in New York, however, where he met fellow modernist piano composer [[Leo Ornstein]]. The two would collaborate in later decades.<ref name=bartok/>

In February 1917, Cowell enlisted in the army to avoid being drafted in [[World War I]] and seeing direct military combat. He served in the ambulance training facility at [[Camp Crane]], [[Allentown, Pennsylvania]], where he had a short stint as the assistant band director for a few months. In October 1918, Cowell was transferred to [[Fort Ontario]] in [[Oswego, New York|Oswego]], [[New York (state)|New York]]. He was transferred just before an outbreak of the Spanish flu killed thirteen men at Camp Crane.<ref>Hicks, pp. 91-96</ref>

===Time at Halcyon===

Cowell soon returned to California, where he had become involved with [[Halcyon, California|Halcyon]], a [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophical]] community in Southern California. Cowell joined the commune after befriending [[Irish Americans|Irish-American]] [[poet]] and former Menlo Park resident [[John Varian|John Osborne Varian]].<ref name=h13>Hammond, p. 13</ref> Cowell's connection to Irish folk music from his father meant he was instantly drawn to Varian, [[Irish nationalism]], [[Irish mythology|Celtic legends]], and theosophy more broadly. Although the residents at Halcyon embraced a tolerant and [[communism|communist]]-leaning lifestyle, their music preferences were considered quite conservative for the time. Varian described it as "sangtified [[ragtime|raggtime]] [sic]" and, "rehymnified hymn music [sic]." Cowell managed to convince members to embrace his music, and wrote incidental and programmatic music to be performed at Halcyon.<ref name=h13/> In 1917, Cowell wrote the music for Varian's stage production ''The Building of Banba''; the prelude he composed, ''[[The Tides of Manaunaun]]'', with its rich, evocative clusters, would become Cowell's most famous and widely performed work.<ref>Hicks, p. 58</ref> Irish symbology later became a broader theme in his music, as an unwitting extension of the [[Celtic Revival]] movement of the 20th century.<ref>Lichtenwanger, pp. xxvii-xxviii</ref>

==Musical career==
===New music and first tours===
Beginning in the early 1920s, Cowell toured widely in North America and [[Europe]] as a pianist, with the financial aid of his former tutors — playing his own experimental works, seminal explorations of [[atonality]], [[polytonality]], [[polyrhythm]]s, and non-Western [[musical mode|modes]].<ref name=r26>Rischitelli, p. 26</ref><ref name=lat/> He gave his debut recital in New York, toured through [[France]] and [[Germany]], and became the first American musician to visit the [[Soviet Union]],<ref name=jul/> with many of these concerts sparking large uproars and protests.<ref name=hick190>Hicks, p. 190</ref> It was on one of these tours that in 1923, his friend [[Richard Buhlig]] introduced Cowell to young pianist [[Grete Sultan]] in Berlin. They worked closely together — an aspect vital to Sultan's personal and artistic development. Cowell later made such an impression with his tone cluster technique that prominent European composers [[Béla Bartók]] and [[Alban Berg]] requested his permission to adopt it.<ref>Sachs, p. 121</ref><ref>Rischitelli, p. 27</ref> [[File:Henry Cowell playing the piano.jpg|thumb|left|upright 1.2|Cowell playing the piano, demonstrating his "forearm" technique by slamming down with his right arm on the middle register, {{circa|1920s}}]] In a letter addressed to his friend on January 10, 1924, Cowell wrote, "I kicked up quite a stir in London and Berlin, and had some very good, and some very bad notices from both places."<ref>Rischitelli, p. 34</ref> A new method advanced by Cowell during this period, in pieces such as ''Aeolian Harp'' (1923) and ''Fairy Answer'' (1929), was what he dubbed "[[string piano]]" — rather than using the keys to play, the pianist reaches inside the instrument and plucks, sweeps, and otherwise manipulates the strings directly. Cowell's endeavors with string piano techniques were the primary inspiration for John Cage's development of the [[prepared piano]].<ref>Nicholls (1998), p. 523</ref> In early chamber music pieces, such as ''Quartet Romantic'' (1915–17) and ''Quartet Euphometric'' (1916–19 {{Audio|Cowell-Quartet Euphometric.ogg|listen}}), Cowell pioneered a compositional approach he called "rhythm-harmony": "Both quartets are [[polyphony|polyphonic]], and each melodic strand has its own rhythm," he explained. "Even the [[Canon (music)|canon]] in the first movement of the ''Romantic'' has different note-lengths for each voice."<ref>Oja (1998), p. 4</ref>

In 1919, Cowell began writing ''New Musical Resources'', which was finally published after extensive revision in 1930. In the book, Cowell discussed the variety of innovative [[rhythm]]ic and harmonic concepts he used in his compositions (and others that were still entirely speculative).<ref>Rischitelli, pp. 6-7</ref> He talks about [[Harmonic series (music)|harmonic series]] and "the influence [it] has exerted on music throughout its history, how many musical materials of all ages are related to it, and how, by various means of applying its principles in many different manners, a large palette of musical materials can be assembled." It would have a powerful effect on the American [[experimental music|musical avant-garde]] for decades after. [[John Cage]] hand-copied the book and later studied Cowell, and [[Conlon Nancarrow]] would refer to it years later as having "the most influence of anything I've ever read in music."<ref name=gann43>Gann, p. 43</ref>

===The Leipzig incident===

[[File:Antinomy by Henry Cowell.jpg|thumb|upright 1.3|The finale of the movement ''Antinomy'' from ''[[Dynamic Motion#Five Encores to Dynamic Motion|Five Encores to Dynamic Motion]]'' (1917), showing five-and-a-half [[octave]] chromatic clusters to be played with both forearms]]During his first tour in Europe, Cowell played at the famous [[Gewandhaus|Gewandhaus concert hall]] in [[Leipzig]], [[Germany]] on October 15, 1923. He received a notoriously hostile reception during this concert, with some modern musicologists and historians referring to the event as a turning point in Cowell's performing career.<ref name=r26/><ref name=time/> As he progressed further into the concert, deliberately saving the loudest and most provocative pieces for last, the audience's reception became more and more audibly hostile. Gasps and screams were heard, and Cowell recalled hearing a man in the front rows threaten to physically remove him from the stage if he did not stop. While playing the fourth movement ''Antinomy''{{refn|Often misspelled in some articles and music programs as ''"[[Antimony]]"''.|group=n}} from his ''[[Dynamic Motion#Five Encores to Dynamic Motion|Five Encores to Dynamic Motion]]'', he later recalled: {{blockquote|[...] the audience was yelling and stamping and clapping and hissing until I could hardly hear myself. They stood up during most of the performance and got as near to me and the piano as they could. [...] Some of those who disapproved of my methods were so excited that they almost threatened me with physical violence. Those who liked the music restrained them.<ref name=sap>"Strong-Arm Pianist" ''Evening Mail'' (8 Feb 1924)</ref>}}
During this excitement, a man jumped up from one of the front rows and shook his fist at Cowell and said, "Halten Sie uns für Idioten in Deutschland?" ("Do you take us for idiots in Germany?"), while others threw the concert's program notes and other paraphernalia at his face.<ref name=hick190/><ref>"Reminiscences of Henry Cowell" (16 Oct 1962) ''Columbia University Oral History Research Office''</ref> About a minute later, an angry group of audience members clambered onto the stage, with a second, more supportive group following. The two groups began shouting over and confronting one another, which eventually turned into [[List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience response|a large physical confrontation and riot]] on the stage, after which the Leipzig police were promptly called. Cowell later recalled of the incident, "The police came onto the stage and arrested 20 young fellows, the audience being in an absolute state of hysteria — and I was still playing!"<ref name=sap/> As he had no severe physical injuries, the Leipzig authorities decided not to admit him to the local medical facility. After the concert had concluded and the stage was cleared, he was noticeably shaken and jittery as he took his bow for the remaining audience and then left the hall.

In the days following, the local Leipzig press was incredibly harsh regarding Cowell, the performance, and his musical style more broadly. The ''Leipziger Abendpost'' called the event, "[...] such a meaningless strumming and such a repulsive hacking of the keyboard not only with hands, but also even with fists, forearms and elbows, that one must call it a coarse obscenity — to put it mildly — to offer such a [[cacophony]] to the public, who in the end took it as a joke."<ref>''Leipziger Abendpost'' (5 Nov 1923) Cited in Manion, p. 128</ref> The ''Leipziger Neuste-Nachrichten'' additionally referred to his techniques as "musical grotesqueries".<ref>"Music" ''Leipziger Neuste-Nachrichten'' (5 Nov 1923) Cited in Manion, p. 128</ref>

Comparisons were later made between this event and other riotous performances by experimental and futurist composers in Europe, including the [[The Rite of Spring|Paris premiere of Stravinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'']] a decade earlier, and the performances of Italian futurist [[Luigi Russolo]].<ref>Dennis, Flora, "Russolo, Luigi" ''New Grove'' Vol. 22, p. 34</ref>

===Further experimentation===

[[File:Promotional flier for Henry Cowell's 1924 Carnegie Hall debut NYPL 4002097.jpg|thumb|upright 1.2|Promotional flier for Cowell's 1924 [[Carnegie Hall]] debut{{refn|Only four of the five written encores to ''Dynamic Motion'' — which excluded ''Time Table'' — were played at the debut, at the direction of Cowell.|group=n}}]] Cowell's interest in [[harmonic rhythm]], as discussed in ''New Musical Resources'', led him in 1930 to commission [[Léon Theremin]] to invent the [[Rhythmicon]], or Polyrhythmophone, a [[transposition (music)|transposable]] keyboard instrument capable of playing notes in periodic rhythms proportional to the [[harmonic series (music)|overtone series]] of a chosen [[fundamental frequency|fundamental]] [[pitch (music)|pitch]].<ref name=abc/> The world's first electronic [[drum machine|rhythm machine]], with a photoreceptor-based sound production system proposed by Cowell (not a [[theremin]]-like system, as some sources incorrectly state), it could produce up to sixteen different [[rhythmic unit|rhythmic patterns]] simultaneously, complete with optional [[syncopation]]. Cowell wrote several original compositions for the instrument, including an orchestrated concerto, and Theremin built two more models. Soon, however, the Rhythmicon would be virtually forgotten, remaining so until the 1960s, when [[progressive pop]] music producer [[Joe Meek]] experimented with its rhythmic concept.

Cowell pursued a radical compositional approach through the mid-1930s, with solo piano pieces remaining at the heart of his output — important works from this era include [[The Banshee (composition)|''The Banshee'' (1925)]], requiring numerous playing methods such as [[pizzicato]] and longitudinal sweeping and scraping of the strings ({{Audio|Cowell-The Banshee.ogg|listen}}),<ref>Bartok et al., p. 12</ref> and the manic, cluster-filled ''Tiger'' (1930), inspired by [[William Blake]]'s famous [[The Tyger|poem]].<ref>For the composer's description of the inspiration, listen to Cowell (1993), 11:58–12:05.</ref> Much of Cowell's public reputation continued to be based on his trademark pianistic technique: a critic for the ''San Francisco News'', writing in 1932, referred to Cowell's "famous 'tone clusters,' probably the most startling and original contribution any American has yet contributed to the field of music."<ref>Mead (1981), p. 190</ref> A prolific composer of songs (he would write over 180 during his career), Cowell returned in 1930–31 to ''Aeolian Harp'', adapting it as the accompaniment to a vocal setting of a poem by his father, ''How Old Is Song?'' He built on his substantial oeuvre of chamber music, with pieces such as the Adagio for Cello and Thunder Stick (1924) that explored unusual instrumentation and others that were even more progressive: ''Six Casual Developments'' (1933), for clarinet and piano, sounds like something [[Jimmy Giuffre]] would compose thirty years later. His ''Ostinato Pianissimo'' (1934) placed him in the vanguard of those writing original scores for percussion ensemble. He created forceful large-ensemble pieces during this period as well, such as the ''[[Piano Concerto (Cowell)|Concerto for Piano and Orchestra]]'' (1928) — with its three movements, "Polyharmony," "Tone Cluster," and "Counter Rhythm" ({{Audio|Cowell-Piano Concerto M3.ogg|listen}}) — and the ''Sinfonietta'' (1928),<ref>Woolfe, Zachary (2022). [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/arts/music/juilliard-american-music-focus.html "Broadway Meets the Avant-Garde in a Juilliard Music Festival"] ''The New York Times'', Retrieved 20 June 2022</ref> whose [[scherzo]] [[Anton Webern]] conducted in Vienna.<ref>Kirkpatrick et al., p. 105</ref> In the early 1930s, Cowell began to delve seriously into [[Aleatoric music|aleatoric]] procedures, creating opportunities for performers to determine primary elements of a score's realization.{{refn|It is possible that Cowell had earlier dabbled in a more whimsical form of aleatory. The liner notes to the Folkways ''Henry Cowell: Piano Music'', written in 1963 and revised in 1993, assert that each phrase of ''Anger Dance'' "may be repeated many times, depending on how angry the player is able to feel." Of ''Advertisement'' (Third Encore to ''Dynamic Motion'') (1917, not 1914 as the liner notes state) — which Cowell called "a satire on repititious advertisement of a raucous nature" (track 20/2:14–2:20) — it is likewise said that "there is a section that may be repeated, to emphasize the absurdity, as many times as the performer likes." Nicholls (1991) notes that, in fact, the published score of ''Anger Dance'' "gives specific instructions regarding the number of repetitions each musical fragment should be subjected to" (p. 167). He observes, however, that Cowell in his own recording of the piece reiterates certain phrases beyond the specified number.|group=n}} One of his major chamber pieces, the ''Mosaic Quartet'' (String Quartet No. 3) (1935), is scored as a collection of five movements with no preordained sequence.

===''New Music Society'' and impresario work===

[[File:Henry Cowell by Harry Haenigsen.jpg|thumb|upright 1.3|Satirical [[caricature]] of Cowell at the piano by American [[cartoonist]] and illustrator [[Harry Haenigsen]], {{circa|mid-1920s}}]]Cowell was the central figure in a circle of avant-garde composers that included his good friends [[Carl Ruggles]] and [[Dane Rudhyar]], as well as Leo Ornstein, John Becker, [[Colin McPhee]], French expatriate [[Edgard Varèse]], [[Ruth Crawford Seeger|Ruth Crawford]], whom he convinced Charles Seeger to take on as a student (Crawford and Seeger would eventually marry), and [[Johanna Beyer]]. Cowell and his circle were sometimes referred to in the press as "ultra-modernists," a label whose definition is flexible and origin unclear (it has also been applied to a few composers outside the immediate circle, such as [[George Antheil]], and to some of its disciples, such as Nancarrow); Virgil Thomson styled them the "rhythmic research fellows."<ref>Thomson, p. 164</ref> In 1925, Cowell organized the New Music Society, one of whose primary activities was staging concerts of their works, along with those of artistic allies such as [[Wallingford Riegger]] and [[Arnold Schoenberg]] — the latter of whom would later ask Cowell to play for his composition class during one of his European tours. Less than two years later, Cowell founded the periodical ''New Music Quarterly'', which would publish many significant new scores under his editorship, both by the ultra-modernists and many other composers, including Ernst Bacon, [[Paul Bowles]], [[Aaron Copland]] [[Otto Luening]] and [[Gerald Strang]]. Before the publication of the first issue, he solicited contributions from a then-obscure composer who became one of his closest friends, [[Charles Ives]].<ref>Rischitelli, pp. 7-8</ref> Major scores by Ives, including the ''Comedy'' from [[Symphony No. 4 (Ives)|his fourth symphony]], ''Fourth of July'', ''34 Songs'', and ''19 Songs'', would receive their first publication in ''New Music''; in turn, Ives provided financial support to a number of Cowell's projects (including, years later, ''New Music'' itself). Many of the scores published in Cowell's journal were made even more widely available as performances of them were issued by the record label he established in 1934, New Music Recordings.[[File:Charles Ives grad photo.jpg|thumb|left|upright 0.8|Cowell was dedicated to publishing and popularizing the music of [[Charles Ives]] (pictured) via ''New Music Quarterly'']]

The ultra-modernist movement had expanded its reach in 1928, when Cowell led a group that included Ruggles, Varèse, his fellow expatriate Carlos Salzedo, American composer Emerson Whithorne, and Mexican composer [[Carlos Chávez]] in founding the Pan-American Association of Composers, dedicated to promoting composers from around the Western Hemisphere and creating a community among them that would transcend national lines. Its inaugural concert, held in New York City in March 1929, featured exclusively Latin American music, including works by Chávez, Brazilian composer [[Heitor Villa-Lobos]], Cuban composer [[Alejandro García Caturla]], and the French-born Cuban [[Amadeo Roldán]]. Its next concert, in April 1930, focused on the U.S. ultra-modernists, with works by Cowell, Crawford, Ives, Rudhyar, and others such as Antheil, [[Henry Brant]], and [[Vivian Fine]].<ref>Oja (2000), p. 194</ref> Over the next four years, [[Nicolas Slonimsky]] conducted concerts sponsored by the association in New York, across Europe, and, in 1933, Cuba.<ref>[http://www.americancomposers.org/berlin_oja_article.htm "Nicolas Slonimsky: Maverick Conductor"] essay by Carol J. Oja; part of the American Composers Orchestra website. Retrieved 14 April 2007</ref> Cowell himself had performed there in 1930 and met with Caturla, whom he was publishing in ''New Music''.<ref>Sublette (2004), p. 405</ref> Cowell continued to work on both his behalf and Roldán's, whose ''Rítmica No. 5'' (1930) was the first free-standing piece of Western classical music written specifically for percussion ensemble.<ref>Solberger (1992), p. 2</ref>{{refn|For instrumentation details, see [http://lolo816.tripod.com/1910-1940.htm Percussion Ensemble Music 1910–1940]. The first entr'acte in [[Dmitri Shostakovich]]'s opera ''[[The Nose (opera)|The Nose]]'' (1928) is scored for percussion ensemble.|group=n}} During this era, Cowell also spread the ultra-modernists' experimental creed as a highly regarded teacher of composition and theory — among his many students were [[George Gershwin]], [[Lou Harrison]], who said he thought of Cowell as "the mentor of mentors,"<ref>[http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_harrison.html "An interview with Lou Harrison"] interview by Alan Baker, June 2002; part of the American Public Media/''American Mavericks'' website. Retrieved 4/14/07.</ref> and John Cage, who proclaimed Cowell "the open sesame for new music in America."<ref>Cage (1959), p. 71</ref>

Encouragement of the music of Caturla and Roldán, with their proudly African-based rhythms, and of Chávez, whose work often involved instruments and themes of [[Indigenous peoples of Mexico|Mexico's indigenous peoples]], was natural for Cowell. Growing up on the West Coast, he had been exposed to a great deal of what is now known as "[[world music]]"; along with Irish airs and dances, he encountered music from China, Japan, and Tahiti. These early experiences helped form his unusually eclectic musical outlook, exemplified by his famous statement, "I want to live in the whole world of music."<ref>Nicholls (1991), p. 134</ref> He went on to investigate [[Indian classical music]] and, in the late 1920s, began teaching a course, "Music of the World's Peoples," at the [[New School for Social Research]] in New York and elsewhere — Harrison's tutelage under Cowell would begin when he enrolled in a version of the course in [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]]. In 1931 a [[Guggenheim fellowship]] enabled Cowell to go to Berlin to study comparative musicology (the predecessor to [[ethnomusicology]]) with [[Erich von Hornbostel]]. He studied [[Carnatic music|Carnatic theory]] and [[gamelan]], as well, with leading instructors from South India (P. Sambamoorthy), Java (Raden Mas Jodjhana), and Bali (Ramaleislan).<ref>Rischitelli, p. 31</ref><ref>Harrison, p. 166</ref>{{refn|Note that this source includes a photograph of a man with a Rhythmicon; the man is not Cowell, as the image's position in the article implies, but an associate, musical theorist [[Joseph Schillinger]].|group=n}}

===Imprisonment===

On May 23, 1936, Cowell was arrested in Menlo Park, California on a "morals" charge for allegedly having oral sex with a seventeen-year-old male.<ref name=jul/><ref name=lacv/><ref name=nytp/>{{refn|Among those who were questioned and confessed to the police, the youngest was a seventeen-year-old who, at the time, would have been legally considered an adult under the former [[age of majority]] laws of California.|group=n}} After initially denying the allegation, under further questioning he admitted not only to the act but to additional sex acts with the teenager and other young men in the area, including during his time at Halcyon more than a decade earlier.<ref>Sachs, p. 286</ref> He was never accused by authorities of [[pedophilia]] or molestation, but since the young men were typically referred to as "boys" at the time, incorrect assumptions were made by sensationalist newspapers and many in the public,<ref name=lacv/><ref>Sachs, p. 293</ref> severely damaging what public reputation he had along with the revelation of his homosexual activities.<ref name=s287>Sachs, pp. 287-289</ref> While jailed and awaiting a court hearing, he wrote a full confession accompanied by a request for leniency on the basis that "he was not exclusively homosexual but was in fact in love with a woman he hoped to marry".<ref>Hicks, p. 134</ref><ref>Miller and Collins, pp. 473–76</ref> Suggestive letters and other artifacts were received from both Cowell and the young men who spoke to police, which were later used by the prosecution in his trial.<ref name=s287/> Cowell ultimately decided to overrule his attorneys and plead guilty, for reasons unknown. Probation was denied by Judge Maxwell McNutt, and Cowell received the standard sentence of one to fifteen years.<ref>Hicks, pp. 135–36</ref> In August 1937, after a parole hearing, the Board of Pardons fixed his term of incarceration at the maximum possible sentence, a decade-and-a-half.<ref>Miller and Collins, p. 482</ref> [[File:Henry Cowell Mugshot.jpg|thumb|left|Mugshot of Cowell taken after his arrest on May 23, 1936]]

Cowell ultimately spent four years in [[San Quentin State Prison]],<ref name=abc/><ref name=r32>Rischitelli, p. 32</ref> during a tumultuous era of the prison's history.<ref name=glbtq>{{cite web|last=Krinsky |first=Charles |work=[[glbtq.com]] |year=2002 |access-date=2007-08-16 |url=http://www.glbtq.com/arts/cowell_h.html |title=Cowell, Henry |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009222533/http://www.glbtq.com/arts/cowell_h.html |archive-date=2007-10-09 }}</ref> Former warden Clinton Duffy would say it "had a reputation as one of the most primitive penitentiaries in the world."<ref>Duffy, p. 58</ref> Physical abuse by wardens and officials was common for so-called "bad behavior", often via [[whipping]] and [[starvation]].<ref>Duffy, pp. 35–36</ref> During his incarceration, several leading psychologists evaluated the composer according to now-disregarded theories of homosexuality, and later expressed faith in the idea of possibly "rehabilitating" the composer. Despite this time, Cowell taught music to fellow inmates, directed the prison band, and continued to write at his customary prolific pace, producing around sixty compositions.<ref>Boziwick (2000).</ref> These included two major pieces for percussion ensemble: the Oriental-toned ''Pulse'' (1939) and the memorably sepulchral ''Return'' (1939). He also continued his experiments in aleatory music: for all three movements of the ''Amerind Suite'' (1939), he wrote five versions, each more difficult than the last. Interpreters of the piece are invited to simultaneously perform two or even three versions of the same movement on multiple pianos. In the Ritournelle (Larghetto and Trio) (1939) for the dance piece ''Marriage at the Eiffel Tower'', he explored what he called an "elastic" form. The twenty-four measures of the Larghetto and the eight of the Trio are each modular; though Cowell offers some suggestions, any hypothetically may be included or not and played once or repeatedly, allowing the piece to stretch or contract at the performers' will — the practical goal being to give a choreographer freedom to adjust the length and character of a dance piece without the usual constraints imposed by a prewritten musical composition.<ref>Nicholls (1991), p. 167</ref>[[File:San Quentin State Prison.jpg|thumb|upright 1.3|An aerial view of [[San Quentin State Prison]], where Cowell stayed incarcerated for four years]]

Cowell had contributed to the ''Eiffel Tower'' project at the behest of Cage, who was not alone in lending support to his friend and former teacher. He and other gay composers such as Aaron Copland and protégé Lou Harrison easily empathized about his persecution. Harrison said in 1937, "[the] prevailing lack of balanced perception in the great mass was never so wholly apparent to me before."<ref>''San Francisco News'', August 27, 1937</ref> Cowell's cause had been taken up by composers and musicians around the country, one of the most vocal of which was his former teacher and collaborator Charles Seeger. However, a few, including Ives, temporarily broke contact with him.{{refn|Sources conflict on what actually caused Ives' sudden lack of contact with Cowell. It is believed that Ives's wife, Harmony, was the one who recommended that he not to write to Cowell while in prison — so as to not have her husband's name sullied by controversy, and herself having views against homosexual behavior. The only known correspondence the two had from this era was a letter Cowell received on May 29, 1937, with Ives saying, "I've started to write you a few times or more, but didn't because I didn't know what to write or say or what to think or do – and I don't now – so I'll shut up! At least I can do all I can & I will to help New M[usic] Editions keep going as well as possible and as you would want... I do hope you can keep well & that things will go well in the future."|group=n}} Cowell was eventually paroled in 1940; he relocated to [[Westchester County, New York]], while under supervision, and resided with Australian ex-patriate composer and friend [[Percy Grainger]] and his wife in [[White Plains, New York|White Plains]].<ref name=r32/> The following year Cowell married [[Sidney Robertson Cowell|Sidney Hawkins Robertson]], a prominent folk-music scholar who had been instrumental in winning his freedom.<ref>Adamian, John (2016). [https://daily.jstor.org/the-intrepid-field-recordings-of-sidney-robertson-cowell/ "A Bag of Old Songs from Elsewhere"] ''JSTOR Daily'', Retrieved 19 June 2022</ref><ref>Scahill, Adrian (2022). [https://journalofmusic.com/opinion/many-sides-music-and-song-collecting "The Many Sides of Music and Song Collecting"] ''The Journal of Music''. Retrieved 20 June 2022.</ref> Cowell was granted a pardon from California governor [[Culbert Olson]] on December 28, 1942.<ref name=nytp/><ref>Henry Cowell to BW, 7/6/40</ref>

==Later life==
===Seclusion and style shift===
Despite the pardon — which allowed him to work at the Office of War Information, creating radio programs for broadcast overseas — his arrest, incarceration, and attendant notoriety had a devastating effect on Cowell.<ref>Sachs, p. 506</ref> [[Conlon Nancarrow]], on meeting him for the first time in 1947, reported, "The impression I got was that he was a terrified person, with a feeling that 'they're going to get him.'"<ref name="Gann 1995, p. 44">Gann, p. 44</ref> He was often pestered by reporters to comment on the circumstances of his crimes and arrest, but often refused to do so.<ref>Sachs, p. 353</ref> The experience took a lasting toll on his music:{{dubious|date=March 2023}} Cowell's compositional output became strikingly more conservative soon after his release from San Quentin, with simpler rhythms and a more traditional harmonic language.<ref>Sachs, p. 365</ref> [[File:Sidney Cowell, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right.jpg|thumb|left|upright 0.8|[[Sidney Robertson Cowell]], Henry's wife, with whom he spent the last years of his life.]] Many of his later works are based on [[old-time music|American folk music]], such as the series of eighteen ''Hymn and'' [[fuguing tune|''Fuguing Tune'']]s (1943–64); folk music had certainly played a role in a number of Cowell's prewar compositions, but the provocative transformations that had been his signature were now largely abandoned. And, as Nancarrow observed, there were other consequences to Cowell's imprisonment: "Of course, after that, politically, he kept his mouth completely shut. He had been radical politically, too, before."<ref name="Gann 1995, p. 44"/>

No longer an artistic radical, Cowell nonetheless retained a progressive bent and continued to be a leader (along with Harrison and McPhee) in the incorporation of non-Western musical idioms, as in the Japanese-inflected ''Ongaku'' (1957), Symphony No. 13, "[[Madras Symphony|Madras]]" (1956–58), and ''Homage to Iran'' (1959). His most compelling, poignant songs date from this era, including ''Music I Heard'' (to a poem by [[Conrad Aiken]]; 1961) and ''Firelight and Lamp'' (to a poem by Gene Baro; 1962). Cowell was elected to the [[The American Academy of Arts and Letters|American Institute of Arts and Letters]] in 1951. Having revived his friendship with Ives, Cowell, in collaboration with his wife, wrote the first major study of Ives's music and provided crucial support to Harrison as his former pupil championed the Ives's rediscovery. Cowell resumed teaching — [[Burt Bacharach]], [[Dominick Argento]], [[J. H. Kwabena Nketia]], and [[Irwin Swack]]<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dwightwinenger.net/swack.htm |title=Irwin Swack Music |access-date=2008-05-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512203121/http://www.dwightwinenger.net/swack.htm |archive-date=2013-05-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> were among his postwar students — and served as a consultant to [[Folkways Records]] for over a decade beginning in the early 1950s, writing liner notes and editing such collections as ''Music of the World's Peoples'' (1951–61) (he also hosted a radio program of the same name)<ref>[http://www.mcphersonco.com/cs.php?f%5B0%5D=shh&pdNM=Essential%20Cowell:%20Selected%20Writings%20on%20Music ''Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204003420/http://www.mcphersonco.com/cs.php?f%5B0%5D=shh&pdNM=Essential%20Cowell:%20Selected%20Writings%20on%20Music |date=2013-12-04 }} publisher's summary; part of the McPherson & Co. website. Retrieved 4/14/07.</ref> and ''Primitive Music of the World'' (1962). In 1963 he recorded searching, vivid performances of twenty of his seminal piano pieces for a Folkways album. Perhaps liberated by the passage of time{{dubious|date=February 2025}} and his own seniority, in his final years Cowell again produced a number of individualistic works, such as ''Thesis'' (Symphony No. 15; 1960) and ''26 Simultaneous Mosaics'' (1963).

===Final years and death===

In October 1964, Cowell was diagnosed with [[colorectal cancer]] after a doctor discovered an abundance of [[polyp (medicine)|polyps]] in his system during an exam. It was decided that it could not be operated on, as it went undiagnosed for too long and almost completely engulfed his [[large intestine]].<ref>Sachs, pp. 495-496</ref> Cowell died on December 10, 1965, in his [[Shady, New York|Shady]], [[Woodstock, New York]], home, following a series of strokes and succumbing to the disease.<ref>Sachs, p. 502</ref>

== Compositions ==
{{further|List of compositions by Henry Cowell}}

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Cowell wrote in a very wide range of styles with his own [[idiosyncrasy|idiosyncratic]] twist, including [[serialism]], [[jazz]], [[romantic music|romanticism]], [[neoclassicism (music)|neoclassicism]], [[avant-garde music|avant-garde]], [[noise music]], [[minimal music|minimalism]], etc. He is believed to have written over 940 compositions in whole,<ref>Rischitelli, p. 5</ref> the majority for solo piano, although some have since been lost or destroyed. His wide musical catalog is typically divided into three periods – an experimental and wild early period, a more refined and technical middle period, and a neo-romantic late period.

== Legacy ==

===Reception===
{{blockquote|
Henry Cowell's music covers a wider range in both expression and technique than that of any other living composer. His experiments begun three decades ago in rhythm, in harmony, and in instrumental sonorities were considered then by many to be wild. Today they are the Bible of the young and still, to the conservatives, "advanced."... No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal, so penetrating and so comprehensive. Add to this massive production his long and influential career as a pedagogue, and Henry Cowell's achievement becomes impressive indeed. There is no other quite like it. To be both fecund and right is given to few.<ref>Thomson, p. 167</ref>—[[Virgil Thomson]], 1953{{refn|The most recent standard collection of Virgil Thomson's writings, edited by [[Richard Kostelanetz]] and published in 2002, identifies Thomson's statement as undated. The statement is excerpted at length in the liner notes to the Smithsonian Folkways CD ''Henry Cowell: Piano Music'' issued in 1993. There the quote is dated 1953, but no source is provided. Given that (a) many of the dates listed for Cowell's piano pieces in the Folkways liner notes are incorrect (see Hicks (2002), p. 80, for more on that topic) and (b) Thomson refers to "experiments begun three decades ago," a date earlier than 1953 is plausible.|group=n}}}}

Cowell remains a somewhat obscure figure in the history of both American music and experimental music more broadly. In his time, opinions of his music and performances were incredibly mixed. Some reviewers and music critics of the time called him a "creative genius", who played "fantastically well",<ref>Trans. JS. Undated, probably 11/23.</ref> while others referred to his compositions as "lawless, without a trace of [[counterpoint]]," and the "peak of [[atonality|atonal]] thought" ⁠— the latter of which Cowell [[sarcasm|sarcastically]] used as a promotion in a following tour.<ref>Sachs, p. 117</ref>

Some of the more matter-of-fact viewpoints were offered by critics such as Evelyn Wells of ''[[The San Francisco Call|The San Francisco Call and Post]]'', "Cowell's compositions are like the better order of paintings, one must stand far back, at respectful distances, before order results from chaos, and the colorful motes of sound resolve into one theme."<ref>Wells, Evelyn, "Cowell's Concert Proves Another Sensation." ''San Francisco Call and Post''</ref> The intent of the international press was more to emphasize his unconventional and violent performance tendencies, with headlines like those from ''[[The Daily Mail]]'': "Piano Played with Elbow. Fingers too Limited for Mr. Cowell. Result Like a Nursery in Rebellion." and ''[[The Daily Express]]'': "Elbow Pianist. A Wonderful Test for the Instrument."<ref>Sachs, p. 120</ref>

He was considered a highly respected educator and promoter of classical music in America during the ''New Music'' period of his life. In November 2009, a two-day event celebrating Cowell's music was held in the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] near his birthplace, Menlo Park, by [[Other Minds (organization)|Other Minds]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archives.otherminds.org/index.php/Detail/occurrences/230|title=Henry Cowell: The Whole World of Music|website=Other Minds Archives|access-date=February 15, 2024}}</ref>

===Contributions to music===

Many of the techniques Cowell either invented or pioneered are still relevant to today's music. [[Tone cluster]]s in music have since been utilized by prominent classical composers such as [[Béla Bartók]],<ref name=abc/> [[George Crumb]],<ref>Sachs, pp. 511-512</ref> [[Olivier Messiaen]], [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]],<ref>{{cite web|author=Tyranny, "Blue" Gene |url=http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=54tp16 |title=88 Keys to Freedom: Segues Through the History of American Piano Music—The Keyboard Goes Bop! and the Melody Spins Off into Eternity (1939 to 1952) |work=[[NewMusicBox]]|publisher=American Music Center |date=2003-10-01 |access-date=2007-08-20 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604001431/http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=54tp16 |archive-date=June 4, 2011}}</ref> [[Iannis Xenakis]], [[Einojuhani Rautavaara]],<ref>Judd, Timothy (2019). [https://thelistenersclub.com/2019/06/12/einojuhani-rautavaaras-first-piano-concerto-twentieth-century-finnish-neo-romanticism/ "Einojuhani Rautavaara's First Piano Concerto: Twentieth Century Finnish Neo-Romanticism"]. ''The Listener's Club''. Retrieved 17 June 2022.</ref> and [[Krzysztof Penderecki]], among others. [[experimental rock|Experimental]] and [[progressive rock]] keyboardists like [[Keith Emerson]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Millward |first=Steve |title=Different Tracks: Music and Politics in 1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94d0BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA166 |publisher=Troubador |year=2014 |page=166 |isbn=978-1-78306-476-2}}</ref> [[Richard Wright (musician)|Rick Wright]], and [[John Cale]]<ref>Schwartz (1996), pp. 94-97</ref> similarly employed string piano techniques and clusters in their performances, as did [[free jazz]] pianists [[Dave Burrell]],<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Feather |first1=Leonard |last2=Gitler |first2=Ira |title=Burrell, Dave (Herman Davis II) |encyclopedia=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz |date=1999 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |pages=96}}</ref> [[Cecil Taylor]],<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 202</ref> [[Sun Ra]], etc.

His 1930 book ''New Musical Resources'' is still considered a useful resource for composers, ninety years after its publication — having been championed by his colleagues and subsequent students.<ref name=abc/><ref name=gann43/>

==Selected discography==

===Recordings by Cowell===
* ''Henry Cowell: Piano Music'' (Smithsonian Folkways 40801)—performances of twenty of his compositions for solo piano, including ''[[Dynamic Motion]]'', ''[[The Tides of Manaunaun]]'', ''Aeolian Harp'', ''The Banshee'', and ''Tiger'', and a commentary track (album pictured in article)
* ''Tales of Our Countryside'' (American Columbia 78rpm Set X 235, recorded July 5, 1941)—the All-American Youth Orchestra conducted by [[Leopold Stokowski]], with Cowell as piano soloist

===Selected recordings===
* ''American Piano Concertos: Henry Cowell'' (col legno 20064)—large-ensemble pieces, including Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Sinfonietta, as well as ''The Tides of Manaunaun'' and other pieces for solo piano; performed by the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Stern—director, Stefan Litwin—piano
* ''The Bad Boys!: George Antheil, Henry Cowell, Leo Ornstein'' (hatHUT 6144)—solo piano pieces, including ''Anger Dance,'' ''The Tides of Manaunaun,'' and ''Tiger''; performed by Steffen Schleiermacher
* ''Dancing with Henry'' (mode 101)—solo and chamber pieces, including two versions of Ritournelle (Larghetto); performed by California Parallèle Ensemble, Nicole Paiement–conductor and director, Josephine Gandolfi—piano
* ''Henry Cowell'' (First Edition 0003)—orchestral pieces, including ''Ongaku'' and ''Thesis'' (Symphony No. 15); performed by Louisville Orchestra, Robert S. Whitney and Jorge Mester—conductors
* ''Henry Cowell: A Continuum Portrait, Vol. 1'' (Naxos 8.559192) and ''Vol. 2'' (Naxos 8.559193)—solo, chamber, vocal, and large-ensemble pieces; performed by Continuum, Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs—directors
* ''Henry Cowell: Mosaic'' (mode 72/73)—solo and chamber pieces, including ''Quartet Romantic'', ''Quartet Euphometric'', ''Mosaic Quartet'' (String Quartet No. 3), ''Return'', and three versions of ''26 Simultaneous Mosaics''; performed by Colorado String Quartet and Musicians Accord
* ''Henry Cowell: Persian Set'' (Composers Recordings Inc. CRI-114 recorded April 1957 and reissued on Citadel CTD 88123)—Four movements for Chamber Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski—conductor
* ''Henry Cowell: Persian Set'' (Koch 3-7220-2 HI)—orchestral and large-ensemble pieces, including ''Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 2''; performed by Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Richard Auldon Clark—conductor
* ''New Music: Piano Compositions by Henry Cowell'' (New Albion 103)—solo piano pieces
* ''Songs of Henry Cowell'' (Albany–Troy 240)—including ''How Old Is Song?'', ''Music I Heard'', and ''Firelight and Lamp''; performed by Mary Ann Hart—mezzo-soprano, Robert Osborne—bass-baritone, Jeanne Golan—pianist

==References==
===Notes===
{{Reflist|group=n|colwidth=24em}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|2}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|30em}}

* Bartok, Peter, Moses Asch, Marian Distler, and Sidney Cowell; revised by Sorrel Hays (1993 [1963]). Liner notes to ''Henry Cowell: Piano Music'' (Smithsonian Folkways 40801).
* Boziwick, George (2000). "Henry Cowell at the New York Public Library: A Whole World Of Music," ''Notes'' [Music Library Association], 57.1 (available [http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/notes/v057/57.1boziwick.html online]).
* Bredow, Moritz von. (2012). "Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin und New York." Schott Music, Mainz, Germany. {{ISBN|978-3-7957-0800-9}}
* Cage, John (1959). "History of Experimental Music in the United States", in ''Silence'' (1971 [1961]), pp.&nbsp;67–75. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. {{ISBN|0-8195-6028-6}}
* Cowell, Henry (1993). "Henry Cowell's Comments: The composer describes each of the selections in the order in which they appear." Track 20 of ''Henry Cowell: Piano Music'' (Smithsonian Folkways 40801).
* Duffy, Clinton (1950). ''The San Quentin Story.'' Doubleday & Company, Inc. {{ISBN|978-0-837-10395-2}}
* Gann, Kyle (1995). ''The Music of Conlon Nancarrow.'' Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-02807-8}}
* Harrison, Lou (1997). "Learning from Henry," in ''The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium'', ed. Nicholls; pp.&nbsp;161–167.
* Hicks, Michael (2002). ''Henry Cowell, Bohemian.'' Urbana: University of Illinois Press. {{ISBN|0-252-02751-5}}
* Kirkpatrick, John, Richard Jackson, John Harbison, Bruce Saylor (1988). ''20th-Century American Masters: Ives, Thomson, Sessions, Cowell, Gershwin, Copland, Carter, Barber, Cage, Bernstein.'' New York and London: W. W. Norton. {{ISBN|0-393-31588-6}}
* Lichtenwanger, William (1986). ''The Music of Henry Cowell: A Descriptive Catalogue.'' Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn College Institute for Studies in American Music. {{ISBN|0-914678-26-4}}
* Manion, Martha L. (1982). ''Writings about Henry Cowell: An Annotated Bibliography.'' Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn College Institute for Studies in American Music.
* Mead, Rita H. (1981). ''Henry Cowell's New Music, 1925–1936.'' Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press (excerpted [https://web.archive.org/web/20090425114002/http://www.o-art.org/history/early/_CowellN.Mus./NewMusic/NMIXrythmic.html online]). {{ISBN|0-8357-1170-6}}
* Miller, Leta H., and Rob Collins (2005). "The Cowell-Ives Relationship: A New Look at Cowell's Prison Eyes." ''American Music'' 23, no. 4 (Winter): 473–92 (available [http://music.ucsc.edu/sites/default/files/Cowell-Ives.pdf online]).
* Nicholls, David (1991). ''American Experimental Music 1890–1940.'' Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-42464-X}}
* Nicholls, David, ed. (1997). ''The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium''. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press. {{ISBN|90-5755-003-2}}
* Nicholls, David, ed. (1998). ''The Cambridge History of American Music.'' Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-45429-8}}
* Oja, Carol J. (1998). Liner notes to ''Henry Cowell: Mosaic'' (Mode 72/73).
* Oja, Carol J. (2000). ''Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s.'' New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-505849-6}}
* Rischitelli, Victor (2005). ''Henry Cowell and the Impact of his First European Tour.'' North Sydney: Australian Catholic University.
* Sachs, Joel (2012). ''Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-510895-8}}
* Skinner, Graeme (2000). "Cowell, Henry." ''Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II''.
* Sollberger, Harvey (1992). Liner notes to ''Percussion Music: Works by Varèse, Colgrass, Saperstein, Cowell, Wuorinen'' (Nonesuch 9 79150–2).
* Sublette, Ned (2004). ''Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.'' Chicago: Chicago Review Press. {{ISBN|1-55652-516-8}}
* Thomson, Virgil (2002). ''Virgil Thomson: A Reader—Selected Writings 1924–1984.'' Edited by Richard Kostelanetz. New York and London: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-93795-7}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}

* Carwithen, Edward R. (1991). ''Henry Cowell: Composer and Educator''. Ph.D. dissertation. Gainesville: University of Florida,.
* Cowell, Henry, and Sidney Cowell (1981 [1955]). ''Charles Ives and His Music''. New York: Da Capo. {{ISBN|0-306-76125-4}}
* Cowell, Henry (1996 [1930]). ''New Musical Resources''. Annotated, with an accompanying essay, by David Nicholls. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-49974-7}}
* Cowell, Henry (2002). ''Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music'', edited, with an introduction, by Dick Higgins, preface by Kyle Gann. Kingston, N.Y.: McPherson. {{ISBN|0-929701-63-1}}
* Galván, Gary (2006). "Cowell in Cartoon: A Pugilistic Pianist's Impact on Pop Culture." Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities,  January 11–14, 2006, Conference Proceedings. ISSN 1541-5899{{Full citation needed|date=January 2011}}<!--Presumably this is published in a journal, since here is an ISSN, rather than an ISBN, so that a volume number at least is needed.-->
* Galván, Gary (2007). ''Henry Cowell in the Fleisher Collection''. Ph.D. dissertation. Gainesville: University of Florida.
* Johnson, Steven (1993). "Henry Cowell, John Varian, and Halcyon." ''American Music'' 11, no. 1 (Spring): 1-27.
* Saylor, Bruce (1977). ''The Writings of Henry Cowell: A Descriptive Bibliography.'' Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn College Institute for Studies in American Music. {{ISBN|0-914678-07-8}}
* Spilker, John D. (2010). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110815203847/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04032010-120836/unrestricted/Spilker_J_Dissertation_2010.pdf "Substituting a New Order": Dissonant Counterpoint, Henry Cowell, and the Network of Ultra-Modern Composers]''. Ph.D. dissertation, Tallahassee: [[Florida State University]].
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060909164313/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04142005-124248/unrestricted/StallingsThesis.pdf "New Growth from New Soil"] 2004–5 master's thesis on Cowell with extensive bibliography, including his periodical writings

{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Archival records|title=Henry Cowell Music Manuscripts |location= [[Music Division, Library of Congress]]|description_URL=http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu020012}}

* [http://archives.nypl.org/mus/20359 Henry Cowell papers, 1851-1994], held by the Music Division, [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]].
* [http://www.nypl.org/ead/3351 Henry Cowell collection of Noncommercial Recordings, 1940-1953], held by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]].
* {{IMSLP|id=Cowell, Henry}}
* [http://www.henrycowell.org henrycowell.org] Website with comprehensive information on Henry Cowell it also includes William Lichtenwanger's descriptive cataloguelist of Cowell's works
* [https://archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php?collectionid=HenryCowell&collection=other_minds Henry Cowell Musical Autobiography] 100 minutes of Cowell talking about his life and playing recordings of his music
* [http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/intothemusic/in-search-of-henry-cowell-part-1/5249456 Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] broadcast in two episodes of Henry Cowell radio documentary, directed by Guy Livingston.

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