The Gunther Schuller Society
Books
Horn Technique
1962
​First published in 1962, this revised 2nd edition of his classic book to horn playing includes an extensive guide to the literature for the instrument, with listings of more than 1,000 pieces from the solo, chamber, and orchestral repertory. For a related article, please visit:
https://www.hornmatters.com/2009/11/achieving-the-ultimate-articulation-slur-and-tone-quality/
Early Jazz: Its Roots And Musical Development
1968
Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development is one of the seminal books on American Jazz. It is the first of two volumes (see The Swing Era below) on the history ranging from the beginnings of jazz as a distinct music style at the turn of the century to its first great flowering in the 1930s. Schuller explores the music of the great jazz soloists of the twenties--Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and others--and the big bands and arrangers--Fletcher Henderson, Bennie Moten, and especially Duke Ellington--placing their music in the context of the other musical cultures of the twentieth century and offering analyses of many great jazz recordings. Early Jazz provides a musical tour of the early American jazz world. A classic study, it is both a splendid introduction for students and an insightful guide for scholars, musicians, and jazz aficionados.
Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller
1986
Musings gathers together the essays, speeches, liner notes, dictionary entries, and magazine articles of Gunther Schuller, one of the most important musical figures of the century. The writings in this collection cover such artists as Paul Whiteman, Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Gil Evans. Schuller also writes about such topics as the "Third Stream," the art of conducting, the future of opera, and the need for broadening the audience for quality music. A marvelous introduction to the man and his experience, taste and erudition, Musings is essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century music.
The Swing Era: The Development Of Jazz 1930-1945
1989
Here is the book jazz lovers had eagerly awaited for two decades, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental take on the history of jazz. The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment. The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective. The first half of the book concentrates on the band leaders, singers, and composers who dominated the popular music of their day: the jazz aristocracy of Ellington, Basie, and Goodman, as well as major soloists such as Billie Holliday, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young. The second half focuses on the origins and early development of bop, the major jazz form of the 1940s, and its two great exponents, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
The Compleat Conductor
1997
A world-renowned conductor and composer who has lead most of the major orchestras in North America and Europe, a talented musician who has played under the batons of such luminaries as Toscanini and Walter, and an esteemed arranger, scholar, author, and educator, Gunther Schuller is without doubt a major figure in the music world. Now, in The Compleat Conductor, Schuller has penned a highly provocative critique of modern conducting, one that is certain to stir controversy. Indeed, in these pages he castigates many of this century's most venerated conductors for using the podium to indulge their own interpretive idiosyncrasies rather than devote themselves to reproducing the composer's stated and often painstakingly detailed intentions.
A Life In Pursuit Of Music And Beauty
2011
The autobiography of composer and conductor Gunther Schuller is simultaneously the memoir of a famed composer, conductor, and music educator, and an important historical sourcebook on the American musical scene during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Schuller chronicles the first thirty-five years of this multifaceted and expansive figure's life and work. In this exquisitely detailed reflection on his early influences, experiences of good fortune, and powers of curiosity, as well as firsthand recounting of critical cultural and social moments and major movers of the jazz and classical world, Schuller here beautifully and honestly narrates a life lived beyond limits.