Composer

A composer is a person who writes music. The term has come to be attributed particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises or plays a musical instrument.

Composing can be said to be an activity that allows for human beings to become a co-creator with God as well as to have "dominion over the creation" in the Biblical sense (Genesis 1:28). The ordering of musical components such as pitch, rhythm, structure and orchestration in an artistic fashion is a manifestation of the co-creator paradigm.

The intent and motivation of a composer is also of prime concern in relation to assessing the redeeming value of a composition. This idea has been debated throughout music's long history. The axiological aspect of composing and music speaks to the moral and ethical power of music and art and the importance of creative individuals to use their talents in a principled fashion. This axiological and spiritual dimensions of music have been articulated by notable philosophers and artists throughout the ages including Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms and Paul Hindemith to name but a few.

Distinctions of the Term

The level of distinction between composers and other musicians also varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music. For example, in the development of classical music in Europe, the function of composing music initially had no greater importance than the function of performing music. The preservation of individual compositions received little attention, and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. Over time, however, the written notation of the composer has come to be treated as strict instructions, from which performers should not deviate without good reason.

Performers do, however, play the music and interpret it in a way that is all their own. The performer/composer such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff might interpret their own works in ways different from what they actually designated in the printed score. Recordings by composers/performers in the twentieth century demonstrate this.

More recently, scorewriter computer programs have become available, allowing composers to personally engrave music.

The term "composer" is often used specifically to mean a composer in the Western tradition of classical music. In popular and folk music, the composer is typically called a songwriter (since the music generally takes the form of a song). Still both activities are a form of composing in the most fundamental sense.

Orchestration

As industrialization and technology evolved in Europe, musical instruments also involved in ways that allowed composers to exhibit greater expressiveness in their compositions. As a result composers had to learn the capabilities and limitations of instruments in developing their personal style of orchestration. The orchestral music composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1808 possessed a fairly limited orchestrational palette as compared to that of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss or Gustav Mahler in the later half of the nineteenth century. Where in one of his symphonies Beethoven might typically score for four brass players (pairs of horns and trumpets) it was not uncommon for Mahler or Wagner to utilize eight horns, four trumpets, four trombones, two tubas and euphoniums (and four Wagner tubas as Anton Bruckner often did.)

The evolution of the piano too had profound effects on composers as the instrument gained greater power and nuance in its sonorities. Composers of the twentieth century adopted new and unique ways to produce sounds (the Bartok pizzacato, e.g.) and continued to explore novel ways to produce sound. American composer Charles Ives was among the first composers to utilize polytonality (music played in several different key centers simultaneously). George Antheil, Luciano Berio, Edgard Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen utilized items others than conventional instruments to produce sound (sirens, tire springs, e.g.)

In the post World War II era, using electronic media became a common occurence and with the development of the magnetic tape, the Moog Synthesizer and MIDI technology.

See also

• Music engraving
• List of composers
• Freemuse
• Film score

External links

All links are retrieved November 24, 2007.

• Composers, The Open Directory Project, 2007.
• Women in Music: Composers, The Open Directory Project, 2007.
• Composer societies, The Open Directory Project, 2007.
• Composers and Arrangers, The Open Directory Project, 2007.

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